Hi,
I am starting a thread for people like me who use multimedia players (AC Ryan, WDTV etc) to compare notes on how and which one works best.
I am looking to get another one, one of my players the toslink out died on me, so I am suddenly short of one source. I am wonderng is there any unit out there which you have tried and you can vouch it works well.
My ideal player should have this:
1) Co-ax out and optical out for maximum versatility.
2) as direct out as possible (no digital volume control)
3) Plays from a USB thumbdrive/hardisk
4) analog sound quality is not important, intending to use it with outboard DAC
5) Does not cost a bomb.
I am presently using an AC-Ryan HD. My take on it. It has volume control, which means it is messing around with the digital signals, although I keep it at maximum which I think is just 0db cut. Other than that, it works well. The GUI sucks.
I've also considered the QLS 550, only thing it is running on SD cards, which means you have to manualy change the cards, not so friendly if you are trying to make a juke box.
WDTV, had it at one time, only has optical out, co-ax supposedly sound much better.
Oon
I am starting a thread for people like me who use multimedia players (AC Ryan, WDTV etc) to compare notes on how and which one works best.
I am looking to get another one, one of my players the toslink out died on me, so I am suddenly short of one source. I am wonderng is there any unit out there which you have tried and you can vouch it works well.
My ideal player should have this:
1) Co-ax out and optical out for maximum versatility.
2) as direct out as possible (no digital volume control)
3) Plays from a USB thumbdrive/hardisk
4) analog sound quality is not important, intending to use it with outboard DAC
5) Does not cost a bomb.
I am presently using an AC-Ryan HD. My take on it. It has volume control, which means it is messing around with the digital signals, although I keep it at maximum which I think is just 0db cut. Other than that, it works well. The GUI sucks.
I've also considered the QLS 550, only thing it is running on SD cards, which means you have to manualy change the cards, not so friendly if you are trying to make a juke box.
WDTV, had it at one time, only has optical out, co-ax supposedly sound much better.
Oon
I have the WDTV Live. Based on Sigma 8655 cipset.
Latest firmware will downsample everthing to 48kHz and will not play 88.2 and 176.4 files - it used to downsample those too in previous firmwares. The HDCD encoded files play corectly on my receiver so I assume the 44.1kHz and 48 are passed without processing. WD blames Sigma for that.
At the 44.1 and 48 kHz level is a decent transport, even with the optical out. You might use the HDMI digital out also...
Latest firmware will downsample everthing to 48kHz and will not play 88.2 and 176.4 files - it used to downsample those too in previous firmwares. The HDCD encoded files play corectly on my receiver so I assume the 44.1kHz and 48 are passed without processing. WD blames Sigma for that.
At the 44.1 and 48 kHz level is a decent transport, even with the optical out. You might use the HDMI digital out also...
I used to use the WDTV Live, but it was too limited in terms of BluRay.
HTPC, not bad, but fiddly and got relegated when 3D came along due to my reciever not being 1.4.
I am currently using an OPPO 95, It plays everything, including BR ISO'S ( as long as you have older firmware), has an awesome DAC, music, SACD. The only downside is there's no pretty menu / media centre interface. It has dual HDMI so you can send the pic through 1.4 to the projector and the sound through 1.3 to the reciever. It just works !!!
HTPC, not bad, but fiddly and got relegated when 3D came along due to my reciever not being 1.4.
I am currently using an OPPO 95, It plays everything, including BR ISO'S ( as long as you have older firmware), has an awesome DAC, music, SACD. The only downside is there's no pretty menu / media centre interface. It has dual HDMI so you can send the pic through 1.4 to the projector and the sound through 1.3 to the reciever. It just works !!!
So... instead of multimedia (including FLAC) player that can use USB drives or Ethernet shares from a PC (in another room), you will buy a WAV 16/44.1-only player that costs double.
Good thinking.
PS: The only draw-back of WDTV Live (or similar player) is that they need a TV to select the songs...
Good thinking.
PS: The only draw-back of WDTV Live (or similar player) is that they need a TV to select the songs...
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The QLS is great in sound quality, but its best use is as a portable. If you have more than a handful of recordings, having to move everything to cards is a real pain, and means you pretty much have to have a computer nearby to access your library. Also, its display is very limited, and I've found it challenging to navigate through multiple folders.
I've got a WDTV hooked up to a small in-car TFT monitor, which works well as a navigation screen, although the 4" size I have is barely useful due to the fact that the interface was designed for use on a regular TV, so everything's very small. A 7" monitor would work better, but I wanted to keep the thing compact enough for travel. I found the on-board DAC to be not very good, and got much better sound with a cheap Aune DAC, especially after I upgraded the op-amp. I love being able to plug in a big hard drive and have a ton of music available.
I also recently got an Aune S1 player. It's not cheap (US$600), but it's built pretty well, with an outboard linear power supply. It runs Linux, according to the specs. Monitor is tiny but adequate. The sound quality is very good, and the onboard DAC can be used to decode another source if you like. I have had problems with USB hard drives, though. I get some skips that seem to be caused by inadequate data speed, so that's not good. The machine will take SD cards and also has an eSata port. With a cable that supplies USB power to a hard drive (I'm using a solid state) and connects to the eSata port, I don't get the dropouts. Small enough to be transportable, too, which is important to me. It's not perfect, but so far, the best I've found.
I've got my eye on the Oppo 95, which my wife will think is just an unreasonably expensive Blu-Ray player, but will be the heart of the stereo where the TV is. The interface is functional enough, right?
I've pretty much given up on CD players except as data storage. I think players of this type will be dominant eventually. They make so much more sense than CDs in many ways. I've been looking for the perfect self-contained player in the few hundred-dollar range, and so far it hasn't been built.
--Buckapound
I've got a WDTV hooked up to a small in-car TFT monitor, which works well as a navigation screen, although the 4" size I have is barely useful due to the fact that the interface was designed for use on a regular TV, so everything's very small. A 7" monitor would work better, but I wanted to keep the thing compact enough for travel. I found the on-board DAC to be not very good, and got much better sound with a cheap Aune DAC, especially after I upgraded the op-amp. I love being able to plug in a big hard drive and have a ton of music available.
I also recently got an Aune S1 player. It's not cheap (US$600), but it's built pretty well, with an outboard linear power supply. It runs Linux, according to the specs. Monitor is tiny but adequate. The sound quality is very good, and the onboard DAC can be used to decode another source if you like. I have had problems with USB hard drives, though. I get some skips that seem to be caused by inadequate data speed, so that's not good. The machine will take SD cards and also has an eSata port. With a cable that supplies USB power to a hard drive (I'm using a solid state) and connects to the eSata port, I don't get the dropouts. Small enough to be transportable, too, which is important to me. It's not perfect, but so far, the best I've found.
I've got my eye on the Oppo 95, which my wife will think is just an unreasonably expensive Blu-Ray player, but will be the heart of the stereo where the TV is. The interface is functional enough, right?
I've pretty much given up on CD players except as data storage. I think players of this type will be dominant eventually. They make so much more sense than CDs in many ways. I've been looking for the perfect self-contained player in the few hundred-dollar range, and so far it hasn't been built.
--Buckapound
The Raspberry Pi looks interesting; but I don't know what the limitations are as far as audio goes. Since it's much more open source than the WDTV, it should be feasible to add an alphanumeric LCD display (HD44780 based) using LCDProc or something, and a USB audio device if the stock hardware isn't satisfactory.
OpenELEC on RaspBerry Pi. Our first ARM device supported! | OpenELEC - The living room PC for everyone
OpenELEC on RaspBerry Pi. Our first ARM device supported! | OpenELEC - The living room PC for everyone
Yup a good dac is one of the reasons I go for that. The QLS uses a WM8740, which is not a slouch. I gave it some long and hard thoughts on this one. There is a few reasons I tend to think wdtv is slightly less suitable. I suspect there is some sort of processing done by the on board chip and hence you have the clipping issue that has been discussed over at the WDTV forums. Can't say for sure what else it is doing to it. But by virtue that it can there is probably some sort of processing going on as well. If you look into a DAC chip there is quite a bit of setting going on, upsampling, de-empahais, digital cut off filters etc all which can be setby the user. The other matter is there are some who claim that coax sound better than toshlink. I think it could be from the electronics involved in the conversion. Might be introducing jitter. Their internal signal is going from i2s to spdif then back to i2s again. So that can't be good especially when you are in the category that different dacs/receivers sound different. Adding an Spdif is adding another stage between source and DAC. If we are going strictly by digital theory all dacs/receiver chips, cd transport should sound the same.
There are many things that is going against the qls. Many areas that I don't like. But in the end if you want to consider just monetary value. Then the qls is both dac and player .... which makes wdtv live plus monitor plus external dac more expensive.
Having said that, if they produce sound at the same quality, I very much would rather have that, just for the GUI interface. And there is also a version of wdtv with no hdmi out, which cost something like $50 .... I have suspicion it doesn't quite sound the same...
Oon
Oon
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
There are many things that is going against the qls. Many areas that I don't like. But in the end if you want to consider just monetary value. Then the qls is both dac and player .... which makes wdtv live plus monitor plus external dac more expensive.
Having said that, if they produce sound at the same quality, I very much would rather have that, just for the GUI interface. And there is also a version of wdtv with no hdmi out, which cost something like $50 .... I have suspicion it doesn't quite sound the same...
Oon
Oon
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
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There is no "processing". The HDCD flag is embedded in the LSB and passes trough unaltered, the 44.1kHz output is bitperfect. Of course you need a HDCD capable DAC to find that out (I have one).
It was a firmware at the beginning that was cutting that flag out, it wasn't bit perfect. But they fixed it for more than a year now.
It was a firmware at the beginning that was cutting that flag out, it wasn't bit perfect. But they fixed it for more than a year now.
Good to know they fixed that. Was getting really confused with all the posting on the clipping issue.
Do you know if the same applies to wdtv mini ?
Oon
Thanks. It was this attitude towards .wav audio from the manufacturers that makes me weary of it. I find it hard difficult to accept the multimedia player now, I suppose like you have been burned before by non bit perfect players. Had another one called rhapsody, also had volume control. Only problem, other than volume, I don't know what else is it doing to it.
The other complain I have with media players is the inability to select tracks. Heck many of them can't even skip to next track. I know my acryan can't select track number 13 by pressing 13. Every other stupid CD player can do it.
I have just ordered the qls 350. The manual says it can select tracks. We'll see how that works out...
Oon
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
The other complain I have with media players is the inability to select tracks. Heck many of them can't even skip to next track. I know my acryan can't select track number 13 by pressing 13. Every other stupid CD player can do it.
I have just ordered the qls 350. The manual says it can select tracks. We'll see how that works out...
Oon
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Yes, the menus on the WDTV Live do leave something to be desired. They should kidnap some Apple people or just get them really drunk and pick their brains for user interface tips.
I tried a "Mini 1080p" media player from eBay. While it does play FLAC, it didn't even seem to play the next track automatically. And I found no docs on the chipset, and it turned out the S/PDIF output was an option that wasn't installed on the board (though if it's enabled in firmware, maybe I can add a connector). On the plus side, it was smaller and lower power than the WDTV Live.
The Raspberry Pi should be easier to customize as an audio player. I've got one preordered from Newark.com.
I tried a "Mini 1080p" media player from eBay. While it does play FLAC, it didn't even seem to play the next track automatically. And I found no docs on the chipset, and it turned out the S/PDIF output was an option that wasn't installed on the board (though if it's enabled in firmware, maybe I can add a connector). On the plus side, it was smaller and lower power than the WDTV Live.
The Raspberry Pi should be easier to customize as an audio player. I've got one preordered from Newark.com.
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