S/P-dif coax v. S/P-dif RCA v. USB v. IEEE 1394a
Mike22 -- Thu, 11/11/2010 - 18:31
Hi,
I am new to the AVguide, but a long time subscriber to TAS. I am also an IT professional and I build compters as a hobby. I want to build a music server and have some ideas that I would like to try in order to improve--or rather limit degradation of the sound. So I have been following the reviews and digital concept articles in TAS and other paper and electronic sources for guidence.
One kind of information that seems to be hard to find is a comparison of the effects on DAC performace of the available interfaces: S/P-dif RCA, S/P-dif optical, USB and IEEE 1394a (Firewire in the Apple world). Taming the increased jitter inherent in USB requires more expensive and complicated circuitry, but in other aspects of sound reproduction simple seems to be better than complicated. So it would seem likely that a given DAC might possibly sound better driven by the S/P-dif RCA or 1394a port (if it has one) than by a USB or even S/P-dif optical port.
My interest is practical: A system builder (like me) who works from the motherboard up has many choices available in digital out interfaces in addition to USB. So it would be very interesting and helpful for purchase decisions to learn if a particular DAC sounds significantly better when driven from one or another type of interface.
I could just build it and then see if the audio stores near me would let me schlep it in and test, but even if I could find some place that would go along with this, it would be a pain to carry it out.
If anyone has experience with music software for Windows or Linux, I would appreciate hearing about that, as well.
Thanks,
Mike
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On some CDs ripped by dbpoweramp I had to enter album art, song name, artist, category and year everything manually typing. Now if I want to change something in the meta data do I need to re-rip cd? I know that in j river media center if u enter or edit things it's just on there(on j river only) and if system crashes or what not, no change done to the original file. i.e if I need to move files to a new or different type of server then what? Bottom line: once u rip cd with custom data entry for metadata is that the last of it? I would prefer a way that changes and updates the tags with the original Flac file instead of re ripping to embed that data. Any comments??? And if it is possible then how do u do it?
I make changes to metadata in iTunes. The info section gets you metadata, which you can change and is written to the file on MP3, ALS, and AIFF files.
I don't use or work with FLAC files (except to decode them to AIFF) so no info from me if that is the way you want to go.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Sam,
FYI, in JRiver each field can be defined to save only in the JRiver database, or in the file as well. Tools->Options->Library and Folders->Manage Library Fields, then check or uncheck "Save in File Tags".
ScottB,
Thanks for the reply. With the steps u mention, can anything about the file be changed, album art, singers etc? Or is this editing of typed material only? Also is there a restriction in any of the fields to be changed, deleted or added? I have only ripped few hundred don't want to keep going then realizing....100's of CDs still left to be ripped.