Bit Perfect

John, I've already followed up my post with an acknowledgement that I somehow missed a lot of the posts in this thread, including the one with your links in, and said sorry. I will read your links and the other posts a bit later when I have time to digest them properly. Ray

I have already been in contact with MSB, hence I know the XPort is available with an SPDIF output as I described. They don't make a fuss about it because they prefer to promote their MSB Network version. Ray

Whoops, I somehow missed most of the posts between the one I responded to and where we are now with this thread - sorry, I'll have a read through and catch-up on the other comments. Ray

John, I think it is you who is mistaken.... Bi-wiring runs two parallel runs of speaker cables from a single (or duplicated) set of amplifier terminals and as such each run of cable carries the full output signal of the amplifier not part of it. On arrival at the speaker each cable run hooks up to different parts of the crossover which are essentially hi or lo pass filters that only allow the appropriate parts of the signal to either the tweeter or bass unit. If you disagree perhaps you could explain how the different parts of the signal leaving the amplifier know which cable run to travel along. With bi-amping the crossover is located before the amplifiers, of which there are two (assuming the use of stereo amplifiers), so only part of he overall signal is routed through each amplifier/speaker cable. As to the original question, my experience is that bi-wiring normally has some small benefit but not as much as bi-amping. Personally, I've found that there is even more benefit by not having a crossover at all (and by definition only one run of speaker cable), which is why I use lowther full range speakers. Ray

The XPort upgrade is available with an spdif output option that will operated at upto 24/192. As standard it is equipped with an MSB Network output, which is a proprietary I2S implementation that provides a superior interface to similarly equipped DACs, i.e. MSB ones. Ray

Thanks Harald and sorry for the confusion; RP is my real initials and habit kicked in.... I'll follow up on the information you've provided and piece the picture together - and, if I may, come back with further questions. Perhaps I should have said that I'm looking at the MSP XPort product; http://www.msbtech.com/products/xport.php to produce the 24/176 PCM data from my SACDs. I realise that ripping SACDs is likely to involve some work but then so does ripping CDs given the variable quality of the metadata from places like Freedb. Ray

My first post here; this looks to be an interesting and useful resource. I already have a music server (Tranquil PC device running Windows Home Server) and have ripped my CD collection to FLAC using dbPoweramp. I also have a handful of high resolution music downloads (upto 192KHz, 24bit) in FLAC format. I currently 'consume' the music on the server on my home cinema system via a Squeezebox Duet. I'm now looking to make the FLAC files available on my main music system (based on a Transcendent single-ended output transformerless tube amplifier and lowther EX4 equipped 'All Fun' horns. I'm looking for a DAC with high-res networking capability; I know of the Linn DS products and am following developments with the PS Audio PerfectWave DAC/Bridge and am also aware that MSB are producing a network interface for their fine sounding DACs. Anyway, in addition to that I'm also looking to potentially rip my SACD collection by converting it to high resolution PCM - I know how I can do this and recognise that the quality is probably not going to be quite what DSD from the SACD disks is (but it'll still be very good), but will make things very convenient. So, lets assume I have a 176KHz, 24bit PCM data stream available via a SPDIF output socket - how do I rip that to FLAC on my music server? I normally rip on my laptop but also have a desktop PC available. I assume I'll need a suitable sound card with an SPDIF input that can receive the PCM signal (which one?) but assume I'll need a software package to rip into FLAC from the sound card. I also assume that as the ripping would happen in realtime it'll just be one large FLAC file and I would need a tool to edit it into the individual tracks (Or perhaps just rip one track at a time, which sounds tedious). Grateful for any guidance on this subject. Thanks. RP