NAS Drives

[richardfinegold]

Some Roon followup. It took forever to scan what I have in iTunes—about 300 albums—but that is a one time issue. I played a few albums from the MacAir while simultaneously spinning the CDs on my Oppo 203, using the usb input on my Bryston DAC for the Mac and the HDMI input of the Bryston for the Oppo, and switching between the 2 inputs. I thought that there was a fairly obvious difference, with the Roon sounding veiled and less vibrant

[Dave2002]

Some Roon followup. It took forever to scan what I have in iTunes—about 300 albums—but that is a one time issue. I played a few albums from the MacAir while simultaneously spinning the CDs on my Oppo 203, using the usb input on my Bryston DAC for the Mac and the HDMI input of the Bryston for the Oppo, and switching between the 2 inputs. I thought that there was a fairly obvious difference, with the Roon sounding veiled and less vibrant

Just a thought though - you have previously written that you don’t like USB for DACs, so perhaps that is the reason why the Oppo sounds better to you. Your MacAir probably doesn’t have HDMI, but an adapter is available I think.
Not sure if your DAC has pairs of inputs which can be switched - otherwise if you can get compatible and similar inputs from your MacAir (e.g. HDMI, optical, coax) you’ll have to try quick cable swapping with sequential listening.

Without checking this you can’t be so sure that it’s Roon which is giving the less transparent sound.

[richardfinegold]

Just a thought though - you have previously written that you don’t like USB for DACs, so perhaps that is the reason why the Oppo sounds better to you. Your MacAir probably doesn’t have HDMI, but an adapter is available I think.
Not sure if your DAC has pairs of inputs which can be switched - otherwise if you can get compatible and similar inputs from your MacAir (e.g. HDMI, optical, coax) you’ll have to try quick cable swapping with sequential listening.

Without checking this you can’t be so sure that it’s Roon which is giving the less transparent sound.

That’s a good point. I hadn’t used the usb of the Bryston much, as I bought it a year ago primarily for its HDMI capabilities.
My bias against usb is from my history with previous DACs. The brief usb audition that I did do previously on the Bryston
suggested that this usb input was a closer match to the other inputs on the Bryston than I had previously experienced. At any rate, I except your criticism of my little trial

[johnb]

I thought that there was a fairly obvious difference, with the Roon sounding veiled and less vibrant

Just a thought: I noticed that Roon has settings for volume normalisation (or "volume leveling" as I think they call it). Normalisation is commonly used when streaming pop music but it kills classical. I would check that all settings that introduce any processing to the audio (e.g. volume leveling, volume control, limits, DSP, transcoding, etc, etc) are disabled - so that the Roon system does nothing at all to the audio.

[richardfinegold]

Just a thought: I noticed that Roon has settings for volume normalisation (or "volume leveling" as I think they call it). Normalisation is commonly used when streaming pop music but it kills classical. I would check that all settings that introduce any processing to the audio (e.g. volume leveling, volume control, limits, DSP, transcoding, etc, etc) are disabled - so that the Roon system does nothing at all to the audio.

Thanks for that. I fooled a bit with the settings, but still wasn't happy with the outcome. I've now deleted Roon from my computer, because yesterday my IT Consultant was here and we set up everything and I didn't want the roon to complicate the issue.
It turns out that the contents of my Bluesound server HD ("Vault 2" in Bluesound terminology) can be transferred to my NAS. Since I had loaded over 300 CDs on the Vault, this transfer took the better part of the day, and then one has to do some fiddling
in the Bluesound App when it's completed to "tell" the NAS that I will be using the Music Organizing function of the BS App to control the NAS. I haven't cared for this App before, but I've already paid for it, and I'm going to try to make it work. It works fairly well if one creates playlists, but my problems was that in the past updates to the App deleted my Playlists. I am hoping that with everything backed up to the NAS that this won't happen again--my IT guy thinks it won't--we'll see. Once I am comfortable with how everything is working I may try one of the programs that was recommended upthread on the Mac, such as jRiver for iTunes or Audirvana Plus, and then see which I prefer to control the NAS.
It also turns out that I can control the system from the "Network" section of my Oppo, an added bonus. The problem is that the remote control for the Oppo is a bit unresponsive to make the rapid screen changes necessary. I could try downloading the Opposite App to the iPad, but previously I had found this App to not work well to simply control the Opposite basic functions (such as open the disc tray, play, stop, etc) so I am not to optimistic there.
One final early impression--playing some music from the Oppo (fed into the Bryston DAC) everything sounds really great. This is the first time that I've ever played music from an ethernet connection and I hope that it continues to impress.

[richardfinegold]

Update:
Started burning discs using iTunes with Apples usb Optical Drive. Since I am proceeding alphabetically, first up were the Symphonies of Malcolm Arnold, an 11 disc box featuring Vernon Handley and seemingly every Orchestra in the U.K.
While burning disc four, featuring Symphonies 6&7, the Optical drive just stopped dead in the middle of a movement. I had to force quit the Air. When listening to a track recorded from from a previous disc, Sweeney Todd, Op 68a, while controlling from the Air ( prior to the forcequit), the track stopped after about 30 seconds, although the listing showed the entire track had been recorded
By then it was past bedtime so I went to sleep gritting my teeth—a frequent occurrence since beginning this process—but this AM, using the Bluesound App to control the NAS, the Sweeney Todd track played in full.
So I am wondering if I have a problem with the Air, the external Optical drive, or all of the above

[Dave2002]

Did you move the optical drive overnight - which might explain why it is working today? Maybe try a cleaining disc - perhaps dust has got inside. I assume it's an Apple optical drive you are using.

I have one of those, but most of the ripping I have done was on iMacs with the vertical slot loading. I have known discs to jam or get stuck in iMacs, but fortunately my machines have been OK so far.

[richardfinegold]

Did you move the optical drive overnight - which might explain why it is working today? Maybe try a cleaining disc - perhaps dust has got inside. I assume it's an Apple optical drive you are using.

I have one of those, but most of the ripping I have done was on iMacs with the vertical slot loading. I have known discs to jam or get stuck in iMacs, but fortunately my machines have been OK so far.

I didn’t say the Optical drive was working this AM. I haven’t tried it yet, and probably won’t get a chance until after work

[richardfinegold]

Second chance scan for the problem disc, this time with no issues. I suspect the issue may be the MacAir, as it has been freezing up on many other occasions.
I am currently burning discs with Apple Lossless, and compared to the FLAC files on the NAS that were moved from the Bluesound storage, they sound a tad less compelling.
Listening to Arnold’s 6th Symphony, with a rather obvious quotation from Bartok’s Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta

[richardfinegold]

One last comment about Roon. It seemed to cause the computer to crash. The last time I used it the Mac was noticeably warm, and now that I’ve canceled my free trial and the software has been removed everything seems to work normally again.
So now I’ve loaded Audirvana Plus for the 2 week free trial, and so far, as a playback system, I like it. Good sound, better than playing the files back through iTunes. However, can one rip CDs using Audirvana? If so, I can’t figure out how to do so, and in Computer Audiophile Forums, it seems that people use it for playback only.

[jayne lee wilson]

One last comment about Roon. It seemed to cause the computer to crash. The last time I used it the Mac was noticeably warm, and now that I’ve canceled my free trial and the software has been removed everything seems to work normally again.
So now I’ve loaded Audirvana Plus for the 2 week free trial, and so far, as a playback system, I like it. Good sound, better than playing the files back through iTunes. However, can one rip CDs using Audirvana? If so, I can’t figure out how to do so, and in Computer Audiophile Forums, it seems that people use it for playback only.

No, I don't think there's any localised software for ripping to Audirvana+. But should you ever get the chance....(I know, I know...) it interfaces beautifully with Qobuz HiFi...
If you can, try the integer 1/integer 2 options on Audirvana+ playback - very useful, very enjoyable....

[richardfinegold]

So I ripped my first disc using dbpoweramp. Reaching for the shelves at random it wound up being a Bantock disc from the series that Hyperion did in the nineties. The problem is that while the setting showed that everything went great, I have no idea where the files ended up. I’ve scoured the NAS every which way, and it didn’t land on the internal SSD of the Mac either. When I made breakfast this morning I searched the kitchen cabinets to see if the files were floating amorphously there, but no luck. I asked Siri on the Home Pod if she knew where they were and she couldn’t help either.
Any ideas?

[richardfinegold]

Ok..found the files...dbpoweramp places them in the Music part of the Mac and then they have to be moved via the desktop to the NAS. No thanks to Siri.
Btw I had previously ripped the Bantock Pagan Symphony using iTunes and listening to the same disc via the dbpoweramp
rip (both into Apple Lossless) the difference is startling. The dbpoweramp rip has so much more presence and impact. The iTunes rip sounded fine until I made the comparison.
This Granville Bantock series is a lot of fun. Next up is the disc with Celtic and Hebridean Symphonies. I haven’t listened to these since I bought them a couple of decades ago. Tony Faulkner was the engineer, and Vernon Handley seems to really
Be a good advocate, although I have no comparator

[Stunsworth]

No, I don't think there's any localised software for ripping to Audirvana+. But should you ever get the chance....(I know, I know...) it interfaces beautifully with Qobuz HiFi...
If you can, try the integer 1/integer 2 options on Audirvana+ playback - very useful, very enjoyable....

I rip using iTunes and have Audirvana pointing at my iTunes library. Works very well.

[Dave2002]

Btw I had previously ripped the Bantock Pagan Symphony using iTunes and listening to the same disc via the dbpoweramp
rip (both into Apple Lossless) the difference is startling. The dbpoweramp rip has so much more presence and impact. The iTunes rip sounded fine until I made the comparison.

So what is the ripping process doing? It should be identical - but maybe one of the rips is changing the data in some way. Odd! Perhaps there's no claim for transparency.