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Topic: ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here! (Read 6396 times) previous topic - next topic
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ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Hey guys, over the last few months I have been upgrading my hifi system, with my most recent purchase being an Arcam A18 amp.  Now it's time to upgrade my source. 

Speaking to some Linn fans they recommended either a used Ikemi CD player or said the future was the Sneaky DS media player.  Sadly both these options cost around £1,000 and I'm hoping to set up a source for a third of that. 

However, the idea of a media player did get me thinking the concept of digital music. 

Currently my only digital music is on the iPod - audio wise it is utter rubbish but obviously useful for when I'm on the move.  Thing is when I plug it into my stereo the sound is so bad yet the ease of use of iTunes is great.  The quality improves when I use the laptop as a source but it's still poor.  I would love to have the best of both worlds and create a digital source that actually is high quality and easy to use/set up. 

Would the following be possible/work well?

Store all music as ALAC in an old Apple TV 160gb, connected by optical TosLink to a Cambridge Audio DacMagic and then to the amp - using my iPod touch to wirelessly control the Apple TV unit and the play lists. 

Would the Apple TV send an ALAC signal to the DacMagic or would it adjust/change the level of compression before hand.  Can the DacMagic even work with the output from Apple TV?

Currently no one can give me answers to any of these and I'm constantly getting3 responses (both in stores and online): (1) - people with no hi-fi interest who say lossless is of no benefit, that I won't be able to tell the difference and should jsut get a glorified iPod docking station, (2) - computer experts who run software featuring many acronyms that I don't know doing things I don't understand anc ould never hope to replicate, (3) - big audio nuts who keep recommending me amazing Linn/Niam systems running through 802D's etc etc which is so far out of my budget it's not funny!!


Apologies for such a lengthy first post, thanks for taking time to read it.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #1 –
Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
... the iPod - audio wise it is utter rubbish ...
... The quality improves when I use the laptop as a source but it's still poor.


In Hydrogenaudio, comments like this will put you in trouble. Of course there are measurable differences, but your statements do not correspond to objective tests done. (Terms of service 8 ask for evidence of quality statements)


Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
Store all music as ALAC in an old Apple TV 160gb, connected by optical TosLink to a Cambridge Audio DacMagic and then to the amp - using my iPod touch to wirelessly control the Apple TV unit and the play lists.


It could be a good solution, if you have all that you describe (I am completely anti-Apple because of phylosophycal reasons, but the solution as proposed should work).

Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
Would the Apple TV send an ALAC signal to the DacMagic or would it adjust/change the level of compression before hand.  Can the DacMagic even work with the output from Apple TV?


You will get a decompressed signal out of Apple TV.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #2 –

Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
... the iPod - audio wise it is utter rubbish ...
... The quality improves when I use the laptop as a source but it's still poor.


In Hydrogenaudio, comments like this will put you in trouble. Of course there are measurable differences, but your statements do not correspond to objective tests done. (Terms of service 8 ask for evidence of quality statements)[\quote]


Not here to offend anyone, I'm just telling it is I see it. I obviously had not encountered the hydrogenaudio thread mentioned before, although I stand by my original statement- using my iPod as a source is the weak link in the system. Of course if you can show me how I can turn my iPod into the same quality source as a linn sneaky ds I'll more than happily buy you and the forums a beer or two given that you'll have saved me £1,000. 

Will any dac work with the apple's output or will it need to be something with access to apple technology? 

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #3 –
You're not offending anyone, it's just that statements like those require evidence... If I say both my iPod Touch and Classic are very good players, and sound excellent (which I and most here do), how do we know who is right?

If you recognize these people as "nuts":

Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
(3) - big audio nuts who keep recommending me amazing Linn/Niam systems running through 802D's etc etc which is so far out of my budget it's not funny!!


Then why would you assume that they're right about those multi-thousand $$ pieces of equipment being any better?

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #4 –
Unfortunately, I think that you have not yet understood what the Terms of Service (TOS) stand for here at hydrogenaudio.

Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
Not here to offend anyone, I'm just telling it is I see it. I obviously had not encountered the hydrogenaudio thread mentioned before, although I stand by my original statement- using my iPod as a source is the weak link in the system.
You can stand by your statements, but they will be ignored or deleted if you do not support them with suitable double blind testing results.
lossyWAV -q X -a 4 -s h -A --feedback 2 --limit 15848 --scale 0.5 | FLAC -5 -e -p -b 512 -P=4096 -S- (having set foobar to output 24-bit PCM; scaling by 0.5 gives the ANS headroom to work)

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Nick.C on
Unfortunately, I think that you have not yet understood what the Terms of Service (TOS) stand for here at hydrogenaudio.

Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
Not here to offend anyone, I'm just telling it is I see it. I obviously had not encountered the hydrogenaudio thread mentioned before, although I stand by my original statement- using my iPod as a source is the weak link in the system.
You can stand by your statements, but they will be ignored or deleted if you do not support them with suitable double blind testing results.


Ok, I'll say my iPod is superb quality, right up there with the best. Nonetheless I'd appreciate some friendly support with my query rather than being shot down for not supporting every subjective post with empirical evidence.

I'll happily follow up my previous post and buy anyone a beer who helps me set up a hi fidelity source. I've provided every contact the forum asks for and am more than happy to go with a forum recommendation and invite local members over to do a sound test against my iPod, laptop and any other source anyone wishes to bring.

But excluding needing data to voice my opinions on this forum I'd still appreciate some advice as to set up a system that'll supply as good a source as possible to my system. I don't know whether digital is any good hence I'm here, but fortunately I've experienced linn sondeks, cd12, naim, cello through to the lower end of marantz, mission, a&r, Cyrus etc and have been able to judge varying levels of quality and clarity that improve the listening experience and am looking to take that next step into digital sources.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #6 –
Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
I've experienced linn sondeks, cd12, naim, cello through to the lower end of marantz, mission, a&r, Cyrus etc and have been able to judge varying levels of quality and clarity that improve the listening experience and am looking to take that next step into digital sources.

Part of the point of people telling you about TOS8 is to inform you that you can't be a very good judge of what you hear when you know ahead of time to what it is that you're listening.  Until you can objectively demonstrate otherwise, there is no reason to believe anything is better than something else, your iPod included.

Seeing that it will be difficult, if not impossible to justify buying any additional equipment to play my digital files in order to improve sound quality, I would be relieved to be given this information, personally.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #7 –
@funkstardeluxe: What I tried to say (and the goal of TOS #8) is that these forums are kept clean of oppinions and instead is filled with correctly done tests and facts.  The truth is that saying "my iPod is superb quality" is as problematic here than saying "audio wise it is utter rubbish".

We are giving you these advices to maintain the quality of these forums.



About your setup. As I've said, the Apple TV solution may work.
Also, any laptop with digital out should be able to send the audio in perfect quality too (bit-perfect output). There are cheap (in the order of 50$) USB soundcards which are this good.

Audio quality, in the last decade or so has been as high that the hardware of a 30$ MP3 player can provide as good quality as a good CD player of the 90s.
In the same line, MP3 can be as good quality that it can't be distinguished easily from its CD counterpart.
Of course, if you have the space, using lossless codecs like ALAC is good (and you can always convert it to other formats without worries), but it is important to learn that neither an MP3 player nor MP3 itself are defective by design.

(ok, mp3 has some unavoidable problems that AAC/MP4 improve upon, but that's another issue).

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #8 –
The iPod Touch can presumably send bit-perfect through Airplay, when raising the volume to the max, turning off EQ and Soundcheck. Not that it will make an audible difference when you do those.

I myself tried with a DTS WAV file, played it on my Touch, and output through optical on the Airport Express, and the receiver detected and decoded a DTS signal. I do get artifacts though (still working on why I get them), but it's very close to bit-perfect since it does decode the music in the end.

So there... bit-perfectness is the holy grail of (digital) audiophilia, no? No extra equipment required.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #9 –
Quote from: andy o on
The iPod Touch can presumably send bit-perfect through Airplay, when raising the volume to the max, turning off EQ and Soundcheck. Not that it will make an audible difference when you do those.

I myself tried with a DTS WAV file, played it on my Touch, and output through optical on the Airport Express, and the receiver detected and decoded a DTS signal. I do get artifacts though (still working on why I get them), but it's very close to bit-perfect since it does decode the music in the end.

So there... bit-perfectness is the holy grail of (digital) audiophilia, no? No extra equipment required.


Thanks, that sounds like a good suggestion. It's the quality/rate that is sent that I don't understand ie my local apple store said that airplay would step down the signal so in effect alac would not be sent through a wi fi connection. Although I would assume an optical connection from the apple tv 160 to a dac would presumably send alac which a dacmagic could de-code and the iPod touch can act as a remote. It's just a case of the dac being able to de-code alac.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #10 –
I don't think the DacMagic is capable of decoding ALAC (or anything else for that matter).  Feel free to check the website at your own risk (it pegged my BS meter).

Quote
Adapted Time Filtering (ATF) asynchronous upsampling technology might sound complicated but the benefits are instantly audible. Essentially it converts 16-24 bit audio to 24 bit/192kHz so you hear so much more from compressed material. Meanwhile a 32 bit Digital Signal Processor (DSP) eradicates jitter which is especially effective with hard disk playback from PCs or Macintosh computers. Whether your digital music collection is stored on a PC or you use a network music client – Squeezebox™, SoundBridge™, Sonos™ etc - the difference in audible quality is incredible!

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #11 –
The Apple TV will do the decoding and send the decoded PCM through its optical connection, so that's also viable. I'm not sure if there's any standard to bitstream ALAC through a cable (supposedly Airplay does exactly that though).

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #12 –
Quote from: funkstardeluxe on
It's the quality/rate that is sent that I don't understand ie my local apple store said that airplay would step down the signal so in effect alac would not be sent through a wi fi connection.


They were wrong. As far as I understand, Airplay does on-the-fly ALAC compression, sends, and then decodes at the destination (Airport Express, Apple TV, etc.). I haven't seen hard evidence that it's compressed/decompressed to/from ALAC, but what actually is known and it can be tested, is that the PCM is transmitted losslessly.

Quote
Although I would assume an optical connection from the apple tv 160 to a dac would presumably send alac which a dacmagic could de-code and the iPod touch can act as a remote. It's just a case of the dac being able to de-code alac.

The Apple TV would decode your files in whatever iPod format they are, including ALAC, and then send the PCM through SPDIF to your DAC.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #14 –
I've always been curious about this myself, so I did a quick test with my Mac mini streaming to my Airport Express, monitoring network usage in Activity Monitor:

- Brian Eno & Harold Budd - Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror - 01 - First Light (256 kb/s MP3): network bandwidth ~65 kB/s (520 kb/s); ALAC file = 454 kb/s

- full-scale pink noise generated in Audacity (16/44 WAV - 1411 kb/s): network bandwidth ~167 kB/s (1336 kb/s); ALAC file = 1240 kb/s (same exact network bandwidth when playing back LAME V2-encoded MP3 @ 180 kb/s)

Hardly scientific, I realize, but, allowing for network overhead, it would appear that AirPlay does indeed do on-the-fly ALAC conversion.
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #15 –
I am pretty sure that Apple's AirPlay setups transmit everything via ALAC.  So iTunes (or whatever device you are using to send the AirPlay unit audio) will transcode on-the-fly to ALAC, that will be processed by the AirPlay unit, transcoded on-the-fly to PCM, and then output the audio. That was all true back in the day when Apple first introduced their AirPlay Express base station, I don't know if it is true now but Apple hasn't issued a firmware update for their AirPlay devices in a while so I don't think things have changed.  Wi-fi, even 802.11b, has more than enough bandwidth for ALAC audio so I am nOt sure why an Apple employee would think otherwise.  It is a shame whenever a stor employs someone who doesn't fully comprehend their products.

The AppleTV setup will work as the device will transcode ALAC to stereo PCM when outputting it via a digital connection.  Just know that the most you will be able to do is control the AppleTV with your iPod.  Only the second generation AppleTV has the ability to stream content directly off of an iDevice.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #17 –
Quote from: greynol on
Why convert lossy in order to stream ALAC when you can just stream lossy?  Without evidence I am quite skeptical that this is the way it works.


Probably saves them quite a bit per device by not paying the mpeg license fees.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #18 –
Quote from: greynol on
Why convert lossy in order to stream ALAC when you can just stream lossy?  Without evidence I am quite skeptical that this is the way it works.



Just to standardize a bitperfect workflow: [everything a software (actually only iTunes) on the sending device can decode  (lossy or not)] -> [ALAC (loseless or anyway not worse than the source codec)] -> [Airport Express] -> [amp]. 
This way on the AE firmware only a codec is needed and the implementation could be HW fully optimized (but this latter is just an educated guess of mine).
... I live by long distance.

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #19 –
Thanks for the responses guys, all very helpful. 

 

ALAC hi-fi set up - novice here!

Reply #20 –
Quote from: greynol on
Why convert lossy in order to stream ALAC when you can just stream lossy?  Without evidence I am quite skeptical that this is the way it works.

What I wonder myself is if ALAC is decoded and then reencoded again for transmission, which would seem like a waste of resources for something like the iOS devices. If ALAC is sent without being decoded first, it could improve battery life compared to lossy. Maybe a few battery tests are in order, but battery life is freakishly long on these devices when they're only playing music with the screen off.