rhodespianoman

Yeah, this was an honest mistake, not spam. I don't post on forums very often and I screwed it up.

These RWA components are exactly the type of thing I have been looking for - just reading about them on the RWA site has my heart pounding!

I don't post on forums very often so I screwed it up and ended up posting it three times. Oh, well...

I'm setting up the ULTIMATE PORTABLE HEADPHONE RIG!!! (yes, I will also post this on the Head-Fi forum) which will use an Archos 9 Tablet PC running Windows 7 Starter (to play my FLAC files using MediaMonkey) output through USB to a DAC and headphone amp. Please note that I don't need the rig to be super-small, I just need it to be portable (as in battery-powered). Here's where I need some suggestions: I want to find the absolute best portable usb DAC for this system (DAC/amp combo is fine also). No tubes, sorry. Also, no Ipods or Ipads, no Apple; sorry, that's my choice. I don't believe cost will be a factor because there doesn't seem to be any crazy-super-high-end audiophile products like this in existence; if so, then let's put the cap at $2K-$3K). My goal is to create the absolute best-sounding PORTABLE headphone rig possible - limited only by the choice of headphones, hopefully. I am aware of (but haven't yet listened to all) products by Centrance, Cypher Labs, NuForce, HeadAmp, Alo, Fii0, Pyle, Firestone, HRT, and Audiophile Products. Here's the deal: while I know that any number of the products by the companies I listed will give me excellent/awesome SQ, I am just curious if there are any SUPER-DELUXE-AMAZINGLY-HIGH-END products out there of which I am not aware. I am interested in listening to them to see if I can hear any difference and if so, then I will be interested in buying them. As audiophiles (assuming the term can even be applied to me) we are constantly searching to squeeze every last drop of SQ out of our gear; we strive constantly to listen and learn so that we can hear even the most barely detectable nuances in our music; and, being naturally curious, I think we all wonder why that $30k piece of audiophile gear costs so much and can anyone actually HEAR the difference??!! (Now - be nice to me, I'm joking, sort-of.) So, I am curious. I want to know what the state-of-the-art is in portable usb dac's. Any help?

I have set up my PC to do kernel streaming using a plugin for Winamp. This goes into an EMU 1212M sound card. I have the EMU PatchMix DSP software routing the WAV signal directly to the physical S/PDIF output (using an Aux send) so it is bypassing any and all volume controls / attenuators. I am very pleased with the sound of this setup, however I now have the problem of only being able to control the volume using my preamp - it has no remote control - which is located on the opposite side of the room. Does anyone have a suggestion of how I can remotely control the volume of my system without any degredation of the sound quality? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the help. I found a kernel streaming output plugin for Winamp which has improved things a lot. I have been wanting to stay with Winamp if possible because my TouchTone Audio System 3 software utilizes it. I also went thru the Emu PatchMix DSP software for the soundcard and adjusted all of my levels to optimum level. I haven't installed the XXHighEnd yet but I will certainly give it a try. Brian

Thanks for the help. I found a kernel streaming output plugin for Winamp which has improved things a lot. I have been wanting to stay with Winamp if possible because my TouchTone Audio System 3 software utilizes it. I also went thru the Emu PatchMix DSP software for the soundcard and adjusted all of my levels to optimum level. I haven't installed the XXHighEnd yet but I will certainly give it a try. Also - not to show my ignorance, but what is a CDP? Brian

So I thought my computer audiophile system was da bomb until I added a California Audio Labs Delta cd transport to my system and compared it to the computer. The sound from the cd transport blows away the computer. Technically, the difference in sound between what I am getting from the computer and what I am getting from the cd transport is relatively small. However, I have been a serious listener for a long time and the difference is almost night and day to me. I will list the various components of the computer (I built it - so I am not afraid to change anything) and also the rest of my audio system. Both the computer and the cd transport go into a California Audio Labs Sigma II DAC - the computer thru a 75 ohm coaxial cable and the cd transport thru an optical cable. I use software that uses the Winamp media player. I've spent a lot of time building my system but I really don't know where to start on this problem. The computer: 3GHz Intel E6850 Core 2 Duo CPU with 4GB RAM running 64-bit Vista Ultimate with an Emu 1212M PCI Audio System sound card, 1TB storage and an EVGA GeForce 8600GTS video card. The Emu was chosen because I also use the system for pro-audio recording and sampling. Here's the rest of the system in case you are curious (I'm proud of it): Soliloquy 6.2 two-way floorstanding speakers Monitor Audio ASW110 powered subwoofer Nelson Audio Image No. 660 tube amp Nelson Audio Image No. 7a tube preamp California Audio Labs Sigma II tube DAC California Audio Labs Delta cd transport Bang & Olufsen Beogram 1700 turntable with MMC 20EN stylus Cabling is Tara Labs, Impact Acoustics and Blue Jeans Cable Front end software is TouchTone Audio System 3 for Winamp media player Please help save me some time and give me some ideas of what I might try doing different with the computer so I can match the quality I am getting from the cd transport. Thanks in advance!

About the time I think I know the difference between normalizing, leveling, etc. I read something somewhere that confuses me - I have the feeling that the various terms get used interchangeably even though there is an actual difference in their meaning. I need some clarification in reference to this use: I will not be applying this alteration to my main archived files; however, I want a set of files that have been adjusted to keep the volume level from jumping around from song to song. Replay gain is not an option (my Cowon D2 doesn't recognize it) and I don't want compression. I want the full range of dynamics in each song's recording to be preserved - but I want the overall volume of the track averaged and adjusted higher or lower in reference to other tracks. So what is it that I want to use? rhodespianoman

Thank you to everyone for your helpful comments - and Ashley, by no means did I take any offense at anything you have expressed. I tried EAC and dbpoweramp and both have yielded the expected results: I cannot distinguish any difference in sound quality between the original CD and the ripped WAV file (FLAC also). I can now move forward with the archiving project. I will be ripping and converting to FLAC (this will enable me to use the same files in my portable audio player - Cowon D2 - without any further conversion). For what it's worth: EAC can obviously create incredibly accurate rips, but the time investment is more than I am willing to give (I realize it has a burst mode). I am currently leaning towards dbpoweramp for most of my ripping and using EAC for the tracks or CDs that give me errors in dbpoweramp. My comparisons yielded 12-18 minutes per CD in secure mode using EAC (I never did get Fast mode to work correctly) versus 2-4 minutes using dbpoweramp. My CD collection tends to hover around being mildly obscure and so far I am seeing about 10% of my CDs not being in the Accuraterip database or being different pressings. Comments anyone? I have to throw this out there just to be controversial and see what everyone has to say in response: in my opinion MP3 is the worst thing to happen to audio since country-western music. We are regressing instead of evolving. It's interesting to compare/contrast it to what is happening in the TV world: in TV land we are going from low quality (low resolution) to high quality (1080p hi-def, blu-ray) and beyond. In audio land we are going from high quality (CD) to low quality (MP3). Video is evolving; audio is regressing. Sad, sad, sad. Is it because audio (music) is a more subtle thing and is lost on the casual consumer whereas the same consumer is more visually oriented? Sort-of a lowest common denominator thing? rhodespianoman

Ashley - interesting observations. I haven't been converted from my Vista PC to the MAC - yet anyway. But I try not to get caught up in the whole PC vs MAC thing; they will both get the job done (PLEASE don't anyone jump on me for that comment). Regardless, I am very content with the sound of my system at the moment. The only problem is the one I spoke of before: playing a cd through the computer (using WMP) sounds great; but when I rip to WAV and play that file (using WMP) I have a subtle loss of quality; it loses a little presence, gets just very slightly muffled, it loses a little of the punch or pop, the sense of space around the more percussive sounds is diminished. I don't claim to have golden ears - or even silver or bronze for that matter - but I want my audio to live up to what is currently my gold standard. I want the digital files that I archive from my CD collection to sound exactly as good as listening directly to the CD. Following everyone's advice, I am going to try ripping with iTunes. I will also give EAC a try. I am skeptical, though. From what I have read, dbpoweramp is their equivelant. It's worth a try. I think it must be one of two things; either the WAV is not quite perfect, or the software WAV player has an issue. I'll keep everyone informed. rhodespianoman

Bob - looks like some helpful info - I'll spend some time with it. Thanks! rhodespianoman

Thanks for the advice. I'll try iTunes and get back to you with the results.

Thanks for the help. I am using Vista and was playing the CD and the WAV on Windows Media Player.

First I have to say how excited I am to find this site/forum. I am a computer and audio geek (I hesitate to apply the term audiophile to myself) and also have a great interest in ultra-high quality portable audio. I've done some looking around on the forums and haven't found what I'm looking for. The basic problem is this: when I play a cd through my computer (and through my respectably hi-fi audio system) I get fantastic sound quality. Then when I rip that cd to WAV (using dbpoweramp) and play the resulting WAV file, the audio quality is just slightly diminished. I want to archive my cd collection but I demand absolute cd quality or else I won't do it. Does anyone have any suggestions?