Apple TV

LuSh

Having used dedicated transports and eventually a Laserdisc player I had been interested in getting rid of physical discs (buy, burn and store) and moving too a pure streaming source.

I had purchased a Logitech Squeezebox touch several months ago but found it difficult to use with iTunes. I could never get the cover art to work and the visual interface for finding music was clumsy and hard.

I had ripped several songs using iTunes 10.1 in WAV format using error correction. This was fed into a DAC with a pretty cheap optical cable and I fed another digital coaxial connection via a Laserdisc player (my DAC has two digital inputs). I did some quick A/B comparisons and after 20minutes the Laserdisc player was packed away and the Apple TV rested beside the DAC. I was shocked at how good the ATV sounded, fed through a DAC.

The interface is sweet. Slick, and quick. I have everything being ripped into WAV upstairs on my laptop and sent via WiFi to the ATV downstairs. Later I will purchase a Apple Touch and use it as a dedicated remote for my media. Until that time the tiny three button Apple TV remote will suffice. I have an HDMI running into a HT receiver which I use for navigation at this time. Everything just 'works' and it sounds good. I'm really quite surprised.

I will note one thing however. I had started to rip my CD's using Apple Lossless storage and right around my 30th CD I started to wonder if I had made a mistake and should I have used WAV instead. I was right, 15minutes after comparing WAV/Apple Lossless using the same songs I had come to the conclusion that Apple Lossless was decent but it was lacking depth, tiny sounds in the background of the music were smeared, cymbals were harder to distinguish during softer passages. So I had to delete the 30 CD's and start over. I have well over 300 CD's but I'm lucky in that my Laptop has a 500 GB Harddrive and I can always add on a back later.

Just food for thought for anybody interested in great sound but the ultimate in ease of use and setup.

txcoastal1

I have had good luck with J Rivers...worth $50...plus you can use a trial

FTGV

LuSh wrote: »

I had purchased a Logitech Squeezebox touch several months ago but found it difficult to use with iTunes. I could never get the cover art to work and the visual interface for finding music was clumsy and hard.

Interesting,others have indicated that the user interface was very slick and smooth.

FTGV

txcoastal1 wrote: »

I have had good luck with J Rivers...worth $50...plus you can use a trial

Any hints as to gettting album cover art?I downloaded the free version to try and really like it but I'm not sure how to obtain the art work.The 3D album listing is great but next to useless without it.

markmarc

LuSh:
I've found that iTunes can be very DAC specific, though in the past year new model DACs are doing much better across the board with iTunes.
Enjoy your setup.

mantis

What are you using to record in WAV? I use Apple Lossless and I can't hear a difference between a cd and the Apple TV. My Apple TV is connected to my SC-07 VIA HDMI. I also have HDMI on the BD player(Cambridge Audio Azur 650BD) so I'm using the Wolfson 8740 DAC's in the Pioneer. When I use the Cambridge DAC's I can hear a slight change in tone but it's hard to hear the difference. I have changed IC's from Kimber , Audioquest and Cardos for analog out on the BD player. Slight differences in changing the cables but overall I'm completely happy with the Apple TV as the media server.
On a side note I have the older 160g Apple TV and I don't stream to it. I did compare streaming to using the internal hard drive and there was a big difference in sound quality. It was like I used a lower recording quality compared to the hard drive. There must be some compression used when streaming .

LuSh

Thanks marrkmarc.

Mantis: I use iTunes too rip my CD's into WAV. I use my Museatex DAC into a Sim amplifier Dynaudio speakers etc...I honestly didn't want to hear a difference between Apple Lossless and WAV, not so much for the size and space taken but because I had already ripped 30 CD's into Apple Lossless and I didn't want to start over. I felt that the WAV had better 'presence' almost as if I was using a high end transport back in the day. I used the same song over and over (Grizzly Bear was the artist)...I began focusing on very specific things, for instance symbols which are softly brushed in the background while a lot is going on in the foreground. With Lossless they sounded smeared, not horrible but when listening to the WAV version things were fleshed out easier for my brain to understand what was going in. There were edges around the symbols.

I wouldn't worry if you could or couldn't tell the difference. I didn't want to take chances. It is hard for me to fully accept the sound I've achieved through a $99 wireless device when I've used four figure transports for most of my 'audiophile' life.

When testing WAV ripped iTunes vs CD through transport, I couldn't discern a difference. In the next few weeks I'm going to try and hot rod this thing. I've already emailed a dealer too look into an Audoquest power cable and I'm going to play around with glass fiber optical cables. Audioquest seems pricey but Van Den Hul and Wireworld have glass options for a quarter of the cost. I'll report my findings as I test things out.

EFanning

I considered Apple TV but bought a WD TV Live Hub with 1 TB of storage. I am burning all CDs into 16/44.1 AIFF format and shifting them to the WD Hub. Most of my CDS are in 16/44.1 format and I should be able to store more than 1,000 CDs.

The WD TV Live Hub lacks real media library software but offers so much storage for high-res music files. It's a trade off. To play albums, I access folders and select play. Then, I turn the TV off.

I play albums and Pandora using the analog out connections on the WD TV Live Hub. The sound is flat. I really need the Cambridge Dacmagic. I plan to match that dac with the Hub and a Blu-ray player.

All of that gets my CDs off to storage and allows for easy-access LP storage.
So far, the biggest problems are: The Hub's bad media library and the expense of a Dacmagic, which is twice as much as the Hub at $430.

But, it's a good start and a cool way to clear space for vinyl.

Ern Dog

Thanks for the info guys. I haven't made the jump yet from spinning discs to storing music on PC. It sounds interesting. My main concern is losing sound quality so I'm pleased to hear that you couldn't tell a difference with your set up and using a cdp. Pretty amazing that you are finding such good results with an inexpensive solution.

ben62670

I am tired of looking for a player that will play the files I want. Most of my video is in AVI, and my tunes are in FLAC. I am using Win7's media center and it work just fine. I have a great sound card and I will be using the COAX out to the custom DAC I am building. Computers play everything, and with a remote that works Media Center I have all the bases covered. The only PIA thing about Media Center is the way it organizes the artists. I wish the Artist could be tagged by the folder alone. Every artist has their own folder on my PC.

LuSh

Ben,

The unique thing about Apple TV is it can be purchased at most big box stores (Best Buy and Future Shop) in Canada and while I rarely visit either store it's great knowing that I could return the Apple Device within 14 days. This eased the comfort level. I was prepared to take it back. The squeezebox touch I had purchased came through an independent dealer so I had to sell it for a few dollars less then the original purchase price.

The Apple TV is limited to optical and HDMI outputs, but both can work at the same time.

ben62670

Take a peek at WD TV. After my complaint in the previous post I did some research and found that the device can do what I want. It also can hook up to older TV's via composite or component, or HDMI. IT has optical out for sound.

mdaudioguy

LuSh wrote: »

The Apple TV is limited to optical and HDMI outputs, but both can work at the same time.

Bought the previous model for my son for Christmas - it has analog audio outputs.
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-TV-160GB-Hard-Drive/dp/B000RQHAUA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295203370&sr=8-1

LuSh

*UPDATE*

After listening for a week I've come to several conclusions:

The Apple TV isn't as such a strong performer as I had initially thought. There is a hardness that can be experienced over an extended period of listening. This difference is hard to notice during quick A/B comparisons but can be noticed when comparing full tracks back to back (i.e you don't toggle between tracks)

I've come to learn the following - Apple TV's wireless transmission isn't bit perfect, all formats are switched to ALAC for streaming purposes and then further filtered before it reaches a DAC. iTunes isn't the best platform for streaming any music as it also uses filters which makes it hard for bit perfect audio.

Conclusions - Apple TV is still a unique and in my opinion an amazing value product; however I can no longer recommend it for a high quality sound system as your main source. The best way for to achieve reference sound from a computer is the purchase of a MAC and using a third party software from the likes of Amarra, Puremusic or Audionirvana. PC users can get good quality sound as well but it's harder...many adjustments need to be made within the PC's audio output tab's to make sure you get bit perfect, also third party software such as J River Media is crucial.

It was a fun exercise and I can always use Apple TV for a second room. Now I have to save my pennies for a MAC Mini and re-rip all my music. Frowny Face.

mantis

LuSh wrote: »

*UPDATE*

After listening for a week I've come to several conclusions:

The Apple TV isn't as such a strong performer as I had initially thought. There is a hardness that can be experienced over an extended period of listening. This difference is hard to notice during quick A/B comparisons but can be noticed when comparing full tracks back to back (i.e you don't toggle between tracks)

I've come to learn the following - Apple TV's wireless transmission isn't bit perfect, all formats are switched to ALAC for streaming purposes and then further filtered before it reaches a DAC. iTunes isn't the best platform for streaming any music as it also uses filters which makes it hard for bit perfect audio.

Conclusions - Apple TV is still a unique and in my opinion an amazing value product; however I can no longer recommend it for a high quality sound system as your main source. The best way for to achieve reference sound from a computer is the purchase of a MAC and using a third party software from the likes of Amarra, Puremusic or Audionirvana. PC users can get good quality sound as well but it's harder...many adjustments need to be made within the PC's audio output tab's to make sure you get bit perfect, also third party software such as J River Media is crucial.

It was a fun exercise and I can always use Apple TV for a second room. Now I have to save my pennies for a MAC Mini and re-rip all my music. Frowny Face.

I agree with Streaming performance. If you can get your hands on a older Apple tv with the 160 hrd drive buit it , it sounds much better then streaming. I store my music on it. I do however stream from time to time from other computers with different music on them. I have a master library of my music but my wife and son have other cool music.
I have done A-B comparisons to streaming vs Apple TV hard drive to actual CD and the HArd drive sounds exactly like the CD using the Internal DAC's (wolfson) of my Elite. Streaming is exactly how you described . Compare it to the actual CD and it sounds kinda muffled.

bigaudiofanatic

LuSh wrote: »

*UPDATE*

After listening for a week I've come to several conclusions:

The Apple TV isn't as such a strong performer as I had initially thought. There is a hardness that can be experienced over an extended period of listening. This difference is hard to notice during quick A/B comparisons but can be noticed when comparing full tracks back to back (i.e you don't toggle between tracks)

I've come to learn the following - Apple TV's wireless transmission isn't bit perfect, all formats are switched to ALAC for streaming purposes and then further filtered before it reaches a DAC. iTunes isn't the best platform for streaming any music as it also uses filters which makes it hard for bit perfect audio.

Conclusions - Apple TV is still a unique and in my opinion an amazing value product; however I can no longer recommend it for a high quality sound system as your main source. The best way for to achieve reference sound from a computer is the purchase of a MAC and using a third party software from the likes of Amarra, Puremusic or Audionirvana. PC users can get good quality sound as well but it's harder...many adjustments need to be made within the PC's audio output tab's to make sure you get bit perfect, also third party software such as J River Media is crucial.

It was a fun exercise and I can always use Apple TV for a second room. Now I have to save my pennies for a MAC Mini and re-rip all my music. Frowny Face.

Proof to support this?

All my music is uncompressed and I can not see it being converted before heading to the apple tv. Nor do I hear a difference between cd playback and apple tv. Just my observation.

LuSh

bigaudiofanatic.

I've contacted some designers including Steve at Empirical Audio who told me that Apple TV is one of the only products to stream audio as audio and not as raw data like Logitech devices. Better yet if you want proof (I don't care to argue with you) then ask Apple themselves if all wireless transmissions are converter for transfer.

iTunes has been widely acknowledged as a poor playback platform, the problem lies within the filters used within the operating system. Check out Pure Music or Audionirvana or better yet download the trial version of Pure Music (if you have a MAC) and compare the sound output, or just J Rivers Media and compare music (uncompressed) played back through iTunes and then the third party software.

Computer audio has a pretty steep learning curve as I've learned these past few days. I'm still happy with my Apple TV and on a home theater/amplifier based system I could easily recommend it. On a higher end two channel system it will (in my experience) sound inferior.

ysss

'Filters'?
Why would they run filters on digital audio?

blueboxer

I love my Apple TV, it really is a convenient product and for what it offers and costs, it is a great product IMO. I am also still going with a mac mini for my main system, but will use Apple TVs in other rooms to stream music and movies.

wayne3burk

Interesting thread.... I do think the older Apple TV with the internal HD looks like a better option. But i'm not a big fan of iTunes or the apple TV interface.

LuSh

ysss,

I don't have all the answers (very few, but I keep asking questions!) but what I was lead to believe is that Apple and PC's are a lot more complicated then a standard piece of audio equipment and the actual playback software makes it damn near impossible to get bit perfect audio unless steps are taken.

I would encourage everybody to check out computeraudiophile.com for more information. It's a brave new world.

ysss

LuSh wrote: »

ysss,

I don't have all the answers (very few, but I keep asking questions!) but what I was lead to believe is that Apple and PC's are a lot more complicated then a standard piece of audio equipment and the actual playback software makes it damn near impossible to get bit perfect audio unless steps are taken.

I would encourage everybody to check out computeraudiophile.com for more information. It's a brave new world.

@LuSh: Computers rely on being bitperfect, otherwise we'll be seeing graphical glitches and computation errors all the time. Obviously the physical parts used may not be perfect (cables, drive platters and such), so computers have many logic/software techniques at their disposal to ensure the data transmitted to be 100% accurate. They use checksums to ensure data integrity, and they have means to correct the error or ask for data retransmission if such errors are detected.

Relatively speaking (to current computer's powers), music processing has very2 low requirements. Just pull up your CPU monitor during audio playback and take note on how much % the CPU works.

It's probably less than 10%. So for every 10 seconds of audio, the CPU works for less than 1 second. For the rest of the time, it's sitting idle probably whistling a tune of its own...

Now, I have heard some rumors about a certain version of Apple Lossless codec having a bug of some sort that lowered its quality somehow (I never bothered to confirm this).... and your claim that iTunes reencode WAV files for transmission to AppleTV is somewhat plausible, if bandwidth is an issue (say if AppleTV connects via WIFI). But having the computer apply 'filters' whereby it will need to decode said audio file, apply the filter (for what?) and reencode it... is confusing to me.

LuSh

ysss

What I'm passing along isn't from me but information I've inquired about from the likes of Steve Nugent and others. (Steve is the lead designer at Empirical Audio and worked at Intel for a number of years). I'm guessing and I'm only guessing that while computer's can transfer data easily there are many barriers and cross trans-coding involved through an operating system that can deliver the goods but through all these processes they act as a barrier making a simple task much more complicated then it actually is. Conversion is never a good thing, and the KISS approach will always be better, which is why most of the third party software programs work better...they tear down the barriers from the original operating system.

Again, only speculation...I've sent another email off and I'll post back what I find. With regards to Apple TV and transcoding to ALAC that was entirely from Steve in an email exchange. All Wifi streaming through Apple is done this way...it's not treated as raw data like a WiFi network controlling a printer but instead built on an audio stack as opposed too a data stack. The encoding/decoding process is said to introduce more jitter. The same theory I suppose as optical connection's vs. digital coaxial.

LuSh

Quick follow up:

Steve followed up in another email exchange. Jon Reichbach (Amarra Software Designer) tells him that data handling in many computer based audio platforms suffer from the rounding of numbers, bad implementation of dither and off set errors.

dcoil

This is a market waiting for a response. Someone that can make a program that can stream good quality audio files (i.e. lossless data files) with the same quality output will make a fortune. Something that needs no special 'tweeking', special codecs, special audio this or that. Really plug-n-play high quaility audio. Someone please bring it on!!

MillerLiteScott

dcoil.

The mass market does not really care about the sound. I have hooked upa couple of the apple tv's and the people like the UI and slick display more than anything.

Scott

izafar

dcoil wrote: »

This is a market waiting for a response. Someone that can make a program that can stream good quality audio files (i.e. lossless data files) with the same quality output will make a fortune. Something that needs no special 'tweeking', special codecs, special audio this or that. Really plug-n-play high quaility audio. Someone please bring it on!!

You can use apple airport express for this, it has digital out which you can use with a good DAC, Stereophile tested this some years ago and confirmed it to be a bit-to-bit match with CD and apple lossless streaming. You can use apple's remote app on iPhone/iPod touch to browse your library. Cost around $100 if you already have iPhone/iPod.

cnh

Is this all basically an Apple issue? Because I've been transferring CDs to WAV files on a laptop for ages, then streaming them through google's PS3 server to some relatively reasonable DACs without any serious problems for a couple of years now. Not having used Apple products recently, it never occurred to me to bother with them? I'm also one of those individuals who don't like the way itunes cannibalizes all audio files on your hard drive and translates them for itunes?

In any case. Apple TV is an interesting tool. So I "am" curious to read through this thread...although many other manufacturers are presently breaking into the Media Server area....see CES last year and this?

I respect LuSh's research oriented approach as I tend to ride the waves more impulsively and am probably less careful, cautious.

cnh

LuSh

Currently if you want to get close to bit perfect wireless audio streaming a lot is involved. Apple Airport express will muck things up during conversion. You could use a combination of programs if you had a MAC such as Amarra or PureMusic and then use Airfoil to allow AE to stream...

dcoil, I completely agree with you. However we're small potatoes in comparison to what Apple is looking at. They're probably more then happy to let a whole host of after market programmers handle the small market looking for perfection...just look at how many 'audiophile' digital players exist...Amarra (several versions), Pure Music Channel D, J Rivers Media, Foobar, AudioNirvana, AyreWave...etc etc. In the next month I hope to compare a Mac Book Pro with my DAC using Pure Music directly to a Mark Levinson no.512 CD player in a ML/Revel system. I have already compared the DAC to the Levinson and they were close (more or a flavor thing) so it should allow me to concentrate on the transport side of things. I tried today on the same system using the above but only with a DacMagic, the Levinson beat it...the most obvious was the weight and effortlessness of the music.

I've read that Steve Jobs is an audiophile himself...the irony.

adam2434

From what I’ve read, music files are resampled to 48 kHz before streaming to the latest ATV. So, based on this, the ATV would not receive a bit-perfect stream of native 44.1 kHz files. This alone may turn folks away from the ATV is a digital transport in a high resolution audio system.

Supposedly the Airport Express can do bit-perfect. I have not read why the resampling is necessary with the latest ATV.

This may not be the only factor in the performance of these devices as a digital transport – for example, jitter levels could come into play.

Nonetheless, even with the resampling and jitter levels, I would expect the ATV to be fine for the vast majority of users who generally have libraries of compressed music files, do not have high resolution audio systems, and use their systems for background music.

The Squeezebox family of products is an option for those concerned with getting bit-perfect.

I’ve been reading up on the ATV because I’m going to be helping my brother-in-law set one up in a couple days. Set-up appears to be pretty straightforward and the UI looks slick from what I’ve seen. All-in-all, the ATV has impressive capabilities for $99, IMO.

dcoil

izafar wrote: »

You can use apple airport express for this, it has digital out which you can use with a good DAC, Stereophile tested this some years ago and confirmed it to be a bit-to-bit match with CD and apple lossless streaming. You can use apple's remote app on iPhone/iPod touch to browse your library. Cost around $100 if you already have iPhone/iPod.

this sounds really interesting, I will look into this. Izafar, what DAC are you using/suggesting?