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In article , John R Leddy
wrote:
...Likewise, now I'm playing FLAC files I have a dedicated network audio
player. I did have a go at using the wife's laptop as a network audio
renderer into an external USB DAC. This was my first attempt at playing
FLAC files through my stereo. I decided instantly I wouldn't be
purchasing a dedicated laptop for the purpose, and proceeded to
investigate network audio players.

I wouldn't base a system on a laptop, either. But found it easy enough to
use a desktop box. Works fine. Like yourself, I adopted using flac. A
computer plus a decent USB DAC works nicely. No need for a 'network
player'. And no need to find that I eventually hit a problem with a new
filetype because a commercial 'network player' can't handle it.


It's just plain weird to still read on the web today how network audio
is somehow complicated requiring specialist attention. Call me a cynic,
but I guess there must be money passing hands somewhere. I'm no computer
expert but even I know it merely involves connecting a few components
together, no different from any other piece of hi-fi equipment, and I'm
an old codger to boot!

The problem is that it does require some savvy and some willingness to
experiment at first. MicroSoft and Apple profit from infantalising users.
And, alas, until recently UK schools have been lousy at teaching computing.
For decades 'IT' (under different names) at school has been 'training how
to use the current Windows (or Mac) main software for an office job'.
Hopefully the Raspberry Pi has changed that and we'll get the first new
generation since the 1980s who will know how to code and happy to DIY.

In addition, commercial closed-box-sellers want to sell you music
'management' setups. These can look attractive to those who are frightened
by anything 'technical'. And can extact more money from you than saying,
"Just try the software player XXX on your computer and buy a NAS".

But of course the closed box then can trap you into not knowing what's
going on. So you risk problems like finding your fancy player can't cope
with something, and any new player doesn't really understand how what you
had was 'organised', etc.


To me, it's not the cable which costs £7,000, it's becoming a member of
an elite which costs £7,000.

I noticed that BBC Music Magazine this month has its "Hi Fi Expert" sic
praise a 2000 UKP *plus* connecting cable. From his comments you'd think it
makes almost as big a difference as the loudspeakers.

As an engineer I find it hard to work out what you'd be having to do as a
manufacturer to make cables where the production costs justify over 2000
quid for a couple of meters of domestic audio interconnect. Having decent
cables you like makes some sense, but this does seem more like making a
'statement'.

I just buy plugs and cables from Maplin or CPC and DIY. I have tried other
cables, but didn't hear any changes that come anywhere near a change in
loudspeakers. Nor, indeed, near a small tweak of tone controls - those now
feared denizens of the past. 8-]

I decided years ago that reviewers moaned about 'tone controls' because a
small tweak of a tone control means they lose any ability to hear the
difference they say they detect between many amps, cables, etc. Alas, users
of modern kit often don't get the chance to check this for themselves.
Although if people use a appropriate audio playing software on a computer
they may be able again to experiment with tonal adjustments, etc, on a DIY
basis and re-discover than not all recordings have been made ideally in
tonal balance for their listening setup.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

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On 12/07/2015 09:25, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , John R Leddy
wrote:
...Likewise, now I'm playing FLAC files I have a dedicated network audio
player. I did have a go at using the wife's laptop as a network audio
renderer into an external USB DAC. This was my first attempt at playing
FLAC files through my stereo. I decided instantly I wouldn't be
purchasing a dedicated laptop for the purpose, and proceeded to
investigate network audio players.

I wouldn't base a system on a laptop, either. But found it easy enough to
use a desktop box. Works fine. Like yourself, I adopted using flac. A
computer plus a decent USB DAC works nicely. No need for a 'network
player'. And no need to find that I eventually hit a problem with a new
filetype because a commercial 'network player' can't handle it.



I'd accept that you don't 'need' a network player, but I find it
convenient for 3 main reasons - no need for a monitor and mouse/kb
clutter, no fan etc noise, and no boot up/shut down regimes.

Whether that's worth the £200-odd I splashed out on a Cambridge unit . . .

It's just plain weird to still read on the web today how network audio
is somehow complicated requiring specialist attention. Call me a cynic,
but I guess there must be money passing hands somewhere. I'm no computer
expert but even I know it merely involves connecting a few components
together, no different from any other piece of hi-fi equipment, and I'm
an old codger to boot!

The problem is that it does require some savvy and some willingness to
experiment at first. MicroSoft and Apple profit from infantalising users.
And, alas, until recently UK schools have been lousy at teaching computing.
For decades 'IT' (under different names) at school has been 'training how
to use the current Windows (or Mac) main software for an office job'.

That is, to say the least, disappointing. I have mate who teaches IT in
schools - I'll ask him and see if it's moved on.

We're very locked down at the university where I work. We're looking at
open source for say GIS and stats, but I'm not sure of the motivation.

Hopefully the Raspberry Pi has changed that and we'll get the first new
generation since the 1980s who will know how to code and happy to DIY.


Indeed - tempted to take a look myself. For example:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Rasp...udio/?ALLSTEPS

(Runeaudio)


--
Cheers, Rob

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In article , RJH
wrote:
On 12/07/2015 09:25, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , John R Leddy
wrote:


I wouldn't base a system on a laptop, either. But found it easy enough
to use a desktop box. Works fine. Like yourself, I adopted using flac.
A computer plus a decent USB DAC works nicely. No need for a 'network
player'. And no need to find that I eventually hit a problem with a
new filetype because a commercial 'network player' can't handle it.



I'd accept that you don't 'need' a network player, but I find it
convenient for 3 main reasons - no need for a monitor and mouse/kb
clutter, no fan etc noise, and no boot up/shut down regimes.

FWIW I have 4 different Linux boxes and 2 RO boxes. They all use solid
state 'discs'. The 'HiFi' and 'AV' Linux boxes have no working fans. So no
noise. Provided you keep the setup in a decent state the boot/shutdown only
takes a few seconds. Less time than something like the LCD Tv takes to
switch on from standby.


The problem is that it does require some savvy and some willingness to
experiment at first. MicroSoft and Apple profit from infantalising
users. And, alas, until recently UK schools have been lousy at
teaching computing. For decades 'IT' (under different names) at school
has been 'training how to use the current Windows (or Mac) main
software for an office job'.

That is, to say the least, disappointing. I have mate who teaches IT in
schools - I'll ask him and see if it's moved on.

Its something I experienced from teaching in Uni. Inceasingly, even physics
undergrads had little or no experience of any form of programming. And
often had only the most clumsy ideas of how to use even things like
Wordprocessors (in reality Word only in most cases) or a spreadsheet.

The BBC B/Spectrum/etc generation moved up the age range. Leaving younger
cohorts to the mercy of schools which fell for "we must teach what they use
in offices".

We're very locked down at the university where I work. We're looking at
open source for say GIS and stats, but I'm not sure of the motivation.

I'm now 'retired'. My old Uni had a Solaris main backbone setup, with
villages of Windows boxes and Macs for the students. I used to connect up
whatever I preferred. Usually RISC OS for 'office work' and simple computer
programming. Then also Linux for the greater range of what's available.

On one occasion I had one of the IT support people come to visit me. He
opened the door of my office intending to tell me that "It probably wasn't
possible to connect a RISC OS box to the Uni system". But paused as saw I'd
done it anyway. 8-] That's the advantage of open protocols, etc.

More recently, the newer Uni halls were built with plumbed in ethernet. So
the students can plug in whatever they choose.


Hopefully the Raspberry Pi has changed that and we'll get the first
new generation since the 1980s who will know how to code and happy to
DIY.


Indeed - tempted to take a look myself. For example:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Rasp...udio/?ALLSTEPS

(Runeaudio)

Interesting. The key for me for good audio from Linux involves two basic
steps as the start.

1) Use a good USB DAC as the onboard 'cards' are usually rubbish. Looks
covered already by the URL you gave.

2) Kill Pulse Audio. Dead. Finito. Beat it with a stick until its gone.
Otherwise it often changes things and fouls up the results. Go direct to
ALSA. Although with luck a straight-from-debian distro won't have something
as mad as Pulse.

I don't have an RPi as I'm busy enough with other things. But I'd be
interested in tests on one. If you try the above, choose a DAC with an
spdif output and have a way to capture that. That lets you spot problems
like Pulse Audio's habits of converting everything to 48k/16bit regardless
of what the input rate/depth might be. No point playing a 96k/24bit file if
what's squirted across USB to a good DAC is being changed to 48k/16 without
you being told.

FWIW If I had an RPi I'd probably see if I could get ROX running on it,
then try the ROX/Linux programs I wrote for audio. Been doing one for
symultaenous play/capture for probe-response measurements on audio items as
someone wants this for simple speaker measurements. Other audio programs
already available, with sources, from

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/software/index.html

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

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On 12/07/2015 12:23, Jim Lesurf wrote:
No point playing a 96k/24bit file if
what's squirted across USB to a good DAC is being changed to 48k/16 without
you being told.

I found a few years ago that Windows was resampling everything on my
machine to 48kHz. That was audible :( and I'm not a hifi buff... I guess
it wasn't doing it that well, though 48000-44100 must be a bit painful.
But I'm not convinced why you need to playback at 96kHz. I suspect these
days my hearing ends at well under 15kHz - but surely yours doesn't hear
over 40kHz?

Andy

A laptop and DAC setup seems especially popular with our American cousins. Handy for students in bedsits I imagine, but inappropriate for a living room stereo in my opinion. Our computers are deliberately harnessed to our box room office. Replacing our CD player with a network audio player was pretty straightforward. One component out, another component in, job done. Only involved one extra cable for connecting to our audio network. I had previously built a BSD FreeNAS server for our audio files, but this time around decided to purchase a Western Digital NAS with Twonky pre-installed. Again, simply plugged it in to our audio network router. Turned on the player, which displayed the WD NAS, chose some music, and pressed play, just like a CD player. Looks the part, and sounds the part.

It's possible, no matter how unlikely, I could choose to change to a different format for audio replay, but to be honest I think I'm done, FLAC it is. I bought an SA-CD player to replace my CD player, but that turned out to be a pretty pointless exercise. As others head off to a world of DSD streaming, I'm going backwards. My 24-bit 192kHz albums have all been reduced to 24-bit 96kHz, and I only stopped there because my SA-CD rips are 24-bit 88.2kHz. I used to think 24-bit 48kHz was enough, but I've changed my mind again and see 16-bit 48kHz as more than adequate.

I'm more than happy with the vast majority of my music collection being CD rips at 16-bit 44.1kHz, and simply can't bring myself to buy my music collection all over again. LPs to CDs was bad enough, a third time buying thousands of downloads is a bridge too far at this stage in my life. There are plenty of CDs out there which I can pick up for £2 or £3 to keep my collection growing. Maybe I'm just too miserable to pay circa £20 for an album download. Could be a question of timing. Compared to the LPs and cassettes I was brought up with, these CD ripped FLAC files are just fine for me. Everything's relative I guess.

I totally agree with you when you say educational establishments are really just demonstrating the use of applications, rather than teaching the use of code to achieve the same results. It's too great a leap for me to see a network audio player or renderer as anything more than just another hi-fi component, and really no different to any other component I've owned or used. Media players like foobar2000 and external storage for computers are fine within their own environment, say within an office for example, but I find myself unable to facilitate that sort of thing in my hi-fi system. Horses for courses I suppose. I have both setups, albeit in different rooms. Our box room office contains our home network with access to the internet, using Rhythmbox on Debian 7 and foobar2000 on Windows 7, and whilst I chose to locate our isolated audio network router and NAS in the same office, the two systems live happily side-by-side without interfering with each other. I prefer having my old fashioned stereo separate to my computers and their audio replay. I guess that's just a personal preference I enjoy.

There certainly seems to be a bit of a Catch 22 situation between hi-fi magazines being allowed to function profitably as any other business, and the nonsense they print being adopted as factual by those of a gullible nature, who quite probably possess a genuine, though misinformed, interest in audio and electronics. The authors are more than likely just trying to protect their jobs, but it petrifies me the way people simply accept, apparently without question, the mind boggling rubbish being printed. I appreciate it would be a bit drastic to ban the publication of what could readily be seen as entertaining, rather than scientific, subject matter. I also fully accept in our country it's the duty of the citizen to arm and protect himself against his own errors. Beats me what the solution could be.

Like yourself, I enjoyed soldering my own cables, at least when my system was single ended. Now I have differential amplification and use professional balanced cables, which means it would actually cost me more to solder my own than buy readily available cables as used on mixing consoles. My cables cost me £20 a pair and use Neutrik XLRs. Not sure what more I could possibly need.

It was absolute genius on Naim's part to charge more for less components. The 1970s and Linn-Naim-Linn systems dominate magazine recommendations. Ivor Tiefenbrun was redirecting people's ambitions away from purchasing better loudspeakers to replacing their turntables instead. My mates refused to follow. I adopted someone else's idea the pre-amp was deserving of the greatest expenditure. High fidelity started to take itself far too seriously. Listening to music became secondary to the number of component boxes the true enthusiast could willy wave. Tone controls disappeared as the consumer couldn't be trusted to use them appropriately. The quality of LPs nose-dived. Cables now required running-in like an old 1960 Standard Vanguard. "Running in. Please pass." The hi-fi industry becomes an embarrassment by allowing itself to be taken over by a bunch of suits in casual disguise, who then proceed to abandon century old scientific facts in preference for the wildest of marketing claims. Astonishingly, the public not only fails to reject these claims, but chooses to lap them up with an eagerness beyond all comprehension. The uneducated not only claim their place in hi-fi society, but now mock logic and scientific endeavour with unearned authority, all the while championing themselves as mystical hi-fi gurus. Puke!

Agreed. In a hi-fi system, a network audio player is a far neater solution being a single-purpose hi-fi component, as opposed to a computer which is really a multi-purpose device.
I bought a new Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 (24-bit 96kHz) for £700. Now you can buy a brand new Stream Magic 6 V2 (24-bit 192kHz) for £450. This technology is changing way too rapidly for my liking. That said, I don't have plans to change my player anytime soon.
Which Cambridge Audio player did you buy?

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In article , Vir
Campestris wrote:
On 12/07/2015 12:23, Jim Lesurf wrote:
No point playing a 96k/24bit file if what's squirted across USB to a
good DAC is being changed to 48k/16 without you being told.

I found a few years ago that Windows was resampling everything on my
machine to 48kHz. That was audible :( and I'm not a hifi buff... I guess
it wasn't doing it that well, though 48000-44100 must be a bit painful.
But I'm not convinced why you need to playback at 96kHz. I suspect these
days my hearing ends at well under 15kHz - but surely yours doesn't
hear over 40kHz?

No one simple answer to the above, but here are some comments on aspects.

1) The problem is that real DACs aren't perfect. So when replaying 44.1k a
DAC may generate effects which extend well below 22.05kHz.

2) Simple plots of what single-frequency tones someone can hear don't tell
you about what happens when they hear more complicated time varying signals
with many components. Look on the web for the work of Oohashi for example.
Human hearing is non-linear. Real DACs, etc, are non-linear too. The
presence/absence of 'Ultrasonic' components can affect what we perceive.
Depends on the circumstances, etc.

So the advantage of playing 96k material on a good system is that it tends
to shove these problems further away from the regions where they can have
an effect on what we hear.

And in practice, once you're recorded and processed using 96k/24 there
doesn't seem much point in downgrading the result in the age of cheap
multi-TB drives.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

You're right, we don't need a 96kHz sampling rate for audio replay. However, a high sampling rate isn't utilised to extend audible high frequencies.