CD format war and resultant music players

Very true Herman. I don't understand what the big deal is with computers and audio. My computer has a digital out as well as firewire. I have a computer with my sound system and it is connected to my DAC with the digital output. It works like a regular DVD or CD player except it is a pain in the arse to use like a computer is prone to be. I seldom use it for CD playback but have stored a few CDs on it just because I could. It comes in handy for playing DVDs from other regions as well as PAL discs. Of course you need software like DVD Regionfree from dvdidle.com for this to work.

The next "audiophile" media will be vinyl. Oops, its already happening. Vinyl and vinyl playback systems are booming, and CD and SACD sales are dropping.

The transport from the hard drive itself into your DAC involves a number of components--the hard drive cable, the motherboard, the soundcard, the I/O between the sound card and the DAC, and all sort of computer components that could general noises to the line. And I don't know about performance differences between various multimedia softwares regarding their reading of these digital information. One would think that pure "1" and "0" binary numbers from your hard drive are just that until they are converted into analog signal by your DAC. Yet CD transport is a technology by itself. So what about hard drive transport? It would help if the real audiophile manufacturers say yeah or neh as opposed to relying on the computer geeks.

So then, now we just have the top end CD players and turntables. Only a few years from now, somebody decides to turn a reader that just reads CDs into one that reads CDs and hard drives. The player could be an independent box hooked up to your DAC or preamp. Or it could be an audiophile computer. Will I have to invest in such music player all over again, after doing something about my system now? I rather think not. The point is that hard drive is rich with space. A lot of digital information could be stored per song to make it sounds good relative to redbook CDs. So the general public have their boring computers to download music. While these audiophile companies turn the hard drive transport system into good sound producting computer. And who knows what kind of preamp it takes to receive such signal from the hard drive transport.

This hard drive thing is a serious contender. It's not just us amateurs talking here. I read an article in Sound and Vision a few hours ago discussing the shrinking market of CDs in light of music download. The professionals already started throw up out number of years before possible disappearance, complete or partial, of CDs. That article even mentioned certain bands who won't release music into CDs. Instead it would strictly be for downloading. Somebody complained about how the recording studios took all their money through CD mastering and distribution.

Mr Svhoang, the future is now. it is here. Search the net and you will find a large number of USB DACs at various price points.

There is no such thing as an audiophile computer or hard drive. There are a number of programs that make bit perfect copies of the data on a CD and store it on your hard drive..The idea is to rip the CD to a hard drive and not use the CD/DVD drive as a transport.

That's it. It is a perfect copy. You cannot make anything better than a perfect copy. It doesn't matter if "audiophile companies" get involved. They cannot improve on perfection.

Once you have a perfect copy the computer does not corrupt the data. If it did the programs wouldn't run and your files would be corrupted all of the time. This simply doesn't happen very often, and when it does (if you are smart) you have a perfect backup copy of your perfect data.

I finally look around on the Internet regarding music server versus CDP. It appears that usb DAC, with the included interest from Stereophile, performs at least at the level of the Linn Unidisk SC which is an upper but not top end CDP. I also searched for comments on the Squeezebox version 3 to wirelessly remove the noisy server away from the stereo system. And there are design limitations to this piece, along with suggested modifications from private outfits. It seems that the music server/DAC idea give traditional CDP manufacturers a run for their money. However, the technology is young and need time to develop. Basically we are back to the sit still and do nothing with traditional equipment upgrade or cutting edge technology.

Anybody cares to disagree? Thanks.