I dont know how many of you out there are doing this but i am experimenting with an apple airport express to send a lossless codec to the 990 via a mini toslink connection to the optical input. my hope is that this will allow me to digitize my entire music library in lossless format and manage everything from my computer with cd quality. my initial tests however have not been what i expected. from what i have read the lossless codec is basically the same as the information you get from a cd there is no dicernable difference as the digital information is not being compromised. since i am using a digital out from the airport express and delivering to the 990 via the optical in i imagined that it would be virtually identical to the information that my cd was delivering to the 990 as i have the cd hooked up via a digital coax - digital is digital right?. they both have the same upsampling mode applied to them but when i toggled between the two sources while playing the same song (cd and itunes) the cd was noticable louder and fuller. then when i played the lossless codec and compared it to a aac compression codec (128kpbs) the sound was similar. so my question is why isnt this working the way i imangined it would. any thoughts out there? thanks.

Hi,

In order for any sort of comparison test to be valid both sources must be at the same volume level. You probably cannot vary the input volume of your CD player but you should be able to adjust the volume of the Airport from iTunes. If you don't see the airport volume control in iTunes check your preferences, it can be turned off if I recall. If you can equalize the volume levels you will have a much better basis for comparison.

My experience with the Airport Express is that there is no loss of quality from the original file. However, my ears are just about to complete their 53rd orbit around the Sun and sadly are not quite what they used to be so you may perceive otherwise.

mike

thanks mike. i just discovered the volume control for air tunes in itunes prferences. i disabled it and immediately noticed a difference in the sound quality. much better. i did run a quick test and to the best of my knowledge the volume is at the same level as it is being managed in the 990 and not through airtunes or the cd and while there was a noticeable improvement in the airtunes there was still more punch from the cd. and again it was strange that when i compared the lossless codec to the regular aac compression (128kpbs) it sounded the same. i would have thought the lossless would have been bigger sounding somehow. makes me wonder if something else is stepping on it before it leaves itunes? oh well. more experimenting to follow. thanks for the heads up on the volume.

ian

ianh,

I do something similar. I use a linksys music bridge and router to send all audio from my computer to the 990. The music bridge has a digital optical out that I feed the 990 with. I have used a variety of lossless codecs using various software (iTunes, MusicMatch, etc) and none have been as good as the original CD. Currently I use dbPowerAmp to rip my CDs in FLAC format. dbPowerAmp also allows conversion of most formats to any other format. For example, I convert the FLAC to mp3 for my iPod.

My latest listening tests have been at the same volume between FLAC files played on dbPowerAmp to the 990 via the linksys and the original CDs. I have used the 990 DACs in both cases and the original CDs sound better. Fuller, as you described, better mids and highs and the bass via the music bridge is also a little boomy. I can partially compensate for the difference by using the softwares 16-band equalizer, but I've not been able to force the two to sound the same. I don't have an explanation why 1s and 0s sound different via the computer/linksys setup versus the original CD, they just do. I do believe the weak link is the router/music bridge. I suppose if I had the ability to run some cat5 between my computer and HT gear the sound might be better. I don't think it is the FLAC files since I have compared CDs burned from FLAC files with original CDs and found them to sound the same.

I use the linksys equipment and dbPowerAmp when I'm not focused on just music. It provides a convenient way to have some background music and the dbPowerAmp software does a fine job ripping CDs for my archive and for making CDs for use in my cars.

If someone has a suggestion on how to improve the sound via the computer to the 990, I'd gladly give it a try.