The title is:"There's No Such Thing As Digital..."

Good for you Nonoise. We are all here to learn from the experience of others with the common purpose of enjoying the reproduction of music - however that may be achieved.

Perhap both you and Audioengr could provide a "bill of materials" on respective solutions for cited overall investments?

Speaking personally, thus far, I have not been able to a music server and DAC to better my Esoteric K-series CDP for around the same investment. I've tried what many believe to be the best of breed servers out their i.e. Aurender and SotM music servers coupled to the DAC's from Meitner and Antelope Audio - but somehow whilst extremely capable, they really were not musically engaging. They lost something. I don't know why. I wondered whether the USB interface between the Server and DAC is a point of weakness? I also wondered whether the multiple linear power supplies in the Esoteric provided a superior foundation on which to create musical reproduction? I don't know and thats why I read forums. To hear from others.

Kiwi - usually if its not musically engaging, this is jitter and the USB interface is at fault. Upsampling hardware can also be at fault, both for the clocks and the algorithms.

Here are some systems that are musically engaging and not megabux:

iPod or iPhone and:
Pure I20 docking station - $89.00
Synchro-Mesh reclocker - $599.00
Hynes power supply for Synchro-Mesh - $600
BNC cable - $250
Concero DAC - $600
Total = $2138.00

Sonos - $400
Synchro-Mesh reclocker - $599.00
Hynes power supply for Synchro-Mesh - $600
BNC cable - $250
Concero DAC - $600
Total = $2449

used Mac Mini 2009- ~450 with SSD and DRAM
Mac Mini Hynes power supply - $900
USB cable - $400
Off-Ramp 5/Turboclock/S/PDIF Hynes reg - $2249
Hynes supply for Off-Ramp 5 - $600
BNC cable - $250
Concero DAC - $600
Total = $5449.00

used Mac Mini 2009- ~450 with SSD and DRAM
Mac Mini Hynes power supply - $900
USB cable - $400
Off-Ramp 5/Turboclock/HDMI Hynes reg - $2249
Off-Ramp Hynes power supply - $600
HDMI I2S cable - $250 from partsconnexion.com
Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 - $1500
Total = $6949.00

As for the linear regulators: IF they are not really fast-responding, then not so great for digital. The Hynes supplies that I design are extremely fast responding. If they are based on off-the-shelf three terminal regulators, this does not cut it IME.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Kiwi,
Those units you cite are very favorably reviewed and considered to be up there with the best around. That Esoteric must be one nice unit.

Steve,
Thanks for the cost breakdown: I"m sure it took a while to compose.
I'm going to bookmark this thread in case I stumble onto better times as a reference should I get the urge to experiment. :-)

All the best,
Nonoise

Many thanks for the detailed reply Steve. Very useful.

After seeing this post, I went back and re-read the article. My conclusion is the same as when I first read it - these are some interesting topics to discuss, but they reach no conclusions and they have no real recommendations on how to turn their discussion into better sounding systems. Of course, that is mostly a function of the interview format. I would have much rather see these 2 guys (and Steve can join in) collaborate on a white paper that goes into all the currently discussed issues for why computer audio can sound different to different people and on different systems and analyzes the importance and size of those issues and how to fix them.

The whole "gray area" issue(which Hansen eventually admits is not really an issue in a well implemented system), the issue of running multiple processes on the computer, the potential of noise on the grounds, jitter (in all its forms), RFI etc. have been discussed over and over again. A lot of progress has been made on all these fronts with aysnc USB, galvanic isolation, attempts to minimize CPU usage, much better jitter control, etc. Unfortunate, it seems that after several years of figuring out many issues and addressing them, we are now stuck more in a discussion phase than in an significant improvement stage. I understand that a lot of the easy improvements have been made and many of the problems left are hard to analyze and hard to fix. Although this interview is getting a lot of attention, I do not think it moves us down the road in any meaningful way.

Personally, I am happy with my PC based system. I also know it can be improved. For me, one major question is how the issues within the PC compare in importance to new DAC technology, to new digital filters, to the use of DSD formats, etc. For now, I will enjoy my music.