Drubin - with a computer external converter, the power supply can be just as quiet, whether it is USB or Wi-Fi.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Today's Transport War: Significant Differences?
We are not talking about the "external converter and associates Steve, we are talking about the transport or the Noiseball which can not hold a candle against another transport featuring quiet linear power supplies. It's a fact. What good is external battery power supply when your data comes form the Noiseball? And BTW, the so called super clocks actually add jitter. But it sounds better right? So here is another puzzle to solve. :-) Otherwise any DVD player or computer would sound satisfactory. Unfortunately, they don't. As far as I know Olive has a computer based solution (single box with control and HDD inside) with linear PS so that would be my best bet for starters. But then again, it really depends on the level of audio quality one is after and what is his/her reference. Other than that Noiseball audio is more convenient, I admit. But what is up with evolution and mankind getting lazy? It was CD against Vinyl before now is the Noiseball against CD. It's funny! And why everyone around here forgets the High-Rez digital formats to which a CD is inferior, regardless of how it was processed. Regards, Alex |
Nova Physics Group Memory Player is the latest buzz and is attracting rave reviews. It's essentially a computer with a tube based dac ($15k). You also get it without dac ($10k). One reviewer comments on how it outperforms the highly regarded Zanden front-end ($40k+). So, yes its an evolutionary thing with a sweet benefit of lowering costs. |
The computer serves only to provide readable 1s and 0s, and evidently, despite their "noiseball" characteristics PCs are perfectly capable of reading 1s and 0s from CD roms, and hard-drives and streaming them over ethernet or USB without a single bit error. That's how you're reading this web site. An external DAC can have its own power supply, and isolating any noise from the USB or ethernet inputs is not rocket science. Finally RAM based FIFO buffering and reclocking will feed the DAC a bit-perfect signal with noise removed and ultra-low jitter. I understand that Alex produces respected machines, but I see no coherent engineering based arguments that refute any of what Steve (or I, or others) have said. |