Is computer audio a bust?

Mapman,

I haven't tried anything but JRiver, but I did a lot of research before choosing it. The $49 price is a pittance, but it funds a lot of good development and support, and, as a software person, I am impressed by the JRiver product.

I had a few quirks ripping CD's with JRiver, such as a few albums listing tracks twice, and one CD spinning off a separate cover icon for each track. But nothing bad, and it could have been my refusal to read the instructions.

I also chose FLAC because it was lossless, and I couldn't find any advantages of other formats. I don't believe wav offers anything over FLAC. Haven't tried DSD, yet.

I decided to try CA when a CD transport started acting up, and it caught me by surprise when the system sound quality improved dramatically. There are some external variables--I'm using a very good Wireworld USB cable, and it may be that my DAC just does a better job on USB than coax.

Cheers

when they make a Hi Res copy of the original disc for downloading off the internet shouldnt they really be treating the disc first? Wouldn't they get a better copy and therefore folks would get better downloads? hmmm...one wonders

It does not matter how good a computer audio source can be or hope to be, If the terminations and cables used can never amount to mid-fi, It is impossible to achieve world class sound if it is not possible to have the cables to transfer such data!, This is a bust, limited to say the least.

Lab,

The error in your logic is that there is no sound made with the data transfer function of any computer system. Data is just moved from one place to another over a network connection. Algorithms implemented in teh computer software GUARANTEE that all data is wither moved accurately and completely or not at all. COmputers could not ever work otherwise.

Turning computer data into sound is where traditional audiophile concerns come into play. WIth a network music streamer that process starts at the streamer and flows to the DAC. NEtwork connection to get the data to the streamer prior only matters to be fast enough to get the data there ahead of time before converted to sound. DElays in playing may occur when data is rebuffered in order to be ready for conversion, but sound quality will not suffer. That is how network streamers are designed to work.

dDigital conenctions from computer to DAC are a totally different story. The computer and USB bus is now a key part of the real time music making process. Results may vary greatly depending on how well everything works together as a music making system. Computers are not generally designed to necessarily always preserve highest possible sound quality, so a lot of variability in results can occur with this kind of "architecture" for computer audio.

Rule is to always use a device made to produce good quality sound as the feed to a DAC. Network music or even general hi res media streamers (Like PLEX) are designed for this. Most computers are not. Not to say a computer to dac connection cannot work well, but the devil is all in the very technical details. Network music/media streamers are designed for music/media and are always the safe bet to get the sound most audiophiles seek.

MEdia streamers like PLEX support very fast streaming rates, beyond those typically used for any digital audio today alone, so these devices and the software itself is a good place to look for teh ability to do not just hi res audio but HD video streaming as well, which is a much bigger task.

PLEX media server and player appliations is a very good place for anyone to start with that is looking for good sounding computer audio without a major investment in a lot of proprietary hardware, like SOnos, BlueSound, or Squeezebox in the past.

Plus, PLEX is a high res MEDIA server, not just audio, so HD video, digital photography and hi res music streaming are all part of PLEX.

If anyone is interested, I am open to emails on teh topic. I have just started with PLEX recently as an experiment to replace Squeezebox eventually and have had a lot of success to date I can share, plus I am very interested in what other audiophiles might be doing with PLEX or anything else out there similar.