Is computer audio a bust?

09-13-14: Cerrot
You guys will find that usb is the poorest interface. Glad to see the experiment because the masses were given USB from the beginning and with blinders firmly installed, have never looked past it. The belly button interface - every computer has one. Must be the best way to get sound out of a computer-NOT. Look at what travels along a USB bus - all the pollution Why would I want my music coming put of a USB port? Some guys are at least investing in a USB PCI or PCIe card, which is a thousand times better than the standard usb port.

Agreed, but it can by hacked with galvanic isolation, etc. Also, a good USB cable that filters noise is a must. A standard USB cable is deficient IMO....

The fact that the original topic merits 6 pages of discussions verifies that this is an important issue in modern HiFi, and still very unsettled. The fact that it has morphed into a discussion about critically important implementation of somewhat arcane data standards, transfer and management techniques indicates that getting data off a computer HD has attained a level of complication for our community on a par with tracking force and tonearm-cartridge compliance. Welcome to the new Black Hole Source.

I use and enjoy computer audio at work, and even my modest desktop 2.1 system sounds distractingly good. But when I get home after pounding on my keyboard all day, I am happy to drop a disk in the drawer, or if I have enough energy, cue up an LP, and then sit back... and send you all a message on my phone.

I agree that when a system as easy to use and as well implemented as the Meridian becomes affordable, and original DSD or similar quality source material becomes adequately diverse and widely available, through streaming let's say. then I might be eager to fully migrate both my home rigs as well.

Also, how about more readily available ripping services where I drop off a box of CDs on the corner in the morning like my laundry, somebody rips them to my jump drive for me, and I can pick them up in the evening on the way home?

Computer audio implemented from a laptop just doesn't feel like fun to me right now. Even the gorgeous Meridian touch screen seems more like an appliance than audio exotica. A well implemented and expensive appliance maybe, but also very similar to my desktop computer screen. Just saying...

Interesting thread though, I must say.

kn

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Readily available...and affordable ripping service. I could use a service like that.
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If you have any PC with a decent quality optical drive, Windows Media Player can be configured to rip to lossless .wav file format very easily. THis works very well, just make sure WMP displays the tags correctly before starting the rip because editing .wav file tags after the fact is not easy.

Once ripped, you can use the free version of MEdia Monkey to convert to otehr formats as needed. FLAC is best overall for sound quality and tagging.

Or a small investment in dbpoweramp will give you most everything you need to rip and tag fairly easily as well. Add MusicBRainz Picard to help with autotagging where possible and you are quite armed and dangerous for very little investment, although all tools will have a modest learning curve up front to figure out how to use them best in each case.

wow!, This thread is still around!, I admitt, I agree entirely with knownothing's post, I have talked to many distributors and dealers, They believe, with the thousands of cd's that are out there in every one's library of music, disc spinners will be here for a very, very, long time from now, although computer audio and streamers are taking hold of some market, it is really only 5% of the entire high-end audio!, Most of the market bares transports, dacs, cd-players, analog turn tables, we all may be dead and gone before computer audio surpasses the way of digital and analog as we know it now, may be an opinion of the dealers and distributors, However, I must say, I agree with them, cheers.