Computer Audiophiles
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsChris Connaker, the founder and head of Computer Audiophilesent a note out that the webzine just turned 4 years old and hit 200,000 unique visitors. Quite an accomplishment and our congratulations to Chris and the crew.
I bring this to your attention because it wasn’t too long ago the words “computer” and “Audiophile” would have been unthinkable together. My how things have changed.
At the same time Computer Audiophile was started, we began engineering the PWD and Bridge – some of the very first high-end connected audio products ever – a mere 2 years later we launched the products and today I’ll bet there are only a handful of high-end companies not working on getting into the connected audio scene.
It took decades to get transistors accepted and months to get computers into our circle.
That rate of change is simply stunning.
I can’t wait to see what’s around the corner.
Paul,
when the mining industry went bust during the early 1980’s in Australia, I ended up selling Hi Fi and remember the arrival of CD. Stayed with analog until 1991 when circumstances changed and I was hi fi less until last year. Impractical to have the hobby, especially carting a few thousand LP’s etc around to listen. Got back into low fi last year, then bought an iPod and started thinking what I was listening to – computer files! That spurred me to think about setting up a purpose designed computer/sound card but before plunging into this project, did a lot of research, mainly on the interment and from my own understanding of IT (using computers since 1972). Finally worked out what one needed then stumbled across Bryston’s BDP-1, read a review and a little light went on upstairs – it’s a computer. Back into high end, though not buying the insanely priced gear I used to. Then I discovered Computer Audiophile, and all I do now is either buy downloads, (HDTracks can’t supply Australia) or hi res dvd’s from a cd seller in Melbourne. Transferring CD’s to the hard drive is a no brainer – straight copy of the AIFF file onto the hard drive, and play through the Bryston.
I would never have guessed that we would be listening to music by playing computer files through a computer and a DAC then, and the take-up, in my case, was rapid despite being a hard core analogger, once I realised that the original masters were digital, in most cases. Now to figure out how to get a hi res of Tea for the Tillerman – I have the 16/41K cd version – but what would the Hi Res sound like. Frustrating that we can’t buy them from HDTRAKS though they are “working on it”.
Why is this Bryston unit any different than a large buffer register with low jitter reclocking? It seems to me any laptop with several GB of RAM could do exactly the same with the right software and a whole lot more at a small fraction of the $2150 + $350 for the remote control. It strikes me as the kind of device or its equivalent that if successful will be comoditized that will make this unit a very expensive pioneering effort in retrospect. IMO the original problem James Turner had in 2009 as described in Stereophile’s review was a software problem in the Music Vault 4000 server. People love to bash Microsoft, for some it’s instinctive to blame every computer problem on them. Reading the review, initially Larry Greenhill who wrote it had a number of problems with the Bryston unit himself. This looks to me like much of what I see in high end audio “accessories,” a solution looking for a problem. Too bad when there are still so many real problems in this art that remain unsolved. On the whole though, those are much harder.
I think the quick answer is it’s dedicated hardware to a specific purpose. If you try the same thing with a computer much depends on the quality of the I/O interface, the drivers (usually the drivers have to be told what sample rate and bit depth or they default to something low) the interface.
Certainly anyone that’s computer savvy can get the same results. Most high-end guys aren’t and so dedicated hardware makes good sense.
Yeah, I think it’s licensing issues. I know they are insane in Germany and other parts of Europe but I haven’t any clue about Australia. Nutso.
The Bryston piece is the one you can connect a USB drive up directly to? I’ve heard nice things about it. Glad you’re enjoying high-end again.
Yes The Bryston has 4 USB ports and sounds, well it does’t, but life ain’t that simple – you have to format the hard drive a specific way – I recently bought a Mac system (mini mac) on the basis that musos live in the Apple world, and that would be the way to go. Well, not really, since Bryston’s player uses Linux and reads MS DOS formatted usb drives but cannot read Mac file systems – and there are some problems with the extended file systems in the FAT area as well. Given that Windows is about 95% of the IT world, I should have stuck with the Windows platform – but having an iPad as well causes lots decisions – as soon as someone makes an workable windows version of an IPAD I’ll change.
So the music on the MAC can be sent to DAC using a USB/SP/DIF gadget (I use the MF VLink) but the sound is not as good as playing the AIFF file off the hard drive via the Bryston, which I see your PS CD player does.
And you are right – the high-end is fun again and I do not miss the vinyl. And USB is now into USB 3 (compatible with USB 2) so right on cue Bryston’s release is now old hat – add Apple’s Thunderbolt interface and we can all upgrade our electronics to these new data pathways. Fun, fun, fun, but no issue as long as USB isn’t ditched any time soon.
Now that’s kind of lame for Bryston to only support FAT files and not MAC. I just lost a lot of respect for them doing that. 🙁
Our upcoming Silent Server reads anything you put into it and automatically so. I say that not to toot our horn but to exemplify the way it should be.
Anything that makes the end-user have to think about computing when they merely want to enjoy music is an abomination. It should never be about the gear…only the result. That was the portion of the Bang & Olufsen lesson to the industry which got hidden behind their wild industrial designs. One button access…
I like the ease of digital, but believe that it is too easy. Having the universe at your fingertips is cool, but it seems most lose their appreciation of where music comes from and what it takes to deliver it well. Tangibility is fleeting, it gets lost in the digital gaps. It may not be sample-able.
Cheers
Thanks John but I wonder what’s meant by it being “too easy”?