re: J Play 5.1 - 2 Box on Win 8 with ULTRA Mode & Hibernate ON
Is that so? Then I wonder why so many methods of playing back audio over a computer, internal sound card , external usb to spdif converters (entirely new category, not existent until 2 - 3 years ago) the one that Bhagwan is referring to....
No, sid, my first first decent sound card has tolslink digital in and out, and when I bought it, it was a good deal because the model was
already obsolescent. I think that was about 2002 or 2003. I had minidsik stuff, and a CD player with S/PDIF output too, toslink and coax . According to something I read a couple of days ago, the S/PDIF was specified in the CD Red Book --- so, if that is the case, it is as old as CDs themselves.
Of course, USB was around then too, but USB1 was not taken seriously for sound. Firewire has been around, and was the choice of semi-pros and home studios --- and the choice of Apple, who I think invented it. My RME card, by the way, was father's-younger-brother to Bhagwan's card, and it gave me a similar experience to yours, putting my over-three-times-the-price Cyrus CD player to shame. Of course, 200 (but I got it half price) was considered a lot to spend on a
sound card back then, except by the people who spent 1000 on a
Lynx --- and I think you'll find them selling cards today that are pretty much the same, at least functionally, as the models they had on the market in the 2000s and perhaps earlier.
So this is not at all new, it
is mature (although not entirely problem-free, but I suppose that goes for many technologies. It's not new, it is just that a lot of people never noticed it. There has been a huge prejudice against PCs as audio components. Many hifi folk never got as far as the prejudice: they never even considered it. It is good for PC audio now, that people such as you and Bhagwan are embracing it now: PC as
high-end audio component. What needs to be understood, though, is the border between computer technology and audio technology. The places where data is absolutely and completely disengaged from content --- and the places where it is not. Where the data
is content-irrelevant, then I ask the audio people to leave that the computer people: it is their department.
Also when I got into it for the first time for my hi-fi needs a couple of years ago, there was no easy method, I had to read a gazillion websites with a gazillion views on what was the best way to implement computer based audio into your hifi and each claimed their method sounded the best. Does not sound like a mature, decade old technology.
Easy method: insert sound card, load drivers if necessary, cable up and play.
All the rest is seeking to get a little better, combined with unnecessary worries. In fact, the paper from the net that I used for guidance (don't know if it is still around, I don't think it ever had a proper home) might even have been based on W98! But heck, in those days we had to "optimise" a PC to make it a decent word processor!
(aside: Actually, I think PC audio was simpler then. I had fewer problems with my old early-Pentium machines than I have had with recent ones)
Of - course music from computer has been around, but Hi- fi, IMO is still nascent.
No: some of discovered the difference between a Soundblaster and an RME
way back then.
I am getting ready to build a music pc to replace my laptop, but there is no one stop source to go and get one. I have to source everything and assemble it.
Have to? You choose to. Partly because it is probably the best way to get a PC anyway, and, perhaps, because you want the case to look right among your hifi gear. Sure, outside of a tiny, specialist market, people have not been
selling music PCs. Now, of course, they will be building hifi boxes at hif prices, which are nothing but PCs inside. I think that at least one company is doing that, and a [previously] respected hifi name too!
To me hi- fi over pc sounds to be in the realm of early adopters
Again, a man here has been doing it for over ten years. Because it is new to some does not mean it is new to all.
And when Windows by microsoft is the most popular OS, I bet we will have to keep adapting to listen to decent sound, as they keep screwing around with new versions to try and get it right.
Use Linux
hyeah:
(for better or for worse, audio included, I have chucked MS)
No wonder there is a Vinyl revival, a century old technology btw!
1931. It has a while to go before its first century! Of course, shellac goes back a generation. It was my parent's 78s that I grew up with.
Stereo, that amazing thing that is at the core of what we all love to do when not arguing about it
, goes back, i think, to the 1930s, but was not a commercial product until the 1950s.
DACs are a thing made for a market. As you know as well as I do, every sound card has a dac, every PC player has a dac. People who do not know so well come to this forum and ask if they need a dac, not thinking of the ones they have already.
DACs have found a market among those who are not interested in recording music music, only playing it, and who do not need an ADC. Then they have been given the hifi marketing treatment, and sold in huge numbers to those whom the salesmen have convinced to feel that maybe their CD player is not good enough. They've even been sold to people who believe that the dac on their sound card is not good enough. On top of all that, they do represent an ideal product for some, and don't throw stuff at me on this one, because I am eagerly awaiting delivery of a new DAC!
It is quite likely that Bhagwan's RME card has an
analogue output quality that would blow most of us away --- but just look at what he is using as a DAC! Serious stuff, as acknowledged not just by audiophiles but by sound professionals.
Thad, I agree with you on Networking having known TCP/IP protocols well. But again in the past I have eaten crow with my views
Me too. Would you believe that I believe in homeopathy? The bete noir of the rational world, water with nothing in it that cures things!
and in case of Music..it is not that science cannot measure it..We just Dont know What to measure ! and if we do find it we will definitely be able to measure it and I do blame audio manufacturers for the same.
I don't know what to measure --- but I am sure that engineers, both audio and electronic do. They spend their careers doing that. Only the listeners require
magic as an explanation!
I have heard Bhagwans system and it is truly state of the art
I bet! I'd love to be there one day.
Knowing Bhagwans vast knowledge /experience i am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and hear from him as to what he feels...although i do not agree that it will make a difference and from reading his post even he is not sure..but wants to give it a try anyway
Well yes... but the utterly-impossible-but-let's-see route only encourages the purveyors. Another one sold, another dozen getting interested on the net, is all they care about, and if it isn't, and they are actually sincere, that's kind-of worse! At least green marker pen costs nothing --- which is why I tried it.
I do not believe in fancy power chords, given that the power unit they supply is half decent --- but I do not say "this is impossible."
I'm loathe to believe that certain digital connectors sound different --- but I do not say "this is impossible."
Different network transport/media?
That is impossible. Which is why everyone is reading the same words on this webpage.
