Recommendation for Computer/Digital

Hi Karavite -

Ya know, there are Mac people and there are PC people. EAC/FLAC/Foobar is clearly a good way to go but it puts a certain onus on the user to make it all work. iTunes on the other hand does the work for you. There is an ongoing debate about whether Apple Lossless (ALAC) or any lossless format for that matter which would include FLAC, can be as good as an uncompressed, unprocessed WAV or AIFF file - this seems to come mostly from the PC side because there is some evidence that ALAC doesn't work as well on PCs as it does on a Mac. As best as I can tell, these are very small differences, not gross ones - I have no first hand experience since PCs give me a rash...

If you are truly persnickety and have a highly resolving system you might compare ALAC and WAV and decide for yourself. The problem actually comes with the way the various file formats handle metadata (called tags) such as album info, artwork etc. ALAC integrates beautifully with iTunes - you have a single, easy to use application that makes it easy to manage every aspect of the experience.

For my part I'll leave the rest on the table.

Hi Ckorody,

Yes, I just discovered the inability of .wav files to contain metadata. Good thing I found out before ripping all my CD's! :-) One thing confuses me - I do have a few CD's ripped into iTunes as wavs (I have iTunes set to import as wav) and yet, these CD's have information on them within iTunes (album, artist...). Is it that iTunes does some type of propiertary "meta tagging" when importing CD's as WAV (or any format), but that the same information would be lost when those same wav files are accessed by something like the SqueezeBox software?

I'm going to do it. When I get my modded SB3 all set up, I will try a "blindfold" AB between ALAC and wav just for kicks. Do you think any human could tell the difference? If ALAC is lossless, then I am not sure how that could be.

I've been hard-disk based for a few years now, and last year I bought a Wavelength Cosecant USB DAC. Absolutely stellar sound quality, minimal hassle. I screwed around with audio interfaces and DAC's for my first year before just getting something that worked well in a single box.

The Cosecant is different in that there's no upsampling/oversampling, no digital filters, just the pure sound from the source. If you've read about the 47 labs Shigaraki and how pure it sounds, the Cosecant is similar in design principle.

It works - there are several of us that have replaced five-figure CD players with Cosecants. My last cdp was a Naim CDX2/XPS2 and the Cosecant betters it by a large margin.

Hi -

I am not sure about the nuances of the tagging issue but clearly it can be a bear. iTunes (which is a database program at its core) - has its own data management scheme for storing the Gracenote data. (Gracenote is the databased that iTunes hooks up to in order to retrieve all the information it populates when you rip a CD, except for album art.)

Based on some quick research it seems that "the Itunes software can store the Gracenote data in it's database instead of storing it a file tag, but then if you switch players (or the itunes database is corrupted) you lose the data from Gracenote (can't move the Gracenote data to another player like you can with true file tags)."

As far as the SB goes - it automatically imports data from iTunes - at least ALAC. I am not sure if it gets it al (eg the composer) but it certainly gets anything you might reasonably need to find and play a cut. But just for the record, though the two applications share a passing resemblance, iTunes is a much more powerful database.

For simplicity, I always create my playlists in iTunes, then access them from the SB. I also find this works well on the iPod. IMHO neither the SB remote display nor the iPod are very convenient for sorting through large collections quickly - and SB software has no facility for creating Smart Playlists.

Finally, I have no idea if any human can tell the difference but please report your findings - there is no doubt that the online community is split on this one! Classic case of YMMV...

For audio, Linux is your best setup. You can configure the kernal for zero latency, which is something you cannot do with other platforms. Then use 'CD Paranoia' to read the CD onto the hard drive. Playing the CD back at that point you will have all the bits and with careful soundcard selection, as close to zero jitter as is possible. This is the best sounding transport we've heard so far and the process is cheap to set up.

This setup works with the Squeezbox, plus it is a Linux platform so it is very stable and secure (no viurses, worms, etc.).