In case it means anything to anyone, it seems that Bluesound does not play DSD files. Auralic Aries does and seems to be way more advanced. Still, it also seem to require NAS somewhere else in the home and is not a dedicated music player. Please let me/us know if this is incorrect as I just looked it up on their websites and might have not picked every detail right.
Digital Audio for Dummies
As I have stated before, I'm a bit of an audio dinosaur. I love simple. I love reliable. I love a high performance/price ratio. So no surprise I'm still happily spinning discs. Give me a nice CD player direct to an integrated and I'm good to go.
But it is 2018. Reading on this forum about the demise of Oppo was a bit of a wake up call. Also the Lyngdorf 2170 has inspired me. An elegant all in one box product that is ready to connect with many of the digital options now available. So I'd like to get educated on what's out there and what you suggest. Basically I would want to know about ripping all my CD's--exactly how that is done. Dedicated audio computer? How big of a hard drive/other considerations? Wired vs. wireless. And then what streaming services are out there? Cost, quality, ease of use?
PLEASE keep things simple and don't assume the reader knows, for example, what Roon is. I've seen it mentioned, but would want to know exactly what this does, how it functions, etc.
THANKS!
But it is 2018. Reading on this forum about the demise of Oppo was a bit of a wake up call. Also the Lyngdorf 2170 has inspired me. An elegant all in one box product that is ready to connect with many of the digital options now available. So I'd like to get educated on what's out there and what you suggest. Basically I would want to know about ripping all my CD's--exactly how that is done. Dedicated audio computer? How big of a hard drive/other considerations? Wired vs. wireless. And then what streaming services are out there? Cost, quality, ease of use?
PLEASE keep things simple and don't assume the reader knows, for example, what Roon is. I've seen it mentioned, but would want to know exactly what this does, how it functions, etc.
THANKS!
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- 54 posts total
@corelli Looking at your system in your posted pictures, you know a thing or two about HiFi than the average dummy. You have a good system that you now want to add a streamer to. You don't mention whether you are IT savvy or not, so its hard to know how far into the system set up you want to go. You don't indicate a budget either. What you do ask is Hardwire or WiFi. The answer is wire (ethernet) as much as possible. If you want to eventually add WiFi active (powered) speakers (such as KEF, Sonos, Bluesound) you can do this via ROON software (as long as the wireless transport is compatible. Most streamers are WiFi or Bluetooth transport compatible (but I would advise not to go Bluetooth for bandwidth reasons. Bluesound, Sony, Naim (careful here because the atom etc are all in one units). Also be aware of the format the CDs are being converted to. I am not going to recommend one brand over another or recommend a configuration (streamer, ripper, NAS (storage) etc. You have not given much information to really hone in on accurate advice. I hope you can expand on your requirements so those with the experience can really advise you down the right path. Cheers AMG |
For the ripping part Windows has a program called Windows Media Player built in that can rip audio cd's to mp3 (or wav). If you want something better and still easy to use you could check out dbPoweramp. It costs money but seems to be very easy and effective. After having ripped your cd's you will have a lot of file on hard drives and then you'll have to decide how to play those. An easy solution is to get a dac with usb input and connect it directly to your computer. If your computer is in another room you may need to buy a separate one just for audio but that is not as expensive as good hifi equipment. You can also get some streaming solution but that is a bit more work. The cheapest ones are based on Raspberry Pi and comes prebuilt but you still has to be technical to connect everything. Some sites, like Hans Beekhuyzen's has more info about what you can use to play music from computers. http://thehbproject.com/en/ |
Appreciate all the feedback. Obviously there's a lot to learn. amg56, over time I hope I can give more specifics but I'm in a learning phase and it's a bit difficult right now to give more specifics. I'm sure in time I will. One immediate question is sound quality. It seems that a $29 optical drive isn't going to read CD's as accurately as what I have now. I would hate to go through all the work of ripping all these CD's and then have digital data with less integrity than what I have now. At least owners of megabuck transports might question this. An extension of this question might be this--Do some feel that their sound is BETTER after they went through this transition. (I suppose it's possible if less jitter, better DAC, etc. But if just feeding a digital signal say to the Lyngdorf, it seems the best you would do is equal, but not better). |
- 54 posts total