KYW,
The two I have found are the M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192 (and PROBABLY the 96khz version) and the Echo Audio MIA MIDI. The M-Audio has the drawback (I THINK, I've read the manual extensively but I don't own one) that you must manually set the sample rate in the sound card's control panel even tho it's synching to an external signal, basically because it needs to tell windows which sample rate it can currently support. I suppose for their typical applications it doesn't matter since the sample rate wouldn't change too often. The MIA (which I do have) is much 'dumber' in that it will play back absolutely any sample rate it supports (only up to 96khz on this one, not 192 like the M-Audio) at any clock frequency input, ie you can play back 44.1 data at 88.2 for a nice chipmunk effect.
However, I have no idea how the SPDIF headers look or whether a receiver will detect it as the actual sample rate or the sample rate the sound card 'thinks' it is outputting. Generally these cards are meant to be synched to an external clock before any input/output is done. Though with my DEQ2496 I can change the clock input to the MIA on the fly and it has no problems with that, I haven't tried to then sync a DAC to the output of the MIA while doing that so I don't know how that works out. The M-Audio obviously could not be made to be fully automatic but perhaps the MIA can, I will have to test it and see. The MIA MIDI is about $130 and the Audiophile 192 is about $160. If we're content with 96khz the MIA is probably the better choice, although I know nothing about availability in europe, so...
The two I have found are the M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192 (and PROBABLY the 96khz version) and the Echo Audio MIA MIDI. The M-Audio has the drawback (I THINK, I've read the manual extensively but I don't own one) that you must manually set the sample rate in the sound card's control panel even tho it's synching to an external signal, basically because it needs to tell windows which sample rate it can currently support. I suppose for their typical applications it doesn't matter since the sample rate wouldn't change too often. The MIA (which I do have) is much 'dumber' in that it will play back absolutely any sample rate it supports (only up to 96khz on this one, not 192 like the M-Audio) at any clock frequency input, ie you can play back 44.1 data at 88.2 for a nice chipmunk effect.
However, I have no idea how the SPDIF headers look or whether a receiver will detect it as the actual sample rate or the sample rate the sound card 'thinks' it is outputting. Generally these cards are meant to be synched to an external clock before any input/output is done. Though with my DEQ2496 I can change the clock input to the MIA on the fly and it has no problems with that, I haven't tried to then sync a DAC to the output of the MIA while doing that so I don't know how that works out. The M-Audio obviously could not be made to be fully automatic but perhaps the MIA can, I will have to test it and see. The MIA MIDI is about $130 and the Audiophile 192 is about $160. If we're content with 96khz the MIA is probably the better choice, although I know nothing about availability in europe, so...
Bas Horneman said:
Yes, but not to DIY the electronics. I'm going to put together a music server pretty soon. I'll probably run a long USB cable from the computer to an M-Audio Transit, and from the Transit to a Benchmark DAC or similar via the Transit's optical out with a very short cable.
I'm a perpetual song skipper, and my CD collection is getting to be a mess. It will be great to program the songs I want to play from many different disks, then just sit back and listen.
I'll probably get a laptop with some kind of remote access software and a wireless connection to the server so I can run MediaMonkey remotely to pick the songs, then tell MediaMonkey to play them - then shut off the laptop.
With the testing I did... it appears I don't have an adequate way to test it 
If I lock the MIA to an external 44100 clock from my DEQ, then tell foobar to play a 44.1khz track, everything works (of course), if I then tell foobar to switch to a 48khz track, it of course keeps playing. But I don't have a hardware SPDIF receiver wired up that I can monitor to see if the status pins change at all. At least my receiver did not re-sync. I fear it may be neccesary to either manually set the desired sample rate via some small application or hopefully write some plugins for foobar or other software to detect the desired sample rate and spit it out to the master clock.
If I lock the MIA to an external 44100 clock from my DEQ, then tell foobar to play a 44.1khz track, everything works (of course), if I then tell foobar to switch to a 48khz track, it of course keeps playing. But I don't have a hardware SPDIF receiver wired up that I can monitor to see if the status pins change at all. At least my receiver did not re-sync. I fear it may be neccesary to either manually set the desired sample rate via some small application or hopefully write some plugins for foobar or other software to detect the desired sample rate and spit it out to the master clock.
Konnichiwa,
That would be the one thing to find out. All that siad, given the scarcity of 48/96KHz files one may actually safely ignore this and stick to 44.1KHz anyway and simply re-sample these to "only CD Quality" for the Music Box.
So, I can get an affordable card and make it syncornise to an external clock, that's 90% there....
Sayonara
Rescue Toaster said:
That would be the one thing to find out. All that siad, given the scarcity of 48/96KHz files one may actually safely ignore this and stick to 44.1KHz anyway and simply re-sample these to "only CD Quality" for the Music Box.
So, I can get an affordable card and make it syncornise to an external clock, that's 90% there....
Sayonara
Re: Re: thing for thought refered on 6moons
We'll see. I ordered one of their budget USB DACs (~$60 USD post paid) for my 1st experiement with computer audio... it will hook up to a free Blueberry iMac running OS X and iTunes... all my CDs are already ripped to the disk in Apple lossless format.
If it is encoraging i'll search out a firewire machine (maybe my wife's cube when we get her a replacement and get the audio out over Firewire into a really serious DAC.
dave
We'll see. I ordered one of their budget USB DACs (~$60 USD post paid) for my 1st experiement with computer audio... it will hook up to a free Blueberry iMac running OS X and iTunes... all my CDs are already ripped to the disk in Apple lossless format.
If it is encoraging i'll search out a firewire machine (maybe my wife's cube when we get her a replacement and get the audio out over Firewire into a really serious DAC.
dave
When it comes to plopping a cd in the drive and having it create a copy for the archive server, my answer/solution didn't address this. I have found a scripting/macro program that can create a script to, let's say, rip with EAC, compress to FLAC and save to file server all with a one click step. The cool thing will be if I can get it configured to run from a remote button.
Re: Re: Re: thing for thought refered on 6moons
Konnichiwa,
I have one. I bought it to get a second audio out from a PC for running my DJ Software. I got what I paid for, something that outputs noise sufficiently for a party. Both Digital and Analogue outputs are NOT suited to ANY level of fidelity IMHO.
Of course, my personal HiFi System may be a bit extreme.
In the Party System BTW the Link drives Non-OS TDA1543 DAC into a EL34 Push-Pull Amp into Bastanis Prometheus, definitly a tasty party DJ setup with a decent PC and Mixmeister software in front. But next to running a decent CD Player (okay, a Hotrodded Shanling CD-T 100) directly into the Amp....
Sayonara
Konnichiwa,
planet10 said:
I have one. I bought it to get a second audio out from a PC for running my DJ Software. I got what I paid for, something that outputs noise sufficiently for a party. Both Digital and Analogue outputs are NOT suited to ANY level of fidelity IMHO.
Of course, my personal HiFi System may be a bit extreme.
In the Party System BTW the Link drives Non-OS TDA1543 DAC into a EL34 Push-Pull Amp into Bastanis Prometheus, definitly a tasty party DJ setup with a decent PC and Mixmeister software in front. But next to running a decent CD Player (okay, a Hotrodded Shanling CD-T 100) directly into the Amp....
Sayonara
Konnichiwa,
Sounds good. What I have been writing out could be seen as a first draft spec for an "Open Sauce" HD Music Box / High End transport combo project. If we can get enough people interested and together we might get a fully compiled Linux source for a specific Mini ITX Motherboard, display/local control keys plus remote receiver and soundcard.
This anyone can then combine with the Reclocker (I have a suspicion we might be able to get Guido Tent to take such a module into his product line) and a case to taste, but the hard work could be an "Open Sauce" communal project.
Sayonara
JoshK said:
Sounds good. What I have been writing out could be seen as a first draft spec for an "Open Sauce" HD Music Box / High End transport combo project. If we can get enough people interested and together we might get a fully compiled Linux source for a specific Mini ITX Motherboard, display/local control keys plus remote receiver and soundcard.
This anyone can then combine with the Reclocker (I have a suspicion we might be able to get Guido Tent to take such a module into his product line) and a case to taste, but the hard work could be an "Open Sauce" communal project.
Sayonara
That sounds like a great idea. One that I wouldn't mind being a part of. I am not sure that reinventing the wheel is necessary, there is a lot of good software out there currently for music file serving but if we were to fill in the gaps to make a nice source engine on an easy platform, that would be VERy kewlio.
I'd be willing to help out, but I am not a CPE, my knowledge of programming is from numerical analysis, so more algorithms oriented. I know little to nothing about hardware interfacing. I'd be a fun learning experience though.
I'd be willing to help out, but I am not a CPE, my knowledge of programming is from numerical analysis, so more algorithms oriented. I know little to nothing about hardware interfacing. I'd be a fun learning experience though.
Konnichiwa,
Thanks, if I find time I'll work a bit more.
I agree, I'm not even against a windows solution, but the really small motherboards that can run fanless and with a linear PSU do not have that much power, hence something Linux is probably better. I am aware that is already ton's of stuff out there, but I don't know it too well nor do I know where to look.... ;-)
I do the occasional bit's of application programming work (customisation really) but all hardcore programming I leave to others... ;-)
Sayonara
JoshK said:
Thanks, if I find time I'll work a bit more.
JoshK said:
I agree, I'm not even against a windows solution, but the really small motherboards that can run fanless and with a linear PSU do not have that much power, hence something Linux is probably better. I am aware that is already ton's of stuff out there, but I don't know it too well nor do I know where to look.... ;-)
JoshK said:
I do the occasional bit's of application programming work (customisation really) but all hardcore programming I leave to others... ;-)
Sayonara
The software was sort of the catch for me too. The hardware really is pretty clear cut, especially if we can modify the software to send the desired sample rate to the DAC via USB or Serial Port... then the hardware gets REALLY simple.
Just getting a whole system that works without too much fiddling... I tried a few different software packages and never really found anything that I liked using.
Just getting a whole system that works without too much fiddling... I tried a few different software packages and never really found anything that I liked using.
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