Emotiva ERC-1 vs Flac.

olilugo

Hi all,

I notice that emotiva will release a new CD player meat to be in the audiophile category.
The question I have is why would I choose a CD player like this one vs. doing the following:
My new receiver Pioneer SC-07 can play Flac formatted files using the USB connection in the front. I used this this weekend by just copying a few flac formatted songs onto a flash drive, connected the flash drive to my USB connection in the AVR and use the receiver to navigate to these songs and play them.

I also tried comparing MP3 vs. Flac vs WAV vs WMA and to be honest there was no difference between flac and WAV in my oppinion however the difference was very very noticible between flac and MP3 and flac and wma.
also I rip the mp3 using 320KHz so I would have immagen that the difference was not as big but compared to flac it was.

OK now back to my question: why would I want to go back to using one CD at a time to listen to music using a audiophile quality CD player vs having all my music in a hard drive and all the music in flac format?

Thanks

jinjuku

olilugo wrote: »

Hi all,

I notice that emotiva will release a new CD player meat to be in the audiophile category.
The question I have is why would I choose a CD player like this one vs. doing the following:
My new receiver Pioneer SC-07 can play Flac formatted files using the USB connection in the front. I used this this weekend by just copying a few flac formatted songs onto a flash drive, connected the flash drive to my USB connection in the AVR and use the receiver to navigate to these songs and play them.

I also tried comparing MP3 vs. Flac vs WAV vs WMA and to be honest there was no difference between flac and WAV in my oppinion however the difference was very very noticible between flac and MP3 and flac and wma.
also I rip the mp3 using 320KHz so I would have immagen that the difference was not as big but compared to flac it was.

OK now back to my question: why would I want to go back to using one CD at a time to listen to music using a audiophile quality CD player vs having all my music in a hard drive and all the music in flac format?

Thanks

I rip my CD's WMA lossless and can't tell the difference between CD and the lossless file.

I think the #1 thing is to introduce no compression. I would simply stick with FLAC and a nice sound card like the ASUS XONAR. It has the Burr Brown DAC.

What is the rest of your setup like?

thuffman03

Interesting to see that they are making a CD player. It looks like it would be pretty good.

olilugo

Here is my setup:
Mains: Polk RTi6
Center: Polk CSi5
Surround: Polk FXi3
Sub: Velodyne DLS-3750R
Receiver: Pioneer SC-07
Amplifier: Sunfire TGA5200
TV: Sony KDS60A2020
DBP: Sony DBP-S350
DVD: Pioneer DV-48AV

I was using the DVD pionner DV-48AV as my CD-player and it sounds good. however this weekend I used flac files on a usb drive and I connected the USB drive directly in the Receiver and it sounds as good if not better than the DVD player, I think that the SC-07 has a better DAC and since I am using the USB connection it is using the receiver's DAC.
So At this point I am almost ready to take the DV-48AV out of my setup and just keep the Sony Blue-ray player for blue-ray and DVD movies and using a USB drive for music using flac.

keep in mind I don't have an external PC connected to my receiver, the receiver itself has a USB connection and I just using a USB drive...
Technology... I love it.

sucks2beme

I run my music off a pc with flac files, and a usb NOS DAC. The output is
analog. It matches up well against entry to mid-level CDP's.
If maybe your could borrow a decent CDP and try it against your
built in usb Pioneeer DAC, that would be the best way to judge.
The key here is that lossless or uncompressed music should sound
damn close or the same as original recording. Use a good program
like EAC to create the files helps make sure the quality of the original
is preserved. The lower bitrate MP3's are to be avoided. Given where
storage prices are now, you really don't need to conserve space on home systems.

sucks2beme

jinjuku wrote: »

I rip my CD's WMA lossless and can't tell the difference between CD and the lossless file.

I think the #1 thing is to introduce no compression. I would simply stick with FLAC and a nice sound card like the ASUS XONAR. It has the Burr Brown DAC.

What is the rest of your setup like?

Flac is a compressed format. Lossless, but still 30-40% compressed.
I tried a emu-404 Vs. external DAC. The DAC won. The sound card rolled off
the high and low end. The DAC wasn't even a very good one. The analog
section of the DAC has more to do with the sound than the chipset.

jinjuku

sucks2beme wrote: »

Flac is a compressed format. Lossless, but still 30-40% compressed.
I tried a emu-404 Vs. external DAC. The DAC won. The sound card rolled off
the high and low end. The DAC wasn't even a very good one. The analog
section of the DAC has more to do with the sound than the chipset.

Yep, you are correct. I don't use FLAC, just heard nothing but good things about it (mainly it isn't owned by any corporation).

The Xonar is a well received card. I wonder how it compares to your external DAC (which one are you using?).

I am seriously considering getting rid of my AV/Receiver. I have it doing mainly Pre/Pro (it is driving my surrounds). But with the Xonar card I could go straight to EQ then Amps. All my tuning and source selection is right on the computer.

jinjuku

olilugo wrote: »

Here is my setup:
Mains: Polk RTi6
Center: Polk CSi5
Surround: Polk FXi3
Sub: Velodyne DLS-3750R
Receiver: Pioneer SC-07
Amplifier: Sunfire TGA5200
TV: Sony KDS60A2020
DBP: Sony DBP-S350
DVD: Pioneer DV-48AV

I was using the DVD pionner DV-48AV as my CD-player and it sounds good. however this weekend I used flac files on a usb drive and I connected the USB drive directly in the Receiver and it sounds as good if not better than the DVD player, I think that the SC-07 has a better DAC and since I am using the USB connection it is using the receiver's DAC.
So At this point I am almost ready to take the DV-48AV out of my setup and just keep the Sony Blue-ray player for blue-ray and DVD movies and using a USB drive for music using flac.

keep in mind I don't have an external PC connected to my receiver, the receiver itself has a USB connection and I just using a USB drive...
Technology... I love it.

Depending on your setup you could go HDMI from the computer or TOSLink from the computer to the receiver. The Receiver would still do the DAC'ing same as the USB drive.

I have been using Vista MCE and have it tweaked out and loving it:)

sucks2beme

jinjuku wrote: »

Yep, you are correct. I don't use FLAC, just heard nothing but good things about it (mainly it isn't owned by any corporation).

The Xonar is a well received card. I wonder how it compares to your external DAC (which one are you using?).

I am seriously considering getting rid of my AV/Receiver. I have it doing mainly Pre/Pro (it is driving my surrounds). But with the Xonar card I could go straight to EQ then Amps. All my tuning and source selection is right on the computer.

Monica USB. Asio driver to bypass windows. It was just a naked card, I had
to case it up and add a power supply. The next step up in DACs cost big $$$.
There are others here using a Monica. IT seems to get pretty good
reviews.

Face

Get an external DAC, it should sound much better than the one built into your receiver.

Over the weekend my girlfriend and I compared the DAC in my Onkyo 706 to my DacMagic, the DAC in the Onkyo sounded like junk in comparison.

olilugo

You know my SC-07 is using:
Digital Analog Conversion (DAC) 192 kHz / 24-bit DAC Wolfson WM8740 DAC

The ERC-1 is using:
Burr Brown OPA2131 Op-amps, and Analog Devices 1955 DAC, and a 24 bit procesor with 384 x oversampling

olilugo

jinjuku wrote: »

Depending on your setup you could go HDMI from the computer or TOSLink from the computer to the receiver. The Receiver would still do the DAC'ing same as the USB drive.

I have been using Vista MCE and have it tweaked out and loving it:)

I don't know that I am ready to have a PC as part of my setup just yet.
But this will be a good idea if I wanted to have movie/music/ and internet near my HT.

jinjuku

olilugo wrote: »

I don't know that I am ready to have a PC as part of my setup just yet.
But this will be a good idea if I wanted to have movie/music/ and internet near my HT.

Playing back DVD's juke box style is fantastic with the My Movies plug in. Hulu is great also. My Neflix gives me access to the entire Netflix Watch Now collection.

I also get Clear QAM, OTA HD, and FM. It is really nice having everything concentrated to a single box (more or less). My next step would be to simplify my audio chain and get rid of the redundancy that my receiver (as a pre-pro mainly) presents. I would need to get additional amplification for the surrounds.

heiney9

For my office rig:

Chaintech AV510 soundcard; ASIO driver; Toslink to AMC DAC8 outboard dac; Tube hybrid integrated; Modded Polk Monitor 5B's. Play all FLAC files through Media Monkey.

Main rig: Squeezebox wireless music server; Adcom GDA600 dac via coax; playing my own FLAC files. Dell mini PC controlling the wireless Squeeze software.

Both systems work great.

H9

bigred7078

the new ERC-1 looks really nice.

Its just once you go to digital audio...there is no going back lol. There is nothing like having all your music at your fingertips