Wanted: Media player with audiophile aspirations...

[juliopr]

Hello everyone. I have seen discussions around and even polls about media network tanks and devices, but I have not seen anyone complaining about why this media players do not bitstream DTS-MA or Dolby TruHD or pass 24/192 HD music files. I have a WDTV and I use it connected via HDMI to a Pioneer Elite A/V receiver with all this decoding capacities, to find that this unit only outputs 16/48. Does the eGreat or the popcorn hour or any other unit can pass the signal untouched either thru optical SPDIF or HDMI so it can be decoded by an external DAC? I have all my music in WAV uncommpressed and many blu-ray's ripped into a 1TB HDD and it would be cool if I can listen to the audio without any restraints. Would You buy someting like this in that kind of small packaging? And please, no complains or comments about mp3. mp3 does not have place in high quality audio reproduction, only in utilitary and temporary audio storage only...

[juliopr]

Not even a comment??? Anyone?????? Did I say something wrong? Am I asking too much for such a device?

[joenis51]

Have you looked at the abigs T6? It will pass through a digital audio signal (I use 24/96) and does a reasonably good job of playing HD video. As far as I can tell, it's the only HD media player with an e-sata port, which allows you to use an external hard drive (to keep the data away from the vibration and other noise in the main unit) and stream the data at a high enough rate so that there is no compression. When I tried using the USB port, the audio sounded very compressed. Unfortunately, the digital audio pass through has a volume control, which I am sure degrades the sound. In other words, it's very good, but could be better.

If anyone knows a better device, I would love to hear about it.

Joe

[paul_peraic]

Originally Posted by juliopr

Hello everyone. I have seen discussions around and even polls about media network tanks and devices, but I have not seen anyone complaining about why this media players do not bitstream DTS-MA or Dolby TruHD or pass 24/192 HD music files. I have a WDTV and I use it connected via HDMI to a Pioneer Elite A/V receiver with all this decoding capacities, to find that this unit only outputs 16/48. Does the eGreat or the popcorn hour or any other unit can pass the signal untouched either thru optical SPDIF or HDMI so it can be decoded by an external DAC? I have all my music in WAV uncommpressed and many blu-ray's ripped into a 1TB HDD and it would be cool if I can listen to the audio without any restraints. Would You buy someting like this in that kind of small packaging? And please, no complains or comments about mp3. mp3 does not have place in high quality audio reproduction, only in utilitary and temporary audio storage only...

The Popcorn Hour C200 does all these formats in pass through (or what they call RAW) and I believe it can do 32/192 all through HDMI and spdif coax . It does not alter the sound as long as you keep the volume at 0 .

The hard drive can be used externally as well as being powered externally if you buy a SATA powerpack .