Whats the best Digital source ?

[thermal runaway]

Have to admit I don't read much Audio press these days so am not really upto speed on the state of the art , having managed to content myself with my current system.

Now , I have not & do not posess an iPod and I don't want one , just don't have the gene !
From what I understand of the technology the sound quality cannot be as good as CD , let alone vinyl. Or , am I incorrect there ?

So , is a good , tweaked CD player still the best Digital source ?

[derwhalfisch]

can of worms dude!


Ipod can offload the D/A conversion onto external hardware, but you're still limited (with legit firmware) to the (s**t) formats that the ipod will decode.

[thermal runaway]

Yeah , I thought it may be controversial !! My guess is the appeal of the iPod genre is more storage capacity and user experience than sound quality. My interest is only in sound quality.

[human.bin]

best digital source is a compltely digital source: streaming lossless files from a digital support (HD, possibly SSD) to a DAC, this allows for no mechanical parts, probably a computer is needed to take control over the streaming process...

perhaps a no-fan pc with a big hd. its also future-proof as you'll be able to play new standars with higher bit-rates than the cd you can download or rip right now.

[thermal runaway]

But where would the source material be available from ?

[SoNic_real_one]

The best sources are the optical discs carying SACD, DVD-A, HDCD (in this order) played in a quality stand-alone player.
PC is not for "quality" audio.

[human.bin]

i would not spend a penny on techonologies agonizing and going to die, count blue rays in... if you look at just the boost that hd video streaming had this last year it's easy understood that audio will follow. for now there are several sites where you can download hi-quality stuff, like linn records.

ripping with jitter correction is quite a safe process, ripping a vinyl to a sample rate higher than cd can give some good results i think but i don't know...

a standard pc alone is unsuitable, but with a good DAC it can be world class... talking transporters even a chep wireless transporter like the apple airport express (99$) does transport with bit wise accuracy of the original wave file, it relays on a proprietary fork of the lossless flac format.

many lossless music is easily find on the net altought you already have a considerable library of the mentioned SACD DVD-A HDCD (hey, three proprietary formats?? isn't it crazy?) i don't know how it would be pocket friendly road

[ilimzn]

Originally Posted by human.bin

many lossless music is easily find on the net altought you already have a considerable library of the mentioned SACD DVD-A HDCD (hey, three proprietary formats?? isn't it crazy?) i don't know how it would be pocket friendly road

The emphasized part points to a flaw in your reasoning. Where do you think this lossless music came from?

[thermal runaway]

Probably the same place as Quads fabled "piece of wire with gain"

[Bill Fuss]

I wrestled with the same question a few years ago. For me it became a question of where the source material was going to come from and how it was going to be stored. I would imagine a hard drive based system along with jitter free downstream equipment would be the ultimate. It seems the state of the art playback equipment only stays that for about 6 1/2 minutes these days.
The choice for me was, do I chase the technology or settle on a format such as Red Book and optimise it as much as possible. In the end, probably because of my age more than anything, I chose to stick with Red Book. It's not the ultimate, but it sure is fun.