The State of DACSES

[Grahame]

This is a good intro as to why the cloud is not just someone else's computer (even though it is - it's not your computer / NAS), 

there are a bunch of infrastructure issues that should be better managed (at scale) - because that's how they make scale work ...

http://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-saying-the-cloud-is-just-someone-elses-computer-because-its-not/

Music bits -> DAC is just a protocol issue that requires people  agree on a standard (hah!)

So until then we have 

Source ->  (proprietary) streaming protocol #1 > (proprietary) Streamer Client - > legacy digital audio interface (s/pdif, toslink, usb) -> DAC

rather than collapsing the stack to

Cloud based Service -> music bits over "standard internet protocol" ->  (Commodity?) DAC  -> beautiful, beautiful music

 

[blubliss]

31 minutes ago, Grahame said:

beautiful, beautiful music

[dsavitsk]

40 minutes ago, Grahame said:

This is a good intro as to why the cloud is not just someone else's computer

There is nothing about that article that convinces me that the cloud is not just someone else's computer. Clearly it is bigger than mine, and more redundant. But everybody who makes that "joke" understands that. And contrary to the article, history suggests that scaling things up in size does not increase the attention to detail.

[gepardcv]

Right. This is why I'm suggesting "cloud" -> mobile app -> DAC. More details on the three pieces:

1. "Cloud" needs to be your own service account. Amazon is unlikely to pull the plug on S3, whereas some random company building a service on top of S3 can go belly-up, or change its service or terms-of-use, at any time, taking your precious data with it. (Assuming Amazon does not fail, no EMP hits its data centers, etc. etc. etc.) You copy media files into it normally, not in some proprietary block format, so they can be trivially read.

2. Mobile app: assume an app exists which can talk to the "cloud" account and output to the mobile device's audio out interface. Meaning the Lightning port on iOS devices, plus whatever Android uses. It should support Bluetooth out, since I expect sound quality there to improve over time. Integrated amps with Bluetooth inputs are already on the market.

3. In a common use case, this means using a Lightning-to-USB cable from the iOS device going into the DAC. The DAC connection pretty much has to be USB, unless you use something like an Eitr (in which case you're still on USB from device to the DDC). For the hardcore anti-USB crowd, that pretty much makes this set-up a non-starter .

(Missing pieces include streaming from S3, which is non-trivial and incurs additional cost. A problem to solve, for certain.)

[Grahame]

Re:

1. "Cloud" needs to be your own service account. etc

Multiple Services - avoid single point of failure (assuming you can determine they use disparate systems. Doesn't help if they are all (virtually) hosted by "BigCloudCo"

But at this point you are moving from a "HomeBrew" solution to a startup business plan.

6 minutes ago, dsavitsk said:

There is nothing about that article that convinces me that the cloud is not just someone else's computer. Clearly it is bigger than mine, and more redundant. But everybody who makes that "joke" understands that. And contrary to the article, history suggests that scaling things up in size does not increase the attention to detail.

Indeed. But does it matter? In a large enough system, something is always going wrong. So deal with it. To the point where you don't notice.

Netflix is the tech poster child for such issues.

"3. The best way to avoid failure is to fail constantly."

"One of the first systems our engineers built in AWS is called the Chaos Monkey. The Chaos Monkey’s job is to randomly kill instances and services within our architecture. If we aren’t constantly testing our ability to succeed despite failure, then it isn’t likely to work when it matters most — in the event of an unexpected outage."

https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/5-lessons-weve-learned-using-aws-1f2a28588e4c

[Jon L]

On 10/4/2017 at 1:20 PM, gepardcv said:

2...It should support Bluetooth out, since I expect sound quality there to improve over time. Integrated amps with Bluetooth inputs are already on the market.

3...The DAC connection pretty much has to be USB, unless you use something like an Eitr (in which case you're still on USB from device to the DDC). For the hardcore anti-USB crowd, that pretty much makes this set-up a non-starter .

Having recently looked into setting up home wireless audio, I highly doubt Bluetooth will improve "enough" over time, i.e. ever become lossless.  Highly touted aptX bluetooth is not even lossless, and even the latest and greatest high-tech bluetooth implementation "aptX HD" is not lossless, in addition to requiring both sender and receiver to have aptX HD capability, which only a few devices currently support.  

For me, any kind of high-fidelity wireless audio system cannot be based on bluetooth, notwithstanding how much I enjoy my UE Boom bluetooth speaker in my shower.  

I feel the same way about DAC's with USB input as I do about spdif inputs.  These are simply fatally flawed ways to transmit digital audio and should never have been allowed to become de facto standards.  on surface, USB seems to have better chance with various "improved" asynchronous methods becoming available quarterly; however, IME, it takes Herculean efforts on hardware and software side, not to mention various USB-enhancing filters, power supplies, and various doohickies for USB to sound "pretty good."  Even then, I feel I can play a redbook CD (or better yet a good high-res disc) in a good one-box CD player and achieve significantly better sound quality than the said CD player's USB input..

[purk]

I ordered the Gen 5 USB card for my Yggy last night.  Any audible improvement from Gen 3?

Edited October 6, 2017 by purk

[TMoney]

10 minutes ago, purk said:

I ordered the Gen 5 USB card for my Yggy last night?  Any audible improvement from Gen 3?

We’ve got a bit of a discussion on it in the Yggdrasil thread. I think there is a difference, but I’d really like to do a blind test with a gen 2-3 and a gen 5 to really test myself on whether the difference is meaningful.

Still, it can’t hurt to do the upgrade.

[NekoAudio]

On 10/3/2017 at 12:20 PM, morphsci said:

So I am feeling the itch to upgrade my digital front end with a streamer and DAC or Streamer/DAC. The contenders right now are the Bryston BDP-3 and Bryston BDA-3, PS Audio Directstream DAC w Network Bridge II or the Directstream junior DAC (most likely the latter as the former seems too expensive given the differences), Auralic (either the Altair or the Aries and Vega) or the Nativ Vita and Wave. I know we don't really discuss audio components anymore but if anyone has any positive or negative comments (relevant or not), about any of these or any other suggestions would be appreciated as I am still in the early research stage. Now back to discussing alcohol and other matters of more importance.

 

On 10/3/2017 at 2:12 PM, morphsci said:

Yep, I am one of those that like the Sonica. It’s ability to stream was what convinced me I would like a more capable streamer.

For what it's worth, I found the OPPO Sonica and Auralic Vega more similar to each other than the Bryston BDA-3 to either of them. So in terms of DACs, going with the BDA-3 would be a different sound while going from the Sonica to the Vega would be along the same direction. You're probably already aware the Sonica does use the ES9038PRO while the Vega and earlier OPPO HA-1 use the ES9018, and the BDA-3 uses two AKM4490 chips.

Edited October 21, 2017 by NekoAudio
Weird double-text posted.

[Pars]

Oh boy...
Got an email from these guys today describing their new DAC. I recall them being quite the tube hacks back in the (HF) days.

http://www.doge.audio/products/tube-dac/doge-7-tube-dac/

I would presume that they haven't changed much...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[skullguise]

Makes me think of a phrase that my wife says to me.  When she doesn't feel strongly about something, she'll give me an "opt-out" phrase.

"Do you want to get the Doge DAC, or nah?"

[swt61]

On 10/4/2017 at 3:19 PM, dsavitsk said:

And contrary to the article, history suggests that scaling things up in size does not increase the attention to detail.

 

My penis would disagree.

[Hopstretch]

That's just because it's disagreeable.

[swt61]

It's been cranky for about 3 1/2years. That'll change in about a week.

[wink]

Interesting piece by Rob Watts from Chord

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/watts-up.800264/page-23#post-13772429

Edited November 1, 2017 by wink

[dsavitsk]

Every single sentence of that is nonsense. And there is not a single citation to back up any of it.

[Voltron]

Look, Doug. Everybody else is wrong. You're part of "everybody else." Pipe down.

[Hopstretch]

17 minutes ago, dsavitsk said:

Every single sentence of that is nonsense.

Which is quite an achievement, in a perverse sort of way.

[n_maher]

On 10/25/2017 at 2:54 PM, Pars said:

Oh boy...
Got an email from these guys today describing their new DAC. I recall them being quite the tube hacks back in the (HF) days.

http://www.doge.audio/products/tube-dac/doge-7-tube-dac/

I would presume that they haven't changed much...
 

I like to imagine in my head that their company name is pronounced like dodgy.  

[penmarker]

I thought it sounded like Doge, as in the Shibe Doge.

 

[Hopstretch]

Just noodling. 

If I don't want to own physical media or even manage files on my computer anymore, what is the state of the art?

How would one spec an optimal all-streaming setup?

[Dusty Chalk]

I am currently listening to Tidal on my iPad through Bluetooth to my JBL Everest Elite 750NC.  Tidal is lossless, but Bluetooth isn't, so the only thing I would change is to make that a wired setup with a DAC/Amp, and perhaps a hosting computer.  The nice thing about an Android or iOS device is that you can locally store the albums.

This is actually my work setup, I'm just too lazy to set up a home headphone system, but I will probably do so this weekend.

[gepardcv]

I heard good things about Auralic Aries. Connect it to your network, stream either your own content or whatever providers it supports (supposedly including Tidal), plug it into a DAC, and that's it. The industrial design isn't for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[shellylh]

I do a lot of wireless streaming from my iPad (through Tidal) to an Apple Airport Express (only Optical Output). 

Edited November 18, 2017 by shellylh

[Kerry]

I'm using Tidal with Roon.  I'm happy with it.