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Topic: Hard Drive Media Players? (Read 9207 times) previous topic - next topic
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Hard Drive Media Players?

I listen to my digital music (in FLAC) through an external hard drive connected to a laptop (with Foobar as the media player) which in turn is connected to an analogue amp via a jack to phone cable. Recently I've been reading about Hard Drive Media Players and wonder what advantages, if any, they would have over the way my music is already delivered. Any ideas?

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #1 –
check out Squeezebox products. The TOUCH that will come out any day now evidently might be particularly useful.

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Release_Notes
http://forums.slimdevices.com/index.php
http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/products/overview.html

Highly recommended. Good forum and good products. I have the Transporter, two Booms, a SB3, and a duet. Will buy the TOUCH soon as well. All can access the same music library and either play synched together or each player can play a different tune.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #2 –
Thanks. Sounds interesting. Will definitely have a look into this.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #3 –
You still need to leave your computer on and hard drive sinning for Squeezebox to work. Please explain how this is an improvement over playing direct from the laptop.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Notat on
You still need to leave your computer on and hard drive sinning for Squeezebox to work. Please explain how this is an improvement over playing direct from the laptop.


With the new SqueezeBox Touch, which is finally shipping now, you can plug the hard drive directly to the player, so you won't need to keep a computer running.

If running from a laptop directly works for you, that's great, you don't need anything more.

But since the OP specifically mentioned FLAC, it is likely that he/she cares about audio quality, in which case the SqueezeBox family of products with their reasonably high quality built in DACs give excellent analogue output. They also have optical and coaxial digital outputs if you wish to connect to an external DAC or receiver. And of course there are a whole bunch of control options such as the supplied IR controller, the Logitech/SlimDevices WiFi Controller, and apps for iPod Touch/iPhone/Android, etc, etc.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: lear01 on
I listen to my digital music (in FLAC) through an external hard drive connected to a laptop (with Foobar as the media player) which in turn is connected to an analogue amp via a jack to phone cable. Recently I've been reading about Hard Drive Media Players and wonder what advantages, if any, they would have over the way my music is already delivered. Any ideas?


I would keep your current set-up if it works for you but instead of using a jack to phono cable I would try plugging the usb output of your laptop into an outboard dac such as the Cambridge Audio DacMagic (there are many others of course...):

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=320

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Frenchy 2 on
Quote from: lear01 on
I listen to my digital music (in FLAC) through an external hard drive connected to a laptop (with Foobar as the media player) which in turn is connected to an analogue amp via a jack to phone cable. Recently I've been reading about Hard Drive Media Players and wonder what advantages, if any, they would have over the way my music is already delivered. Any ideas?


I would keep your current set-up if it works for you but instead of using a jack to phono cable I would try plugging the usb output of your laptop into an outboard dac such as the Cambridge Audio DacMagic (there are many others of course...):

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=320


agree. I prefer the Squeezebox solution myself, but at a minimum, getting the music outside the  laptop (a noisy environment) is a good idea. Before the squeezeboxes, I used foobar2000 in a laptop > S/PDIF Coax to Benchmark DAC > preamp > amp. I find I like the DAC in my transporter as much as the Benchmark DAC. Tests over on the squeezebox forums indicate that the TOUCH is very high quality digital music transport for about 1/4 the cost of the Transporter.

p.s. One thing I really like is that in the laptop > DAC setup I still had conversion going on with my sound card (from 44.1 to 48) no matter what I did. With the SB, the soundcard is NOT involved at all, so 44.1 stays 44.1, etc.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #7 –
Can anyone substantiate this oft-repeated claim that due to a "noisy environment" a DAC inside a PC is at a fundamental disadvantage over one in an external box. I'm suspect that these days there are some internal DACs with excellent performance and some external DACs that are not so good. Anyone done any measurements recently?

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Notat on
Can anyone substantiate this oft-repeated claim that due to a "noisy environment" a DAC inside a PC is at a fundamental disadvantage over one in an external box. I'm suspect that these days there are some internal DACs with excellent performance and some external DACs that are not so good. Anyone done any measurements recently?


http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=690732

I have not measured it, but it is about like a somewhat worn LP.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Notat on
Can anyone substantiate this oft-repeated claim that due to a "noisy environment" a DAC inside a PC is at a fundamental disadvantage over one in an external box. I'm suspect that these days there are some internal DACs with excellent performance and some external DACs that are not so good. Anyone done any measurements recently?


You don't even need anything recent: http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/lynxtwo/index.html - that was eight years ago
Since then there have been plenty of other (cheaper) cards that perform very well living inside a PC housing.

(Of course, given that lear01 has a laptop, one might still suggest an external audio-interface because some laptops ship with somewhat sub-optimal audio onboard... but I guess for recent hardware, I would say that if the output is not obviously flawed, don't bother replacing it.)

Quote from: Porcus on
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=690732

I have not measured it, but it is about like a somewhat worn LP.


That doesn't sound like a bus-contention issue to me (wouldn't that cause skipping instead?), more like poor power supply to the expansion cards - I've had a motherboard like that too. When you scroll and the graphics board gets busy, the voltage drops. What helped was moving the audio card to a different slot.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #10 –
For best sound it's also good to keep fans and disk drives, with their mechanical noise, out of the room.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Patsoe on
That doesn't sound like a bus-contention issue to me (wouldn't that cause skipping instead?), more like poor power supply to the expansion cards - I've had a motherboard like that too. When you scroll and the graphics board gets busy, the voltage drops. What helped was moving the audio card to a different slot.

Could have also been a grounding problem either internal or external. I don't think there's an intrinsic problem putting audio in a CPU environment - the RF noise can be a non-issue with differential signaling and proper grounding. Some days I think I'd rather have a computer designer do my audio circuits. Many of the analog/audio people design more from an aesthetic POV than from circuit theory. Downside is that the computer guys aren't accustom to measuring performance - they're used to digital where if it works, it's good.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #12 –
Thank you all for your comments and advice. While I am not completely up to speed on the technical side, I do now understand the advantage of using a DAC and that seems the way to go to improve audio quality (more about that below).
As my digital music is played in 'room 1', a Squeezebox Touch installed to my hi-fi in 'room 2' would make sense as this can be received wirelessly. Now, if I connect a DAC to the system in 'room 1', I presume the system in 'room 2' is going to receive a 'pre-DAC' signal. How can I overcome this? Is it possible to improve the internal DAC in the laptop? I get the impression that an external DAC is preferrable, but in my case an internal DAC may be more practical.
That's what I like about HA, every question opens a can of worms!!!

Edit: Just noticed Labchip's comment above about Squeezebox having a decent internal DAC. I presume this applies also to the Touch. In which case my problem is solved (I think). I'll be receiving a 'post DAC' signal in both rooms. Right???

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: lear01 on
I listen to my digital music (in FLAC) through an external hard drive connected to a laptop (with Foobar as the media player) which in turn is connected to an analogue amp via a jack to phone cable.

Quote from: lear01 on
Thank you all for your comments and advice. While I am not completely up to speed on the technical side, I do now understand the advantage of using a DAC and that seems the way to go to improve audio quality

Unless there is something wrong with the audio quality you are currently getting, you shouldn't expect to hear any difference at all by switching to a DAC. It may be slightly louder or quieter at the same volume setting, but that is all.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #14 –
Asus O!Play Audio formats supported : MP3, WAV, AAC, OGG, FLAC, AIFF, Dolby Digital AC3, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS Digital Surround & ID3 Tags
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #15 –
Right. My digital audio quality, I think, sounds pretty good. My collection consists of my own ripped cd's and vinyl. I've audibly compared the originals versus laptop and can find no significant difference in sound quality. If an external DAC is only going to give me statistical improvement over audible improvement then I'm happy to leave it as is. If I did decide to upgrade the internal DAC though, how is this done? Is it found on the soundcard and would you just replace the whole card with a better one? Interesting though, 2tec's reply brought this thread back round in a circle. I think I need to weigh up whether to have a Touch or hd media player in room 2. I suppose my answer would depend on whether audio quality is compromised by the wireless signal.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #16 –
Quote from: lear01 on
I suppose my answer would depend on whether audio quality is compromised by the wireless signal.


Audio quality is not compromised by WIFI so long as you have a good WIFI connection. So it will not be as if you have low quality or high quality. You will have good streams with no buffering or stopping of stream or you will have bad stream (bad wifi) with constant buffering, etc. Plenty of people stream FLAC files to their squeezeboxes and even certain hirez files that require bit perfect to play (and these work with WIFI).

Also, see the squeezebox forums. Quite a bit of testing on the TOUCH indicates a very good quality DAC in the TOUCH. And yes, when you stream to the squeezeboxes in your other room, they receive the digital data, and the squeezebox will convert to analog (with its own DAC) that then plays through your audio system in that room.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: greynol on
What kind of testing?  They really need to be double-blind if you're going to echo claims of good or bad quality on this forum.


sloppy language on my part. Perhaps a better statement is that there is discussion on the squeezebox forums about users' experience with the TOUCH (the beta testers), including reporting of certain non-ABX measurements on digital outputs, analog outputs, etc.

Hard Drive Media Players?

Reply #19 –
I hope you don't feel singled out since you are not the only person here who has suggested that something is good, bad or better with links to reviews that do not seem to employ double-blind testing.  I have a feeling none of these external sources would hold up if they were presented on this forum.

Quote from: B.Fink on
it also matters to just listen to some music and make a subjective comparison.
It doesn't matter here, B.Fink.  If you don't believe me, review our Terms of Service to which you agreed upon registering.  Subjective comparisons such as those in the link you gave are worthless here!