squeezebox set up for audiophiles

dhinesh wrote:
Using my Mac book pro with the USB output via the modified hiface: http://sites.google.com/site/hifacemods/

In that case you still miss the point of the DAC8. The HiFace is a USB to S/PDIF converter, so again, instead of being able to use the superior capabilities of the DAC8's handling of USB based input, you feed something inferior to it which cannot be handled well by that machine.

Connect your source via USB to this D/A converter and you will receive the maximum benefit it can offer. As it has its own master oscillator, there is absolutely no need to introduce another clock generator like the HiFace. Plus, I would be rather suspicious regarding the HiFace, it is being described as to transport the signal untouched, including no "re-clocking" and only one paragraph later, it offers "2 low jitter oscillators need for clocking out the audio SPDIF signal". Quite the contradiction. I am surprised you think the HiFace clock is superior to the master oscillator of the Audio Research, I believe you better get rid of it and use the DAC properly.

Regarding the cables, forget about all this voodoo crap which is discussed all over the Internet. I participated in some hearing sessions including blind tests and everyone just fails to tell a difference in between various digital cables (and devices of a similar nature). And all of the serious double blind tests even left the manufacturers searching for explanations why they failed to identify their own superior technology. I believe that all analogous connections should be carefully selected so that there is no signal degradation (and invested quite some effort into it, in the end even tailoring my own cables - no acceptable pre-made one available for my Bi-Amping Setup), but other than this, I feel absolutely relaxed about my cables. If you believe to have witnessed an audible difference, then this is only due to someone telling you enthusiastically about the big change in quality just before of the demonstration - the mind can play rather nasty tricks in that aspect. No serious challenge whatsoever was ever won by the voodoo fetishists.

dhinesh wrote:

Sound is good but can not have a big library DAC 8 comes with some drivers that are installed on the mac as well. The reason I prefer the touch is the convenience of having a 2TB library available via the controller. Love xraid2 and all the other features of the NAS that will be difficult to duplicate on a PC for someone like me. Additionally, 2 TB of SSDs will cost quite a bit :D Thats why I am on a quest to get better sound from the touch. But if it seems like I am putting square pegs into round holes, will have to rethink the strategy.

The NAS is great, you are correct in that it should remain the storage place. In my previous posting I did not meant to store your music library on the SSD, only the OS and whatever else is necessary for the fanless computer so it gets completely quiet. It still needs a wireless connection to the NAS to access the music which is stored there. There are some software solutions like SqueezePlay which are available for Windows, Mac and Linux, so you can leave your NAS as it is today.

With such a setup, all the handling of the actual music is purely achieved on the Audio Research, the computer is just feeding the data it receives from the NAS and will do this equally good or bad as any other possible solution, no matter of price.

dhinesh wrote:

NHT 3.3: These speakers are very good. Have had them for 15 years. In 1996, Corey Greenberg a reviewer for Stereophile said these were the best speakers. Tweeter technology has evolved over the years but these are no slouches. Was running them with a MC Cormack Dna 1 and it could not drive them, switched to the Levinsons and VOILA! Don't let the age and the price fool you. There are other candidates: Kharma, Revel, etc but I love the sound of these speakers. Everything has changed over the years but not the speakers. Latest change: changed the ref3 to the ref5 preamp from audio research. These days speakers like these will cost you 10k and above if you factor in the current prices. In 1996, the aerial 10t (speaker of the year in that year for stereophile) and the NHT 3.3 costed around USD 4.5k. These days speakers in this league will set up back quite a bit. :D

Speaker like this go for well below 3k, this has been good technology, but still it is outdated today. The world did not stop in all those years. I believe we should not start discussion different brands of speakers, that would be too much off topic for the ReadyNAS forum - still I would judge your budget distribution a bit uneven.

Kind regards,
Frank