Computer Audiophiles Are Anti-Computer

[Old Listener]

Some of the posts seem focused on PCs running Windows or Macs running OSX as examples of general purpose computers. I think that Android phones and iPhones are the more relevant examples now and for the next few years. Those phones are more widely used for applications like playing music, taking photos and maintaining personal data than single purpose devices.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I haven't read all the posts in his thread. My views are in line with those of DallasJustice.

Loooong Post.

One of the Tenets perhaps more than that: A statement of faith in the Audiophile mentality is that "Everything makes a difference". From this tenet it follows that the color of a cable should make a difference hence the often cited "metallurgy" word when they talk about cables.. THese tenets and ideas were transported whole into Computer Audio and are re-hashed to the 120th power by the Computer Audiophile website/forum: Ethernet cables start having a sound of their own and of course motherboard, heat-sink thermal glue... Things that do make a difference in term of pure computing, say RAM or Hard Drive starts to blur into audiophile jargon. DDR3 have better "pace" than DDR2. Router and switches have to be audiophile-level, it is thus better to use Teflon Wire and Audiophile Power Cords are thus connected to these "improved" switches with reduced-noise and EMI shielding, Power Supplies must be linear, true Audiophile use Win Serve 2018 because it has better sound than the lowly Home Edition ... .flac files don't sound as good as .wav ... SSD have better PRAT than HDD (I invented that one ... then again it may be true ).
I am talking from experience: I went on this site to build my music server using their recommended components ... it costs me back in 2013 a bundle .. I settle to one Gar L. Koh had put together based on a Toshiba laptop.. it did cost me much less and performed until its death/crash ... that is when I started using any PC powerful enough to run windows and these days have an i7 for ROON core, a Lenovo laptop... running Win 10 not optimized.. It helped that I had realized that I couldn't reliably tell 320 K mp3 from .wav file .

We're getting slowly to the core of the issue. For many of us, reading this for us involve a PC perhaps a tablet but likely a PC, desktop or laptop. These items are indeed general purpose machines with enough processing power to perform most calculations any normal ( or insane) persons would come with. At the heart of this what these machines perform are calculations. And today any processor you're likely to find in a commercial machine costing new around $150 or less, has more processing power than the Cray-1 of yesteryear (Am I exaggerating? perhaps not). That is our PC and playing music is a simple chore for most them. It is nothing. Verifiable .. Listening to Spotify and having a dozen app opened .. Usage is around 6% on my i7 Lenovo 16 GB RAM work laptop , non-optimized for audiophiles duties .. I am also downloading 2 large files and am connected to the Office VPN and perhaps with 20 tabs on Chrome tabs and Outlook receiving ...etc. So playing music is a nothing, a yawner for any PC .. There are some "but"s... I have experienced no issues 99.99999999999999% of the time. A click or "thing" in the sound has occurred once in a while.. not enough to warrant my while trying to reproduce it so evanescent it was and that may have happened less than 10 times since I have been using a PC to listen to music ... Still my PC is not appliance enough for music. Deep inside the modern man there is the need to press a button and see things done.. They (Marketing and Science ) have promised us that, we are not there yet... The interfaces between man and PC are simply not there yet .. They are almost afterthought for most programmers. The program works well ... except that we have to go through 68 levels of menus to find common tasks. Have a look at the "Infotainment"interface in most cars ... there must be a mandate to make them simpler because those have for sure already lead to accidents. Roon is not simple, nor are JRiver or even foobar... or ... It takes a long time to learn how to use these and setting them up requires even more research and learning and even then .. what you just learned so painfully, may not survive the next necessary upgrade.. Of course once you know how to delve into the 689 levels of menus to get to what you wanted to do you can make of it a "Hot Key" , you know an ALT + SHIFT + CAPS + F3, until your mind can no longer process the 200 Hot keys you have to remember to do anything.. Voice assistants do not help with music ... Meanwhile management of metadata is not a simple issue.. I am a fan of ROON and Western Classical Music ... ROON DON'T DO THAT well or perhaps I didn't know that yesterday night, at 11 PM Oslo Time they finally found a way ( Fat Chance !!) which is in Beta thus unstable so if one is a Classical Music fan one has to involve a different Library management system or software or method... Now if you want to use the immense power of PC to correct your room ... You can do it .. "easily" with ROON and an ARC software such as Acourate etc ... .. When it finally works you'll be BFF (Best Friend Forever) with several people on fora or perhaps the designers themselves...

I frankly do not advocate point and shoot simplicity but come on!! We have to realize we are in prehistoric times when it comes to interface. Of all the companies in the so-called Technology sector .. Apple may be one of the few to realize that... And their domination rests mostly on their interface which however kludge-y it can be at times is head and shoulder above the rest. They sell fewer things than any of the Giants yet are always hovering around #1 in term of Market Cap .. MSOFT the current leader sells a billion of things .. Google a Trillion . Amazon a Trillion of Trillion ... Apple mostly interfaces ... versions of those similar but not quite the same you will find on their iPhone, iPad, iWatch ... IOS.

To come back to the OP. Computer Audiophile is a money-making thing pandering to audiophiles, wants, needs and insecurities. I will not call those people "audiophool" they aren't fools. Having the means is not as simple as some would like to make it appear.. They have weaknesses in some area just like many of us. They use their wherewithal, to be pleased, to enjoy life ... In their own wrong way. And keep this in mind: They don't suffer financially from those mistakes.. They live another day to buy a new Ethernet Cable or a more expensive audiophile Ethernet Switch .. or "save" for the latest tube-based music server ( The millions of transistors that makes a microprocessor have been replaced by micro vacuum tubes ... ) ...

Or better for them in term of music enjoyment, they discover and follow ASR or one of its rare (which one? Please?) equivalent ..

Peace!

 

[suttondesign]

Some of the posts seem focused on PCs running Windows or Macs running OSX as examples of general purpose computers. I think that Android phones and iPhones are the more relevant examples now and for the next few years. Those phones are more widely used for applications like playing music, taking photos and maintaining personal data than single purpose devices.

True. I had tried using only an iPad, but Apple has made it increasingly difficult and cumbersome to get a digital out, much less offer the capability for higher bit rates. Then, too, there's the problem of getting the same DAC/amp capability from a portable device that is available from a standalone, which seems impossible.

 

[SIY]

...but Apple has made it increasingly difficult and cumbersome to ...

...do anything useful outside of their iTunes universe. I have a MacBook Pro (work-issued) and it is, in a word, dreadful. Stuff that should be simple ("take files from my library of .wav and put them in iTunes" or "pull files off my phone via drag and drop") becomes a complex wrestling match.

Unsurprisingly, my home music source isn't that stupid Mac, it's a W10 laptop with SSD running J River.

 

[suttondesign]

All too true. Fortunately, Roon takes care of all the messy stuff for me, and at this point, I never buy CD's anymore anyway. God help me if the apocalypse comes -- how will I organize my music files?

 

[Xulonn]

I am a computer audiophile, and I am not anti-computer.

I have been into audio since my high-school days in the late 1950s. I got into computers with the purchase of a DOS 2.1 IBM PC in 1984. I worked in scientific software sales and tech support in the late 1980's, and I finished up my professional computer career as a contract senior network administrator (Novell Netware) in 2001. It was fun being on the Pacific [Stock] Exchange Y2K team for all of 1999.

I began my switch to computer-based audio about 10 years ago, and no longer own audio source hardware or media such as CD, tape or vinyl.

I have an older Intel Celeron-based NUC, which is a general-purpose computer that I see as equivalent to the Mac Minis for audio and video use. I use it as a dedicated HTPC - compact, just enough computing power, and it has proven to be a reliable and inexpensive unit. It is still available at Amazon - for $200 with 8Gb RAM and a 128Gb SDD).

My NUC boots to the free, linux-based Daphile software, which is installed on its internal 128Gb SSD. Daphile is an excellent headless audio player and library manager that includes Tunein radio. I can access and control Daphile's graphical interface via an IP address saved as a favorite on my Windows PC and laptop, or my Android tablet and smart phone. I can also shut down the NUC gracefully by pushing the power button as I walk by - just like an old-fashioned radio. When I return home or get up in the morning, I can press the NUC's power button again, and after a short wait for booting and auto-starting , it begins playing the same internet radio station I was listening to - just like that old radio in the past.

I don't keep a Daphile tab open all the time on my PC (where I spent too much time in my retirement), but if I open a new tab in Firefox and click on Daphile, it takes less than 5 seconds to load and be ready for me to use.

I can also play music files from my extensive library that is stored on a Synology NAS. Simple and convenient - but not completely reliable. I sometimes have to reboot the NUC and the NAS when things stop working.

When I want to watch movies or other videos, I boot the NUC to Kodi which is installed on an old recycled USB flash drive. Then I can watch videos that I have downloaded and stored on my Synology 4TB NAS, which is also used to store and backup my PC data to watch movies and other videos, but the TV is off when I listen to music. Everything is controlled by a Logitech back-lit full-size wireless keyboard that I use while sitting comfortably on my sofa.

My A/V life is fully computerized, but I have no desire to go to a voice-controlled system - although many of my non-computer oriented, non-audiophile friends love Alexa, which is perfect for them.

 

[Blumlein 88]

...do anything useful outside of their iTunes universe. I have a MacBook Pro (work-issued) and it is, in a word, dreadful. Stuff that should be simple ("take files from my library of .wav and put them in iTunes" or "pull files off my phone via drag and drop") becomes a complex wrestling match.

Unsurprisingly, my home music source isn't that stupid Mac, it's a W10 laptop with SSD running J River.

I have a Mac because I became sick of Windows insisting on some update. In time, if I ever switched off my Win machine, it would let me use it for my purposes once it finished up its things to do when turned back on. Would have been less of an issue if I didn't do most general computing on a Linux machine.

However, I agree the Mac OS isn't without its issues to me. I won't allow iTunes to do anything. What an abomination of software. Like the Windows OS it tries to impose itself all over where you don't want it doing things.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I have a Mac because I became sick of Windows insisting on some update.

You can schedule the updates.

 

[SIY]

You can schedule the updates.

In theory. The reality may be different. My wife has taught me some new words when the updates happen despite her scheduling.

My solution: my music and lab/measurement computer are not connected to the Internet.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

In theory. The reality may be different. My wife has taught me some new words when the updates happen despite her scheduling.

Works for me.
My NY computers are scheduled to update at 1AM on Sunday when I am in CT.
My CT computers are scheduled to update at 1AM on Wednesday when I am in NY.

My solution: my music and lab/measurement computer are not connected to the Internet.

OK.

 

[Tks]

You can schedule the updates.

The problem is, people want to be connected to the internet sometimes on their devices.

I run Win10 Enterprise and without butchering the OS and disabling ALL Windows Updates in totality, you simply cannot pick and choose what updates it will install once a check is run. At best you can delay updates, but there is nothing to stop them from being installed the moment you turn off the computer. Disabling all of WindowsUpdate works fine, but when security updates are released, it's not like you can just say "oh okay, security updates only", no you have to take the whole thing once you re-enable WindowsUpdate service to even get these patches for serious vulnerabilities at times.

This would be somewhat okay if you could at least download the patches and transfer them like any sane company allows on external storage like a USB, and then take it to the computer you don't have connected to the internet. But no, of course not.

The reasons for this are various.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

At best you can delay updates, but there is nothing to stop them from being installed the moment you turn off the computer. Disabling all of WindowsUpdate works fine, but when security updates are released, it's not like you can just say "oh okay, security updates only", no you have to take the whole thing once you re-enable WindowsUpdate service to even get these patches for serious vulnerabilities at times.

Sure but that is yet another reasonable but different gripe about Win10. My strategy deals only with having it not interrupt my entertainment.

 

[DDF]

You can schedule the updates.

I was able to take an i5 32bit win7 with 4G ram and turn it from drop out infested to a perfect streamer using the windows task scheduler. It allows you to schedule everything in all apps (chrome/google is especially invasive), not just the core windows updates. 3am gets busy in the lap top!

 

[Old Listener]

Win 10 is a step backward if you want to make a PC an appliance for playing music. Beyond the issue of selecting and scheduling updates, I've had problems with major screw-ups in each feature update.

In my main system, I use an i5 NUC PC with Win 8.1 and JRiver v21. I turned off updates for Windows and for JRiver. I have a hardware router/firewall between the internet and that PC. I don't browse the 'net from that PC and I don't do email there either. That PC is an appliance for me.

 

[tmtomh]

I am a "computer audiophile" in that I am an audiophile, I use a computer as part of my playback setup (a Mac mini), and I am a member of the Computer Audiophile forums.

I definitely agree with the OP and others here that there is an excessive and generally unfounded emphasis in computer-audio circles on digital voodoo, in particular on USB noise-reduction devices.

But what I don't agree with is the snide, dismissive attitude in this thread towards the Computer Audiophile site and forums on that basis. Those forums are filled with highly knowledgeable engineers and informed hobbyists who regularly engage in vigorous argument against the "digital cables make a difference" crowd.

It's certainly true that large computer audio forum will attract its share of folks who make baseless claims about various digital tweaks - they don't have tubes to roll or turntables to tweak, so they obsess over USB cables and galvanic isolators. But that is far, far from the entire CA membership and I would argue that it's not even the majority.

Heck, there are plenty of subjectivists and establishment audiophile magazine staff who post over there deriding the forums as too objectivist and too dominated by engineers and measurements. So I would think folks here would actually feel some camaraderie with Computer Audiophile.

 

[BillG]

So I would think folks here would actually feel some camaraderie with Computer Audiophile.

After browsing CA for several months to get a feel for the place, I certainly don't and I don't appear to be alone in that regard.

What I noticed over at CA was a overwhelming number of people hell bent on over-complicating something that is trivial for a general purpose computer to perform, that being the playback of digital audio. As a software engineer with decades of experience, that's not something that I'll ever feel camaraderie towards...

 

[Hypnotoad]

I have a Mac because I became sick of Windows insisting on some update. In time, if I ever switched off my Win machine, it would let me use it for my purposes once it finished up its things to do when turned back on. Would have been less of an issue if I didn't do most general computing on a Linux machine.

I ditched Windows when I started to use an old PC as a music server, more problems than it was worth, I got Linux (Ubuntu) and never looked back once I figured out (with the help of another kind ASR user) how to get bit perfect audio, and I just plugged in my DAC no installation needed it all works fine.

Another thing I hate with Windows is even if it's not updating you fire up the PC and it takes much longer than the boot up time before you can use all it's resources. With Ubuntu, practically once you see the Bionic Beaver you are ready to go. Unless I had programs that "have" to use Windows and are not on Linux, I see no reason to use Windows at all now.

 

[tmtomh]

After browsing CA for several months to get a feel for the place, I certainly don't and I don't appear to be alone in that regard.

What I noticed over at CA was a overwhelming number of people hell bent on over-complicating something that is trivial for a general purpose computer to perform, that being the playback of digital audio. As a software engineer with decades of experience, that's not something that I'll ever feel camaraderie towards...

To each their own - but my point is that there are plenty of software engineers and similar folks there who are quite prominent in the discussion, and IMHO one has to actively overlook them in order to come to the conclusion that the place has "an overwhelming number" of anti-computer digital subjectivists.

 

[DDF]

Once Microsoft stops Win7 support, I have a choice to uninstall all browsers and leave as is or flip the old lap top over to Linux.

Not a linux guy (yet), so wondering, what do people recommend for linux...+ ? for an old lap top music player?
- play from local usb drive
- play to USB dac with no bit rate re-sampling, at at least 24 bits depth
- Tidal and Spotify support
- Can apply global EQ to all 3 sources
- pop and snap free on NUC level HW (I5 2520M (2.5GHz), 4GB RAM)
- Easy to set up, use, fast boot and easy to adjust very powerful EQ support (Equalizer APO level of user friendliness and functionality)
- nice to have: play from my WD server (Twonky based DLNA or direct file access)

 

[BillG]

To each their own - but my point is that there are plenty of software engineers and similar folks there who are quite prominent in the discussion, and IMHO one has to actively overlook them in order to come to the conclusion that the place has "an overwhelming number" of anti-computer digital subjectivists.

We get it, you like the place and want us to join you in that. But manipulation isn't going to achieve this...