Please Help!! looking to get into computer audio.

You might want to look at a used Antipodes Audio DS server they are spectacular
and their customer service is incredible.

Sorry - correction

" And, sure, I would rather have an async usb DAC rather than a SYNC one. "

I am also a little confused by all this. I have a large LP/CD library. My turntable desperately needs upgrading but I have an excellent universal disc player (Ayre). I have an Oppo BDP-105D which is not such a great disc player to my ears but works fine with USB and streaming Tidal. Here's my dilemma: If a music download can't equal the sound I can get from a SACD or DVD-A then it's not worth bothering with to me. I have downloaded a couple of HD Tracks albums in FLAC 192/24 and they sound very good but the files are HUGE, more than 5 GB. My entire music catalog in this format would require an entire farm of HDD's which seems like a sideways shift from physical media. Secondly, these downloads are pretty pricey IMHO, especially when you consider I can pick up mint condition used LP's, SACD's, DVD-A's, and what-not from sites like Discogs. I know that everyone more knowledgeable than I are making the shift so I must be missing something.

Gee @dtc it took a lot of typing before you got what I was saying and got mad at me for it.

I like ASRC by the way, and buffering and stuff like that. I don’t think the engineers at Bryston are crap. I just don’t think all jitter reduction solutions are equally good which is what I thought you wrote. There is a reason why the next generation incorporated Asynch-USB 2.0

I’m very happy that over the past decade or so Asynch-USB and high resolution audio have become so important that Macs and Linux now incorporate a standard USB 2.0 audio driver as part of their distributions. This is much better than the dark ages of Synch-USB or Asynch but with custom drivers needed.


Best,

Erik

@brenro I'm not sure what your core problem is though. :)  Are you saying you don't like downloads? If so, you are exactly the sort of person MQA was designed for. It offers to compress high resolution audio several fold without loss.

The Ayre IS a very nice player. How are you hooking it and the Oppo up to your sound though?  Is it analog out or are you using a DAC? 

I like the video and anime performance of Oppo, but um, not a fan of their internal DAC's. At least on the 103, I can't hear any benefit at all of SACD. However, the 105 has Asynch-USB 2.0 so it should make a great source for just about any outboard DAC.