An Affordable Music Server

[speakerdave]

Have you tried bypassing the BUC-1? In my system this sounds pretty darned good and no problem yet.


Widget

Haven't tried it, no. Where is your master clock? As I understand it, the computer clock may not be the most steady. I assume that is Bryston's reason for making the BUC-1 asynchronous. Or am I missing something here?

Apparently my problem was in the computer, and restarting it has been the remedy.

[Mr. Widget]

Haven't tried it, no. Where is your master clock? As I understand it, the computer clock may not be the most steady. I assume that is Bryston's reason for making the BUC-1 asynchronous. Or am I missing something here?

Apparently my problem was in the computer, and restarting it has been the remedy.

No master clock... I let the BDA-1 reclock the incoming signal. Sounds pretty good to me. Could it be better? Probably... possibly?

Glad to hear the reboot cleared this up. Computers that are run 24/7 do need a hard reboot every so often.


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[rusty jefferson]

It's unfortunate for us (the consumers) in some ways that digital devices are introduced and then obsoleted within weeks. If we can wait a few more weeks, we'll be rewarded with better sounding products.

Slightly newer products like the BDP-2 (and others) will sound better via USB directly than using the S/PDIF converter, which I think is Mr. Widget's query about eliminating the converter. Newer DACs reclock at the USB input. I think there's a concensus in "high end" only the Alpha USB converter sounds better than running direct to a USB DAC from a Mini, or CAPS, etc.

I'm not a fan of USB DACs in general, as I feel there is frequently "noise" from the computer that "dulls" the sound quality compared to the original CD source, but they are getting better all the time and cheaper. Something like the iFi Micro iDSD DAC (about $350) will likely outperform (sadly) the nice Bryston S/PDIF converter and DAC you're using.

[speakerdave]

Maybe I should try running direct into the BDA-1. Both the BUC-1 and the BDP constitute an extra stage before the DAC via S/PDIF. Are you saying that the BUC-1 is a kludge having some design brain fart that was corrected in the BDP? Or are we talking about a price point?

I just read about the Berkeley Alpha converter. Lots of heroic measures deployed to resuscitate the patient.

[rusty jefferson]

Sorry, I meant BDA-2 in my last post, not BDP-2.

You'll have to try it. The BDA-1 appears to only have USB 1.1 and is limited to 48khz. With the converter you can play Hirez files, but if you're only playing 44.1 files it may sound better without the converter. Most everything being made now is optimized for USB right from the server or the network player.

[speakerdave]

Sorry, I meant BDA-2 in my last post, not BDP-2.

You'll have to try it. The BDA-1 appears to only have USB 1.1 and is limited to 48khz. With the converter you can play Hirez files, but if you're only playing 44.1 files it may sound better without the converter. Most everything being made now is optimized for USB right from the server or the network player.

Ok. I did have that sense from the beginning that the BDA-2 followed very closely on the -1, and I agree, one chassis is very likely better than two, even if for no other reason than the multiplicity of connections, other things being equal. You are right, also, that i am playing exclusively ripped CD's, so I will try skipping the BUC-1.

Damn.

[speakerdave]

After more listening last evening I need to say that from that perspective I am certainly not unhappy with the sound, and it is a rule that I avoid chasing incremental improvements for their own sake. From the perspective of The Game one wants to get that last little bit of fidelity, but at some point I let that rest. Indeed, my original and continuing goal is simply to be able to listen to music without irritation from unignorable deficiencies of reproduction and the syllogistic denial mantras one employs to stave off looking for improvements. Beyond that, I have been for some time guilty of satisfying curiosity all too often.

To try the USB input on the BDA-1 I need to rearrange my set up, because the distance from my Mac mini is probably a stretch for USB signal. In the meantime I'm going to have to indulge curiosity and do a little exploring into hirez downloads.

Rusty, Widget--thank you for the guidance.

[Audiobeer]

What a great thread. I've been using the Mac Mini.

[Val]

A few years back, after the cat knocked my daughter's Apple late 2009 Macbook four feet to the ground breaking the screen, my media server was born. My daughter got a new laptop for college and I got a media server. My "monitor" is my 60" TV routed through my AVR. My output is thru a low end DAC, Schitt Modi gifted to me from a friend. And then iTunes and Remote. No great shakes but it works for me.

However, I find that there are two weird things about iTunes that perplex me.

First, is that as a media delivery vehicle, iTunes can handle 384k/32bit content no problem. Yet, does iTunes Store sell any lossless content? No. I had an email exchange with the product manager for Mastered for iTunes and they have no plans to move to lossless audio. Their thinking is that you can't tell the difference. Seems odd that the bucket (iTunes app) is capable but their content pipeline cannot take advantage of it. Oh well. I've completely stopped buying content from Apple preferring ripping hard media in AIFF or purchasing from HDTracks.

Second, under Apple's OS/X operating system, when iTunes plays back a music track, it looks at the format of the track itself, and then looks at the settings of the output device. If the settings do not match, iTunes will automatically convert the file from its own ‘native’ format to the format which the output device has been set to. If you paid for 96/24 version of Nirvana and your midi setting is at something lower, OSX down converts. Not good. BitPerfect, a $10 app, will automatically keep the output resolution in sync with the content format. Really, OSX should take care of this as a native feature of the OS but I'm happy for BitPerfect. So, don't buy music with that iTunes gift card, get BitPerfect.

Lovely thread...I like hearing about what folks are doing.

[Mr. Widget]

Agreed on Bit Perfect and also about the iTunes Music Store. I have never bought any music from the iTunes Store and even deleted the free U2 album they dumped on us a few years back.

Obviously we are outliers however as millions of tracks have been sold to people preferring convenience to quality... but then for the most part they are listening through tiny Bluetooth speakers anyway.



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[Soloford]

I started my music server maybe 15 years ago. It currently consists of a small computer with 1 terabyte storage, Windows Media Player and a Prodigy Cube as the sound card. Windows media player lets me rip cd's to a variety of data densities up to and including lossless. I have something like 850 thousand songs so far, and maybe a hundred playlists, using about half of the hard drive. The complete library has been edited once so far to eliminate all one and two star ratings ( the songs that I didn't really care for).

I recorded (ripped) everything to 192kbps initially so that I can make thumb drives of any playlist to carry in the car (which only supports a max of 192's on wma files). Additionally, I re-ripped a lot of my cd's to lossless for playing in the house which sometimes gives me two copies of the same song or cd.

The Cube has three output modes...RCA, digital coax and digital optical. The coax and the optical provide better sound quality than the RCA output. The RCA and the digital coax can be split to provide more direct feeds into more sound systems. I am currently running 4 systems from it. The Cube also supports headphones.

The computer is silent and small. Windows provides all meta data relative to the music (album covers, track numbers, song titles, recording artist, contributing artist, etc.) All I have to do upon ripping is assign my own star rating to the song. And put it into a playlist if I want to at that time. Having the meta data is helpful for churning the data base for possible new playlists. I've migrated the entire library twice. I have physical backup on external terabyte hard drives.

(One thing ...if you have to migrate playlists you have to use move instead of copy...which destroys the backup, so you must have two backups when migrating. If you use copy...the playlists lose their references. Move creates new references so the playlist still plays. Just saying...)

This offers me a great deal of flexibility as far as changing system components and peace of mind relative to loss of data, has been relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain.

And really great sound.

[Ed Zeppeli]

(One thing ...if you have to migrate playlists you have to use move instead of copy...which destroys the backup, so you must have two backups when migrating. If you use copy...the playlists lose their references. Move creates new references so the playlist still plays. Just saying...)

I used to use a free utility app from microsoft called Synctoy which was great for doing back-ups. It may be a good solution to this.


Cheers,

Warren