Thursday, December 1, 2011

a Bit Perfect

I'm a Hifi enthusiast, or more accurately I suppose, a music lover, but in my mind the two things go hand in hand.

In my teenage years I worked in a hifi shop and blew most of my wages on upgrades to amps, CD players, record players and even tape decks. After a while though, I realised that as my Hifi got better, the music that I was listening to got worse (I think the all time low was playing a dreaded Simply Red album to listen for some particular symbol crash or something...). So I sold my entire Hifi and all of my vinyl and CDs (this actually paid for my ticket to New Zealand back in 1999).

Over the last 5 years or so, I've been gradually getting back into it, and I've got a reasonable, mid priced stereo Hifi (Cambridge Audio amp, Mission speakers etc.). I've never been into home theatre, in fact I dislike it immensly, but I really love listening to music on a good sounding stereo. Recently, my daughter has started to get into it too, and we have some good times just sitting and listening.

I've been investigating using my computer as a source for my Hifi music. I've had my music in digital format for over 10 years (mostly in 320Kbps Mp3) but I never really thought of it as real Hifi. I've had a Windows Media Center in my lounge for even longer, and have used it for playing and recording TV, gaming, watching movies, and listening to music, but I've never really taken it seriously as part of my Hifi.

Last week however, I went into the local Hifi shop (Totally Wired) and was blown away listening to some digital music while I auditioned some Monitor Audio speakers. I came away with my mind reeling not only about the speakers, but also how I could use my PC as the main source of music through my Hifi. So having done some research over the weekend, I've decided to upgrade my DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter for those of you that aren't familiar with them). At the moment I use an ageing 'Xitel Pro HiFi Link' to go from a USB port on the PC to the analogue input on my amp. I've decided to replace this with an HRT Music Streamer 2 DAC, which has won rave reviews over the past few years.

But the sticking point has come over the computer itself. It turns out that Windows is incapable of producing 'Bit Perfect' audio (see here) which is the real key to getting the best sound from a digital device. I'm an iPhone owner, and I therefore use iTunes (and am one of the few people that seem to like it). I can copy my CD's into the Apple Lossless format and use iTunes (on my Windows PC) to play it back through the USB DAC and my Hifi. I can even use the excellent Apple Remote to control the playback from my iPhone.

But it won't sound as good on a Windows computer as it will on a Mac. I've tested this, and I think it's true. I've always thought that music from a Mac sounded tighter, punchier, even when listening on headphones, and this leaves me with the dilemma of whether I replace my Windows Media Center with a Mac (probably a Mac Mini, running XBMC or Plex as the Media Center front end), or leave things as they are. I've currently got 2 separate audio libaries on my PC, one for MP3 and another for Apple Lossless files. The setup is all pretty slick and after years of tinkering with and improving Windows Media Center, the Media Center is an intrinsic part of our TV, Movie and audio experience at home. So I'm wondering, do I leave it as it is, knowing that the sound quality isn't quite as good, or do I take the plunge and get a Mac Mini, and start all over again?

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