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In the Forum: Didital Things
In the Thread: The commercial music servers.
Post Subject: Computer TransportPosted by Telstar on: 2/9/2008
Oh I was thinking about FLAC, such as the ones from Linn Records, not raw WAVE files.
 Romy the Cat wrote: |
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Not really: it is not true 24 bit. But it should be quite good, exp for the HDCD decode. I have always had a like for hdcds, they sounded better in my old rotel and they sound better even without a hdcd-capable dac.
I searched everywhere for the best DAC on the net and I'm monitoring several forums. That's why I came to yours 
| Romy the Cat wrote: |
Whatever you do invest as much as you can in term of quality in
sound-card/digital-interface. The card, the reading software and the
DAC are 3 major things that determine the DAW sound. What I found the
most interesting and challenging in the project like yours is if you
will be able to make your CD-ROM from of your new machine to play CDs
in real time with the same quality as the better CD transports do.
Whatever I tried on my workstation sounded horrible. If I found a way a
CD-rom on my DAW to play better or competitive to my transport then I
would build something that you are trying to build.
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True, being the DAC is the most important IMO.
I'm not sure if you use your computer as a full DAW (so you need recording and mixing capabilities or just for audio playback (as in my case).
1) The digital transport (i.e. the Soundcard): I learned that the best way to just transport the digital signal from the DAW to the DAC is by using an external, firewire soundcard, with external power supply, such as MOTU or Fireface. Internal souncards gets noise from the computer. Using a Prism Opus would not need this peripheral, but I have no idead how good the Opus is and how stand with the other top DACs, such as the Lavry, the Berkeley, the MSB and others.
2) The Software: Vista x32 with foobar/asio/kernel mode or xxhighend are the best
3) The DAC: here I cant decide
Lastly, about your challenge, I do not wish to use the cd-rom for audio playback as i would with a cd-transport. I'm pretty sure is impossible to find a mechanic without absymal jitter. When I want to play immediately something that I just got, I use my Teac VRDS, with reclock, into my TwinDAC+ (which I would like you to try, check it here:
http://www.twindac.com/TwinDACSpec.htm ).
Also, I will use the transport for A/B comparisons until i'm fully satisfied with the computer transport. And then still keep it Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site