2. digital
  3. 135286-80822

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!
corelli
amg56's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
amg56
887 posts
 

@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

headphonedreams
527 posts
 
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/
corelli OP
993 posts
 
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).
scott69
6 posts
 
One more vote for Bluesound Vault. In addition to the reasons mentioned above, I want to add that their support is first rate. The techs will help you with any transfer or set-up issues you may encounter. I believe you can call them before you buy.

Scott
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
 I want to stream those music files from my laptop to my DAC via my wifi.  I bought a chromecast but cannot get the right apps to do this.  Any help would be appreciated

How does a Chromecast drive a DAC?  HDMI?

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

More to discover