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drewant

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  1. Searching songs for "settingui"? That didn't do anything for me, maybe because the N100 doesn't have an internal drive (other than the caching ssd).
  2. I didn't find anything there, but thanks for taking the time. Clearing the playlist doesn't remove songs from the cache. The static remains in the track even after I copied over the original file on the NAS with a backup from another hard drive.
  3. I've also had the problem with corrupted files in the cache with my N100. For me, the corruption is in the form of a burst of static through the speakers. I'd be very interested in knowing how to access the hidden feature to clear the cache - or maybe it will be released in the next update and I should wait for it to appear then.
  4. I can't help with a solution, but I had the same experience while demoing the bryston bdp-1. I also was not getting genre picked up other than for a handful of tracks and the song order within albums was alphabetical rather than in order of track number (the file names started with track number). I ripped my music using iTunes as ALAC.
  5. That's precisely the comparison I never thought I'd see (Bryston BDP-1 vs. Berkeley USB). Thanks for posting your experience.
  6. This is exactly the situation I’m in except that I’ll be replacing a 1st Gen Apple TV via toslink as a source to the Berkeley DAC. I demo’d the Bryston and was disappointed: User Interface - The ipad control app Mpad didn’t read my ALAC itunes library well (it didn’t pick up genre except for a few tracks, it pulled composer for the artist field, it listed tracks in alphabetical instead of track order for a given album, etc.) and other control options got the job done, but weren’t slick. Sound Quality – I was initially disappointed playing 16/44.1 from a hard drive (I had high expectations/hopes since many users are giving high praise for the sound quality), but was blown away playing high res files from a thumb drive. This was my first experience with high res, so I don’t know if it was the Bryston or the files that were a playing bigger role. When I switched to 16/44.1 files on the thumb drive, I started to notice the pick up in sound quality more, so I think my initial disappointment was partly driven by the hard drive which is plugged into the wall – note that I do not yet have good power conditioning in place to isolate components. I might be able to get the user interface to an acceptable place with some manual labor (it seems to have worked for others who started with an itunes library), but the improvement in sound quality wasn’t enough for me to put in the effort. I might give it a second chance though, using what I’ve learned from the first demo. I’m curious to hear the Berkeley USB, but I’ll need to figure how to feed it first, since I don’t have anything that outputs USB right now. You’d have to go straight to the Berkeley DAC via AES/EBU with the Bryston by the way, because it doesn’t output USB. You could get the Berkeley USB and use your iMac to start. Otherwise – Options I know of with USB output - -Mac mini ($700+) – you could get a basic Mac mini to get started then make upgrades to it down the line (add memory, ssd, mach2 mods, pure music/amarra etc.) -CAPS2 ($1,459) – I’ll want to demo JRiver first to see how it interacts with my library -Auraliti PK90 ($700) - shares UI with the Bryston, as far as I know -Sonore ($2,499)- shares UI with the Bryston, as far as I know -Music Vault Diamond ($4,499 - $5,999) – similar to CAPS, but allows movie playback with might be good (nice feature ) or bad (degraded sound quality?) Options with AES/EBU output to go directly to the Berkeley DAC – CAPS2 ($1,879) Auraliti L1000 ($3,000?) – coming 2012 Sonore ($2,799) Music Vault Diamond Whisper ($5,999) Aurender S10 ($7,000) Bladelius server ($4,700 with ipad app) Simaudio Moon streamer ($1,250) – coming in April Bryston BDP-1 ($2,100) I’m sure there are others. I really wish the Bryston were a slam dunk, though, to avoid all the uncertainty. I would have liked to avoid using a true computer and all the tweaking involved. However, I think I’ll do a basic Mac Mini & Berkeley USB to get a feel for that set up and go from there – it allows me to stay with itunes rather than going to an unknown. But first I want to see what Chris has to say in his review – he already mentioned that the CAPS2 + Berkeley USB is the best sound he’s had at home. The review should be coming up soon & I’m hoping it will include some analysis of how it sounds with different sources. I realize it sounds like I’m telling you to stay away from the Bryston, but you should demo one yourself if possible. There are many people who are very happy with it and it might be the most cost efficient solution for top notch sound.
  7. There was a poster on Audiogon who mentioned preferring the 1.24 filter - you should be able to find the thread with a search. Or maybe you're the same person! In the little testing I've done, I've preferred the default filter, but again, I've done very little testing. How are you liking the PK90->Alpha USB source? I've been thinking that might offer the best sound quality, but I'm unsure about the interface.
  8. Demian, I know you might not want to comment, but I can't help but ask - do you anticipate any changes coming to the interface for Auraliti products?
  9. For me, the Bryston and Auraliti units seem to be exactly what I’m looking for … but minus the maximized UI quality. If they could add a killer UI for say, $1,000 or less (additional to current pricing), I would personally be on board. The Aurender at $7,000 is a little rich for me. I see that Bladelius has an app available for $200. So maybe we’ll start to see more development of customized apps with the associated costs passed on to the customer for them to decide if it’s worth it. Mpad is close and I would think with a push, it could get to be good enough to satisfy me. I like that it’s under constant development and is responsive to user requests. The Apple remote is never updated. My itunes files are not clean – I have a lot of work to do to get the tags how I want them (mostly with Classical) & then I can take another look at mpad. But one deal breaker I know of is that when you browse by Genre it takes you into an alphabetical view of Albums instead of taking you to Artists first. I’d like to have the view it provides available, but going Genre to Artist is much more intuitive for me and what I would prefer if having only one option. As I mentioned above, though – ideally I could go to Genre and select one, then go the other tabs (Artist, Album, Song, etc.) and have them now be filtered for that genre. Then I could select an artist and all remaining tabs would then be filtered for that genre/artist and so on. All the while being able to toggle between a cover art and text view. An interesting point about how much concession to make on sound quality vs. UI quality: the impact of any concessions on sound quality would diminish over time in my mind; the opposite would be true of the user interface. As you can see above, I can easily give you a laundry list of complaints about the Apple remote. I don’t think I could do the same for the quality of my system’s sound.
  10. I also don’t see why both sound quality and interface quality can’t be maximized – at least, that’s what I’m trying to hold out for. I know you said you don’t want a laundry list of features, but I’m going to basically do that anyway. My only real experience is with Apple’s remote app (other than a demo week with Bryston’s bdp-1, but mpad didn’t play nice with my ALAC library). If you take the Apple remote app and add the following, I’d be happy – 1) Allow for long titles – applies mostly to Classical (i.e. “Symphony #500 in E Major – Movement IX Kinda sorta slow but not too much”). I was frustrated by this when I had only the iphone remote – I added an ipad certain it would be better with the much larger screen, but the jerk faces kept the field width fixed at a not very large number of characters. 2) Cache cover art – Apple’s remote loads cover art on the fly every time, so there is a delay as you scroll while it loads – not slick. 3) Maintain the connection - When I navigate away from the app and come back, it reloads back to its original “home” page (even with multi-tasking now enacted). I would want it to remember the page/view I was last on – or better yet, just keep the connection. 4) Alphabetical index column on ALL views for quick navigation. 5) Access to ALL available tags for browsing. 6) Ability to change sorting in all views – e.g. by Artist then Album or Album by Year or whatever. 7) Ability to toggle view options, e.g. between cover art or text or a mix. On the ipad app, after drilling into an Artist, it displays the albums with all the songs listed out rather than just listing the album titles or cover art (as on the iphone app). When you have 50 Bob Dylan cds, that’s a lot of scrolling. 8) Ability to Browse by all remaining fields after filtering on one or more. For example, if I first go to Artists and select Bob Dylan, let me then go to Songs and see only Bob Dylan songs. 9) Smart playlists are wonderful, but they need to have the same browsing abilities as the full library. If you’re the type that always sits down knowing what you want to hear, then simple is fine & I can’t imagine a UI that wouldn’t work fine for that. However, the promise of computer audio is the ability of the UI to help me find something to listen to – for that, complex is necessary, although I’m not sure complex is the right word – it’s not like it would be hard to figure out. Customizable and flexible are better words. I’m assuming part of the problem is handling different file types (FLAC, AIFF etc.) each with different tagging. I’m imaging a solution where the UI software has a setup process where it finds all the tags on the underlying files and allows you to map them to fields in the UI, and the UI should have many fields available for use. This idea is coming partly from my experience with mpad picking up Composer in my ALAC files and using it for the Artist field – rendering the app useless.
  11. To accomplish this on a PC, you can use this software - http://www.tromer.name/iTunesArtworkConverter/ I've only done a test of a few tracks, but it seemed to work well.
  12. @ldolse very cool, thanks for the link
  13. Regarding using ipods through the Bryston, James Tanner sought feedback on that on Audio Circle – http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=97332.0 I haven’t tried out the mpad app yet (will be doing a home demo of the Bryston unit in the coming weeks) but what appeals to me is the fact that it’s continuing to improve (new version released not too long ago) and the developer is responsive to user feedback. ldolse – I’d love to hear more about your applescript for getting itunes cover art files into the album folders. This is one hurdle I’m anticipating with moving to the Bryston.
  14. I think smart playlists should be able to provide what the OP wants. However, my complaint with playlists, smart or otherwise, is that it doesn’t allow me to browse the playlist the same way as my library as a whole (I’m using the Apple ipad remote app). It just gives me a laundry list of the song titles, but I want to still be able to view by genre, artist, album etc. Anyone know if there’s a way to do this? Hopefully I’m missing something obvious.
  15. I'm also a Berkeley owner who might be interested in this. They recommend the AES/EBU as the best input for the Alpha DAC, which has no usb input. This is their solution to allow the Alpha to be used with usb inputs.<br /> <br /> I got started with an Apple TV a couple of years ago and am looking to upgrade this year. I'm considering:<br /> <br /> -Mac Mini + Berkeley USB Interface ($2,300 assuming $600 for the Mini, higher cost if upgrading the Mini, e.g. Mach2 Music; adding Amarra; etc.)<br /> <br /> -Bryston BDP-1 ($2,200)<br /> <br /> -Auraliti L1000 (anticipated to be $3,000)<br /> <br /> -Music Vault Diamond ($3,300)<br /> <br /> From that perspective, the cost seems to be reasonable - with the x factor being the relative performance of the above. Based on Chris' thinly veiled enthusiasm leading up to this announcement, I anticipate a glowing review. Stereophile will have a review of the Bryston in June. However, I'm very much hoping to see reviews comparing some of the above units - or others I might be overlooking.<br /> <br />
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