Music from hard drive better than CD?

Ah, thank you Ghunter. That explains the extra time it takes. So it's essentially double-checking that the data read on the first scan was correct, and if not, I assume it does a third and possibly a fourth till it gets some consistancy? Other than the possibility of actually missing some data, or adding some that isn't there, such an error as error-correction seeks to correct would not be an error that effects overall PRAT, as Nickway seems to be experiencing a problem with..true? In other words, the error-correction is not going to help with a frequency mismatch - wouldn't that be a function of the interface/communication between hard drive and card (in this case the Mbox), and DAC...or, alternatively, harddrive and DAC depending upon your set up? If the harddrive feeds the data at something less than 44.1KHz are the components downstream able to correct for that using a unidirectional connection such as S/PDIF, or Toslink? Or am I mistaken? Is there information sent with the data/signal, that tells the receiving end at what frequency it is sent? Sorry if my questions are pretty fundamental, but I'm just trying to understand all this stuff better.

Marco

Marco, for someone who's learning you've got a pretty good grasp of this!

What you're talking about here is also known as jitter. Here are a few articles that explain what's going on:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Apr03/articles/digitalclocking.asp

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/appnotes-d/jittercu.html

Thank you Ghunter. Both excellent links. The first one did help me understand it better and is well-written...the Benchmark data was a bit more 'academic content-rich' and I need to read it again with more time. I guess I've got the basics down, but mine is far from an authorative knowledge on the subject. That simple illustration of amplitude error caused by jitter in the first link says a lot. I wasn't getting that clocking information is sent with the signal via S/PDIF. I didn't see Toslink mentioned in my quick read of the first link, though they do mention S/PDIF optical...are they one and the same? Here's a passage from that first link:

Remember that you can synchronise clocks in digital equipment with more than just the classic BNC cable. Both AES-EBU and S/PDIF (coax and optical) signals carry clock information within the audio data stream, for example, and so recorders can often be synchronised using their input signals, rather than having to use dedicated word-clock cables.

My understanding is that Toslink is the least desirable of the ways to transfer digital information...would the clocking have something to do with that? If not, what is it about Toslink that is frowned upon? Seems like it would be favored being so inexpensive. Or am I just wrong there?

Marco

Are there any good hard disk dedicated players? Rather not use a PC or Apple w/ full screen. What about the new McIntosh player? Any body tried it yet?

To address your question about toslink vs. coaxial: they both transmit the same spdif standard information so it's a matter of preference and what your equipment has. Some say that optical is more prone to jitter, but with jitter correction circuitry I'm sure you can see how any differences would be minimized to insignificant levels. A bit is a bit is a bit.

Two other commonly found digital audio transmission protocols are AES/EBU (which uses a balanced cable) and ADAT (which uses the exact same toslink fiber optic cable but has capacity for up to 8 audio channels).

Make sense?

Now to confuse matters even more, to get the ABSOLUTE best performance out of a digital audio setup you should use a master clock device such as the Apogee Big Ben:

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/bigben.php

Yep, all that $1500 device does is generate ultra-accurate clock signals. Not many consumer DAC's offer word clock sync, perhaps because it's easy to reclock a single source more accurately than to synchronize multiple bidirectional audio streams that one might see in the studio. That's part of the home audio design I've never seen.

Henryhk, if you think about how quickly audio standards and software updates are happening, would you really want to be locked in to one manufacturer's way of doing things? The Linn and McIntosh units are definitely for people with massive disposable incomes that aren't familiar with computers. If that's you, then go for it and let us know. There's a lot more power and flexibility in going with a more open system, though.