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I just don't get PC Audio

I have been doing a lot of reading on the pros and cons of hard drive systems versus traditional CD players. From what I gather a hard drive system can be configured with a great DAC to meet or beat (well, maybe) a high end CD player.

So I contemplated this and what would need to be purchased each way and wound up buying an Esoteric X03SE and couldn't be happier. The point of my post is, am I the only one here who thinks hard drive systems have serious drawbacks that should prohibit an educated buyer not to jump in yet??

Hard drive pros:
-Can meet or maybe exceed the sonics of a dedicated cd player or transport combo (when using tracks burned from a CD)
-The ultimate lazy man's solution....simply surf and hit play (no CDs to load)

Hard drive cons:
-Just as expensive, if not more so than a dedicated CD player by the time you get the hard drive, back up storage, cables, monitor, DAC.
-Many units have hard drive noise that necessitates placing the unit away from the listening area.
-Need back up storage: This means you need to continually back up your collection for the day it crashes.
-Noone knows how long drives will last.
-Need to spend the time to burn all your CDs
-If you use iTunes the quality of downloaded songs is not great, therefore this solution only really works if you burn CDs you have. I know there are some other higher res options, but they are not widely available yet.
-You need some type of monitor to view the collection adding the complexity and nuisance of mixing PCs and Audio
-It is rapidly changing and noone knows what the outcome will be
-If you download one song at a time you essentially throw out any experience the artist may have designed with listening to an entire album

I am just not getting it, other than the two (some may say only one) pros I listed above, why else would an audiopile get a computer audio front end??? It is certainly not cheaper, in fact it is most likely way more.
arbuckle
nilthepill
842 posts
 
I don't either. But then again I have not heard and compared SOA digital Transport/DAC (Say Zanden or Metronome an the like) combo with any music server based set up.

My main point why I don't get it: It is well know fact that the better drive mechanism of SOA transport assures correct reading and keep data stream timing in as good tact as possible. Wouldn't regular basic harddisk based server would have a drive mechanism ( sed while rippin a CD off) much inferior to the SOA Transport? Am I missing something?
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Nilthepill - you have it exactly backwards. Spinning optical disks have both timing and data information being read from them. This affects both the data integrity (error rate) and the timing (jitter) during playback.

The hard-disk only copies the data from the CD, no timing, and it does multiple reads to make sure there are no errors. Then, the computer on playback retrieves the data from disk, caches it in memory and spools it out either over USB, Firewire or networked.

In the networked case, ala Squezebox, the data is simply data, there is no timing information added until the data is stored in a buffer and reassembled inside the squeezebox. This makes a perfect playback source. The local clock reads the data out of the buffer with very low jitter clock(assuming a low-jitter clock is used.

This is far superior to reading a spinning optical disk on-the-fly.

Steve N.
Principal Engineer
Empirical Audio
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
This is a fascinating thread, since I understand so little about the technology and options. I will sit on the fence for a while. I do agree with the earlier post that when hi-res downloads become the norm (better than RB[?]), that will be the tipping point for folks like me; till then I'll stick to my transport and dac; now if I did not already own them...
nilthepill
842 posts
 
Steve, Thanks for the clarification.
herman
1,974 posts
 
Clio, how were you listening to iTunes? Mac or PC.

Everybody agrees that Itunes on a PC sounds like crap.
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