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Confused With Options To Obtain BestQuality iTunes

I have been reading a lot these days and still confused on the plethora of options available in hooking up a computer based digital system and the pros and cons to each and every selection. I am quite new in this so please bear with me.

I have friends who stream wireless music(Itunes) via an Apple Airport Express that supported this idea and do know many folks are using this setup in their homes. Others who are into Logitech stuff advocated the Squeezebox Classic and Touch. However, another group who uses top-flight gears in their systems(upper range MBL and Revels) advised that wireless degrades sound quality, and the best option is to hook it all up with wires.

Suggested options to play Itunes in WAV or AIFF format are as follows.

1) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drive => Mac Mini/Macbook => DAC (iPad to control music selection)

2) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drive => Logitech Squeezebox Classic/Touch => DAC (iPad to control music selection)

3) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drive => PC => Apple Airport Express => wireless => DAC (iPad to control music selection)

4) iTunes in 1TB/2TB External Hard Drives => wireless => Apple TV => DAC

Out of the four options above, is it a general consensus that option 1 will yield the best sound reproduction from iTunes followed by option 2? Will options 3 and 4 come close to options 1 and 2? Are there any other alternatives to do all this?

Basically my priority is to use an iPad to control playback from iTunes stored in 1TB/2TB external hard drives WITHOUT using a Mac/PC. Apple Airport Express and Apple TV were said to degrade sound quality. What other cost-efficient options do I have?

An advice would be most appreciated.
ryder
tpy's avatar
tpy
68 posts
 
I appreciate you're patience -- I'm obviously very new at this.

I like using iTunes because it's familiar, and have tried a few others and often have trouble figuring out how to get them to work. So far, I've tried Max without really getting it to work, used XLD to convert flac24 or other flac files, and then get them to play on iTunes, but for some reason they wouldn't get through the squeezebox software to my touch until I converted them to AIFF.

I've just downloaded Air from sbooth.org, which I've heard is very good and does format switching automatically. My questions are:

1. I have squeezebox set up to read my iTunes files. But it won't read them unless I first convert from hi rez flac to wav and then to AIFF. Weird. Is there a simpler way?

2. I've loaded my iTunes library onto Play and Squeezebox. Is there a way to get my Squeezebox unit to take in both the Apple and the Play sets of music files so I can just choose between the 2? How would I do that.

Again, many thanks for your patience and my newbieness
jax2
3,031 posts
 
One further detail that I think I need clarification on myself is the limitations of bandwidth / sampling rates on the USB interface. I know the older 1.0 interface was pretty limited and cannot stream high-rez. 1.1 improved a bit (high-rez capable?), and 2.0 is fully capable of streaming high-rez files as is the newly introduced 3.0. Can someone educate me further on this?

One other note on USB - beware of plugging your USB DAC into a hub or a keyboard, or in tandem with any slower USB devices as that will slow down the performance of the shared USB port as I understand it.
bwp
114 posts
 
Forgot to mention, I have had not been able to get album art on WAV files in Itunes. That is another reason I use AIFF files. I believe there is a script or some other work around but I have not looked into that much since AIFF is an easier solution.
4est
507 posts
 
WAV does not support metatagging IIRC, as noted there are workarounds.

Wireless will(may) have difficulty streaming hi Rez due to bandwidth limitations.

So far for me AireWave is the best sounding Mac player. There is an open source OSX player Audirvana that is getting praise too. I am ever so glad that I did not bust out and purchase Amarra.

As noted, not all USB is created equal. Look into "About this Mac", it will note what ports are what...

Once again, if you are using a Mac, stay away from FLAC and use ALAC, WAV or AIFF. Some claim that WAV is the best sounding, and I think I agree, but the tagging is too much for me to pursue at the moment. I like XLD, but that Max and iTunes can batch convert files.

USB 1 or 2 cannot go past 24/96 without special drivers usedby some DACs IIRC.
jax2
3,031 posts
 
I would avoid WAV too. The metatagging issue is a royal PITA and will come up to bite you if you ever need to move files around outside of iTunes, or need to restore your library. I also have found no difference between WAV and FLAC that I can hear. I have heard differences between WAV and ALAC that I could hear, and I've also heard differences between files ripped by iTunes vs same file via EAC. If you are sticking with iTunes I'd personally go with AIFF (basically a Mac version of WAV)

I've had no problem at all streaming 24/96 via wireless using Squeezeserver to a Touch>24/96 DAC. The only hiccup is a brief initial buffering dropout, but once past that it streams without a problem.

USB 1.0 is more limited, and I'm pretty sure cannot stream 24/96...or at least that was the impression I was under. I was wondering about USB 1.1 myself - I think it has the bandwidth for 24/96.

I'm on a Mac using FLAC and have not had any problems at all using Squeezeserver. iTunes will only batch convert to one-format at a time. MAXX will convert to many different formats in one batch process. 4est - what problems are you suggesting that Mac has with FLAC files?
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