ranjeetrain
New Member
Happy New Year Everyone!
Those who know me know that I am a hard core digital guy. There is only one way in which I have played my music in last two decades, the digital way. 2014, a new year, and a year of anticipations at that. What a better way to begin this year than by sharing how I have been getting a lot from digital by investing just a little?
Firstly I thought of just making this thread a thread about "My computer transport". Because that's the part which will be most relevant for most people interested in this thread. Other parts of my setup (and my methods) may or may not interest others. But this is a part everyone can relate to. And by everyone I mean, everyone who has tasted digital and is constantly trying to get more. Everyone who has been reading about digital but falls short of venturing into it because of his non-tech-savvy nature. Everyone who has always been in analogue, but wants to start into digital. Everyone who is firmly into digital and yet wants to improve upon what he is getting. Most importantly, this thread is for everyone who wants to get more by investing less.
This thread, however, is not for digital vs analogue discussions. This is for discussing how to get more, how to get best out of digital, not about how it compares against analogue.
Here in this thread I would be sharing most of the things in as plain-English as possible. That is, I will try not to make it a thread for IT geeks, but for everyone. With the help of this thread, everyone can try digital audio and everyone can hear the difference.
Truth be told, I had wanted to start such a thread a long long time ago. But I had been seeing a lot of negativity about digital (not only here, but everywhere). But now that more and more people are getting into digital ( actually getting into it big time) and looking for reliable source of information on digital, I have decided to finally start such a thread. Consider it my new year gift
Background: Before I begin, I want to set a background against which I would be sharing my experiences here. In last two decades in my digital journey I have used 5+ disc spinners, 5+ desktops, 8+ laptops, 5+ tablets, 6+ portable devices, 3 media players as source. All in the name of experiments and endeavor to get the most out of my digital collection.
My current collection of gear that I use for digital playback are:
(1) A Bufallo NAS running SMB, AFP and FTP (was also running DLNA but shutdown due to performance reason).
(2) An Apple MacMini with i5 processor, 8 GB RAM.
(3) An HP ProBook 6530 notebook.
(4) An HP Mini 210 VT netbook.
(5) A desktop (not in use anymore, but retained for comparison's sake)
(6) 3 Tablets/Smartphones as controller devices.
(7) 5 routers and switches. Not all are used at once, but I have tried them all in order to achieve the maximum performance, before settling down on my current configuration.
Result? Well, all that list of equipment and blah is very good. But here comes the most important question. How does it sound?
In one word, divine! In two words, pure + pristine. In more words - well, I should actually leave it for others to describe as owners tend to be biased. However, to give a slight hint, recently I dedicated some time to hear some really high end setups. And my transport sounds ridiculously good compared to source in the range of Rs. 5-8 Lacs. In fact I would buy any transport immediately if it sounds better and is available under Rs 2 Lacs.
Back to the transport: there are three goals in my hifi endeavor: (1) Economical (2) Natural sounding (3) Simple. There can be better sounding sources out there, but none will be as economical and simple as a transport you can make one for yourself following this thread. Let me begin by posting some screenshots of my transport in action.
[IMG2]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2864/11826314503_f8a5046881_o.gif[/IMG2]
As you can see in this pic, the computer (my test machine) has a very entry-level specification by current standards. And if I can convert this into a pristine sounding transport, everyone else can, including you.
Some more screenshots:
[IMG2]http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5507/11826314493_2c02606aac_o.gif[/IMG2]
[IMG2]farm8.staticflickr.com/7454/11826314273_da6097e14a_o.gif[/IMG2]
[IMG2]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2828/11826314083_144932d741_o.gif[/IMG2]
As you can see, it's quite a lot of customization resulting in an an unusually efficient performance. I will be sharing the know-how and the steps how you can turn your machine into an equally efficient music PC as well. Since this is going to be a long typing and a lot of screenshots, I will do it in steps.
Thanks for riding the digital express with me.
Those who know me know that I am a hard core digital guy. There is only one way in which I have played my music in last two decades, the digital way. 2014, a new year, and a year of anticipations at that. What a better way to begin this year than by sharing how I have been getting a lot from digital by investing just a little?
Firstly I thought of just making this thread a thread about "My computer transport". Because that's the part which will be most relevant for most people interested in this thread. Other parts of my setup (and my methods) may or may not interest others. But this is a part everyone can relate to. And by everyone I mean, everyone who has tasted digital and is constantly trying to get more. Everyone who has been reading about digital but falls short of venturing into it because of his non-tech-savvy nature. Everyone who has always been in analogue, but wants to start into digital. Everyone who is firmly into digital and yet wants to improve upon what he is getting. Most importantly, this thread is for everyone who wants to get more by investing less.
This thread, however, is not for digital vs analogue discussions. This is for discussing how to get more, how to get best out of digital, not about how it compares against analogue.
Here in this thread I would be sharing most of the things in as plain-English as possible. That is, I will try not to make it a thread for IT geeks, but for everyone. With the help of this thread, everyone can try digital audio and everyone can hear the difference.
Truth be told, I had wanted to start such a thread a long long time ago. But I had been seeing a lot of negativity about digital (not only here, but everywhere). But now that more and more people are getting into digital ( actually getting into it big time) and looking for reliable source of information on digital, I have decided to finally start such a thread. Consider it my new year gift
Background: Before I begin, I want to set a background against which I would be sharing my experiences here. In last two decades in my digital journey I have used 5+ disc spinners, 5+ desktops, 8+ laptops, 5+ tablets, 6+ portable devices, 3 media players as source. All in the name of experiments and endeavor to get the most out of my digital collection.
My current collection of gear that I use for digital playback are:
(1) A Bufallo NAS running SMB, AFP and FTP (was also running DLNA but shutdown due to performance reason).
(2) An Apple MacMini with i5 processor, 8 GB RAM.
(3) An HP ProBook 6530 notebook.
(4) An HP Mini 210 VT netbook.
(5) A desktop (not in use anymore, but retained for comparison's sake)
(6) 3 Tablets/Smartphones as controller devices.
(7) 5 routers and switches. Not all are used at once, but I have tried them all in order to achieve the maximum performance, before settling down on my current configuration.
Result? Well, all that list of equipment and blah is very good. But here comes the most important question. How does it sound?
In one word, divine! In two words, pure + pristine. In more words - well, I should actually leave it for others to describe as owners tend to be biased. However, to give a slight hint, recently I dedicated some time to hear some really high end setups. And my transport sounds ridiculously good compared to source in the range of Rs. 5-8 Lacs. In fact I would buy any transport immediately if it sounds better and is available under Rs 2 Lacs.
Back to the transport: there are three goals in my hifi endeavor: (1) Economical (2) Natural sounding (3) Simple. There can be better sounding sources out there, but none will be as economical and simple as a transport you can make one for yourself following this thread. Let me begin by posting some screenshots of my transport in action.
[IMG2]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2864/11826314503_f8a5046881_o.gif[/IMG2]
As you can see in this pic, the computer (my test machine) has a very entry-level specification by current standards. And if I can convert this into a pristine sounding transport, everyone else can, including you.
Some more screenshots:
[IMG2]http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5507/11826314493_2c02606aac_o.gif[/IMG2]
[IMG2]farm8.staticflickr.com/7454/11826314273_da6097e14a_o.gif[/IMG2]
[IMG2]http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2828/11826314083_144932d741_o.gif[/IMG2]
As you can see, it's quite a lot of customization resulting in an an unusually efficient performance. I will be sharing the know-how and the steps how you can turn your machine into an equally efficient music PC as well. Since this is going to be a long typing and a lot of screenshots, I will do it in steps.
Thanks for riding the digital express with me.
