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Streaming, Apple TV, Tell me why not.

New to the streaming music end of this hobby, And honestly enjoy the (call me silly) getting up to grab the next compact disc and open the transport tray. BUT when my Pioneer DV-09 deal fell though, or rather had not been shipped from the seller... still trying to get my money back out of that deal... i started thinking, i have an Apple TV, a 3TB hard drive loaded with movies and music (not all high quality) and a Macbook... why do i need the CD transport at all. I know this is far from a new discussion, but the real question is, WHY NOT the apple TV? is there any good reason that goes against the HIFI Gods taht says I should not use the Apple TV to stream Ripped CD's? what am I missing if anything? What should I be using instead? what do you guys use?
zimmy709
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,452 posts
 
I'm not sure what compression to ALAC has to do with AirPort Express sound quality. Airport doesn't convert to ALAC - it is done in Itunes. Airport receives ALAC data in packets and using its own clock outputs S/Pdif stream. At this point the only think that counts is the jitter and it is function of clock stability on the Airport Express - it has nothing to do with formats or conversion.
258ps p-p is a little excessive since pretty much everything above 50ps p-p is audible but in spite of other claims Benchmark does incredible job suppressing jitter. Jitter is basically noise in time domain. I don't hear any evidence of noise. If anything sound is too clean. Situation is different on AE analog outputs where effect of jitter are very audible (jitter measured by Stereophile 2000ps p-p)

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Kijanki - I don't agree. Its more than just the jitter. The decoding of ALAC on the AE board is the problem I think. I have reclocked, modded and even tried to market a product made from the AE. Its beyond help IMO. I know this thing inside and out.

I have also modded Benchmark DACs for many years, so I know them and their jitter suppression capability.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,452 posts
 
Steve, I don't question your expertise but perhaps something else was wrong. According to test conducted by Stereophile AE is bit perfect.
"Some audiophiles have dissed the AirPort Express on the grounds that its digital output is not bit-accurate. However, I found that this was not the case, that the data appearing on the AE's digital output were identical in the original file. To check this, I compared a WAV file with a duplicate that I had captured on my PC from the AirPort Express's S/PDIF output. I used iTunes on my PowerBook playing a version of the file encoded with Apple Lossless Compression to feed data to the AE. The files were bit-for-bit identical, proving that the AirPort Express is transparent to the music data (as is ALC, for that matter). "
Perhaps firmware had problems previously.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
K - I only know what I hear. I actually abandoned a product that I had invested a lot of money in based on the board from the AE. Maybe it screwed-up the offset or something else. This would not show up in a bit-perfect test. It may also be a real-time problem with decoding ALAC, not showing up in a bit test.

Comparisons that I have made with AIFF and ALAC show that both sound inferior to .wav on a Mac.

Steve N
Empirical Audio
zimmy709 OP
14 posts
 
well it seems that i have opened quite the large can of worms here, not my intent, but none the less I am learning much more from this back and forth than i ever would have with a simple... Yes or No answer to using ATV. I believe it is my short term answer as i already own it. But i will continue to decode all of the technojargin above and happily seek out a better alternative combination. Lots of google has helped me through this thread haha. It has also opened my eyes to a lot more combinations and possabilities. Can anyone point me to a "introductary" thread on the file streaming topic where I can try to get my training wheels off?
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