Squeezebox 3 stream is not as good as actual CD...

I discovered first hand tonight, lossless through the Squeezebox 3 is only about 80% as good as the original CD played through the Cary 306/200.... EVEN if the Squeezebox 3's digital outs are routed through the internal DACs of the Cary.

There is a loss of image focus relative to the actual CD... there is a discernable loss in ambience and solidity of instruments and a loss of slight dynamics. Mostly, I notice the difference to be focus... less focused with the SB3 going through the Cary DACs and more focused with the actual CD playing in the Cary itself.

Now... to upgrade my music collection!

I bought $100 worth of CDs today... something I've never done before. It's great to focus on the main reason why we're in this hobby and quit dealing with what component to upgrade next.

Another lesson learned....

Joey

For my next experiment, I will see if I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV burnt onto my PC - both through the Cary DACs.

Then I will compare WAV to the actual CD via Cary DACs.

This should be interesting and should shed some light unto this topic.

CD money

I used to buy 10-20 CDs a month. I mostly bought used or got A DJ discount from a buddy at his shop, so it was not unusual for me to drop 200 dollars on CDs... and I was a starving student... it was just that music seemed more important than food to me... It amazes me how little people spend on their actual music now a days! I also rarely buy CDs anymore... but it is mostly because I live in the sticks now and most of the good CD shops have closed. Now I buy about a CD a week used via the internet.

Joey_V said:

For my next experiment, I will see if I can tell the difference between FLAC and WAV burnt onto my PC - both through the Cary DACs.

Then I will compare WAV to the actual CD via Cary DACs.

This should be interesting and should shed some light unto this topic.

Click to expand...

Joey, one thing to ensure is that the rip is indeed bit accurate. Use of EAC or other guaranteed bit accurate ripper is highly recommended.

Once ripped, a good playback system should deliver the same bitstream to the DAC as a good CD transport.
The only variable should be how much jitter or latency does one transport have vs another.

Significant (i.e. audible) changes in frequency response or levels are due to other factors and should be researched and cleared up.

Jitter or latency issues are audible, but quite subtle. If audible, it's actually pretty bad performance (like a transport that can't keep it's SPDIF buffers full or a PC with high-priority bus interrupts starving the audio card).

My reading would tell me that an SB3 feeding a good WAV file via digital connection should be the equal of any good CD transport.

I sure would not go back to spinning discs, I actually hate that I still need to do that for SACD or DVD-A.

JonFo said:

Once ripped, a good playback system should deliver the same bitstream to the DAC as a good CD transport.

My reading would tell me that an SB3 feeding a good WAV file via digital connection should be the equal of any good CD transport.

I sure would not go back to spinning discs, I actually hate that I still need to do that for SACD or DVD-A.

Click to expand...

I find that my SB3 with the coax digital into the Wadia 581i sounds as good as the same redbook CD played in the Wadia. I rip using EAC to a lossless FLAC file. SACD or XRCD played in the Wadia is definitely the best and I don't mind spinning discs.

Joey, you should try some HDCD discs in your Cary 306-200.

JonFo said:

Joey, one thing to ensure is that the rip is indeed bit accurate. Use of EAC or other guaranteed bit accurate ripper is highly recommended.

Once ripped, a good playback system should deliver the same bitstream to the DAC as a good CD transport.
The only variable should be how much jitter or latency does one transport have vs another.

Significant (i.e. audible) changes in frequency response or levels are due to other factors and should be researched and cleared up.

Jitter or latency issues are audible, but quite subtle. If audible, it's actually pretty bad performance (like a transport that can't keep it's SPDIF buffers full or a PC with high-priority bus interrupts starving the audio card).

My reading would tell me that an SB3 feeding a good WAV file via digital connection should be the equal of any good CD transport.

I sure would not go back to spinning discs, I actually hate that I still need to do that for SACD or DVD-A.

Click to expand...

I will look into this, but the difference is NOT subtle at all. It's akin to upgrading a component actually.

I did not think there was/would be a difference, until I began listening to some CDs that I had lying around. Then I realized it sounded consistently different. I then bought a CD that I had a FLAC album of and I compared... then I really heard a very discernable difference between the two. I mean, it's somewhat close - but it can't be mistaken for the real CD. Close though. I assume this is partly due to IC between the SB3 and the Cary and also perhaps the design of the digital output on the SB3... if there was no improvement to be made on the digital output side of the SB3, then there wouldn't be all these mods advertised on audiogon, right?

Craig,
I'm going to rerip the disc using EAC to FLAC.

I'll see what the difference is.

Craig said:

Joey, you should try some HDCD discs in your Cary 306-200.

Click to expand...

BTW, how do I know if a CD is HDCD? Is it routinely written on the CD or cover?

Joey_V said:

BTW, how do I know if a CD is HDCD? Is it routinely written on the CD or cover?

Click to expand...

there should be be a logo on the back cover.

From what I read the main weakness of the squeezebox is it has two clocks to do internet radio, and also the power supply is somewhat compromised, the result is a slightly high jitter. Welborne Labs makes a power supply, and there are also options from boulder audio and a linear technology supply that is also cheap.

you might try the trends ud 10.1, I have it and get great results with it and have read quite a few comments by people on the internet who seem to say they sound better than the squeezebox. You do need to to setup kernel streaming or ASIO output on a pc, I use a mac so I don't deal with that. I also found this belkin wire to be best for usb... http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000E975BO?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER I am using an audioquest digital cable to link my musiland md10 and the trends.

dont ask me why the usb cable changes the sound but it does. I have also noticed that my 12" powerbook sounds better than other macs I happen to have. Likely the fact that my trends does not have a external supply... yet.

I have compared it to a CEC cd player, and a Audio research cd2, and it sounds every bit as good though each has a signature.

Joey, make sure you have bit-rate limiting and replaygain (or transcoding to MP3) turned off. Also, is it possible the playback gain through the CD player is louder? I use a cheap Elpac linear PSU with my SB, instead of the stock switching PSU. Into my Benchmark DAC1 I'd say it's 98% of the performance of direct CD playback. I agree SACD's still sound better, but the future advent of higher-res FLAC files will hopefully rectify that (but then I'll need a Transporter for playback).

Alan,

No, the volumes are all the same... it is different in any volume level... I can tell very easily because these are the albums I play quite a bit. Just more of the improvement in focus and imaging. From vocals to instruments.

I'm going to re-rip the FLACs again with EAC.

Joey, I have made this comparison many times myself and have come to the same conclusions as you. The only time I have heard a "server" type application sound as good as or (dare I say it) better than a CD coming off a traditional transport has been when there has been no mechanical mechanism involved - solid state only - as with the Memory Player, the Linn server or the new Boulder player. Personally, I don't think a computer hard drive is as good as a really well designed opto/mechanical transport such as the one in your Cary or my Esoteric. Most of the hard discs I have sing like a bird just accessing the data.

Interestingly enough, I've even read somewhere that most people feel like the best sounding iPod is the Nano - a fully solid state device.

I was talking a few weeks ago with a guy who is the chief technology officer for a major hard disc manufacturer here on the front range and he was telling me that they are spending most of their R&D on Hybrid (optical/solid state) drives because of the reduced error rates and faster access times in the solid state sections of the drives. He said that they would someday be offering only solid state drives, but that the cost was too prohibitive still now. Very much like LED's for general lighting in my line of work.

I don't think that the hard disk has a crucial role here. Probably it's the surrounding circuitry - especially the power supply. Most music servers have a common power supply (probably of a switching type) powering the disk, digital part and DAC circuitry and the interferences can be damped to some extent but not eliminated. Add poor filtering and no wonder that the sound is affected by the drive motors drawing current form the power supply. I could say that a hard drive can sound quite superior to any kind of optical transport forced to do the error correction caused by vibration, dust particles, media defects etc, being local (with a proper power supply) or attached to a networked server.

I have heard the exact same thing. The original / CD always sounds better.

I've even done tests on the computer where I've decoded a ALAC or FLAC file and checksumed it to the orginal. It's identical! Error correction or whether I use accuraterip or not. There's no problem there.

I just put it down to the fact that there are just some things we don't fully understand as yet.

zaphod said:

there should be be a logo on the back cover.

Click to expand...

Sometimes they're not marked and this is also true with some hybrid SACDs (take a look at Rolling Stones and ABBCO recordings).

For HDCD I recommend most of the Mannheim Steamroller (mostly Christmas music) CDs, Beck - Sea Change (not marked as HDCD but the light comes on), Patricia Barber - Cafe Blue, Kenny Wayne Sheppard - Live On, to name a few.

Some of the audiophile CD online stores like Acoustic Sounds list HDCD as a category.

I used to own the Cary 303/200 HDCD player and it sounded very good with rich tight bass and excellent mid-range. I probably shouldn't have sold it.

My list of recommended Cary CD players are:

303/200
306/200
303/300
306/SACD
DVD-6 (a well made DVD player and an excellent CD player with built in volume control)

By the way, my 303/200 with volume control required you to open the cover and relocate a jumper in order to change it to variable volume output. I checked the owner manuals for the 303/200 and 306/200 and neither said anything about doing this or the volume control feature. But then you have an awesome preamp so I would just leave it alone and use that pre anyway. It most likely will sound better through the preamp you have.

miljac said:

I don't think that the hard disk has a crucial role here. Probably it's the surrounding circuitry - especially the power supply. Most music servers have a common power supply (probably of a switching type) powering the disk, digital part and DAC circuitry and the interferences can be damped to some extent but not eliminated. Add poor filtering and no wonder that the sound is affected by the drive motors drawing current form the power supply. I could say that a hard drive can sound quite superior to any kind of optical transport forced to do the error correction caused by vibration, dust particles, media defects etc, being local (with a proper power supply) or attached to a networked server.

Click to expand...

Possibly, but in the case of the Memory Player the way they demonstrated it at RMAF was to play a standard CD directly from the transport, then the same track from the on board hard drive (sounded worse to everyone in the room) and then playing the same track from the hard drive through the Memory Players huge (I don't recall how huge) solid state buffer. This last demo was what made a believer out of everyone in the room, including myself. The difference was FAR from subtle.

If any of you have a chance to demo the Memory Player I strongly recommend that you request a similar approach in the demonstration.

Joey_V said:

Alan,

No, the volumes are all the same... it is different in any volume level... I can tell very easily because these are the albums I play quite a bit. Just more of the improvement in focus and imaging. From vocals to instruments.

I'm going to re-rip the FLACs again with EAC.

Click to expand...

Are you SURE you don't have transcoding turned on?

Please bear in mind that it's the SPDIF between the SB3 and the DAC - the CD player does not use SPDIF for the internal connection to the DAC. this makes for a whole world of difference.

I got my power supply, huge huge difference in my setup... I would encourage you to play with the PS on the SB.... also try digital cables, they all sound a little different.

FYI, I'm using a Harmonic Technology Magic One digital cable between my SB3 and Wadia. I don't have any other digital cables to do any A-B comparisons. Not sure if it really makes a difference but went with a supposedly great digital cable just in case.