bkrop Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 yeah yeah yeah, I'm so fed up with this crap I only listen to podcasts on my ipod ihome because it has line out connections and it is a major pain in the *** to try and listen to streaming net radio from my computer on my stereo with out using headphone jacks and all the other bullshit! There is good content out there, why can't we just listen (or record and listen later to streaming media)????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 6, 2008 Share Posted January 6, 2008 >I believe it is the OS that is the problem. Understatement, Bruce. Bill Gates has done the impossible by being able to make Moore's Law moot. Anyway, I see now why this has been no issue for me. Both Card Deluxe and the ESI totally lock out Windows. Highly recommended. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Kmixer or similar derivations are used by almost every operating system (including mac)...and they all do similar things with the audio. I really don't think they were ever intended for maximum audio performance, but at the same time they really aren't that bad. Btw, that Card Deluxe stuff is pretty interesting...especially the measurements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 From what I heard from the Card Deluxe folks over the years, much of thier direction was to meet the scientific markets need for high purity audio DACs. Application in our area was a corrollary. They also said "We won't let Windows anywhere near our card." Works for me. The accuracy of location recordings made with it is extraordinary. All three of the files I uploaded were made with it, and you may find one thing or the other you don't like about them, but I don't think it's likely they will have anything to do with DAC issues. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerTuber Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 Lordy I'm gonna have to study this a lot. FLAC/DAC I got. MAC/FLAC/DAC not sure about. Sounds like I need to start with a sound card and work from there. I'm going to re-read all this a few times then contemplate. Did I mention I have an IT degree? How embarrassing. (I know enough about computers to really screw em up periodically). Thanks very much for sharing your experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Lordy I'm gonna have to study this a lot. FLAC/DAC I got. MAC/FLAC/DAC not sure about. Sounds like I need to start with a sound card and work from there. I'm going to re-read all this a few times then contemplate. Did I mention I have an IT degree? How embarrassing. (I know enough about computers to really screw em up periodically). Thanks very much for sharing your experience. If you'd like something traditional and decorative, try a Hickory Dickory DAC... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfk Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 ASIO drivers are built into all of the Creative Soundblaster X-Fi products, which will do 24 bit/96 Khz, the problem may be that your preamp/receiver may not be able to handle more than 24 bit/44.1Khz, I had this problem with my new Yamaha RX-V661, so I had to slow down to 44.1Khz, at 96Khz, my receiver acted as a straight pipe, none of the cool DSP stuff the receiver has to offer, although the creativce software suite isn't half bad. Far as media servers go, I have a linux box (Fedora Core 4) running samba 2.1, and I have no problem with anything that recognizes the SMB/CIFS (Windoze) file system and because I use a real server OS, I have 1.25 TB of storage. The windoze clients in the house have no problem with any media file. Far as pirating goes...no comment. There is one program VLC, videolan client, available on the net with fantastic streaming capabilities and Class D broadcasting capabilities. This program was created by a French tech school and has every codec in the world, not to mention that it will play DVD formated ditectories on an HD, unlike WMP and lesser mortals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerTuber Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 Are the M-Audio USB Audiophiles internal cards? It looks like there was an external, but now they are all internal? That looks like one simple solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerTuber Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 PlatformMac vs. Windows – probably doesn’t matter to me. I like the Mini Mac, but suspect no changes can easily be made to sound card. Leaning windows on this one mostly due to laziness. Think both work fine.Sound cards -I see 3 interesting ASIO solutions for internal sound cards: Juli ~$140http://www.esi-audiotechnik.com/download/ESI/Juli@/Juli@-English.pdf CardDeluxe ~$400http://www.digitalaudio.com/DIGITALAUDIO/myarticles.asp?P=5210&S=75&PubID=4401 LynxTwo ~$1000http://www.lynxstudio.com/product_detail.asp?i=12 CardDeluxe is very popular. I think Juli is a newer solution. Leaning CardDeluxe.SoftwareVLC looks quite interesting but I don’t think it supports ASIO quite yet. Foobar doesn’t seem to like Ipods, I want to be able to keep that functionality. MediaMonkey looks pretty good to me, FLAC support and portable player friendly. Free. Winamp looks Ipod friendly and supports FLAC as well. Free or cheap. Any thoughts on Winamp or MediaMonkey or the path of windows, CardDeluxe and FLAC ripper/player? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Herr Tuber: If you want to hear something done with Card Deluxe download the files referenced in "You Be the Judge" thread. I do not think there is a better card on the market than CD. I've had mine for over 5 years. Happy Camper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerTuber Posted January 21, 2008 Author Share Posted January 21, 2008 I took the plunge last Friday and bought a new Macblackbook to create a music and likely DVD storage repository. Why the Macbook? I really like the silent operation aspect of the Mini and kept trying to convince myself I needed one, but given our circumstances, I hope the laptop solution proves best. Here’s what I considered: I work near one home weekdays and spend weekends away. The mini could be transported, but the laptop wins on portability factor. I’ll hopefully disconnect external storage and move the laptop with partial playlists or groupings of CDs on the internal drive. Florida’s power blips during summer rains. If there is lightning we might unplug a few things, but for short interruptions advantage goes to the laptop with battery backup. Plus I can flop in bed and tweak. Output to TV was seemingly equal. We use an analog set with bunny ears one place and digital HDTV the other (FIOS on the digital). I don’t plan to record the tv at this point, just output as a monitor or play DVDs. I know there are other ways to get there, subjective yes, but having a small screen just seemed to make good sense to me. After all, it is a laptop. Advantage Macbook. Mini has a couple more USB ports, but a hub could solve that giving a slight advantage to the mini on ports. Power advantage to the Macbook. It’s “mo biggar”. WAF goes to the Macbook. If her iMac is dead, and her Dell is dead, she can surf for that special recipe without having to know how to set everything. WAF is important to me since I think I am already pushing my luck (Khorns in living room). Quiet goes to the Mini, but the Macbook isn’t very loud if I’m not using the drive. Both can use wireless mouse and keyboard, so that’s an equal. So, my system as of now looks like this! Macbook > Headphone out jack split into two RCA jacks > Receiver Well before you ahem me, I wanted to hear some music since the bunny ears would not get the playoff games given our torrential rains. Okay, nothing special, but it’s a starting point. To digress a bit, it’s a bit more of a challenge to do this on a Mac. I think windows can handle ASIO and FLAC with a decent media manager and it's straight forward. I am just tired of rebooting and waiting so long to start and shutdown. I guess I wanted to make this all work on the Mac platform, thus the aforementioned plunge. So, what did I do all weekend? Other than the honey-do-list stuff, I loaded a few CD’s (no compression) into iTunes and a lot of updating. I’m going to try to move forward with iTunes and see how that works for me. My ultimate objectives are improved fidelity, the ability to convert vinyl, write to iPod, a good interface and the ability to backup music and dvds. Next, I am going to fiddle with an M-Audio Firewire 410. It should, near as I can tell function as both a DAC and convert ye ole records. Good for testing and something to compare to if I upgrade the DAC. No Leopard driver yet it appears, still some folks have experienced success. I can always do vinyl with windows and write CDs for a while as a backup plan pending new drivers (hopefully). I have a lot to do on understanding how to control iTunes given our mish mash of computers. I like the idea of the iTouch, I tend to make short playlists depending on who is around and just start it up and forget about it, until I need to adjust the volume. Oddly, the more we drink the deafer we become. I envision the system (will hopefully soon be) along the lines of: Drobo <> Macbook <> Firewire 410 or other DAC> L/R amplifiers Maybe the new Benchmark DAC1 pre would do better and bypass my current preamp? The western digital caviar drives look pretty quiet? Any thoughts on those or others? That’s not super critical as I can hide the thing in a cabinet I suppose. Might start out with two 750 Gb drives, looks like the sweet spot for price to me. Opinions, comments, criticisms, wisecracks or suggestions on how I can avoid screwing this up or even better, improve the results? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
synthfreek Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 Have you messed around with Front Row yet? Are you downloading artwork into iTunes? Get an Apple remote and use Front Row...that's the ticket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerTuber Posted January 22, 2008 Author Share Posted January 22, 2008 Have a couple remotes and will check into Front Row. Thanks for the tip. Not much time to fiddle last night, but we got the Macbook connected to both our wireless networks and hooked up the remote mouse and keyboard. Going to try and load an M-audio driver that is not Leopard compatible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivendell61 Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 InnerTuber: That Benchmark DAC1 USB--would be a great choice (and outboard conversion tends to be preferred). It will stream 96kHz/24 via USB, *bit perfect on native drivers*, no ASIO needed (the only device that can do it). Hard to beat signal quality. ASIO has been suggested earlier but....it does not guarantee bit-perfect. Benchmark tested several ASIO USB devices and found NONE of those were bit-perfect (which does not mean none exist). Consumer/pro-sumer digital stuff (ala 'm-audio') does not always perform to claim/spec. If you 'need' a high quality signal--for whatever reason--be cautious if looking there. Unfortunatly pro stuff tends to be expensive--so priorities must be considered. Likewise 'player' software such as i-Tunes (an evolving minefield, in v.7 of i-Tunes SRC + vol. control is better/CoreAudio still poor). VLC is good (OS X friendly), Foobar v. good (but not for OS X). Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InnerTuber Posted January 24, 2008 Author Share Posted January 24, 2008 Thanks Rivendell I do like the Benchmark. Took the plunge and ordered a Drobo http://www.drobo.com/products.aspx and two 750 GB drives http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136131. So far I'm sticking with iTunes, mainly for the integration/tagging/album lookups. VLC is interesting, but needs a separate ripper if I recall right. Also peeking at Handbrake for DVD. Thinking I will just USB Drobo to the Macbook for now. Down the road maybe move storage into utility room with Airport Express base station. Waiting on UPS .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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