SD Card Player

[Spirit]

www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/142562-microsd-memory-card-transport-project.html

Why even use a pc as transport at all? (aside from the obvious convenience).

This seems to be the ideal transport [in terms of sound quality]... output i2s directly into the dac of your choosing - fit it in the same enclosure and you're set.

32/192 or 24/352.8

One of these with a B32S would be very hard to beat I think.

Will and I have been interested in this one for a while... It's now advanced to a stage where it's rather tempting [certainly for me anyway]

Or....
www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/140538-lossless-sd-card-player.html
As mentioned by SandyK (Alex) in the Storage Options thread.

[Deleted]

That's pretty impressive (even the limited amount I understood), I mentioned the idea of something like this in another thread without knowing that it was already a possibility. I wonder if higher production level would bring the price down?

Q1) Is the SD format proven to be superior to the flash-pen USB2?

Q2) If yes to above, will USB3 sort this? (or just incorporate both?)

To me, the idea of taking a full computer out of the equasion is very attractive.

[Spirit]

I'm guessing there's less processing power required to get data off an sd card relative to a usb stick. Less processing = less interference.
(no idea really, but all the designs I've seen that focus on quality are using sd)

[Will]

I was very interested in Bunpei's offering, until I saw the price! £100 less, and as a kit, and I would have gone for it. I still think that is the way we'll go though. The other thing is the control interface, not the most intuitive thing by the looks of things.

I'm still going the PC route, as it's easier to use/and is easier to upgrade

Antigeek1 has one of these I think, which does 16/44
QLS QA-550

Pretty good price.

At that resolution, a pic can cope, but you need to go VLSI for the h-res stuff, from an article I read (which I now can't find

If you fancy making one...www.curiousinventor.com/projects/SD_card_music_player

[leo]

Very interesting, think I'll be leaving these a bit though for now, wait until prices are more competitive and interface improved

[ticktockman]

I have to admit an interest in this topic as I have been using a sd card based transport for a couple of months. The one I use is the QLS QA-550 which I obtained with minor decoupling modifications from Chevron Audio. Colin at Chevron had recommended the device after using his jitter analysis software and getting the best results he had seen and he has measured an awful lot of transports and computer storage devices. The item is about the size of a personal dictation machine and has a small digital display which you cant see when you place it flat on a surface and if you attach anything other than the most flexible of spdif/toslink cables to it it will move under the tension in the cables. It also has obvious upgrading potential from clocks to power supplies, even battery power.

Is it any good...yes probably the best transport I have ever had in my system and makes a major difference to a number of different dacs which have no reclocking circuit in their construction and a surprising difference to those with reclocking innovations of various types and qualities.

So do I listen to it in constant rapture on its sound quality...no this device has possibly the worse user interface I have encountered in any digital device.

I actually could describe it as the anti squeezebox. One device has excellent user operation but mediocre sound even as a digital transport the other has excellent sound but awful ergonomics and ease of use. Do I regret buying it, hell no I now have a point of reference when trying to get the quality of my other various transports up to a audiophile standard. In illustration a basic but nice sounding NOS dac I like for simpler forms of music has now been supplemented by a theta TLC between it and the squeezebox classic transport. Still not as good but an improvement, a couple of other reclocking/dejittering devices have now been purchased and will be used singularly and together to see if I can get a little closer to nirvana.

It has or should I say had one other major glitch.. it is quite extraordinarily fussy on make and even type of sd card it would recognise straightforwardly. An update has made it a little better but anyone who tells you an sd card is an sd card needs to see this unit in operation. Most of my computer savy friend don't believe it till they see it.

What it has shown me is that when eliminating the mechanical elements of retrieval of data a major leap forward can occur, be it in comparison to hard drive or cd tranport.

I hope that in the not to distant future my long back ordered squeezebox touch with its facility to uses sd cards and usb sticks may give me a decent user interface and a better digital transport to boot. No release date on that as yet. I have no doubt it will still be inferior to this but it can handle other formats than plain old WAV 16 bit 44hz including 24bit/96hz.

[jkeny]

I have posted this idea on DIYA but not too much interest so I'll give it a punt here:
Seen as this playback method holds some advantages & reportedly sounds great BUT it's interface is the pits, why not look at something similar with solid state playback but a better interface - an ipod Now before you start spitting feathers hear me out. Tapping I2S out of one of these is probably not a huge job - so we can attach to an external DAC of choice. Issues might be clock & PS but who knows.

I am still looking to find a faulty (broken HDD) iPod classic on ebay for a reasonable price to experiment. I intend to replace HDD with an SD card reader & possibly rebox but with front fascia still exposed as the UI.

What do you guys think?

Oh, I forgot to mention another plus - using iPodLinux as the firmware it can do 24/96KHz I believe

[Deleted]

John
As you say , the interface is what needs improving. I will be interested to see what you come up with.
Alex

[Spirit]

I think it would be good for the interim John. Till these others figure out some decent way of interfacing. Purely from a sound perspective, I think the sd card player would be better - less processing done by the chip - less interference etc.
How much difference this will actually make I have no idea.

As Alex said, I too would be interested to see what you produce

[Will]

John, that's a great idea. I've read that the earlier ipods used a separate (wolfson ?) dac, so, as you say, its should be pretty straightforward to tap into a signal somewhere. The later ones use an all-in-one-you-got-no-chance chip for everything, I think.

Look forward to what you can dig up.

[rowuk]

There are already fine solid state drive recorders/players available: TASCAMs DR100 for instance:http://www.tascam.com/products/dr-100.html or this broadcast quality unit: www.tascam.com/products/hd-r1.html. I have heard both. Very impressive.

[Deleted]

Jan 16, 2010 23:13:58 GMT rowuk said:

There are already fine solid state drive recorders/players available: TASCAMs DR100 for instance:http://www.tascam.com/products/dr-100.html or this broadcast quality unit: www.tascam.com/products/hd-r1.html. I have heard both. Very impressive.

The rugged TASCAM DR-100 offers high-end recording features to musicians and engineers

Robin
It is fine for what you do, but would appear to be of very little relevance to most RG members, except perhaps "Videoguy"
Alex

[matt7941]

I'm not sure if I'm alone with this one, but I think I'm missing the point.

The files have to be transferred to SD cards by ripping via a CD drive, therefore do the resultant files not suffer the same degredation that standard wav files from CD suffer? Whilst I concur that SD (or whichever (solid state) format the files are saved to) should theoretically sound better, the fact remains they are ripped (if that is the correct term even at wav quality) from a CD? In a logical world (not that we live in one) does this offer any better replay than direct from a CD?

I am bracing myself for the responses, bring it on!!!

Cheers

Matt

[Deleted]

Jan 17, 2010 0:45:31 GMT matt7941 said:

I'm not sure if I'm alone with this one, but I think I'm missing the point.

The files have to be transferred to SD cards by ripping via a CD drive, therefore do the resultant files not suffer the same degredation that standard wav files from CD suffer? Whilst I concur that SD (or whichever (solid state) format the files are saved to) should theoretically sound better, the fact remains they are ripped (if that is the correct term even at wav quality) from a CD? In a logical world (not that we live in one) does this offer any better replay than direct from a CD?

I am bracing myself for the responses, bring it on!!!

Cheers

Matt

It all comes down to the quality of the rip itself, which has EVERYTHING to do with the quality of the Writer/CD player that it is being ripped by, as well as the actual Ripper used and the speed of the rip.It is also a good idea to have the CD being ripped scrupulously clean before commencing ripping.
Alex

[matt7941]

Alex, surely this is the point.

How many computer based systems have the potential to equal a truly decent, let alone great, cd replay/rip?

Whilst I concur that the convenience of computer replay, not just merely the amount of tracks that can be shoehorned in to an SD card (or pen drive), is worthwhile in itself, surely it is still inferior to direct CD replay via a good CD player/drive dac combo? I will admit for those few tracks (relatively) that are available 24/192 (or indeed 96) to download digitally (or from a 24/96 or 192 source) there may be an advantage, but in the real world this is precious little by way of tracks. Until there is more available 24/96 (or 192) as stock are we not deluding ourselves in to thinking this is the future?

Again, let the barrage commence (in hope of a positive answer).

Matt

[FauDrei]

Jan 17, 2010 0:45:31 GMT matt7941 said:

The files have to be transferred to SD cards by ripping via a CD drive, therefore do the resultant files not suffer the same degredation that standard wav files from CD suffer? Whilst I concur that SD (or whichever (solid state) format the files are saved to) should theoretically sound better, the fact remains they are ripped (if that is the correct term even at wav quality) from a CD? In a logical world (not that we live in one) does this offer any better replay than direct from a CD?

Yes, the resultant files suffer the same degradation as standard wav files from audio CD... or standard zip files from data CD. None, if done properly. You just copy data from one media to another.

Memory (of almost any kind) offers better replay possibilities than CD - there are no mechanical moving parts and problems associated with that. In fact, "the bestest high-endests" CD players, or CD transports as they like to be named, read audio with higher speeds and have 64-128 MB of RAM to buffer the music "ripped" in such way. Familiar procedure, isn't it?

[matt7941]

Yes, granted, but what I'm getting at is that for the most part the best available source file is from CD. Therefore, with a decent transport/player is it not at least equivalent to SD or similar. To my mind you cannot "improve" the source, merely degrade it. Whilst replay from SD would be theoretically better, it has to be transcribed from CD first and can therefore only lose quality unless taken from a high quality digital "master" in the first instance of which there are few.

(Ducks in bunker and takes cover.)

Matt

[Deleted]

Jan 17, 2010 1:18:44 GMT matt7941 said:

Alex, surely this is the point.

How many computer based systems have the potential to equal a truly decent, let alone great, cd replay/rip?

Whilst I concur that the convenience of computer replay, not just merely the amount of tracks that can be shoehorned in to an SD card (or pen drive), is worthwhile in itself, surely it is still inferior to direct CD replay via a good CD player/drive dac combo? I will admit for those few tracks (relatively) that are available 24/192 (or indeed 96) to download digitally (or from a 24/96 or 192 source) there may be an advantage, but in the real world this is precious little by way of tracks. Until there is more available 24/96 (or 192) as stock are we not deluding ourselves in to thinking this is the future?

Again, let the barrage commence (in hope of a positive answer).

Matt

Matt
This subject has been thoroughly thrashed out in other threads in the Computer area of RG.
Several RG members are already getting far better replay of extracted .wav files from their PC s than with affordable CD/DVD players directly. However, if you live in Sorryjevo, this appears to be especially hard to achieve !
Incidentally, yet another Sydney based member who is currently modifying the new SC DAC kit, and has posted results in the DIY area of RG, can also verify this, as he has heard playback from my PC via HDD,USB pen, and DIRECT playback from the internal LG BR writer with the same CD as ripped.
Alex

[FauDrei]

So, we all have the vast majority of our music on CD media and consider ourselves some kind of audiophiles. We ask ourselves:

• Do I prefer searching for CD, getting CD out of it's case, opening CD tray, (removing previous CD and storing it back), inserting CD, closing CD tray, and pressing play?
  
  or
  
  Do I prefer <Ctrl-F>, typing few letters of the song, <Enter>?
  
  
• Do I believe the data I ripped from my audio CD is the same as data written on my audio CD (and is the same as data on "the master CD")?
  
  or
  
  Do I believe there is some "voodoo magic" involved in writing master CD, "lesser voodoo magic" involved in pressing audio CD copies and "no voodoo magic" in reading pressed audio CD copy in computer DVD-burner vulgaris and that in each part of this voodoo chain I unequivocally lose unspecified amount of music bits?
  

Depending on our answers to those dilemmas - we are going to listen to our complete music library from a couple of multiterabyte memory cards...

or

...we are going to steal Capitol/EMI DSotM master reels and listen to them on our 1/2 inch tape. LPs degrade after each listening. CDs do not have all the required bits.

Thing is, you can not improve (digital) source data, you can improve the source: get a better CD player/transport, better DAC, better memory player/transport, better computer player/transport...

P.S.
Well you can improve digital source data, but it is called de-noising, de-clipping, re-mastering... but this is out of our topic and it is debatable if it can be called improvement at all.

[FauDrei]

Yes, Sorryjevo is a special (not just digital audio) place... ;D

I'm starting to suspect that I do not know how to listen... I mean listen analytically.

I improved my rig - all the parts from computer transport to headphones have been upgraded and there are no weak links that I know of. It was quite a qualitative leap from my previous setups and a real "ear opener". I can hear detail, micro-dynamic, timbre and ambience changes. I can detect the SQ improvement when switching from direct sound to kernel streaming software players. I can distinguish the differences between -50 db, -90 db and -130 db filters, between NOS, 2x, 4x and 8x oversampling, I clearly hear when dithering is involved or absent but I can not hear the differences between the samples provided by Alex. Or between self-ripped samples on different machines or with different settings.

Anyone?

[Deleted]

Thing is, you can not improve (digital) source data, you can improve the source: get a better CD player/transport, better DAC, better memory player/transport, better computer player/transport...

P.S.
Well you can improve digital source data, but it is called de-noising, de-clipping, re-mastering... but this is out of our topic and it is debatable if it can be called improvement at all. -FauDrei

The thing is, that the best that you can hope for is accurate recovery of the data encoded on the CD,
without any timing errors introduced during the reading process. If anybody is able, I suggest that they try using an upmarket
SACD-CD player/Transport's output via SPDIF into a good quality sound card, and compare the audible results with that from a typical cheap internal CD/DVD writer. I mean both , BEFORE and AFTER storing the .wav files on a SSD, USB pen etc.
You will need some pretty decent playback gear to hear the differences, in which case they will not be subtle.

[Deleted]

Jan 17, 2010 3:22:08 GMT FauDrei said:

Yes, Sorryjevo is a special (not just digital audio) place... ;D

I'm starting to suspect that I do not know how to listen... I mean listen analytically.

I improved my rig - all the parts from computer transport to headphones have been upgraded and there are no weak links that I know of. It was quite a qualitative leap from my previous setups and a real "ear opener". I can hear detail, micro-dynamic, timbre and ambience changes. I can detect the SQ improvement when switching from direct sound to kernel streaming software players. I can distinguish the differences between -50 db, -90 db and -130 db filters, between NOS, 2x, 4x and 8x oversampling, I clearly hear when dithering is involved or absent but I can not hear the differences between the samples provided by Alex. Or between self-ripped samples on different machines or with different settings.

Anyone?

Faudrei
As I stated previously, the rips have further improved since you first compared them.The differences are now far less subtle . You could of course try sending a PM to the gentleman that I referred to earlier about the SC DAC, and ask for his unbiased opinion .
Let's face it, plenty of other members have already told you many times, that they can clearly hear differences. Perhaps you need to spend further time on your upgrading path, or perhaps use different playback software such as XXHE ? But that would mean using a Windows based PC (preferably Windows 7), after all,
>95 out of 100 people worldwide prefer Windows machines over Apple. Not everybody is seduced by a pretty face.
Alex
P.S.
Seriously. it would suggest thatr although you have the ability to clearly hear the differences that you have already described, that your playback equipment is still capable of further improvement.
Are you still using USB ?

[FauDrei]

Apple? Me a Mac-man?

Alex, I've got my first Microsoft certificate back in early '90-ties. You've misplaced me with someone else... What is SCHA and analogue electronics to you - it is Win based PCs/notebooks/servers to me... iPods/iPhones are the furthest I'd go in computer vegetables.

Audiophile players I've tried, further upgrades I don't require at the moment... We both have W1000, do you consider them good enough? Are they sensitive enough to hear rip differences? In fact, do you think anything from my signature is good enough to unmistakeably spot the differences?

[Deleted]

Valter
Sorry about the Mac remark. I find that Mac users in general are less likely to hear the difference, or struggle.
We both use ATH W1000. Many of the people who can clearly hear the differences are using the DIY SC HA with JLH, or the DIY Class A HA in a couple of cases.One major attribute of both these amplifiers, is the very low noise floor due to the use of the JLH, as well as an improvement in HFdetail. These 2 combine to assist in low level ambience retrieval, which is the area where many of the differences are noted. Leo uses a Buffalo DAC without the need for a preamp/HA , then into speakers via my Class A amp modules.Leo's DAC is very wide band, and extremely low noise due to the use of all those expensive Paul Hynes regulators.
The vast majority do not appear to be using a DAC via USB.
USB into the Benchmark USB DAC from a laptop was most disappointing at that listening session mentioned previously.
I don't know whether USB is the telling factor or not, although I realise you have taken measures to improve that route.
Are you also using coax SPDIF, or Firewire ?
I am not familiar with some of the gear you mention, as I am not so much into commercial gear.(Can't afford it !) Although I doubt that either the V2 or green Solo has enough resolution.(I have heard a green Solo)
The green Solo has special HF "tailoring" to cope with "difficult" headphones. The V2 although undoubtedly a very pleasant listen, also falls far short in the critical area of S/N. (IMO !)

Alex

[rowuk]

Jan 17, 2010 4:55:46 GMT @sandyk said:

Valter
Sorry about the Mac remark. I find that Mac users in general are less likely to hear the difference, or struggle.
..............

Maybe the Mac is capable of playing back identical files identically, but the Windoze machine won't.

I call that consistency and not resolution! ;D

Seriously, there is an explanation that does not only apply to the audiophile world. When I was selling Macs in the early 90s, we had a standard line that when you talk to a windows user they would quote processor, ram, hard drive and other technical stuff. The Mac user would show you what they had just finished working on. It is still true today.
Most of the Mac users that I know are professionals that have to meet deadlines and as such have to be content with great results made easy instead of greatest theoretical output regardless. This satisfaction with technically "good enough" with out comprimising the artistic intentions is an attitude different than is found with the bleeding edge audiophile. My only issue with the bleeding edge is that most of the proponents have no experience with the creation process and therefore can prove differences, but can't honestly say which one is more "original".

Perhaps the easiest explanation is artist vs engineer?

I am more interested in the actual musical interpretation of a piece than in the audiophile reproduction. In real life, imaging is a much different experience, the noise floor is determined by the audience/air conditioning and headroom is determined by the percussion as well as the lips of the brass section. Recordings are generally a weak image of the real thing.

Live amplified concerts very seldom have any redeeming audio qualities. The recordings of such groups in fact do offer a far greater audio quality, albeit missing the spontanity of a live performance.

There is room for all of us Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix or in the near future purely web based. As long as we can have fun poking fun at one another, everything is cool.