Is this the END of DAYS for the high end CD player

Hello, this is very interesting and exiting thread.
I am following steps of the Wayneker2176 member here and pop a question.
Did anyone besides Chadeffect ACTUALLY compared the hi-end computer based front end (all top notch software like pure music, Amarra and others that outputs bit perfect files plus top of the line DACs) with Hi-End CD players like Esoteric x-03, x-01 limited , meridian 808.2, Wadia 581,781, DCS and others.

The convenience of the computer frond end is obvious. Some people go as far as connecting Mac mini with Ipad as a display, using apple-based applications. This is very cool.

But how about sound? Does the computer based front-end set-up sound really on the level of those hi-end CD players?

For example the Esoteric released the K-01 and K-03 players that now have (besides their known great transport) isolated on its own platform the USB input port with up to 24/196k transfer rate capability. Are playing the red book CD thru its transport will sound better or worse than ripping that same CD on the Apple Mac computer (bookpro or mac mini with SS drive) and playing it back using pure music or other engines thru the same Esoteric DAC utilizing that USB port?

"The rest is BS. It is just pure data storage and number crunching."

Dont believe this. There are a LOT of affects in both ripping S/W, Playback S/W and the hardware playback device that affect sound quality. Do some more reading on the forums and you will realize this. There would be no market for devices like:

http://www.mach2music.com

Which makes a big sonic impact on audio streams

Or music playback software like Amarra, Pure Music or AyreWave, which all make itunes sound better. These deal with CODEC floating-point rounding and dithering correctly. iTunes does not.

Or ripping S/W like dbpoweramp and XLD, which are used with Accurate-Rip on the web to insure not only bit-perfect data but correct control and offset information in the frames.

Those in the know, have done all of these tweaks. If you are new to this, then there is a lot to learn.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"I have linked the computer to DAC by using toslink and coaxial. I have even used my computer as the cd transport to play CDs rather than files linking to a DAC. none of these method sounds as good as burmester 069."

No surprise. You are probably playing back using iTunes on a PC or WMP. Complete junk.

You must jump through a few hoops in order to get the SQ that you need to beat your CD player. That's right not just match, but BEAT.

1) Rip with C2 correcting CDROM drive
2) Rip using dbpoweramp or XLD (Mac) with Accurate-Rip enabled.
3) playback using Foobar with Kernel Streaming on PC or Amarra/Pure Music/Ayrewave on a Mac. Playback from memory and SSD is even better
4) Avoid Toslink - get a good quality USB to S/PDIF coax converter or a USB DAC - should preferably use async protocol and have good clocks

For digital the clock is everything

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

You must jump through a few hoops in order to get the SQ that you need to beat your CD player. That's right not just match, but BEAT.

And same applies to a CD transport; you must jump through a few hoops in order to BEAT any computer audio currently available.

3) playback using Foobar with Kernel Streaming on PC or Amarra/Pure Music/Ayrewave on a Mac. Playback from memory and SSD is even better

IMO, the J. River Media Center with ASIO4ALL (on Win 7, 64bit) offers better audio quality compared to Foobar with KS and any Apple-based playback. Playing from memory makes things even worse.

Best,
Alex Peychev

This talk of CD drives in computers is nonsense. If they could not transfer the data properly none of our computers would work.

So you really believe that transferring data correctly is the only requirement for "perfect audio quality"? Every CD player has C1 and C2 error correction built-in. This said, with a brand new clean CD, there are no errors coming even from a boom-box CD drive. But why it does not sound as good as a high-end transport then? Is it only clocking? Is it only jitter?

Fplanner2010 you mention the use of coaxial (I assume the jittery s/pdif) which is a consumer digital in/out. Isnt that 75ohm system only capable of 24/96k in stereo if that? I am a bit confused as you mention 24/192. Sorry it has been a while and I have only really used AES/EBU 110 ohm digital ins/outs in the past.

The "jittery" S/PDIF in Fplanner2010 NWO-M is used in a non-jittery way. :-) And no, it is not limited to 96/24; it is 192/24.

Best,
Alex Peychev