Hi Al and Willie (or is that Mr. wonka to me?),
I really appreciate your assistance. I've decided to up my budget a bit, to $1,600 or so, and buy the Oppo BDP-105 and NAS hopefully within a week. The Oppo is a definite buy after reading a lot of great owners' feedback and professional reviews. It just seems like the ideal unit for my situation. As to the NAS, I'm currently considering 2:
The Synology DS213j ($199 on Amazon) with 2 Seagate Constellation 2TB hard-drives (about $135 ea.) which would be a total of about $470.
The Seagate STBN4000100 with 2 2TB hard-drives included is $322 on Amazon.
The Seagate looks like the better value but I don't know what the differences are in user interfaces, customer support and compatibility compared to the Synology.
I understand the mirroring is not the same as backing up, more like redundancy, and will look for this feature on whatever NAS I consider. I believe both of the ones above allow for mirroring 0,1,5 and possibly more protocols.
My main concern is how, and if, this is all going to work together: laptop, Oppo and NAS. I have some questions that I need further assistance with:
1. Should I buy the less expensive Seagate or the recommended Synology?
2. Having the laptop wireless is very convenient and being limited to a 12-14ft USB cable is not working well. The Oppo and NAS will be set right next to each other in my rack. Our only close neighbor is within 100 ft and I know their LAN extends into our house (at times, their network displays as an available network choice on my laptop). Can I reduce dropouts,and will it function properly, if I use a short USB cable from the NAS to the Oppo and leave the laptop connection wireless?
3. Do I use the laptop as the controller via JRiver to download and play hi-rez files, or am I not understanding how the downloading/playback is controlled?
4. Any good websites to learn about choosing and setting up this stuff?
I'm watching the Denver-New England game right now and the 5.1 surround system is sounding great, even with my 20 yr old Parasound pre/processor. I think the new system will probably sound at least as good for ht and much better with discs and downloads. Plus I'm gaining a bluray player as a bonus.
Thanks again to all,
Tim |
Al - thanks for the correction - it is raid 1.
My situation regarding neigbours - I have between 4 and 10 routers active depending on the time of day from surrounding households, and changing channels never completely fixed the problem. Add to that some of the older cordless telephone systems in the neighbourhood, which I'm told can also contribute to dropouts and my number of dropouts were as high as several per hour depending on the number of active routers.
The number of dropouts also went up depending on the the size of the music file e.g. mp3 had very few, 24/192 had several, which makes sense to me.
Direct connection seemed to have fixed this and using Audirvana also ensures no dropouts because it loads the track into memory before playing. Haven't had a dropout since.
Regards |
Willie, a slight correction if I may. I think you meant to say "RAID 1 -- the ability to mirror." Regarding wireless vs. wired, I agree with the others that wireless can be problematical in SOME circumstances, depending on the quality of the wireless devices, where they are located relative to each other, possible interference from other wireless equipment in your own or a neighbor's house, what channel is being used, etc. However, I would not necessarily rule it out. For example, I have been using a Squeezebox Touch for about a year and a half, wirelessly connected to an EnGenius EAP350 wireless access point (which is not a router; it is just an access point, and it works in conjunction with a separate router that it is wired to). The access point and the Squeezebox are in very different parts of the house. I have not had a single dropout in that year and a half. I should add, though, that the nearest neighbors are a couple of hundred feet away. Also, if it has any relevance, I just use it for Internet radio, not for playing computer files. Good luck as you proceed! Regards, -- Al |
The spec on the NAS will state whether it has RAID quite clearly - you only
need "RAID 0" - the ability to mirror.
The D-Link NAS supports Raid and are very easy to setup.
You might want to go to a good computer store since there are better
quality drives suited to raid - only a couple of bucks more, but will last
much longer that drives suited to desktop computers
The Seagate Constellation line of drives are "enterprise drives" suited to
Raid. They are not as fast as other drives but very durable - 2 Tb $135 or
thereabouts. Take a look at the seagate site for details
Regards |
Hi Williewonka,
Thanks for the info, I will definitely implement a Raid Mirror. Is this something you can implement on any NAS or is it only available on certain NAS units? Sorry, but I'm a rookie at this right now.
Thanks,
Tim
|
If you are going NAS then make sure you implement a Raid Mirror - I've had to re-load all my CD's because of disk failure - a raid mirror will protect against a single HD failure and recover from it without any re-loading - just replace the defective hard drive!
Is off-ramp critical? - I do not believe so, since I do not have it in my digital layback system (but I'm looking into it :-)
It can be added later, it really depends on how good YOU want your digital music to sound?
Get your feet wet first then look into refinements.
Regards... |
If you do buy a 105 (which is a great value product no matter how you cut it), one thought to avoid going over budget might be to put the Synology NAS aspect of your plan on the back burner for the time being and instead just buy two external USB harddrives for a total outlay of $150 or less. This would be a less costly way to "get your feet wet." Who knows, you may find after delving into this brave new world that you prefer dealing with physical CDs rather than digital files. |
Woops, just realized the Synology is $199 and without hard drives. 2 hard drives would cost another $200 plus. This would drive the total cost to about $1,600 which may be close enough. I don't want to skimp on quality since excellent sq is very important to me.
Thanks,
Tim
|
Thank you all for your very helpful replies thus far.
I'm getting a clearer picture of what to buy/use. Currently I'm thinking of buying the Oppo bdp-105 and the Synology DS213j NAS(thanks to Dz3827 for the heads up on Synology) to use wirelessly in conjunction with my laptop. I'd also use the DBpoweramp (thanks to Dz3827 and Steve N. for recommending) to rip cds. This is friendly to my $1,500 budget since the Oppo is $1,199 and Synology is $199 (Amazon) which would leave about $100 for the HDMI and analog cabling I'd need. I'd use decent Monoprice cabling to get it up and running then substitute better cables as budget allows.
So, the answers to my questions become:
1. Am I thinking correctly and on the right path with buying an Oppo followed by a NAS?
This seems like a yes.
2. Is there a method to connect my laptop, and future NAS wirelessly to the Oppo? I'm currently running a 12ft USB cable from my laptop to my DAC. I know cabled is better than wireless but curious how much better.
This also seems to be a yes. The Oppo comes with a wireless dongle and the Synology NAS can operate wirelessly, too. However, I may need to go wired if frequent dropouts occur or I'm not satisfied with the wireless sound.
3. Any suggestions for a good, affordable NAS?
Seems Synology is one very good answer to this.
4. Does the Oppo BDP-105 have internal surround sound decoding capability that would allow me to run analog cables to my 3 HT amps directly from its analog outputs and substitute for my Parasound processor?
From several reviews and other sources, I found out the Oppo does have internal 5.1 decoding capability(DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby-True HD)that outputs as 7.1 analog. I'd just need extra rca cables to run from these outputs directly into my 3 amps: front l+r mains into my main amp, center channel+ sub into the 2nd amp and rear l+r surrounds into my surround amp. This would mean retiring my Parasound AV2500 preamp/processor and Cambridge DacMagic DAC. Good, since this frees up rack space for the Oppo and Synology.
Looks like a good plan. The only thing I'm confused about is the need for the Offramp suggested by Steve and others.
Is this critical sound wise? If yes, is it something I could add later? If no, is it something I'd want to add later for an incremental improvement?
I've heard mention of the Offramp and know Steve and his products are well respected, but I'm unclear on exactly what this product does and how it improves sq. |
Hi Steve, Yes, I knew that you recommended an off ramp regardless of a unit having asynchronous or not and agree, it would be better.... BUT, there are some very decent USB inputs on units these days, as I suspect you would agree, they have improved. I may be wrong, but it sounded to me that the op was on a budget and the Oppo 105 is not a cheap unit, I have played with it and helped a friend set up computer audio through the oppo, it worked fine and sounded quite nice. I have also played with a fair amount of Chinese stuff that is incredible for the price.
Also, I did not mentions before, DB Poweramp was mentioned, it works well, I have it and have used it a fair amount, but I find that EAC - Exact Audio Copy is an equivalent product and its free, you can also enable accu rip on EAC. |
Timlub - I recommend the Off-Ramp 5 even with a DAC that has Async USB input. It is not a matter of it working. It is a mater of it sounding really good.
I even recommend using the Off-Ramp with my own Overdrive DAC for best results. I now offer a really good power supply for it, the Dynamo and this makes all the difference.
This all depends on how close you want to come to analog and elimination of harshness that is typical with digital. Its lowering the jitter that gets rid of the harshness without sacrificing detail and imaging.
You can certainly sacrifice detail and imaging with some tube DACs or even cabling etc. to eliminate harshness, but this is not my cup of tea.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
The oppo 105 has Asynchronous USB in, it will work fine, you'll need wasapi or KS output on JRiver. If you don't buy the oppo, you will need to do as Steve mentioned and get a good USB to spdif converter for your Dac magic, you need your usb out on your Computer to do the conversion before the dac, so you will need an asynchronous converter. There are plenty available, Steve's is the best and most expensive. I can recommend converters from $100 or so up to Steve's off ramp. I would also add another 4gb stick of Ram to your notebook. If you have 2 1gb sticks, replace 1, if you have 1 2gb stick add the 4gb.
I hope this helps, Tim |
Two things that will improve your system:
1) galvanically isolate your cable box - if you are using cable TV, this has a different grounding system, so you are creating BAD ground loops by connecting it to your TV/audio system. Get a Jensen isolation transformer and put it between the cable an your cable box. Its a 2-3" thing and costs about $40
2) reduce the jitter of the feed from your computer to your DAC. If you are feeding S/PDIF, then use a reclocker like the Synchro-Mesh. If you are using USB, then get a good USB converter like the Off-Ramp 5. Feed the Cambridge DAC with S/PDIF coax and a good cable like my BNC-BNC with RCA adapters. Lowering this jitter is more important than the DAC.
BTW, I agree about ripping with dbpoweramp (with accurate-rip enabled).
Steve N.
Empirical Audio |
I'll second the wired approach - I tried wireless for a few months and it really depends on your neighbours/familly members wireless usage. They can cause a lot of dropouts.
In the end went wired only and never looked back.
My NAS is a Sharecentre from dlink - dual drive with raid mirror. The only caveat is a slight delay on the first track of a listening session while the computer wakes up and then wakes up the NAS and waits for the track to load into Audirvana before it starts playing.
Once that is over and done with loading the next track is pretty fast - but 24/96 and192 tracks take a little longer to load.
Regards |
Oh, forgot to mention ... As to wireless vs wired connection, I hear no difference in sound quality. The problem with wireless is the potential for signal dropouts. My wireless signal is pretty good, but I still get annoying dropouts from time to time. Wired is definitely the better way to go if you can. Good luck! |
Given your current equipment and your budget:
1. Yes, you are thinking correctly. But if you go this route, then there are two additional purchases that you may want to also consider: First, consider getting dBpoweramp to do your ripping rather than using JRiver for that purpose. dBpoweramp will let you rip to multiple formats (e.g., WAV and FLAC) simultaneously, a terrific feature. Second, consider getting a tablet if you don't already have one. You may find it convenient to control playback using Oppo's media control app installed on a tablet.
2.Yes, there is a simple, easy method for wireless connection to the Oppo. The Oppo comes with a wireless adapter that you just plug into one of its USB ports. Assuming you have a wireless router, the Oppo will be able to communicate wirelessly with JRiver running on your laptop.
3. Synology
4. Can't help you with question 4 but if Oppo's product documentation doesn't answer the question, email Oppo and ask. Their customer service is excellent. |
