Windows XP or Windows 7?

Ahh Pettyofficer...try here:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/

Pettyofficer

Easy tiger.. ‘cause it is easy, once you get some more info.

A friend of mine, now retired, was a district super for IBM. With limited time on the job at IBM, and responsible for improving their training department, he noted quite readily , the reason they had so many bad managers was that the bad managers were doing the training. They were ill equipped to train or lead, for that matter.

That’s the lot we have daily now in our own existence. It’s everywhere. Lack of product knowledge and technical expertise, as well as apporpriate sales people is rampant. Half truths and facts unsaid are the soup du jour. I feel your pain.

But take it easy. It’s all going to work out . If you want it to.

The problem is/are the amount of choices the PC based music devotee has in front of them now. Wired. Wireless. File types. Lossless or lossey. Bit perfect or bit true same thing actually. Which media Player? Want to use a sound card output via SPDIF/BNC/AES ? Want to go USB OR FIREWIRE? Want to make the music available any where locally or just anywhere? What about file storage and archiving? Got a thousand CDs? More? Less? All of these factors play into making a very good or very inadequate decision initially.

and just how far into the rabbit hole do you want to go fidelity wise with your audio playback? This part alone indicates the budget primarily.

You’ve got a pc already,. Got a DAC? If so you’re half way there.

There’s tons of info here if you search the archives. This querry comes along a few times a month and I’m tired of laying it all out over and over again, truth be told. It’s all over the web too if you use the links supplied just so far in this thread.

The obvious Q I’d ask is just how serious are you about going fully PC based with your music? If you’re serious indeed, you’ll do some researching and then ask more pointed questions to which you’ll get cleaner answers.

The biggest dilemmas for me were which DAC to go with, and which way to feed it from the PC. I had no DAC to begin with and went along the hard way trial and error on my own. The DAC and how it’s fed are the two main keys for PC playback. Sound waulity depends on those and the systems abilities working in concert. Your media player and file type selection add in significantly, though not as much as the aforementioned..

My current XP box delivers for me in my main system, sound quality on par with CDPs which range in the $5K to $7K retail arenas..IMHO

Consequently, I feel a hard drive based music playback rig is worth some effort . And with a $5-6K CDP .. it’s one album at a time. With a PC affair, it’s whatever whenever, and as quick as you can type or click . Or you can revert and simply play the whole album just like it was a CDP.

Concentrate on the themes you see recurring and bypass the unique & one off aspects. It’s really not that tuff to figure this out. The more tedius aspect will be the ripping everything to your drive (s) with error checking applications and that’s not rocket science either..

The bit on Win 7 or XP gets simpler each month as support will soon be non existant for XP and then it becomes entirely a DIY project. It’ll be a while for Win 7’s support to pass by. For music? Both work very well. Until it’s necessary then, like getting a new box I’ll stick with XP.

Thanks for the response Blindjim. As far as getting reams of info off of the Internet, ahhh thats pretty much where I got the Article from the prementioned Professor. The guy who claims that Windows XP downsamples everything to 16Bit/44.1kHz. He claims that Windows XP should be avoided at all costs when converting a PC for Music Storage. That is only one of a whole litany of his suggestions. His Article was Archived on the Website of a Major National Stereo Magazine. It was backdated only 8 Months ago.
The truth is that I have gotten damn little acurate and reliable info off of the Internet, Archived or not! It is mostly misinformation based on opinion, ego, bragging rights, and damn little science or reason. Can't get a straight answer out of no-one, and the Internet only increases the flotsam of choices in misinformation. Computeraudiophile please! Not another blogging Superbowl of opinion based Debate Showdown! I am here to try and learn, not pick sides. I have already recieved one Major Gross Conceptual Error, a fatal one, from THAT RELIABLE SOURCE! Look, if I can atleast find three sources that agree on one thing, that might be reasonably reliable albeit without any guarantee. NO JOY so far! The Vacuum of concensus is mind numbing, and the Manufacturers/Experts
/Technocrats don't know or could care less! It would seem that the whole concept of PC based Music Storage is one based on confusion, misinformation, obfuscation, and misdirection. Is there even one PC or Laptop Manufacturer that has designed even one device that is optimized for Music Storage? Before I get thousands of replies, is there one that utilizes a linear Power Supply instead of a Switching Mode Power Supply that creates EMI/RFI on the output to your DAC? Any takers? It is really simple, a SMPS costs 1/10th of a Linear Power Supply to Manufacture. A linear Power Supply is what you will find in some of the best sounding Stereo Equipment due to the lack of switching noise in the Power Supply. In Computer Equipment, not so much, how about even just one. You wondered why your Music first sounded like crap when you connected your Computer to your Stereo System. Hey, the Manufacturers aren't exactly beating down the doors to get the first Laptop/PC optimized with a linear Power Supply for Music Storage on the market, now are they? It is just going to be another decade of one expensive bandaid after another of tiny incremental improvement with SMPS. The Manufacturers said it best when they said, "the PC was never really designed for Music Storage"! What they failed to mention was that they would be damned if they would ever design a PC for Music Storage. Do Music Servers utilize Switching Mode Power Supplies? Has anyone even bothered to find out? I will continue to try and crack the Enigma that is PC based Music Storage. I am NOT very encouraged! Shoot, I could practically pay a Technician to build a Linear Power Supply and replace that piece of crap on my Computer right now. I will keep digging into the Technical aspects of this Application.

Petty Officer,
Just click on the review link on Blindjim and follow the directions on his M2Tech review. You will have to google for instructions on setting up the defaults on the Exact Audio Copy and Foobar software. BTW I recomend Win7 for the advantages of Kernel streaming.
Good listening

Hmmmm.

Think about what you’ve just said . Personal confuser makers don’t make confusers dedicated to music . Nor will they . Maybe so. Maybe no.

Per se? you’re right on. Can there be one made? Absolutely. That’s what all the DIY’ing stuff online is all about. Some 3rd party sources ARE indeed making music server systems. Some even load your music into them.

The thing is audio nuts rate near nothing on the vast horizon of future PC buyers. Why then should the PC makers devote any time at all to our preferences, desires or needs? They shouldn’t and they won’t. it’s just good business sense.

Even if they were to offer some semblance of upper end audio machines, it’s doubtful one size would fit all anyhow! Some audio nut is going to want an extra this or one less that in the mix somewhere! Consequently we have to roll our own and get exactly what we want or very darn well close to it!

I’ll not support nor deny the claims of a windows os altering or downsampling native resolutions of music files. I will say for certain there are ways to avoid or prevent this from occuring . if indeed it does. i alluded to this in my earlier posts too.

I also said you can delve into the rabbit hole as deeply as you wish. Tricked out power sups, 64 bit system w/water or gas cooling shrouds, internal or externally damped cases, etc. The sky’s the limit, or your resources and imagination is your limit.

If at the Comp Audiophile website you simply read thru the FAQ section much info can be gained there. It is illuminated primarily by the sites host who is on the ball about comp audio on quite high levels. You could also refer to Gordon Rankins Wavelength Audio website. Lavry Engineering’s site too holds much wisdom. Those are where I began. Other’s of note are Weiss Engineering & Bel Canto. All of which are major players and have been doing this digital to analog conversion business for years and years. Rankin and Weiss philosophies take their bent on direct from pc audio streams via USB & Firewire, respectively.

BC & Lavry have long standing exp in just the conversion of digital audio streams taken from ANY such producing appliances. Lavry more so for the pro audio market until recently.

The media player you choose is important too. It must be able to accept particular input engines and as well outputs, in order to preserve pure audio streams from being affected by ANY OS . NOT just Windows.

The good news is that there are several which accommodate just these items. Fubar 2K, JR Media Center, Winamp, and some other one with Monkey in the title there’s more I believe.some are free some are not. An iTunes plugin called Amarra that handles high res file sampling rates and bit depths goes for hundreds of dollars and it’s aimed directly at the Mac owners.

I’ve concerned myself with what matters first. Added in what I wanted to accomplish and how much of all that I could afford and just jumped into the fray.

In many HE Audio devices I emphatically agree power sups are of key interest during this trek. I’ve even upgraded my own PC’s PS. I FOUND HOWEVER that is of such minimal benefit as to be no more than an afterthought of overkill. Especially IF all the processing is taking place outside of the PC itself . My setup does exactly that.

I’ve treated my PC sound system like any other source device. Better power cord. Galvonic isolation. Electrical isolation. Power line artifacts have been sufficiently addressed too. My box rests on a high mass well damped upper end audio rack. All the files are contained outboard of it and so is the digital to analog converter. Each portion of the signal path has received likewise treatment (s).

I currently use a broadband USB to BNC converter which passes unadulterated signals from 16/44 to 24/176.4 into a stand alone DAC thru an oyiade silver BNC cable.

I got the DAC for about $1700. The Hiface converter for $180. The oyaide BNC wire for $220. I’ll admit too my dual core PC was free, compliments of the V.A.. Otherwise that box runs about $400 - $500. A 1TB NAS server @ $250. A USB/eSATA enclosure for $25 and $110 for the 1.5 TB drive within it for 1:1 backups.

Power & interconnect cables are whatever one wishes to or not to spend. So to is the system all of this will ultimately feed.

So at about $3K (not including racks, cables, or power conds) I’ve surpassed many twice the price disc spinners in sound quality, versatility, and functionality. Other multi media functions are surely available too should I desire to pursue them . And I can use all the ancillary and mundane functions Bill Gates intended.

Another debatable step up here could be adding a Lynx AES 16 PCIe card and a reclocker. Another $1000 or so. But I’ve seen no concrete evidence nor subjective evidence that such a step would be a prudent or even worthwhile one to endure.

The better move is to upgrade my DAC or replace it. As the DAC is the keystone in the PC music based arrangement.

You could just reroute your Ethernet cable to a $300 Airport express and be done too.

It’s all up to you. I’d not be to despondent or aggravated about the often perceived confusion surrounding the PC based array. I’m sure you are smart enough to figure out what’s best for your needs along the way.

Any more pointed questions you have which I can answer for you feel free to E me privately.

Good luck....