Is the use of an iPod or iTunes played through one's middle to high-end audio equipment thoroughly frowned upon by the true audiofile? I currently have my entire music collection in iTunes (some recorded in Apple Lossless and some in MP3 VBR format). I really like the convenience of just pulling up a selction or Playlist and playing it through my home audio system. However, it appears that a lot of attention and concern is paid to the specs of individual components in the system. If I'm throwing in a PC or an iPod into the mix, am I completely negating the benefit of those other costly components; i.e. pre-amp, amp, speakers?

All that really matters is whether or not YOU are happy with it. If it sounds good to you, and you are content, don't worry about what others think.

Lossy compression audio formats such as MP3 can and will often provide a "lesser" version of the original data. How much impact there is depends on a number of factors - how much compression is applied or how good the components in the rest of the signal path are. Lossless compression should yield results that are very close to indistinguishable from the original CD.

Having said all that, the question really is what works for you. If you have good speakers and good electronics but also like the convenience of MP3's, then maybe you want to experiment with Apple Lossless or FLAC for lossless archiving. You may even want to go with lossy compression and use iTunes for casual listening but keep a CD player around for those occasions when you are doing more serious listening. Owl's_Warder summed it up well - do what you like. That's probably one of the best bits of advise in this hobby. Your ear and your tastes should dictate what you buy, not other people's opinions.

I've been using MP3 for music listening at work for ages now, and when I got an iPod for Christmas I tried hooking it to my 990 - there was a clear advantage to the original CD over the MP3 (better components are more revealing of the compression), but I've still got a cable tucked back in the equipment rack so I can hook up the iPod on occasion because it is convenient. Once I run some network cable to the equipment rack (probably next weekend, since we'll be in Chicago this weekend), I may even think about getting a device like a Squeezebox or Soundbridge to make use of that convenience. I'll still keep my CD's handy so I can toss them in when I have the opportunity to really sit down and listen to the system, but for those times when I'm doing other stuff and just want some background tunes I could see using the iPod or a media server instead.

Gonk is right--it's what works for you. I just evaluated Apple lossless against several other levels of compression (bitrates) in MP3 and I can tell the difference. I archive to disk with lossless compression.

Perhaps more important is to make sure that the iPod is connected to your system by the dock line out and not a ministereo connector plugged into the headphone out jack. iPods have very good DACs and send a pretty respectable signal to the line out--not so with the headphone out in the circuit. There are patch cords available that plug into the dock and give you the line out. There is no way to get the digital signal out (PM me if you can't find one) and according to several audiophile reviews, no real reason to want it because the DACs are quite ok.

Find a level of compression that sounds good to you and use the line out on an iPod and you will have a nifty little media server. An iPod should hold about 250 CDs compressed with ALC.

Correction from my last post: That part about the PM referred to the line out patch cord not the digital out. PM me if you can't find a vendor for a line out patch cord.

I asked this question a few months ago in another thread, and I'll ask it again here because I still feel I'm in the monirity and trying to determine if I'm doing something "wrong" by ripping to .wav format:

If your playing through a PC and have a large hard drive, why compress the audio? Hard disk space is so cheap. What's the big deal with all these different compression schemes? Is there something to be gained other than smaller file size?

The only benefit to compression is smaller file size - which was great back in the 90's when MP3 got its start, and is still handy for portable MP3 players. Ripping to .wav is basically using the hard drive as a disc transport for many, many CD's at once - in my mind, it's the most ideal way of storing audio for playback (if you've got the disc space). A lot of folks have turned to FLAC because it's lossless (and therefore should be indistinguishable from a WAV file) and takes about half the space. Of course, a WAV file should also be more universally compatible than FLAC.

AudioBear just gave me a good idea. I might grab a basic iPod dock and hook it to the stereo since that has a line out that is fed from the dock connector. Hmm....

My reply to the OP:
I ripped all my CDs in wav format. I use a Xitel USB-to-Toslink device plugged into my laptop and play the files on MusicMatch (recommended by Xitel and works with my 1st gen iPod). The other end of the Toslink cable is plugged into one of my 950's inputs.

I've done side-by-side tests playing the same track on both the laptop and the original CD in my DVD player (using optical connection) at the same time. I can easily and quickly switch back and forth between the two sources mid-track and, after many tests, can not hear difference between the two. This makes sense in my mind because all we're moving around is ones and zeros. As long as all the ones and zeros are still in the same order from both sources, the 950 sees the same data and provides the same output.

I also occasionally bring my XM SkyFi 1 in from the car and plug it into my system. The sound qulity of sat radio providers is generally considered to be poor (somewhere between FM and CD). Even so, it sounds fantastic on my home system; waaay better than in the car.

I'm with you, avlis, when you pay for CD quality there's no reason to cripple the sound quality with crappy compression. I'm planning a new home network, and I'm including a 1TB network drive in the plan, on which I intend to directly copy all of my music CDs. With my AirPort Express and iTunes, I can then run my music to and from anywhere in the house.

Just a quick note about lossless compression. John Atkinson from Stereophile did a quick test once regarding apple lossless compression. The method was take a Wave or other PCM file, compress it, and then restore it (play it back), and compare bit by bit. The result...no difference. If I can find the article I'll post it. It was by no means a definitive test but rather a quick side note.
I see no reason not to use a lossless compression and save space.

Yes, if you want to retain the sonic characteristics of the CD when you rip, lossless encoders are perfectly valid.

They don't get you a 50% smaller file, you will usually end up with a file that is somewhere around 65-75% of the original size.

I have read multiple sources that have done testing with lossless formats and in every case, when the data was uncompressed back to raw audio track it was exactly a bit for bit copy of what was on the CD.

Given that, ripping to RAW gives you no benefit over ripping to FLAC or other lossless codecs.

Following up on Avlis' side-by-side test comments, could you make the argument that the quality of CD player one uses is irrelevant? If you're just moving binary data, what is the value of a more expensive unit? Why not buy the cheapest one available, as long as it has the desired features?

What we're talking about here mainly is the method of storing the digital data. That data still needs to be passed from source (CD, hard drive, flash memory of an MP3 player, whatever) down the signal path and converted to analog at some point before we can listen to it. A more expensive CD player will have (among other things) better DAC's for that digital-to-analog conversion. If the signal stays digital all the way to the receiver, then the receiver's DAC's become important and the player's DAC's are left out of the equation.

BloggingITGuy is right you do not get 50% reduction. Not meaning to knitpick but you don't do as bad as 65-75% either. Apple claims 52%. I just did 40 CDs at 55% and I saw another review that says they got 58%. That's significant if storage is limited and trivial if you have a Tbyte hard disk. I suspect as storage cost/Gb keeps going down we will either store more and more and/or give up compression. There's a lot of personal preference working here. Some of us don't like to waste space and if ALC is bit for bit as good as uncompressed why not do it? The last time I digitized all my CDs I did them uncompressed because I wanted bit for bit archival copies. Depends on your mood. Something deep down inside me says that uncompressed is the original and correct state even though I know there's no difference from FLAC or ALC.

Paladin: you are opening a huge can of worms. Audiofiles believe that not all ones and zeros were created equal and then the invoke things like jitter to further fog the output from inexpensive players. If you are using digital out just about any modern transport will do a pretty darn good job. I don't want to start an argument with audiophiles--I'm sure they agree that the DAC and subsequent pre-amp out stages are more important than the transport. But consider this. When you copy a CD to a hard drive the copying program makes a bit-perfect copy by redundant sampling. Once you have that copy on a disk, if you play it back through a USB port (as described by Avlis above) you essentially eliminate all jitter. You certainly eliminate any playback errors or distortion when you play a disk file. May be one of the reasons iPods and MP3 players sound better than they ought to. May also explain why people who rip DVDs to hard disks and play them in the HTPCs say they video is better. Makes sense to me.

I just want to say that I'm a newbie to this forum, but this is really great.
I'm pretty much of a novice and I wasn't aware that the DAC could be either in the source or the receiver. Is there a standard rule of thumb for where the conversion takes place? What if you have a CD player with its own DAC and the receiver also has DAC capabilities? Also, would a typical PC sound card (or an iPod) do the conversion? If so, I can understand how the sound quality might vary.

The easiest way to tell where the conversion is taking place is by looking at the cable being used between components. If you connect your source (sound card, iPod, CD player) to your receiver's stereo input (the ol' "red and white" cables), then you've moved to the analog domain inside the source (computer sound card, iPod, or CD/DVD player). If you connect your source to one of the receiver's coaxial or optical digital inputs (or to a USB input, or in some very rare cases using an ethernet cable), then your data is remaining in the digital domain all the way to the receiver.

To reply to Paladin's question in another way. Why should you care about which DAC you are using? A $100 CD player probably does not have DACs and output stages as good as the current Outlaw models (or most other good modern gear). Where it starts getting tricky is that some slightly more expensive transports have some darn good DACs and output amps. But how good the DACs are isn't the important part unless one unit or the other is much better. The digital cables are usually less susceptible to loss and noise so they do a better job of getting the signal to your pre-amp/processor/reeceiver, and you have a lot more control and options in your receiver as to what you can do with a signal in the digital domain. In fact, on the Outlaw 990, unless you bypass everything, you end up re-digitizing analog inputs. So you are usually a lot better off using your player's digital out as described by Gonk. You just avoid one DA/AD conversion.

Now we could open another can of worms by starting a thread about whether any one can hear audible degradation from one additional good quality AD/DA stage. I have always taken it as a given that one avoids them because they degrade the sound--everyone says so. But I have never tested it myself. Has anyone here tried to test this or know of a good reference?

Interesting - so if I use a Mac (iTunes) as the source and transport the signal to the receiver via AirPort Express (which is basically an ethernet signal)would the receiver be doing the conversion or the Mac? The AirPort Express still plugs into the stereo input, so I assume the conversion is still being done at the Mac, but just curious.

Airport Express is capable of outputting both analog and digital signals. Based on the foregoing, I would guess that if you are using recent Outlaw gear or equivalent you would be better off using the optical digital output of the airport and connecting that into an optical digital input on your receiver or pre-amp/processor. Make sense?

What to you mean by "stereo input"? I take that to mean analog input (but the digital is also stereo so it's better to say analog or digital).

I should also add that current thinking is that computers are bad places to do DA conversions. Lots of noise--audiofiles call it digital hash. Some say that's why computer sound cards sound so bad. That's why it's good to digitize in unit designed for audio like a DAC or a pre-amp. I use an external USB DAC and avlis uses a Xitel USB out to Toslink optical. Airport has made it easy by providing an optical out. I'd recommend using it if you can.

I agree with AudioBear - the Airport Express's output offers both analog and digital outputs. It looks like it can only connect to an analog stereo input, but there's actually an optical output hiding in there.

I was just using Gonk's term of "stereo input" (the ol' "red and white" cables), but I guess I should have said analog input.
Right now my receiver is a 10 year old Sony low-end model, but I'm impatiently waiting for my RR2150.
Thanks for the info, AudioBear.

Interesting--the RR2150 doesn't have a digital input , but it does have a USB in for streaming audio players. I wonder if somebody makes a Toslink to USB converter so you can use that port. In any case by all accounts that is great receiver and it should do fine with airport analog outputs. Enjoy! Let us know how it sounds.

The digital output on Airport Express is the mini jack output - it requires a mini-to-toslink adapter (or mini to toslink cable), which to my knowledge are hard to come by unless you buy the Apple/Monster cable. A mini-to-stereo RCA would work for the RR2150.

Unfortunately, the USB port on the AE doesn't support anything other than USB Printers, but [it is rumored that] Apple is working to change this so any USB device can be connected. I'm not a tech expert so the reasons it's so difficult are beyond me. It would be nice to hook up USB devices (ie RR2150) to the network, though.sss

It should be possible to convert the minijack toslink output to a uSB stream. See Xitel.

http://www.xitel.com/product_mdpio_02.htm

I hope somebody more technically inclined can tell us if it works as it looks like it would.

If you already have a wireless g network a more flexible alternative to the Airport Express may be the Linksys Music Bridge. I have been using the Music Bridge ($90 to $100) for a month or so with great sucess. The MB has both toslink and coax digital output (plus analog too) and can receive the signal from music played with any PC music software.

Most of my music has been stored in mp3 format, but I may convert my library to FLAC depending upon storage requirments. As AudioBear noted, my wireless router would send a lossless digital signal to my 990 where the respectable DAC in the 990 would convert it to analog. What software is available to play FLAC files?

In my travels I've come across many threads (pissing matches) about which compression software and/or techniques are better. Most of the discussions were way over-my-head technically. Maybe the whole discussion was bunk? That's when I decided to forget compression, even lossless. Nothing worse than ripping/compressing 200+ CDs only to find out something better exists and you're back at square one.

avlis

if you aren't converned about disk space then archive without compression. The long history of audiophilia is full of people who are sure that they can hear differences. I would love to be able to do well degisned double blind tests on what they can hear. I have even heard audiophile reject such testing saying that one must listen repeatedly for an extended period of time to fully evaluate a format--you can't win with them. FLAC and ALC, like Meridian LC on DVD-As, have been shown to render bit perfect copies. To the objective mind this means that they ought to sound alike. I'm pretty sure even some errors could be tolerated. Try an A-B comparison for yourself and see if you can hear a difference. If you can't, why worry about it?

The really humerous irony here with regard to audiophiles demanding bit-perfect copying of CDs, is that most true aduiophiles deplore CDs and had hoped that DVD-A or SACD would give them sound they could live with--well neither have been a great commercial success athough there are some outstanding recordings available.

For lossless codecs, the only difference is the amount of compression they give and the speed at which they compress. Lossless means just that, there is no loss, no changing of bits (other than where errors on the disc are found from scratches, etc).

So as long as you retain software that will burn from your chosen lossless codec to CD, it doesnt matter which lossless codec you use.

The biggest question when ripping with a lossless codec is will your music player (iPod, Rio, whatever) play back your chosen codec.

While disks are relatively cheap, it doesn't make much sense to me to store songs in raw format as there really is no need with the lossless codecs.

You gain nothing and lose diskspace by keeping songs in raw audio format.

But BloggingITGuy, you're being sensible and logical!!! Audiophilia is an emotional disorder. )

Hehe, true true...people buy into products that fit their "world views". Me included.