Despite my earlier post I have decided to download the latest version of SageTV 5.0.4 as my license permits this. Hopefully it will result in somewhat improved performance and as a benefit it actually supports some off air HDTV tuners as well.
I'll post again once I have installed and used it for a bit.
I'll post again once I have installed and used it for a bit.
Here's some not so great news.. The latest full versions of Winamp do not properly support HDCD playback mode. It's definitely not the flac or asio plugins as I installed all of the various versions of them including the latest version of Otachan's asio driver for winamp in an older version of winamp lite (5.094) as well and HDCD playback functions fine with all of them, unfortunately not having the media browser is problematic.
QCD works fine with flac/asio/hdcd encoded material - the dac has no problem recognizing it. QCD does not have the media browser either however the add directory option will grab all of the m3u playlists in sub directories and gives you an easily navigable list with a click or two.
Make sure that the replay gain mode is disabled in the flac codec in either player as this will affect hdcd playback adversely, and also corrupts 16 bit pcm.
Updated to latest version of SageTV, quite a few things got broken, however all fixed now. Upgrade has no benefit at all unless use of off-air hdtv tuners is contemplated.
QCD works fine with flac/asio/hdcd encoded material - the dac has no problem recognizing it. QCD does not have the media browser either however the add directory option will grab all of the m3u playlists in sub directories and gives you an easily navigable list with a click or two.
Make sure that the replay gain mode is disabled in the flac codec in either player as this will affect hdcd playback adversely, and also corrupts 16 bit pcm.
Updated to latest version of SageTV, quite a few things got broken, however all fixed now. Upgrade has no benefit at all unless use of off-air hdtv tuners is contemplated.
digital audio server
I just happened across your Positive Feedback review of your audio server, and it would appear that our strategies and objectives for a digital audio server are very similar!
I demonstrated my setup to another P-F editor (John Beavers) about a year ago, and he indicated that someone he knew was working on something similar - would that have been you?
In any case, I'm glad to see someone else also have good results. If you're interested, please feel free to review my solutions here:
Audiogon system
Regards, Tim
I just happened across your Positive Feedback review of your audio server, and it would appear that our strategies and objectives for a digital audio server are very similar!
I demonstrated my setup to another P-F editor (John Beavers) about a year ago, and he indicated that someone he knew was working on something similar - would that have been you?
In any case, I'm glad to see someone else also have good results. If you're interested, please feel free to review my solutions here:
Audiogon system
Regards, Tim
Check out that article, sounds like some of our goals are quite similar.
On a different note I found a player that I consider more than acceptable. It is J. River Media Player 11.1 - it's not freeware, there is currently a 30 day trial version available. I bought it on the 2nd day.
I think it is a bargain at $40.. Note I have no affiliation with J. River.
It fully supports asio, directsound, directshow and several other a/v protocols.
Plugins are available for dts and ac3 from sourceforge.net
It will play drm protected audio files like AAC (m4p) as well as uSoft Plays For Sure.. (I have several hundred m4p in my iTunes library and these play fine.) Flac is supported with plugins that you must download and install, but I have not had to download anything else. Basically it is billed as an alternative to WinXP media center.
It is extremely stable, no problems so far.. Plays flac encoded HDCD, cda, mp3, m4p, m4a without issues, good library management as well.
I'm happy.. No more WinAmp, QCD, FooBar 2000... Simplify!
Since it's trialware it certainly seems fairly low risk if you are not happy with it you don' t purchase it..
License allows for installation on two pcs, and up to 10 restores per year..
On a different note I found a player that I consider more than acceptable. It is J. River Media Player 11.1 - it's not freeware, there is currently a 30 day trial version available. I bought it on the 2nd day.
I think it is a bargain at $40.. Note I have no affiliation with J. River.
It fully supports asio, directsound, directshow and several other a/v protocols.
Plugins are available for dts and ac3 from sourceforge.net
It will play drm protected audio files like AAC (m4p) as well as uSoft Plays For Sure.. (I have several hundred m4p in my iTunes library and these play fine.) Flac is supported with plugins that you must download and install, but I have not had to download anything else. Basically it is billed as an alternative to WinXP media center.
It is extremely stable, no problems so far.. Plays flac encoded HDCD, cda, mp3, m4p, m4a without issues, good library management as well.
I'm happy.. No more WinAmp, QCD, FooBar 2000... Simplify!
Since it's trialware it certainly seems fairly low risk if you are not happy with it you don' t purchase it..
License allows for installation on two pcs, and up to 10 restores per year..
Have been experimenting lately with Windows Media Player 11, direct sound and my new Zhaolu 2.5A dac. It does seem like WMP11 provides decent HDCD performance with a 24 bit sound card or dac if resampling is not in use. This is a combination that might work well for some users.
Did not notice any glaring differences between direct sound in WMP11 playing flac encoded red book cda/wave files and doing same using J River Media Center with ASIO.. Earlier versions of WMP were not quite as good.
There may be some differences, but it seems subtle so far in a few somewhat unscientific and not too serious listening tests with A/B switching between the two media players.
I was predisposed to find flaws with the sound quality of the Microsoft offering and really didn't - and if you have a lot of HDCD's the difference is not too subtle and is clearly audible in WMP11 when HDCD mode is enabled or not. So no need to buy a HDCD enabled dac.
Did not notice any glaring differences between direct sound in WMP11 playing flac encoded red book cda/wave files and doing same using J River Media Center with ASIO.. Earlier versions of WMP were not quite as good.
There may be some differences, but it seems subtle so far in a few somewhat unscientific and not too serious listening tests with A/B switching between the two media players.
I was predisposed to find flaws with the sound quality of the Microsoft offering and really didn't - and if you have a lot of HDCD's the difference is not too subtle and is clearly audible in WMP11 when HDCD mode is enabled or not. So no need to buy a HDCD enabled dac.
Good question, I don't believe that there is any indication that you are in fact playing HDCD format disks - although I have only played flac encoded hdcd files. You have to enable the HDCD feature using a dialog available from the configuration menu, but I am not near the server at this point to tell you how to get to that dialog. I did hear quite a big difference on just these files when comparing using WMP11 to play when enabled and another media player that just passes the bits straight to the dac without further processing. (The differences I heard are almost identical to what I hear when using the HDCD dac so I assume it is working.)
Microsoft owns the rights to HDCD so whether they choose to indicate externally that material is encoded in the format is up to them..
I need to investigate this issue further, and take what I have said with a grain of salt, I could be all wet on this one. It's all based on a subjective approach.
Microsoft owns the rights to HDCD so whether they choose to indicate externally that material is encoded in the format is up to them..
I need to investigate this issue further, and take what I have said with a grain of salt, I could be all wet on this one. It's all based on a subjective approach.
dsavitsk said:
Hi -d,
I was wondering if I could use a PDA (VGA resolution, WiFi or Bluetooth) with XP remote desktop to the server. What I don't know (don't have a PDA yet) is whether I can see the full remote screen at the PDA. If yes, I would just run the server and all my music programs, including iTunes (gasp) from the PDA....
I recently installed the latest version of Apple iTunes (V7.2) in order to be able to download the latest episodes of BattleStar Galactica which I missed during the season. Surprisingly, perhaps for the first time the upgrade went smoothly, and no video or audio settings needed to be changed after the upgrade.
An added bonus is that the latest episodes have much better video quality than the first two seasons, but the files are roughly twice as large. There are still occasional discontinuities in scenes where panning is frequently used, but overall the quantization noise levels are much lower, particularly noticeable in low light scenes. The audio is not great, which is a shame as the off air recordings in SageTV have very good audio, and the picture quality is very good too. (3.2GB/HR)
I recently upgraded to SageTV 6 and there seem to be considerable improvements here too over v5.. Again no settings were lost, and the program loads much faster than before. The addition of features like burn to dvd are welcome additions. Overall seems more stable.
I am using the Zhaolu dac with the media server when I am not using my turntable. The media player is still the J River Media Player V11.1, however I am thinking of upgrading to v12 as there are still some stability issues with this version.
I am also going to add additional memory, (upgrade to 1GB) and add external USB2 HD. The biggest lesson is you can never have too much hard drive capacity.. Were I to do it again, (and I will be eventually) I would use a minimum of 250GB for the primary drive, and possibly go to the pain of using Linux.
An added bonus is that the latest episodes have much better video quality than the first two seasons, but the files are roughly twice as large. There are still occasional discontinuities in scenes where panning is frequently used, but overall the quantization noise levels are much lower, particularly noticeable in low light scenes. The audio is not great, which is a shame as the off air recordings in SageTV have very good audio, and the picture quality is very good too. (3.2GB/HR)
I recently upgraded to SageTV 6 and there seem to be considerable improvements here too over v5.. Again no settings were lost, and the program loads much faster than before. The addition of features like burn to dvd are welcome additions. Overall seems more stable.
I am using the Zhaolu dac with the media server when I am not using my turntable. The media player is still the J River Media Player V11.1, however I am thinking of upgrading to v12 as there are still some stability issues with this version.
I am also going to add additional memory, (upgrade to 1GB) and add external USB2 HD. The biggest lesson is you can never have too much hard drive capacity.. Were I to do it again, (and I will be eventually) I would use a minimum of 250GB for the primary drive, and possibly go to the pain of using Linux.
Latest update in this long and dull saga.. Upgraded to JRiver Media Center 12 which surprisingly was not a very smooth process.
None of the media files ripped with MC11 were recognized because there is no m3u file associated with any of them - so I used an m3u editor to add the index file which allowed me to play those files. (15Gb and still a lot of files to be done.)
Installing the flac decoder was a cinch, installing the encoder for ripping was a problem - none of the recent encoders worked and I ended up installing the oldest version for MC12. (I'm not sure that I don't need to upgrade some of the windows media player components as MC12 does seem to run on top of IE and perhaps uses other Microsoft libraries.)
Streamzap remote still works poorly with media center. I wish someone would write a plugin for it.
Have added a 160GB external USB drive for backup of media files, my current library, all flac encoded takes up 50GB of space.
Note that you can get high bit depth/sample rate music online from Linn - up to 24 bit/96kHz FLAC, but it's not cheap. I'm going to try it once I identify something I would like to pay for..
Czech Radio now has Brandenburg Concertos in flac format that you can download, about 490MB in total here:
http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/download_eng
None of the media files ripped with MC11 were recognized because there is no m3u file associated with any of them - so I used an m3u editor to add the index file which allowed me to play those files. (15Gb and still a lot of files to be done.)
Installing the flac decoder was a cinch, installing the encoder for ripping was a problem - none of the recent encoders worked and I ended up installing the oldest version for MC12. (I'm not sure that I don't need to upgrade some of the windows media player components as MC12 does seem to run on top of IE and perhaps uses other Microsoft libraries.)
Streamzap remote still works poorly with media center. I wish someone would write a plugin for it.
Have added a 160GB external USB drive for backup of media files, my current library, all flac encoded takes up 50GB of space.
Note that you can get high bit depth/sample rate music online from Linn - up to 24 bit/96kHz FLAC, but it's not cheap. I'm going to try it once I identify something I would like to pay for..
Czech Radio now has Brandenburg Concertos in flac format that you can download, about 490MB in total here:
http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/download_eng
Cool, I used a quiet case from Antec which has worked out pretty well.
Adding the second hard drive did raise the noise levels significantly, but at some point I am going to replace both with a larger single drive. Currently I have 250GB and an 80GB internally and a 160GB externally on USB2. Next machine will support esata as well. I currently (sometimes concurrently) use this server to record cable tv programs as well as serve audio, it supports separate concurrent audio streams as well as video..
Other than the small headaches here and there I would never go back to a conventional cd player.
Adding the second hard drive did raise the noise levels significantly, but at some point I am going to replace both with a larger single drive. Currently I have 250GB and an 80GB internally and a 160GB externally on USB2. Next machine will support esata as well. I currently (sometimes concurrently) use this server to record cable tv programs as well as serve audio, it supports separate concurrent audio streams as well as video..
Other than the small headaches here and there I would never go back to a conventional cd player.
New iPods/JRiver Media Center
Well I thought I would provide an update as to what I am currently doing with my media server which continues to evolve.
I got rid of the PS Audio Ultralink II and replaced it with a slightly modified Zhaolu 2.5A dac. I am using the coaxial spdif interface as before. Now I can support 24 bit, 96kHz audio.
I am currently using the latest version of J. River Media Center 12.0.375 which supports the latest iPods and the new database format introduced with iTunes 7.5.
I have one of the new iPod Classic 160GB models which is still somewhat buggy. (You might want to hold off until the next firmware update before buying one of these. If you are curious look at my iPod thread.)
J River Media Center sounds far better playing AAC and Apple Lossless music off of the iPod than the current version of iTunes does, although the drm module, and the AAC codec are shared, compared with iTunes there are other differences in the audio processing - and it's not subtle.
In purely subjective terms AAC at 128K is nowhere close to the original source material, 320K sounds very good through headphones, and acceptable through speakers, Apple Lossless is better still, however I find FLAC sounds much better still. (Not that I ever seriously contemplated switching to something other than FLAC.)
I've also been downloading 24bit 96K flac encoded pcm from Linn, and while it sounds very good the musical selection is rather limited. I'd love to see someone provide 2496 with a library of more popular material..
Naxos offers downloads in several formats as well. Something I am going to check out soon.
Well I thought I would provide an update as to what I am currently doing with my media server which continues to evolve.
I got rid of the PS Audio Ultralink II and replaced it with a slightly modified Zhaolu 2.5A dac. I am using the coaxial spdif interface as before. Now I can support 24 bit, 96kHz audio.
I am currently using the latest version of J. River Media Center 12.0.375 which supports the latest iPods and the new database format introduced with iTunes 7.5.
I have one of the new iPod Classic 160GB models which is still somewhat buggy. (You might want to hold off until the next firmware update before buying one of these. If you are curious look at my iPod thread.)
J River Media Center sounds far better playing AAC and Apple Lossless music off of the iPod than the current version of iTunes does, although the drm module, and the AAC codec are shared, compared with iTunes there are other differences in the audio processing - and it's not subtle.
In purely subjective terms AAC at 128K is nowhere close to the original source material, 320K sounds very good through headphones, and acceptable through speakers, Apple Lossless is better still, however I find FLAC sounds much better still. (Not that I ever seriously contemplated switching to something other than FLAC.)
I've also been downloading 24bit 96K flac encoded pcm from Linn, and while it sounds very good the musical selection is rather limited. I'd love to see someone provide 2496 with a library of more popular material..
Naxos offers downloads in several formats as well. Something I am going to check out soon.
Hi Kevin,
have you tried the HDCD decoder?
A thread on the decoder:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=129136
download the latest version:
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cjk32/hdcd/
have you tried the HDCD decoder?
A thread on the decoder:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=129136
download the latest version:
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cjk32/hdcd/
Hi Rossi,
Yes I have the decoder, just haven't had much time to do anything with it. Frankly the Zhaolu sounded so much better even without HDCD decoding (on 16 bit pcm and 20bit HDCD) than the dac it replaced that I have not been very motivated to convert these files to 20bit format. One of these days I will convert a few.
I guess in the converter world the march of time has made old dacs a questionable value compared to a lot of very inexpensive new dacs using more modern chip sets. The difference isn't all that subtle.
Yes I have the decoder, just haven't had much time to do anything with it. Frankly the Zhaolu sounded so much better even without HDCD decoding (on 16 bit pcm and 20bit HDCD) than the dac it replaced that I have not been very motivated to convert these files to 20bit format. One of these days I will convert a few.
I guess in the converter world the march of time has made old dacs a questionable value compared to a lot of very inexpensive new dacs using more modern chip sets. The difference isn't all that subtle.
kevinkr said:
The Zhaolu got replaced a couple of months ago with a dac loosely based on TPA modules. The TPA stuff is good - in fact way better sounding than the modified Zhaolu 2.5A particularly at higher bit rates. I bought a built up receiver and blank cod dac, and IVY boards. I am using PCM1798 in mono mode, and a heavily modifed IVY driving transformers for I/V conversion. (The transformers do balanced to unbalanced conversion and work a treat..
) Power supplies are custom design.I still have not converted any HDCD to 20 bit format.. Oops...
Server keeps chugging along.. Only recent upgrade is 1GB of ram.
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