I am about ready to purchase a mac mini and DAC (?bryston) to hook into my high-end audio system. I've got 2 questions:
1. I was going to run HDMI out to LED screen so I can see computer desktop and programs. But then I need audio out to DAC. Is it possible to "split" video to LED screen and audio to DAC? Which audio out?
2. What is the best digital connection to DAC. Haven't bought a DAC yet.
Thanks
Todd
OK, so I jumped straight into the way way deeper end!
A set of Genelec 8250A’s with a monster 82kg 7271A 2 x 12” woofer was up for grabs at half price pre-owned.
I talked to the guy and set up a meet on Saturday at his office at the local film studio.
Everything seemed ok and in perfect working condition, so I got a total of 110kg of speakers including 980w of amplification and he got a bank transfer.
Fortunately I had teamed up with a moving expert friend, so we could get the frighten
Once again, I find myself burned by purchasing high res music that ... clearly isn't.
This time it is two Neil Young DVDs, and it isn't the first time this month.
These are from Le Noise and from Chrome Dreams II, both DVDs, each of which purports to be a 24-bit, 96 kHz recording.
I bought them from Amazon.com. The Le Noise DVD is an "amazon exclusive".
So I contributed customer images:
Le Noise
Chrome Dreams II
We don't have to just sit there and take it.
Just wondering if anyone out there has heard the new 24/96 offering from HDTracks of Glenn Gould doing the Goldberg Variations?
While I already have a number of variants of the Variations (on vinyl or ripped to 16/44) done by not only Glenn Gould, but Angela Hewitt, Andras Schiff, Igor Kipnis, et. al., as this is perhaps my single most favorite work by Bach (or is it the Cello Suites? or the Mass in B Minor?), I am curious about feedback on this one, especially in light of how controversial
Years ago, I was lucky enough to spend a decade as a live sound mixer and recording studio engineer in Western Canada. While most of my sound engineering experience was with rock bands, I had the opportunity to work with many talented musicians, recording/mixing many different types of music, from folk, country, jazz, choirs, and classical. I spent a quite a bit of time working with compressors and limiters, so I thought I would share some of my experiences with them, along with mixing and mas
Got some new stuff coming in, which is always fun.
First up, some King Rex stuff. A UD384 w/ U-Power pack. Christing at King Rex is really excited about this product and thought I should take a look. Who am I to say no to that?
Next, Burson is sending me their new head-amp/DAC combo, the HA-160DS. I don't have a good head amp (other than the one that drives my Stax, but that's not exactly non-Stax friendly), so this is awesome. If this works out, I'm thinking "new desktop rig".
Light
19 November, 2011
Visiting the AXPONA show in Atlanta was the clincher for moving to a computer audio system. I heard the improvement over mid-price CD playback, saw the convenience of having my library of music instantly available for listening, and generally saw the trend that was coming. I was also able to hear several models of speakers and do some rough comparisons. The opportunity wasn't there to do extensive listening but it was possible to audition several speakers in my price range
She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed has something of a penchant for using just about any holiday as an excuse for doing something ... decorative (not to be confused with decorous). Partly because our kids were reared to respect others' cultural and religious traditions, partly because she just likes to have this kind of fun. So almost anything goes, whether it represents the jewish, christian, islamic, kwanzaa, whatever traditions. Of course, that means that I occasionally find speakers that are festooned
The Album of the Evening thread (http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Album-Evening) has turned out to be one of my CA favorites as it helps me discover new music amd reminds me to revisit some old.
In that latter category, my latest Album of the Evening was Sympathique, the debut release by Pink Martini, a group I discovered in the mid- or late-90s. (This recording, by the way, has been always been a sure-fire gifting expendient for anyone on my Christmas or birthday lists who even re
Remember that feeling when you were at a concert or club and saw a band perform an awesome live show? The lights, sound, music, and crowd all moving as one. You could feel the music as much as you could hear it. It was loud, but not too loud, sounded clean, with good dynamics and punch. Good times. I wanted to design a high resolution (i.e. audiophile) sound system that reproduced that live sound experience in my listening room.
I want club and concert sound in my listening room via stre
From rapid detection to constant repetition...
Our sense of hearing is much more than the frequency analyzer most people take it for. In a musical context humans first perceive and interpret a pitchless noise (a so-called transient) followed by the actual note (a repeating vibration, frequency). In fact each natural tone is preceded by such a transient noise. It informs our sense of hearing about the location, type and size of the sound source, e. g. an instrument. And as music is such a com
10 November, 2011
Having spent a good amount of time with the Vandersteen 2ce, I decided to compare it to other speakers in the same approximate price range. Again, my decision was to read as much literature as I could find on the speakers. The Absolute Sound and Stereophile were valuable resources of information as well as manufacturers' web sites. I found many links to reviews of all sorts and took my time making my own comparisons through them.
There is, however, no comparison as effe
6 November, 2011
If you have read my previous posts (there's only 2 so far) you know that I have upgraded my entire audio system in recent months. The "upgrade project" was prompted by my desire to hear and compare several loudspeakers of different types: dynamic, electrostatic, planar/magnetic. It had been a few years since I compared new technologies in speakers and I wanted simply to hear what the audio magazines had been describing.
After choosing several speakers to compare I decide
If you have followed this series on a quest for proper timbre, I have reached a conclusion. From wikipedia, in psychoacoustics, timbre is also called tone quality and tone color. No question, music source, electronics, interconnects, power, etc., all have impact on timbre. However, the biggest factor on reproducing proper timbre, by orders of magnitude, is the speaker to room interface which is limited by small room acoustics: http://www.gcmstudio.com/acoustics/acoustics.html
I was lucky
Background:
A few months back I was bitten by the upgrade bug. Since then I have spent some time adjusting the current setup and tweaking the placement / room. Finally, I felt that I had maximized on what I had and it was time to look at new components.
I went to a local dealer and they recommend moving up to that next level, specifically Naim and Linn. Since I am only into computer audio it was the Naim Uniti and Linn Majik DSM.
I went home and did some budgeting taking into account
Around eight years ago, a small package appeared in my mailbox. Inside was a CD from my niece, featuring a band I had never heard although the cover artwork looked familiar. Turned out that the art was done by Edward Gorey, whose work you may know from the animated illustrations that accompany PBS-TV's Mystery series. Gorey had lived near my niece in her Cape Code neighborhood until his then-recent death. His legacy includes many books and illustrations, mostly dealing with the delightfully
OK. Kind of a "DSD for Dummies". So... here... we.... go...!
Just ordered an 8x192 ADDA Mytek "Bundle"..The USB card is going to be 4-8 weeks away..The initial Plan is stereo, using Signalyst running on Win7 on a 6 month old MacPro. I've gone ADDA (rather than straight DAC), to have a bit of fun with a Moog litttle phatty StageII synth whilst I'm waiting. Also a good friend wants to do some LP archiving. I've gone the 8 channel over the stereo Mytek for ultimate flexibility, and future proo
Inspired by Bit-perfect audio in Linux at 88.2 and 176.4 now possible I created a setup at home which I share at How to setup a bit-perfect digital audio streaming client with free software (with LTSP and MPD).
In short, my wanted setup had the following requirements:
having bit-perfect audio for all digital formats accepted by my DAC
having the freedom of only using free software
having the freedom of only using open non patent encumbered file formats
having the freedom t
I have been looking for a way to create digital archives of some of my vinyl collection. The new Furutech GT40 and the NAD PP3i are a new breed of phono stages that provide analog to digital (ADC) converters that allow this. But what if you want to archive your vinyl using that fancy new tubed phono stage or that expensive moving coil cartridge? I've got a neat solution for you!
Stay tuned...
Here is a nice tip for those of you using the Wavelength Proton USB DAC.
One of the very clever things about the Proton is that it has an analog attenuator that is linked to OSX system volume. When you press the volume up and down keys on your Mac, a signal is sent to the DAC via USB that tells it to adjust the volume up or down as requested. It's a brilliant feature.
The trouble is that the regular volume steps on OSX are pretty coarse. With the Proton, you can end up between a volum
A few people who posted in the "Help me choose a new DAC" thread asked me to report back on the Halide Bridge vs the V-link. I rigged up my big system for an A/B comparison and listened for a few hours this afternoon. Here's the setup:
MacBook Pro > Halide Bridge/V-Link (A/B) > McIntosh C-50 DAC/PRE > McIntosh MC452 AMP > Martin Logan Summit X
I tried music of varying types and sample rates through both USB interfaces. From my listening position, using OSX screen sharing a
Now that we have a calibrated frequency response at the listening position, let’s look at the other part of the timbre (i.e. tone quality) equation which is the time domain. Sound in your listening room has 3 measurable dimensions: time, energy, and frequency. We have looked at frequency response, targeting the B&K house curve, and how it affects timbre. So how does the time domain in your listening room affect timbre?
As mentioned earlier, I had the privilege to work in many recordin
