Ampliozone

Anyone reading this blog?

2011-05-04T16:14:00.004-05:00

Hey, it's been over a year since I posted anything. Is anyone still reading this?? If so, leave a comment.

New Software Can Transcribe Music from any Source

2010-04-23T16:51:00.004-05:00

Here's an interesting article about software created by a team of Spanish engineers that can generate sheet music from a recording. If I'm understanding this correctly, their software first creates a spectral pattern, used to identify individual instruments and then it can determine which note is played. Pretty cool. I wonder how it works with percussion instruments, like a set of drums.

Extracting Audio from DVD-Video

2010-02-24T12:29:00.011-06:00

I own a handful of concert DVDs that include music that I'd like to add to my music library and listen to without having to play the video. Luckily, I recently discovered a really handy utility called DVD Audio Extractor that lets me extract audio from a DVD Video almost as easy as ripping a CD. I'll show you how I extracted the audio from my 'Diana Krall - Live in Paris' DVD Video.

After inserting the disc into my DVD drive, I opened DVD Audio Extractor. Here's the main interface:

DVD Audio Extractor displays all the title sets and chapters. Usually the main concert tracks will be in the title set with the largest duration. The shorter title sets are usually extras or special clips. In the main window it shows the list of chapters. These are usually the music tracks from the concert. To verify the correct title set and chapters, you can select something and hit the play button. DVD Audio Extractor will play the chapter in the main window and you can watch and listen to the video.

The program also lists all the audio streams for each title set. In this example, you can see both stereo and 6 channel AC3 (Dolby Digital) streams and a 5 channel DTS stream. Sometimes the video will include a higher resolution stereo PCM stream, but that's not the case here. The AC3 and DTS multichannel streams are almost always 16-bit, 48 kHz. Since I'm a bit of an audio purist, I don't normally store lossy encoded audio in my library. I usually rip everything to lossless FLAC or WMA. However, I will make an exception for surround tracks and rip the occasional DTS audio. I prefer DTS over AC3 because it is compressed at a higher bit rate and usually sounds better.

Next, I'll edit the chapter names so they show the name of the songs on the DVD. I just referred to the back cover of the DVD case for the list of songs. This is what it looked like after I edited the chapter names:
Once you've made these edits, you need to select all the chapters/tracks you want to extract. I also found some bonus material in Title5 and after previewing was able to figure out that it was the rehearsal footage for 3 songs. Since it was also 5ch DTS audio, I decided to include it in my selection. Picking the 'Next' button will take you to the next step. In this window you select the output audio format. You can choose between lossy compression formats like OGG or mp3 and lossless FLAC compression. There's also an option for uncompressed WAV and Direct Stream Demux.
I was a little confused by the options for 'Channels'. With FLAC (and WAV), I noticed you can choose between mono, stereo and 'All 6 Channels'. However, in the previous screen, the DTS audio stream was listed as DTS (48kHz 5CH). So I thought it would show 5 channels instead of 6 channels. Maybe this is just an error in their interface and they always have 'All 6 Channels' for all surround streams. Or, maybe they automatically upmix to 6 channels or add a silent Lfe (low frequency effects or subwoofer) channel. In my opinion, that's not a good thing to do because you are just increasing the file size with dummy data. I decided to try extracting a single track using the 'Direct Stream Demux' method. This will copy the audio stream directly without decoding so the output is exactly the same as the source. DTS audio is saved to a *.dts file. I can open it with foobar2000 and check the number of channels.
As it turns out, the audio stream does have 6 channels. So I don't know why it was listed as DTS (48kHz 5CH). The DVD sleeve says it includes DTS 5.1, so I'll just assume the audio stream list is inaccurate. After determining the correct settings, I went back and selected all my chapters/tracks and set it to FLAC with the sample rate set to 'Same as input', channels to 'All 6 Channels' (afterall, the main reason for ripping this is to get the surround tracks) and the 'Bits per sample' to 16 bits. You can change these settings to downmix to stereo or upsample to 24-bit, but I want to keep it as close to the source to avoid adding any distortion. Note that by encoding to FLAC from DTS, I will end up with a larger file size because I will be going from a lossy compressed format to a lossless compressed format, which is always larger. Normally I wouldn't want to do this, but since the DTS format doesn't support metadata tagging, I am going to use FLAC. Using another lossy format like 5.1 OGG, would potentially add more distortion by putting the audio through another compression stage. Since storage space is pretty cheap, I'm going to go with the larger file size. Picking 'Next' takes me to the next step which lets me target the location of my output, save each chapter as a separate file and tag the files with artist and album names.
The next step will take you to the final screen where you can start extracting the audio:
Now I can add these tracks to my music library. That's it. Let me know if you have any questions or if you've found a better method.

Playing HDCD in Full Resolution

2010-01-29T16:46:00.002-06:00

Do you recognize this logo on the left? You may see it on the back cover of some of your CDs. This means your CD has High Definition Compatible Digital (or HDCD) information encoded in the disc. HDCD is an encode-decode process that improves the sound quality of HDCD-encoded CDs. If you play the HDCD disc in a CD player that includes the HDCD decoder, the audio is played back at 20-bit 44.1kHz. These CDs are also backward compatible with a regular CD that uses the standard Redbook CD specification (which is any CD that will play in a CD player). So when you play an HDCD disc in a regular CD player, it plays just like any other CD at 16-bit 44.1kHz.

I'm not sure exactly why these discs sound better. According to the wikipedia article for HDCD, it could be due to the mastering engineers taking advantage of 4 more bits of dynamic range and digital interpolation filtering which results in a more natural, open, and accurate sound reproduction. I think the engineers that take advantage of HDCD are probably more careful when mastering, use less compression, and are concerned about overall sound quality, just like they are when mastering for vinyl, SACD or DVD-Audio.

The only way to take advantage of HDCD with a PC was to play the physical disc with Windows Media Player. Microsoft actually bought the developer of HDCD technology, Pacific Microsonics, and all their intellectual property, in 2000. If you ripped your HDCD disc to your computer's hard drive (or media server), the audio would not play back at the higher resolution. It would just play back as a regular 16-bit 44.1kHz CD.

I recently discovered that you could use a combination of tools to convert HDCD encoded audio files into a higher resolution and take advantage of the higher quality recordings. It's important that your ripped CDs are exactly the same as the original CD. If they are compressed using a lossy format like MP3, this will not work. If you use lossless compression like FLAC or lossless WMA, it should work. One method is to use the custom little decoder program 'hdcd.exe'. This little tool will input the 16-bit WAV data and if it finds the embedded HDCD info, it will upconvert it to 24-bits. The last 4 bits of this 24-bit file are empty, so your DAC just sees it as a 20-bit file. For more information on how to use this command line utility read this thread at Doom9's forum. Apparently it will still work with non-HDCD encoded files, but the volume will be cut in half. So maybe this isn't the best method. Or, supposedly there's a way to check if the file is HDCD encoded using hdcd.exe in test mode. So it's probably a good idea to check if the file is HDCD encoded first.

Another method, which I believe is a lot more convenient, is to use dBpoweramp. Using dBpoweramp's conversion utility, you can activate their HDCD plugin, which automatically detects HDCD encoded files and decodes to 24-bit. If the file is from a non-HDCD audio CD, it is left as 16-bit. Again, it will only work if the file is exactly the same as the original HDCD encoded CD. So it had to have been ripped to uncompressed WAV or losslessly compressed FLAC, lossless WMA, etc., etc. When you convert the file just use the same encoding method (I usually just use FLAC) and overwrite the original file.

You can now play your decoded 24-bit 44.1kHz audio file on your PC with any software player. Now, all you have to do is dig through you CD collection and check the back of the disc for the HDCD logo and go to work. If these CDs have already been ripped, then use the dBpoweramp converter to decode them to the higher resolution. Some HDCD encoded discs do not have the logo printed on their back cover, but still include this capability. You could always use dBpoweramp to test if they have HDCD, but that might take a lot of time. You can also search the web for a list of HDCD encoded CDs. I was able to find this list on Head-Fi's forum. So before you dig through all your CDs, you might want to check to see what's on the list. I plan to convert all my HDCD encoded CDs to 24-bit when I get the chance.

Wheatus - Pop, Songs & Death, Vol. 1: The Lightning EP

2010-01-22T15:16:00.004-06:00

I hope this is becoming a trend. Wheatus, an alternative rock band founded by singer/songwriter Brendan B. Brown, is letting listeners download their next EP for whatever price they are willing to pay. This is similar to what Radiohead did back in the Fall of 2007.

The cool thing about this offer is not only are they letting people choose their own price, but they are also offering the new album in a variety of formats including MP3, lossless WMA, Apple lossless, FLAC and DSD. The WMA lossless is CD quality 16-bit/44.1kHz. The FLAC is basically DVD-A quality at 24-bit/88.2kHz and the DSD (or direct stream digital) is SACD quality.

The interesting thing about the DSF files using DSD encoding, is that they can be burned to a DVD disc and played back on a Sony PS3. Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the DSF files are the stereo tracks and the DFF files are the multichannel surround tracks used in a SACD. Lately, I discovered that people are able to digitally extract the audio from SACD and convert to PCM. This is probably what they've done to provide the 24bit/88.2kHz FLAC files. There's also a DFF foobar2000 plugin that will let you play DFF/DSF files in foobar. I haven't tried it so I don't know how well it works, but I assume it is a decoder that converts the DSD steam to PCM. If that's the case, then you are avoiding the DSD-PCM decoding step if you download Wheatus' FLAC version. It will probably sound the same.

I made a donation and downloaded the EP and a couple bonus tracks in FLAC format. Without going into an in-depth review, I think it sounds pretty good, both technically and artistically. It was the first time I'd heard anything from Wheatus so I had no idea what to expect. The first track kind of reminded me of something like The Eels, but with a little more range. There's even some interesting Zappa-esk elements to their music. Check them out.

DVD-A Registry

2010-01-20T11:00:00.007-06:00

Now that I have a reason to purchase DVD-Audio discs, I've been searching for online sources. It looks like the DVD-A Registry is a place where you can see a list of everything that has been released on DVD-A. It also looks like they include a couple other formats like Blu-ray. There are some other formats I'm not familiar with like MVI and HDAD. If anyone has info on these please feel free to contact me or leave a comment.

Update: I just got some more info from Feisal, the creator/owner of the DVD-A Registry. Here's his response:
"MVI is dead & gone - it's a CD+DVD with hi-rez stereo and possibly a 5.1 DD track. There were only about 15 MVI discs released ever so its really not that important. HDAD and DAD were coined by Classic Records. DAD was a DVD-video format disc with 24/96 stereo audio only, and HDAD was a DVD-V on one side and a DVD-A on the other side (with 24/192 stereo MLP)."

Free DVD-A Album

2010-01-17T13:55:00.004-06:00

In my last post I explained how you can play and rip a DVD-A with your computer. Some of you may not have a DVD-A, so I found one you can use to try this out.

Check out Diatonis - Dark Edges, an ambient style electronica album. The download link is for a DVD-A ISO image of their 24-bit 96 kHz 5.1 surround sound recording. Diatonis also sells DVD ISO images (both DVD-Video and DVD-Audio) through tradebit for only US$6.00 per album.

After you download the ISO, you can use foobar2000 with the dvd-audio plugin described in my last post to both play and rip the tracks. The method described below works on both physical discs and ISO images. If you have any questions, just post a comment below.

Enjoy!!

Playing and Ripping DVD-Audio With Your PC

2010-01-14T16:00:00.002-06:00

DVD-Audio, or DVD-A, was one of the audio formats that was suppose to replace CDs. The other was SACD. Both of these formats are a big improvement in audio quality. Not that redbook CD is a bad format. It actually is quite good when done right. DVD-A supports higher resolution and more channels than CD, which as you know only gives you 2 channels for stereo playback. DVD-A can have up to 6 channels for surround sound. The DVD-A spec supports a bit depth of up to 24-bits and a sampling rate of up to 192 KHz for 2 channels and 96 KHz for more than 2 up to 6 channels. As you also probably know, DVD-Video, or DVD-V, also supports up to 6 channels of audio. The big difference between DVD-A and DVD-V for audio is the multichannel audio in a DVD-V is compressed using lossy compression methods like Dolby Digital (AC3) or DTS. The multichannel audio in a DVD-A uses a lossless compression method called Meridian Lossless Packing. DVD-A can also use uncompressed LPCM, but it can only handle a total bit rate of 9.6 Megabits/second. So high bit rate, high sampling rate multichannel files need to be compressed. Anyhow, MLP's lossless compression sounds exactly like the uncompressed LPCM, so there's no disadvantage to it. The MLPs will sound better than the same music compressed with Dolby Digital or DTS, so therefore it is a better choice for audiophile recordings.

I think DVD-A and SACD failed to become the next big mass market format for several reasons. The fact that they were competing formats didn't help and probably created some confusion. New hardware requirements probably kept some people from jumping in before knowing what format to buy, especially since they didn't want to make a mistake and buy equipment that may become obsolete (like Beta VCRs or HD-DVD players more recently). Another factor that may have impeded the growth in popularity for DVD-A might be the copy protection that prevented people from copying the music to their computers. At the time the DVD-A spec was completed in 1999, MP3s were becoming very popular and file sharing with Napster was increasing very rapidly. I think the last thing the record labels wanted was another format that was easy to copy. Consumers on the other hand wanted to copy freely. I'm not sure if this was a big deal because the size of a high resolution multichannel file is huge and wasn't very practical for filesharing.

The fact that there's not much music (or at least really popular) music on DVD-A doesn't help either. The big record labels weren't really releasing a lot of stuff on DVD-A. However there is some stuff from a few of the labels like Universal Music, EMI, and Warner Bros. Records, along with a few smaller audiophile labels like AIX Records and DTS Entertainment. Some of the DVD-A releases are older standard definition recordings that have been upsampled and remixed into 5.1 surround sound. I would assume a lot of the newer released music is not upsampled. Originally DVD-As were pretty expensive, but now you can find them for nearly the same price as CDs.

To many people surround sound is just a weird gimmick. Originally, it seemed the audio engineers didn't really know how to deal with it. Some mixed the audio so the listener was in the center of a room of performers and others tried to create a more traditional experience with the music coming from the front speakers and ambient sounds from the rear. This was suppose to sound more like a live performance. As far as I'm concerned, both of them work fine when mixed by an engineer that knows what he/she is doing. I guess it just depends on what effect the musicians want us to hear. I think surround sound gives a more accurate sound stage than can be achieved with just 2 loudspeakers. So I don't think it's a gimmick. I'm sure there's the possibility of someone mixing a surround recording that may just be annoying, but that was the case with some early stereo recordings. If you are really interested in the advantages of multichannel surround, you should check out ambisonics.net.

Enough of the background info... I have a couple DVD-A discs. Actually, I bought CDs that also included a DVD with the overall bundle. The DVD-Video disc portion included some in-studio videos and the DVD-Audio portion included the album mastered in high resolution 5.1 surround. Up until recently I haven't been able to play the DVD-A portion. First, I don't own a DVD-A player. Second, I don't own a Creative Labs soundcard, which was the only product that was bundled with a player that could play DVD-A discs. Now I can play the DVD-A discs on my computer without the Creative Labs soundcard using our prototype technology. However, the method I use will probably work with a lot of hardware. So here's how I did it:

The software application I used is foobar2000. You can download the current version here, which is version 1.0 as of 1/9/2010. Like a lot of open source projects, foobar2000 has been a fractional number release or in beta for a long time. Foobar2000 is an excellent audio player and fairly popular with people that want the best sound quality from their PC. However, it's not the prettiest or most user-friendly application and doesn't have some of the advanced capabilities of a few commercial players like J.River's Media Center. JRMC can't do many things that you can do with foobar2000. That's why I have both. When you install foobar2000, by default it will locate its files in your 'Program Files' folder. I run Win7 64-bit, so foobar2000 is located in my 'Program Files (x86)' folder.

Foobar2000 by itself won't play the DVD-A, for this you need the DVD-Audio Decoder and Watermark Detector input plugin for foobar2000. Download foo_input_dvda-0.3.4.zip (or a newer version if it is available when you read this) and unzip to your system. Inside the zip file (and now the unzipped folder) you should find a file named 'foo_input_dvda.dll'. Copy or move this file to the foobar2000 components folder. This is a folder located inside the '\Program Files\foobar2000\' folder called 'components'.

Before you run foobar2000 and try playing a DVD-A, make sure you aren't running the CSS protection from DVD-Videos, like AnyDVD or AnyDVD HD. These programs ignore DVD-Audio CPPM protection, but somehow confuse the drive into behaving like protection is missing. I'm not sure exactly why this is, but just understand that you'll need to disable programs like AnyDVD before this will work. Also realize that if you like to copy DVD disc images to your computer or server using AnyDVD, it won't work with DVD-A discs. They'll copy okay, but AnyDVD doesn't remove the CPPM protection and the resulting ISO disc image won't play. You need a program like DVDFab, which can handle DVD-A. For this example we aren't going to copy the ISO disc image, so DVDFab isn't needed. Just remember that you still need to disable AnyDVD.

Go ahead and start foobar2000. I don't remember exactly what happens the first time you run it, but at this time just accept the defaults. For the user interface settings, I think I settled on 'Album List + Properties (tabbed)' for the main layout, with colors set to 'Forum' and the default playlist layout.

Next, insert your DVD-A into your DVD drive and wait a few moments for your system to read the disc. Then in foobar2000, use the 'File->Open' command to select your DVD-A file. You'll need to navigate to the disc's 'AUDIO_TS' folder. It should look something like this:

As you can see there's a bunch of files with the extension AOB and one with IFO. It's hard to tell what tracks are included in each AOB, so I just chose the IFO file and it brings up everything.

In the example above, each track on the DVD-A is listed. Some are six channel and some are 2 channel. The track title shows the number of channels, the bit depth and sample rate. In this case 'Lf-Rf-Ls-Rs 24/96000 + C-LFE 24/96000' means it includes the left-front channel, the right-front channel, the left-surround channel, the right-surround channel at 24-bit and 96 KHZ plus the center and LFE (low frequency effects or subwoofer) channel.

When foobar2000 opens a file, it will immediately start playing the first track. Which it did in my case. Now you are playing the DVD's MLP files with your computer without any downsampling or conversions. As you can see, it doesn't use a database lookup service like freedb to provide the metadata tags for artist name, album, track name, etc. So you will have to enter this information manually. You can go ahead and edit all the metadata or track info to display the correct tags and the program will save the data and display it the next time you open and play your DVD-A. A good source for album info is allmusic.com. They include lots of info you can't find in the CD or DVD's jewel case. After you've edited the track info, it's automatically saved in a dvda_metabase subfolder in *.xml files. This folder is located in 'C:\Users\your-user-name\Application Data\foobar2000' (for Vista\Windows 7) or 'C:\Documents and Settings\your-user-name\Application Data\foobar2000' (for Windows XP) and the author of the plugin would like you to share it. This way other people with the same DVD-A won't have to manually input track info. All you have to do is send the new version of your .xml file (you can probably identify it by the time stamp) and send it to maxim.anisiutkin@gmail.com. In case somebody has already entered the data for your DVD-A and you'd like to take advantage of this shared info, you can download the latest dvda_metabase_XXXX.XX.XX.zip file from http://dvdadecoder.sourceforge.net site. Just unzip the .xml files and move them into your dvda_metabase folder.

Now that you can play your high resolution, multichannel tracks from your DVD-A with your PC, you might be interested in some adjustments you can make to take full advantage of your audio system. Many surround sound systems may have a combination of satellite speakers, full-range speakers and subwoofers. My surround system is made up of 4 Era D5 satellites, 1 ERA D5 LCR and an Era Sub10 subwoofer. The D5s have a pretty good frequency range for bookshelf sized speakers, but they still need a little help below 60 Hz. My big 3-way towers reproduce the bass much better. With bass management software you can redirect audio below a specified frequency to the subwoofer channel. This will substitute the bass missing from the satellites and redirect the bass to the sub. Since low frequencies are non-directional, it should sound just as good as if you had full range speakers. This also depends on the quality of your sub. In my case, the Era Sub10 subwoofer is very good. Some audio drivers may include some bass management features. Microsoft introduced this capability with Vista, but your device has to support their in-box class drivers which take advantage of the SysFX DSP features. If you don't use in-box class drivers and your audio drivers don't include any bass management capabilities, you may want to download the Channel Mixer plugin for foobar2000. The author of the Channel Mixer plugin also created the Matrix Mixer, which might eventually provide more flexibility.

Since I have a big media server, which I use to store all my ripped music and videos, I prefer to do the same with the tracks from my DVD-As. I don't think it is possible to save the tracks as individual MLP files. So I'd like to rip the MLP tracks into individual multichannel FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files. Since FLAC is also lossless, these will be virtually identical to the MLP and almost every player supports FLAC. Converting to FLAC is very easy with the DVD-Audio Decoder plugin and a standard converter component that ships with foobar2000. The converter component is used to convert (or transcode) from one audio format to another. Even though foobar2000 natively supports FLAC, you will need the FLAC command line tool for this to work with the foobar2000 converter. I just downloaded the latest 'exe' that was available and ran the installation routine. All you really need are the core tools, but it won't hurt to include the FLAC Frontend and FLAC Tester. I did not include the source code for my installation. By default, it will create a subfolder in your 'Program Files' folder and install all the files you need. Now you should be ready to rip the DVD-A MLP tracks into FLAC files. Here's what you do:

In foobar2000, select all the tracks you want to convert to FLAC. In my case, I'm only converting the multichannel tracks. As you can see, I already edited the track info for my album.

Move your mouse over any of the highlighted tracks and right click. From the menu pick Convert. This will activate the Converter Setup:

In the setup dialog set the output format to FLAC. You can adjust the FLAC level by clicking on the '...' button. The larger the level, the tighter the lossless compression resulting in a smaller file. This also takes longer to generate because of the additional calculations. I just used the default level 5. For now I'm just going to rip these tracks to a folder on my Desktop. I'll move them to my media server later. In the 'Output files' section I selected 'Convert each track to an individual file' and created a naming format of '%track%-%title%'. The preview box on the right shows how each file will be named. I'm going to accept the defaults for everything else and pick 'OK' to start ripping.

The first time you do this, the converter will ask for the location of FLAC command line encoder. Navigate to where you just installed the FLAC stuff (in my case it is 'C:\Program Files (x86)\FLAC') and select the flac.exe file and pick 'Open'.

Now it should start converting the MLP tracks into FLAC files.

That's it!

CES 2010 - What Did I Miss?

2010-01-12T20:21:00.003-06:00

It sounds like I didn't really miss all that much. Reports that've been posted on Engadget and other blogs make it sound like CES 2010 was a lot like the previous years. There're a couple of things I've noticed over the years. The two biggest technologies that get the lion's share of attention are displays and smartphones. Every year they try to have something that's suppose to represent the next great thing. A couple years ago it was large, thin displays. Last year it was large, thin and faster 120 Hz processing speed. Now it's even thinner and even faster 240 Hz processing and now with 3D! So the new big thing is 3D TV. Even if I owned a big 3D capable 60" flat screen TV, I don't think it would be all that great. I think 3D has to be on the really big screens to be appreciated. If I want to see a 3D movie, I'll go to our local Imax. I just cant get excited about sitting in our family room wearing 3D goggles. Just thinking about it gives me a bit of a headache. I'm not even going to comment on smartphones because I'm just not really into them. I also missed a handful of companies showing off tablet PCs that they hope will be competitive with Apple's upcoming iSlate or whatever it's going to be called.

There were a few announcements or presentations that piqued my interest. During Steve Ballmer's keynote, he stated several times that the PC was the most advanced entertainment device (or something along those lines). Years ago, even back in the late 80's and into the 90's, they always talked about the convergence of technology. Especially the convergence of TVs and PCs. There were other things, like movies and hi-fi, but I think those were the 2 biggies. Anyhow it didn't happen the way Microsoft, Intel, HP, etc. thought it would. Or it didn't happen as quickly as they wanted. So in the past few CES trade shows, they hardly mentioned the PC. Instead it was all about the extenders and stand-alone gaming consoles, like the Xbox 360 or PS3. The PC was too complicated, noisy, big, etc. And people just didn't seem to understand that you weren't limited to a 17" CRT monitor. The tone seemed different this year. He genuinely seemed excited about all sorts of PCs - laptops, notebooks/netbooks and very small form factor HTPCs running Windows 7, Media Center and potential functionality with Mediaroom 2.0.

So since the success of our future products depends on the success of HTPCs, I guess there are reasons to be optimistic. Mediaroom 2.0 will allow major content providers, like AT&T's U-Verse, use HTPCs running Win7 and Media Center to tune into their programming instead of a dedicated set-top box. Initial reports are a little confusing and talk more about using Mediaroom 2.0 with the Xbox 360, but Ballmer made some reference during his keynote about it working with PCs as well. There were also a few announcements about a new CableCard tuner from Silicon Dust. I own one of their HDHomeRuns, so I'm a big fan. This is a dual tuner that connects to your home network. Any PC on your home network can tune into programming from cable providers or over-the-air digital broadcasts. The only big problem was you could only get cable stations that were unencrypted or clear-QAM. This limited you to mainly the basic tier, which includes your local programming (including local HD stations) and some crap channels. All the upper tier programming, stations on expanded basic or above, like ESPN, Comedy Central, Bravo, Discovery, etc. are all encrypted and couldn't be viewed and recorded using the HDHomeRun and your HTPCs. This is going to change when Silicon Dust ships their new CableCard dual tuner and we will be able to view and record encrypted programming from the cable companies. The cool thing about these HDHomeRuns is that your HTPC doesn't need an empty PCI-E slot for a tuner. The really small and silent PCs, like Dell's Zino HD, don't even have the space for internal tuners. So the CableCard ready HDHomeRun will be a great match.

So, it looks like some of the news out of CES 2010 is encouraging for us HTPC'ers.

Skipping CES 2010

2010-01-08T11:38:00.006-06:00

This is the second year in a row that I decided not to attend the International CES tradeshow in Las Vegas. I just don't think tradeshows are that useful anymore. It used to be a good way to learn about new advances in our industry and meet with potential partners and suppliers, but that's not the case for us. Also, I've never invested in a booth at CES to demonstrate our technology because we simply cannot afford it, so I don't know how beneficial that would be. As far as getting new information about technological advances in our industry, there is so much noise at CES, that it is hard to learn anything except the big announcements coming from the major manufacturers. Especially those that happen to present a keynote address, which you can't attend unless you happen to be lucky enough to get an invite or are a member of the press. As for networking, it hasn't really been as useful as I'd like. Some of the companies that I'd like to meet with don't have a booth at CES and those that do usually get a private suite in the Hilton and will only meet by appointment. Naturally, their appointments are all booked up with existing partners or potential partners that have the potential to become large accounts. They don't seem to be very interested in meeting with a startup that can't commit to purchasing 1,000 units a month. On the odd chance that we do get to meet with a company of interest, we usually talk with a marketing representative who can't provide us with any useful information.

As a gadget junky, it was kind of fun to attend CES and walk through the exhibits and see first hand all the gadgets. I especially enjoyed touring the high performance audio & home theater exhibits at the Venetian Towers. So maybe I'll go back some day. I still register every year just in case I decide to go.

Anyhow, with the Internet, I can read most of the big announcements and learn about the new gadgets from my office and/or home. On Wednesday night I even watched Steve Ballmer's keynote address streaming live to my HTPC. In the next couple posts I'll talk about a few of the big announcements and speculate on their potential impact on our business.

More Amazing Technology - Alter Electromagnetic Ambient Conditions

2010-01-04T19:17:00.005-06:00

At least this gadget doesn't cost $10K, but who are they kidding? For only $959, this black piece of metal in a relatively nice frame is suppose to improve the sound of your audio system. How does it work? It seems like magic. You just place it near your gear. You don't even have to plug it in. At least it doesn't waste any power. The Blackbody from LessLoss (I think they also sell high end cables), "greatly enhances your audio playback experience by addressing the interaction of your audio gear's circuitry with ambient electromagnetic phenomena..." and, "The Blackbody takes advantage of the quantum nature of particle interaction, and is therefore able to permeate metal, plastic, wood, and other barriers to affect the circuitry inside your components. This altered electromagnetic influence results in profoundly improved sound quality." These quotes are right off their webpage.

Who buys this stuff? After reading the rest of their webpage which explains how it works, I'm certainly not convinced. They try to imply that there's some real science behind this, but that's laughable. They even suggest several Blackbodys can be used to maximize coverage and effectiveness. Yes, of course, the more, the merrier. I only wish they were selling it on Amazon, so I could read some humorous comments and reviews.

What's the Next Big Thing?

2010-01-04T16:15:00.005-06:00

This blog post isn't exactly related to Amplio's product development or audio, but eventually it might be something we all use.

I think the next big thing will be tablet PCs. Because of Steve Jobs and Apple, the tablet PC will get a lot of attention in the coming month. Rumor has it Jobs will make a big announcement around January 27th. There have also been reports that Apple has ordered 10 million tablet PCs from their Chinese manufacturer. Some people have been calling it the iSlate.

I think these will be a cross between a Kindle-like eBook and a netbook or laptop with touchscreen capability. Not sure if these will be powerful enough to play HD content, but I wouldn't bet against it considering all the choices out there for inexpensive 1080p capable graphics processors. Add in a USB2 port and these tablets will be useful little music players as well. Wireless USB2 would be pretty cool.

Just like MP3 players and the iPod, Apple will probably be credited with the Tablet PC even thought they're not the first. No doubt they'll popularize it because the mass media doesn't follow these sort of things until the Apples or Microsofts of the world make big announcements. HP, Lenovo, Fujitsu, and Samsung have all released products that they refer to as tablet PCs, but these are really more like laptops with swivel touchscreens. I think Apple has probably studied this category for awhile and figured out what works and what sucks, like they did with MP3 players, and they'll come up with something that will be a significant improvement both aesthetically and functionally over those I just mentioned. I doubt Apple's will include a keyboard.

The tablet I'd really like to see come to market would be something like the "Courier" from Microsoft's research labs. A few videos demonstrating the Courier's capabilities showed up on the Internet a few months ago. Here the first article that I discovered on Gizmodo. Here's the second article. I think the Courier's UI is really nice. Hopefully, we'll see it on real products.

Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

2009-12-09T18:23:00.003-06:00

More free stuff. At this nin.com link you can sign up and receive a download link for a free copy of the new Nine Inch Nails album "The Slip." The album is available in a variety of formats including 24-bit/96Khz WAV.

And More HiRez Downloads

2009-12-08T11:40:00.005-06:00

This time the samples are from HDTT - High Definition Tape Transfers. They offer some 24-bit/192KHz tracks that are encoded using lossless FLAC. Here's what they say on their website:

High Definition Tape Transfers specializes in rare classical recordings mastered with the best mastering equipment available. They are available in Redbook CD, 24/96 DVD and HQCD. We also offer our releases in 24/96 and 24/192 (on select titles) Flac downloads for playback on a High End Computer Audio System.

They have a list of 5 sample tracks available for download on their storefront. Check it out.

More HiRez Audio Downloads

2009-12-03T17:34:00.004-06:00

Every now and then I get notices for sample tracks of some high resolution audio. I've posted information about both of these sources before, so some of you may have received the same offers.

The first is Linn Records. On their website they have an article titled, "What is a Studio Master?" It explains how analog recordings on vinyl or magnetic tape sounded better than CDs because of the analog to digital process that chopped up the perfect waveform into little bits. They oversimplify things and fail to mention the problems when reproducing sound with a needle vibrating inside the groove of a rotating vinyl platter. Anyhow, I don't want to start a big debate over analog vs. digital or vinyl vs. optical disc. I have a pretty good Linn Sondek LP12 turntable that I haven't used for years. I prefer the quality and convenience of playing digital files from my media server to several computer systems, which are connected to my stereo and home theater gear. They go on to tell us that their Studio Master files are much higher resolution than CDs and sound as good as analogue. I would say they sound better than what you will hear from vinyl or magnetic tape. At the end of the article they provide a link to some sample files. I encourage you to download these and have a listen. Obviously, you'll need equipment capable of handling these files. BTW, the article mentions that Studio Master files are encoded at 24-bit or higher and up to 192 KHz. These samples are actually 24-bit/88KHz.

The other source for high resolution audio samples is 2L, the Norwegian music label. They have a few tracks in a variety of file formats and resolutions. They also let you choose both stereo and surround versions.

Light Peak

2009-09-28T16:12:00.007-05:00

With Freecom's USB 3.0 hard drive ready to ship in November, and many more USB 3.0 products expected in 2010, it looks like USB 3.0 is going to be the most popular connection for peripherals in the future. There are a lot of peripherals that will never need the performance of USB, so they may continue to use USB 2.0, but since USB 3.0 is backwards compatible, it will also work for USB 2.0 devices. So I think more and more motherboard manufacturers may start including USB 3.0 ports.

Even though FireWire-800 has been around for awhile, I haven't found any included on any motherboards yet. These manufactures will probably stop including any FireWire ports - IEEE1394a or IEEE1394b) in future motherboards. Actually almost all of the new small form factor, higher performance mini-ITX motherboards don't include a FireWire port. The future doesn't really look to bright for FireWire.

Some people say USB became popular because a lot of PC systems and peripheral manufacturers did not want to pay licensing fees to Apple for FireWire. So they conspired to develope USB. Sure it wasn't as fast, but for a ot of peripherals, it was fast enough. Then USB 2.0 came along and provided much better performance. Many argued that it was still not as fast as FireWire for things like external hard drives, but for many people it was fast enough. Now USB 3.0 may make the need for FireWire totally obsolete. Except there is that little issue of cable length, which still gives FireWire an advantage.

But maybe USB isn't the perfect solution. I haven't heard of anyone using USB for display devices. Monitors are connected with DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort.

Now we've learned that Apple has pushed Intel to develop a new fiber-optic connection for peripherals called Light Peak. Light Peak could be a solution for just about every PC peripheral. It could replace all the cables we currently use for monitors, external drives, printers, scanners, audio interfaces, etc. Distance isn't a problem, at least compared to FireWire, because a Light Peak cable can be up to 100 meters long. So, will USB 3.0 become the most popular way to connect peripherals? Maybe not.

I'm Back...

2009-09-28T15:52:00.003-05:00

It's been a long time since I've posted anything to our blog. Well, what can I say, not much is going on. Actually, since I rarely receive any comments, I assume very few people read this. So I haven't put any time toward this.

Originally, I hoped that if a lot of people read about the development of our products and provided some feedback, we could use their comments to help direct our efforts. It would also show there was some demand for our products. One of the challenges any start-up deals with when talking with potential investors or lenders, is convincing them there is a market for their product. One way to do this is to hire a marketing firm to conduct surveys to try and estimate market demand. These sort of surveys might help show if a new health club at a particular location is viable after asking a series of questions to local residents. The more people you ask, the more accurate your results. If your geographic area is large, it becomes a bit more complex. Typically a well constructed marketing survey costs a lot of money. And we chose to spend our very limited funds on development. So, I was hoping the feedback from the blog would help. Well, maybe it has shown there is very little demand for the type of products we are working on.

We haven't totally given up. There are a few interesting technical developments/improvements in the past few months that are promising. So we keep plugging away.

Free 24bit/96KHz Audio Tracks from HDTracks.com

2009-03-23T15:15:00.004-05:00

I just finished downloading some free stereo 24bit/96KHz FLAC audio tracks from HDTracks.com. I read about this offer in the Audio Junkies blog, which mentions the new download song sampler. So, I decided to give it a try.

I'm pretty impressed with HDTrack's Download Manager. It is a nice little application for viewing the progress of a download. When you download tracks from some of the other online music stores, the process can seem a little confusing or clumsy. HDTrack's Download Manager is also pretty fast. It downloaded 5 tracks in about the same amount of time it took me to write this post.

If you're interested in checking this out, just go to HDTracks home page click on the "HDTracks 96/24 Ultimate Download Experience" box.

I haven't had a chance to listen yet, so I can't really comment on the quality, but I'm sure it will be pretty good. After all, HDTracks was founded by David and Norman Chesky of the audiophile-record label Chesky Records.

Another Music Store with Lossless Tracks.

2009-03-16T17:09:00.005-05:00

Just discovered this online music store called Mindawn after reading about a new release from Roger Powell (former keyboardist for Utopia/Todd Rundgren). Here's what they say on their 'About' page:

In the summer of 1999, Shawn Gordon founded theKompany.com, a software company specializing in creating developer and desktop software for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. TheKompany.com develops both commercial and open source software.

In late 2001, Sharp introduced their Zaurus line of embedded Linux-based PDAs. TheKompany.com jumped on this exciting new platform, creating nearly 40 embedded applications for the device. This led to the development of portable media players supporting both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, in both standalone and streaming formats, in addition to the development of extensive video playback technology.

In the summer of 2002, Mr. Gordon followed his long passion for progressive rock music and acquired the popular internet radio station ProgRock.com. One of his first acts was to switch it from MP3 streams to Ogg Vorbis streams. This also led to the development of the freely available tkcOggRipper, with which the user can easily rip CDs to Ogg Vorbis files on Linux and Windows.

In late 2002, Shawn followed what to him seemed a logical evolution and founded ProgRock Records as a way to help nurture and support some of the fantastic music coming out of this often overlooked community.

After many brainstorming sessions with some of the ProgRock Records artists and theKompany.com software developers, we realized that we already had most of the technology we needed to pull this off effectively. Now we also had a financial model that also made sense to artists and consumers alike -- so it was time to realize the dream and make it real.

Mindawn was launched in September 2004 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of theKompany.com, Inc.

It looks like their focus is progrock, which is pretty interesting. Maybe there's other specialty stores like this that focus on specific genres. I'll have to search around and see if I find anything for electronica.

New Ultraefficient Audio Amplifier Technology

2009-01-28T17:32:00.004-06:00

Audium Semiconductor Ltd. (Bristol, England) has raised $8.5 million in a first round of funding. The company claims to have proprietary audio power amplifier technology that requires one-twentieth (1/20) of the power of competitive Class D amplifiers at "normal listening volumes."

This is written on Audium's website:

QUOTE::

Today’s audio power amplifiers only achieve optimum efficiency at full output power. Because a typical audio signal has a very high peak-to-average power ratio, amplifiers operate at less than optimum efficiency most of the time.

Audium’s amplifier technology changes all of that by dynamically adapting the DC operating conditions of the amplifier to ensure that it’s always working at peak efficiency.

Benefits include a 20X reduction in power consumption at normal listening levels*, smaller form factor and a saving on heat sinks. What’s more, the Audium advantage increases with the amplifier output power.

*Normal listening level is defined at 70dBC SPL at 1m with a speaker sensitivity of 89dBC/W/m.

::ENDQUOTE

Their technology appear to be geared mainly for portable audio, but they do have products with 100W/channel peak power output. The applications mentioned include battery powered MP3 docking station speaker systems and totally wireless speakers for home and PC audio. Obviously, both of these applications would benefit from more efficient amplifiers.

Here's my question: How do they sound?

I can't find any performance specs, other than peak power output and frequency response. No noise or distortion stats. I doubt these are really intended for high fidelity audio.

Finally, a Couple Things to Get Excited About

2009-01-27T10:58:00.008-06:00

With the state of the economy and all, it's been kind of difficult to keep my spirits up. The nearly daily announcements of layoffs, stock market losses, etc., are a constant reminder of my own serious financial issues. In addition to these challenges, back in December I posted an article about the problem playing HD audio from Blu-ray titles because of PAP and the lack of any standards. I'm not really sure how to classify this problem, I guess it's more of a political or policy problem. There are also technical challenges that I haven't fully solved. For example, FireWire is a good solution for multichannel audio, but fewer and fewer systems are coming equipped with a FireWire connection. Anyhow, none of these factors make it easy to get this business off the ground.

Thankfully, there are a few things that give me optimism. There are two recent developments that really excite and/or interest me. One is the new 32 bit DAC from ESS Technology. The other is the soon to be released switch mode power supplies from Hypex Electronics. I don't have a lot of details to share here, but I can provide a basic overview and will try to get more information and write about it in a future post.

I've written a couple of articles comparing DACs and based upon the specs, it looked like the TI/Burr Brown DACs were best, but ESS actually exceeded all of these with their 24 bit DAC, the ES9008 Sabre. ESS officially announced their new 32 bit DAC around January 5th and I believe demonstrated it at CES 2009 in a private suite by appointment only. The press release claims that the new Sabre³² Reference DAC is the world's best 32-bit audio D/A converter. Using an enhanced 32-bit ESS patented Hyperstream architecture, the Sabre³² further extends the original Sabre Reference's from 24-bit to 32-bit music and raises its mindboggling performance even higher to 135dB dynamic range and -120dB THD. There are 2 versions of the Sabre³² Referernce DAC - the ES9018 8-channel DAC, which is the one we are most interested in, and the ES9012 2-channel DAC. The ES9018 8-channel DAC supports mono, stereo, 4- and 8-channel output modes. These DACs also support very good quality volume control, customizable filter characteristics and advanced jitter elimination capability. To be fair, I should also mention that ESS doesn't claim to have come out with the first 32-bit DAC. I think that achievement belongs to AKM Semiconductor. On December 9th, they announced their 32-bit AK4390 DAC, which is a very nice addition to their line of high quality DACs. However, around the same time as ESS's announcement of their new Sabre³² Reference DAC, they also announced their new Sabre³² Reference ADC, which is the first 32-bit audio A/D converter with an amazing THD of -120dB. Very cool stuff...

Another technical challenge we've been dealing with is the size, weight and cost of high quality linear power supplies. To provide power for 8 channels of amplification requires are very large and heavy torroidal transformer along with the fairly large and expensive capacitors in the power supply circuitry. This becomes a really big problem if you are using 400W or greater amp modules. That is why we've been very interested in the development of audiophile grade switch mode power supplies (SMPS). A lot of electronic devices today, like medical instruments and personal computers, use SMPS technology because of the size, weight and cost savings. However, there are very few choices for affordable SMPSs for audio applications. The biggest problem with a conventional SMPS is electromagnet interference (EMI) and the ability to deal with big changes in load current due to the audio signal amplification. It's easy to design a high quality linear supply for audio applications, but it's a lot more complicated with SMPS. Hypex has been working on this for quite a long time. Awhile ago, I think back in June of '08, they announced the availablity of their SMPS180. Just yesterday, I came across the data sheet for their SMPS400, which I think is suppose to be available in 6 weeks. I haven't had the chance to work with any of these, so I don't know how they sound. Hypex is a pretty low-key company. They don't make products to sell directly to consumers, so you don't get all the usual marketing hype. So it's hard to tell if their SMPSs are something they've made just to satisfy the demand from their OEM customers, or if they are really good. Since it's taken them a long time to develop these, I suspect they are pretty good. The engineers working at Hypex are really dedicated to very high quality audio, so I doubt they would put their names on something that doesn't match the high quality of their amp modules. Here's some useful information from their spec sheet:

"The SMPS400 is a high efficiency Safety Class 2 switch mode power supply specifically designed for use with our range of UcD^TM amplifier modules. Key features are high efficiency over the entire load range, extremely small form factor, low weight and very low radiated and conducted EMI. The SMPS400 also features an advanced overcurrent protection which in case of temporary overload simply reduces the output voltage, only when the overload condition remains for a longer time the supply will enter hiccup mode until the overload condition disappears. This feature combined with large electrolytic buffer capacitors leads to the capability of delivering high dynamic headroom power to the connected amplifier. The SMPS400 is optimized from the first phase of design to final implementation to realize the low EMI signature required of the most demanding audio applications."

"Conventional Switch Mode Power Supplies are commonly unsuitable for audio purposes due to poor peak power capabilities and the inability to handle reversed currents generated by Class D amplifiers as a load. The Hypex SMPS400 achieves these things by using an advanced over current protection circuit, a highly efficient 2 quadrant DC/DC converter which is capable of handling reversed currents and has a peak power handling of many times its rated power."

Like I said, I'm excited about this stuff and when I get more info and possible reviews from people who've used these new components, I'll write about it in a future post.

Microsoft's Improved Development Process with Windows 7

2009-01-14T13:34:00.007-06:00

First, I still haven't installed Windows 7 even though I'm pretty confident the update will take care of the MP3 problem. I'm still holding off on the install because I really don't have time to play around with Windows 7. Just a little too busy.

Anyhow, I came across a comment on an MSDN blog written by Larry Osterman about the changes the Microsoft engineering team has made during the development of Windows 7. They've introduced the "triad," which is a collection of representatives from developers, testing and program managers. All of their work is organized by triads. All three of these disciplines provide input into the process. Larry says, organizationally, the Windows 7 development process is dramatically better. It's a pretty interesting read -- here's a link to Larry's post.

Having worked several years in software development and project management, their new "triad" structure sounds good to me. The triad reminds me of a conversation I had with Dan Costello many years ago. Dan wanted to use a similar organizational structure with his web development company, Acumium.

Windows 7 Beta and MP3 Files

2009-01-09T10:58:00.005-06:00

Here's what Microsoft has written in the Windows 7 Beta Release Notes regarding MP3 files:

"When MP3 files are added (either manually or automatically) to either the Windows Media Player or the Windows Media Center library, or if the file metadata is edited, several seconds of content may be permanently removed from the start of the file. This issue occurs when files contain thumbnails or other metadata of significant size before importing or editing them.

To avoid this, ensure that all MP3 files that may be accessed by a computer running Windows 7 (including those on removable media or network shares) are set to read-only. To do this, in Windows Explorer, find the files, right-click them, click the General tab, and then select the Read-only check box. Then back up all of the MP3 files prior to using Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center.

If some of your files have already been affected, you may be able to recover the data by using the Previous Versions feature. To do this, right-click the file name, click Properties, click the Previous Versions tab, and in the File Versions pane select the most recent previous version."

So going through this procedure to select all MP3 files to make them Read-only could be a major hassle for someone with a mix of MP3s, WMAs, FLACs and AAC files. In my case, I have everything organized by artist, albums and tracks. All tracks in an album use the same filetype, but not all albums were encoded with MP3s. Unless you've got your folders organized by filetype it might take a long time to go through a music collection to modify their properties and backup everything.

Since the warning also applies to MP3 files that are stored on network shares, I think I'll hold off for awhile before installing the Windows 7 Beta. While listening to Microsoft's CES keynote, if I recall correctly, it sounded like Steve Ballmer said they were going to open up the beta for the public today (Friday). If you decide to install the Windows 7 Beta, I'd love to hear back from you if you figured out a good way to protect your MP3 files with minimal hassles.

Windows 7 Beta Available to MSDN and TechNet Subscribers

2009-01-08T11:13:00.004-06:00

This is tempting... but, there is one problem that makes me want to hold off just a bit. Here's what's included in the installation instructions for Windows 7 Beta:

To protect your MP3 files:

Before you install this Beta release, back up all MP3 files that might be accessed by the computer, including those on removable media or network shares.
Install the Beta release of Windows 7; download and install the Update to Windows 7 Beta (KB961367) located on this page.

I better check into this a little bit more before jumping into installing the Windows 7 Beta. At this time, it may be more hassle than I need. Many times all compressed audio is referred to as MP3s. I'll need to learn if this also includes WMA Lossless, FLACs or just real MP3s. Since I don't have that many MP3s, it's not as much a hassle, but nevertheless it is something that warrants a little more investigation. I just have never seen this sort of warning for an OS install and I'm really curious why this is needed.

Pioneer subsidiary TAD demos HD Audio at CES '09

2009-01-07T16:52:00.005-06:00

Sheffield Labs recording legends Bill Schnee and Doug Sax will be demonstrating 24bit/192KHz audio recorded on Blu-ray discs at CES '09 this week. These recordings are suppose to appeal to audiophiles that want better quality audio than CDs or MP3s (duh!!). I'm not sure what they mean by "giving consumers an unprecedented opportunity to experience digital music that rivals 2-channel analog sound," but I'm guessing they are referring to vinyl and/or reel-to-reel tape, which technically, CD already achieves. Yah, yah, I know vinyl has a better frequency response if you can ignore the noise floor, but you need pretty high end turn tables, cartridges, etc. to achieve this.

I'm not sure if this will be an improvement over DVD-A and SACD, but since those disc formats failed, it's worth trying again. It looks like they will be using a music-only format which utilizes Blu-ray disc technology.

Since I don't have any plans to purchase a Blu-ray player, this doesn't really appeal to me. Personally, I prefer just downloading the high res audio from an online music store and storing them on our media server. All my physical discs are stored away in a closet.

Eventually, I plan to purchase a Blu-ray drive for my HTPC and then I'd like to give these a listen. I'd still want to rip the tracks to the server and use my music library software for playing from my PCs.

For more info, click on this article's title and it will take you to the press release.

BTW, I decided not to go to CES this year. Lots of reasons... the economy, tired of big trade shows, better ways to spend the money, etc., etc.

It's Been Awhile... Problems Playing Blu-ray.

2008-12-02T08:19:00.004-06:00

For those of you who may actually read this blog, I apologize for not writing anything since June. I'm still around and hope to start posting more frequently.

We haven't made much progress lately with our product development. There are a couple of big hurdles, which we don't have a lot of control over that have slowed us down.

One of the issues that we have to deal with is multichannel audio playback of Blu-ray movies. Our product should be a pretty good match for the HD audio codecs, like DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD. Both provide lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio with a bitdepth of 24 bit and up to 192 KHz sample rate. The highest resolution will probably be 24/96 most of the time and many titles might be 24/48. With such high resolution it seems a shame to play this quality of audio with just a basic audio/video receiver. I think you'd want really high quality DACs and powerful, low distortion amps to play back this HD audio in its full glory. That's one of the reasons we think our product is a good fit for HD audio. We plan to include the highest quality DACs and amplifiers.

So here's our problem. Since our product is meant to be connected to your HTPC and will perform the duties of your soundcard, it is dependent on the movie playback software for decoding the audio streams. Currently, the most popular software for Blu-ray playback is Cyberlink's PowerDVD Ultra, ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theater, Corel's WinDVD 9 and Nero's Nero 8 Ultimate. From what I understand, none of these programs will let you play DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD without downsampling, unless your hardware supports a protected audio path (PAP). Basically to play Blu-ray movies with AACS copy protection using an HTPC, the hardware must have a PAP to play the original HD audio if the bitdepth and sample rate are more than 16 bit and 48 KHz. Without PAP, the HD audio has to be downsampled to 16 bit/48 KHz as per the AACS specification. The basic audio path starts with the software player, which decodes the audio from either the encoded DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD into multichannel LPCM (linear pulse code modulated) data. Next, the LPCM is transmitted to the DACs, which convert the LPCM digital data into analog waveforms. Finally, the analog waveforms are amplified and output to your speakers. So, the reason for AACS and the PAP is to prevent people from getting the digital data and making perfect copies of the original HD audio. The critical part of the audio path that needs to be protected is between the software player's output of LPCM and the DACs. Unfortunately, there's no hardware standard for PAP that can be used with any hardware device. You have to develop your own proprietary hardware/driver solution and get each of the software players to support it. Unfortunately, there's no industry group working on a standard either. Maybe Microsoft will provide some support and guidance with Windows 7, but I haven't read anything that gives me hope. Actually, I'd be surprised if Microsoft came up with a good solution since it seems they're not too motivated to support Blu-ray in any way. So, to say the least, I'm a little pessimistic about PAP and HD audio playback with Blu-ray movies. There are some workarounds, but it's a PITA. You can use AnyDVD HD to decrypt the Blu-ray disc, then you split the audio and video into different files, convert the lossless HD audio track into a multichannel lossless audio format like WMA lossless or FLAC, and then recombine the audio and video into a MKV file and play it back with something like Media Player Classic. Like I said, it's a pain in the ass. You also lose all the extras.

The thing that really bugs me about this is all the encrypted formats used in Blu-ray have been cracked. So the pirates have no problems getting the unencryped stream from a Blu-ray disc. Legimate owners of Blu-ray discs can't play the full resolution HD audio, but pirates can still copy it. Hopefully, the current trend toward DRM free music will carry over into the movie industry and they'll relax the PAP requirements in the future. Maybe they'll be more open to this if Blu-ray player and disc sales don't increase during this holiday season.

Denon's Amazing CAT6 Ethernet Cable

2008-06-23T10:03:00.009-05:00

I've subscribed to a thread dedicated to advanced topics in HD audio on AVS Forum where someone brought the Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable to our attention. This is a $500 ethernet cable. Now that's outrageous. Somebody please explain to me the benefits of such a thing. Anyhow, what's really hilarious are some of the customer reviews. Here are some of my favorites:

"A caution to people buying these: if you do not follow the "directional markings" on the cables, your music will play backwards. Please check that before mentioning it in your reviews. I was disappointed. I consider myself an audiophile - I regularly spend over $1000 on cables to get the ultimate sound. I keep my music-listening room in a Faraday cage to prevent any interference that could alter my music-listening experience. Sending any signal down ordinary copper can degrade the signal considerably. While ordinary listeners might not notice, to somebody with even a rudimentary knowledge of sound, the artifacts are glaring. Denon should have used silver wiring (hermetically sealed inside the rubber sheath to prevent any tarnishing, of course), which has a significantly higher conductivity than copper. Furthermore, Denon needs to treat the wires they use in the cable with a polarity inductor to ensure minimal phase variance."
- Michael McKinley

"If I could use a rusty boxcutter to carve a new orifice in my body that's compatible with this link cable, I would already be doing it. I can just imagine the pure musical goodness that would flow through this cable into the wound and fill me completely -- like white, holy light. Holding this cable in my hands actually makes me feel that much closer to the Lord Jesus Christ. I only make $6.25/hr at Jack In The Box, but I saved up for three months so I could have this cable. It sits in a shrine I constructed next to my futon in Mother's basement. I only gave it four stars in my review because I can't find music that is worthy enough to flow through this utterly perfect interconnect."
-G. P.

"As excited as I was to open my new Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable, I was much more dissatisfied by Denon's customer service experience. Apparently the result of an improper connection and the cable's high data transfer speed, I mistakenly caused the collision of a pair of positrons (i.e. leptons) at several hundred GeV. While the resulting mini black hole theoretically proved the validity of superstring theory and may result in endless new perpetual energy sources, it also stained our Berber carpet. When I phoned Denon customer support, the representative I spoke with--whose English was horrible, by the way--was discourteous and unhelpful. Regardless of my data transfer or particle acceleration needs in the future, I will not be shopping with Denon again."
- Mark E. Putnam

"Like an idiot I didn't follow the instructions that came with the cable. Instead, I "accidentally" ground them up in a blender along with a pile of Monster cables. What came out was a green, glowing, runny substance. I wasn't sure what I could do with it, so I threw it out of house and onto the garden. What happened, no one could have expected. Apparently most of the ooze found its way onto a family of turtles. It began to physically change them. It has been two weeks now and I have four teenage turtles in my house constantly breaking things with their martial arts. I'm about out of pizza and would like Denon to explain how these seemingly flawless cables could have caused such a problem. I read all of the warnings and didn't find anything in them about not blending them up and pouring it on turtles. I would like a full refund, or at least, Denon to cover my pizza bill."
- C. Whalen

"My wife and I have been trying to conceive for almost a decade. We've tried every form of therapy, artificial insemination, and some other, more questionable methods. Then I saw this product. The Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable. I just KNEW that it was the answer to our prayers. When they arrived my wife gave me the look of a defeated woman with nothing but a feigned hope. But I had faith! That night we wrapped ourselves in the Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable and tried one last time for a child. Nine months later our daughter was born. Thank you SO MUCH Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable. I'm only giving the product a 3-star rating, however. I was hoping for a true heir and I don't feel like buying a new cable."
- Steve O

"I got these cables to pull my Audi out of the ditch with Jed' pick-up, and they broke all up on the first pull. I knows it wasn't cause he was drunk and popped the clutch, these cables jest aint no good."
- Robert Cole "Jed's friend"

Never knew Amazon's customer reviews could be such a great source of entertainment. Learn something every day...

I Messed Up My Blog

2008-06-16T08:44:00.006-05:00

I decided to update the design of this blog. Our current blogger template has two columns with the left column taking about 75% of the screen space, which leaves 25% for the right column. I had also just added the last.fm widget because the Sonific widget doesn't work any more. Sonific's website is gone and they no longer support their widget. The last.fm widget, along with a few others I was using, align along the left side, but are located in the right column. The text and widget alignments in the right column have bothered me for a long time, so I was trying to find some way to fix it. The text in most of the lists was aligned to the right and some of the widgets would only align to the left. Anyhow, I think it was a mess.

A few days ago, I tried testing out a few new blogger templates. I wanted to see what it would look like if I used a 2 column template with the large column on the right side. Basically, just a mirror of the one I was using. So I looked at the ones that are included with Blogger and searched the web for any others I could find. I found several that looked like they could work. Many of these will let you look at a preview, but you can't really tell if they will work unless you try them with your own content. So, I backed up my template to my local computer and tried a few of these other templates. Since I had this backup, I figured nothing terrible could happen because I could simply restore and our blog would be back to what it was before these experiments. Well, I was wrong. The actual blog articles are intact, but the list that I had for links, music stores, interesting forums, articles, etc., are all gone. I'm not sure why this happened, but I think the format for these link widgets must have been different on some of the experimental templates and they wiped out the ones that I had.

Oh well, I'm going to try to reconstruct them from memory. I should have saved each URL separate from the blog, but I didn't... I'm also going to take this opportunity to redesign the blog so everything will align a little better. So it might be a little while before everything is back to normal.

HDtracks - Another Music Store with High Quality Downloads

2008-06-13T09:56:00.009-05:00

We can now add HDtracks to our list of online music stores that offer true CD quality tracks and albums. I just discovered them a few days ago and they offer music from a wide variety of independent labels. There's an impressive list of artists, including Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, John Prine, Aaron Neville, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jean-Luc Ponty, Gary Burton, Norah Jones, Chuck Mangione, Patricia Barber, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Robin Holcomb, and on and on...

You have a choice of these download file formats (in decreasing file size order) - AIFF, FLAC and 320 Kbps MP3s. And this is something the other music stores should also provide - they include a very nice PDF file with all the cover art and liner notes. Oh, and of course, all the tracks are DRM free. In the near future they will offer select tracks in high resolution 24bit/96KHz formats. Hopefully, this will include some surround recordings.

HDtracks was founded by David and Norman Chesky of the audiophile record label Chesky Records. On their 'About' page they state: "In an age when there is a computer in every home, we have grown accustomed to accessing music at the touch of a button. But, what about the quality of that music? Why should the sound suffer because of convenience? With HDtracks, we have discovered the way to have it all: world-class music, unrivaled sound, and files that play in any environment."

They have a free sampler album (there's a link on the front page of their website), so I decided to test out their download process. After registering (don't worry, it's painless), you get an email that includes a link to the freebie. I can't remember all the details because it was a few days ago, but once I clicked on the link and followed the instructions, a little download program (Java applet) started and displayed the default settings for destination folders, etc., and provided a big button to start the download. Each track was listed and a progress bar indicated that the downloads were very quick. This was for the FLAC files. Overall, I was pretty impressed. HDtracks seems to have done it right, a great selection of music and their download process was very quick and easy.

Vista Audio Playback, Part 2

2008-05-22T17:04:00.002-05:00

I've been pretty busy lately, so haven't had time to post any articles. Earlier today I received a nice email from someone (won't mention names unless I have permission) who's also a big HTPC proponent. He mentioned that he's been following Amplio Audio and anxiously awaits updates on our amps and our next article about Vista audio playback. Well, that was the kick in the ass I needed.

BTW, if you read an article that you would like me to follow up on, or have any questions, please feel free to use the comments at the end of the posts. I realize that most people are comfortable with email, but I'd like to see these articles become more of an open conversation that anyone can contribute to.

Anyhow, back to the topic... In the original Part 1 article I mentioned comments I read in a thread on diyAudio titled "Is Vista really capable of bit perfect output?" The original poster started by explaining that the sound quality when playing audio/music with his computer was better than using his expensive dedicated audio components. There are a couple of reasons some may believe a computer based audio system can never sound as good as dedicated stand-alone components. One is that the computer is just too electronically noisy to pass an analog signal without some distortion. The second reason is that the computer software and/or operating system modifies the audio data before passing it to the soundcard and DACs, thus distorting and/or damaging the sound quality.

There are several ways to avoid the first problem. One is to purchase a good quality soundcard that is properly shielded from any electro-magnetic interference. The other is to use a product who's analog circuitry is external to the PC. All FireWire and USB based soundcards fall under this category, as do a new generation of USB DACs. The product Amplio Audio is working on falls under this category as well. Up to this time, we have been using FireWire and it still proves to be the best technical solution.

The second problem is a little more complicated. Sound degradation caused by the operating system was true with Windows XP and standard WDM drivers. XP's audio engine relied on a mixer (KMixer) that would resample all audio to 48 KHz so everything output from the PC would use the same sample rate. There are some ways to avoid resampling, but if you adjusted the volume or simultaneously allowed sound output from other applications (including system sounds), resampling was performed. That means the CD's 44.1 KHz sample rate was always converted to 48 KHz. Another problem with this audio engine was that to lower the sound volume, the data was simply truncated to a lower resolution. So 16 bit audio was reduced to 14, 12 or 10, etc., bit data to get a lower volume. This can dramatically decrease the sound quality.

This is where the thread then moves on to the bit-perfect discussion. To avoid degrading the sound by modifying or truncating the bits, you could use a driver like ASIO that bypasses the Windows audio engine so that the original source audio data is not changed all the way to the DACs. This is how you could get bit-perfect output. Of course the software players had to provide support for these sort of drivers. Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center do not. So you had to use other players like J.River's Media Center, Winamp (with a special ASIO plug-in), Foobar, etc., to achieve bit-perfect performance. Now with Vista, a couple things have changed. First, the audio engine is much better. Even if the audio is resampled, the algorithms are much better and the effect on sound quality is not nearly as bad as what happened in XP. They've also improved the volume control so that they no longer truncate the bits to reduce sound levels. Instead, it converts the data to 32-bit floating point, then performs the volume adjustment calculations and then converts back to the original sample rate. This basically gives you lossless attenuation. It's not bit-perfect, but there is no degradation in sound quality. Some dedicated audio hardware that uses high quality DSP chips use this same technique. For the purist, who still want bit-perfect operation, they can still use ASIO drivers if they've been updated to work under Vista. These drivers will also bypass the audio engine, just like they did with XP. Vista also supports a new feature called "exclusive mode". Exclusive mode also bypasses the Vista audio engine and will provide bit-perfect playback. However, you need an application that supports exclusive mode and most I'm familiar with, like J.River Media Center, Windows Media Play, Vista Media Center, Foobar, etc., don't.

Getting back to the diyAudio thread, the bit-perfect discussion mentions that there is a newer software player, called XXHighEnd, that uses Vista's exclusive mode. There's another program called XMPlay that can run in exclusive mode when using a WASAPI output plugin. The sound output from a program using an ASIO driver or running in exclusive mode should be identical, because bit-perfect is bit-perfect. However, several people, including the original poster and the developer of XXHighEnd (not the same person), claim that XXHighEnd sounds better than other bit-perfect solutions. In fact the original poster was also a big fan of using Foobar with ASIO drivers, and he claims the sound has improved a lot when using XXHighEnd. When asked how something that outputs the exact same data can sound better, the developer doesn't provide any answers that satisfy the skeptics. The closest he comes to any technical explanation is that he does something to minimize jitter. But that doesn't make much sense given the way the audio chain works. If the audio data is buffered and the DAC is driven by a local clock, the audio software player shouldn't have any effect on jitter. He also admits that he doesn't know why it sounds better, but that there are many ways a software application can have an effect on the audio quality and he's just been tinkering around trying to find the best sound quality. That's where things get confusing to me. Or as another poster/skeptic put it:

It's bit-perfect
PCM needs to be processed some special new way to sound best
No, it's bit-perfect
If you were to, say, play a byte later in the stream than it was originally, that might be useful
No, really, it's bit perfect!
You're mucking around with the data based on some theories you have that you won't explain and if we don't just accept that it is bit perfect and magically sounds better than we are just mean, old unbelievers.
Oh, and it is bit perfect.

The developer of a kernel streaming (KS) output driver, which is also achieving bit-perfect performance like ASIO drivers, compared the output from three different bit-perfect solutions - Foobar2000 with his KS output driver, XMPlay running in exclusive mode and XXHighEnd running in exclusive mode using it's third engine. Using an oscilloscope, he found that the output was identical. They are all bit-perfect. He also says he cannot hear any difference, so he doesn't recommend the XXHighEnd software because they charge for it (and Foobar2000) is free, the user interface is pretty weak and the program is immature. Like I said, others, including the original poster, claim it sounds better.

I have to admit, if it sounds good to you, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise. I'm also not convinced bit-perfect output is the only acceptable way to listen to audio. Especially since Vista is not bit-perfect, unless you use exclusive mode, but it still sounds great because any changes are lossless.

Free! The Art of Persuasion Compilation from Magnatune.

2008-04-04T08:51:00.003-05:00

Last August, I received an email from Magnatune telling me about their free compilation album called "Seduction Music." They also said they were going to offer a new free compilation every month. So everytime they sent me another email, I was planning to pass this information on to my readers. Well I never did get another email announcement, so that was the last time I posted anything regarding Magnatune's free monthly compilations.

Well I guess just because I didn't get any more emails doesn't mean they stop providing free compilations. In fact, I followed my old link from the original article and discovered a new compilation titled, "The Art of Persuasion." I apologize for missing the last 6 or 7 months. Hopefully they will repost some of those in the future.

Vista Audio Playback, Part 1

2008-04-03T22:47:00.009-05:00

I've been following this thread on diyAudio Forums titled, "Is Vista really capable of bit-perfect output"? There are some comments that I thought readers of my blog might find interesting. As you can see I added Part 1 to the title of this thread. I don't know if this is really going to be a multi-part article, but what the heck, I'll add it to the title just in case.

The original poster starts out by telling us what audio equipment he's using. He has a PC running Vista Ultimate. For the PC's audio, he has a MOTU 896HD sound card, which is an 8 channel 24/192 audio interface that costs around $1,000. This is connected to his PC via a FireWire connection. He uses the digital AES/EBU outputs of the MOTU to connect to the digital inputs of his Esoteric D70 external DAC. Esoteric, which is a division of Teac, doesn't look like they still sell the D70, so I couldn't find a link to their product information. Anyhow, it is/was a pretty highly regarded $6,500 stereo DAC. It's a shame that he's only using 2 channels from his multichannel MOTU interface. Next, the analog output from each channel of his D70 are sent to Pass Labs XVR1 active electronic crossovers. Each of these babies normally cost $5,000. Each crossover is taking a input signal and dividing them into high-pass and low-pass outputs. For a stereo system, you normally have the left and right channels feeding a single XVR1 and it outputs the low frequency and high frequency signals for each channel. So that is two channels in and four channels out. In this case, since he has 2 XVR1s, I assume he is splitting it up so that the left and right channels are each getting 4 output channels. These 8 outputs are connected to 8 Hypex UcD700 amp modules. So that's 4 amp modules per channel. I have no idea how much he paid for his amps, but that's a lot of power. Each one of these UcD700s provide 700W rms power. That's 2,800 Watts per channel. Most likely, this was a diy project. It might not be as expensive as a commercial product with similar performance specs, but based on the other components in his system, I doubt he scrimpted on the parts for his amps. Just to give you an idea of the price of a couple components he probably included, the amp module and matching power supply for the UcD700 cost up to $500 and $350 respective (using the current exchange rates). Since he probably has 8 of each, just those components cost $6,800. Next add in the transformers, interconnects, chassis, etc. and his amp probably cost at least $7,500 - $10,000. The amps are feeding a pair of Wilson Benesch Chimera loudspeakers that cost somewhere between $21,000/pair and $33,000/pair, depending on your source of information. So, if price is a determining factor, this approximately $50,000 sound system must sound pretty damn good.

Now why would someone connect a PC to a high-end system like this instead of an expensive high-end audiophile CD, DVD-Audio, or SACD transport? Actually he does own one of the $7,500 Esoteric P70 transports, but still prefers the sound through the PC. When asked if the PC chain was really better or just different, he responded that it was definitely better. Then he gave an example of a test he performed to compare the sound of a CD playing from his P70 transport to the sound of the same CD ripped as a WAV file to his hard drive and the same song downloaded from Linn Records website in a 24/96 FLAC file. He said, "When played through Foobar, the FLAC version is simply stunning. The Wav version is very good, though flatter than the FLAC. The CD played through the transport sounds more edgy, less fluid and less solid." Then someone responded that there must be something wrong with his transport because he has a modded version of the same one and it sounds perfect. To which, our original poster responded:

"I agree, the standard P70 is a stunning transport. I've not heard any modded versions, so can't comment on their performance."

"I don't think there's anything wrong with my transport though. It's dead silent when playing CDs and handles (my wife's!) badly scratched CDs easily. It literally blows my Pioneer DVD, acting as a transport, out of the water. No, I'm pretty sure it's doing a sterling job, given the constaints of the ancient 'red book' standard."

"But as you yourself admit, the standard P70 is not perfect. You reckon that the modded version sounds "even more relaxed, richer and bigger". Well, I reckon you get all of this (and maybe more?) by extracting and playing wav/flac files well."

"As for 24/96 FLAC files, I'd venture that no transport on the planet, modded or not, comes anywhere close to the sound quality you can get from them. If more and more companies start offering these downloads, I think the audiophile community is simply going to have to start taking more of an interest in PC music."

I guess I will make this into a multi-part article, since I'm going to go ahead and post this now and then continue with the discussion about Vista playback in the following parts.

Reference Recordings - New HRx High Resolution DVD Audio

2008-03-27T09:38:00.004-05:00

Just recently I came across some news that the independent record label, Reference Recordings, is planning to sell their music in high resolution audio formats. This isn't some revolutionary new audio format, even though some blogs seem to be presenting it as such. Nevertheless, I think this is good news for people that want to listen to high resolution audio. Basically, they are planning to copy their music to DVD-R discs and sell them to people who will load them in their DVD drives and copy them onto their computer or media servers for playback with their computer. Obviously, you don't have to copy them off of the DVD-R disc to play the music, but most probably will copy them to their music library because of the convenience. It seems like the people at Reference Recordings are another group who understand the advantages of using a PC for playing music.

They are calling these recordings HRx recordings. Hopefully this won't confuse people into thinking there is a new format war that will require some new specialized player like DVD-Audio or SACD. Don't worry, it's not. They are just copying the digital masters, which are 24bit/176.4KHz .WAV files to DVD recordable discs. These DVDs can be read by any PC's DVD drive. You won't be able to play these files using your CD or DVD stand-alone players. Reference Recordings’ legendary audio designer and engineer “Prof.” Keith O. Johnson, who co-developed the HDCD process and has received seven Grammy nominations for Best Engineered Album, stated that the files allow people to hear for the first time all the information on their universally praised master recordings.

I'm not sure when they are going to start selling these discs. There's no information on their website about this. I've also read that this is just an interim solution until they can offer these files as downloads from their online store. Hopefully, they will use lossless encoding to help reduce file sizes and speed up downloads.

New HTPC amp

2008-03-24T14:15:00.009-05:00

There's recently been some discussions on AVSForum about a new amplifier board that was developed by D2Audio. Actually, most of the comments have been about a new MSI 7411 motherboard that supports the D2Audio technology. Instead of using the typical on-board 7.1 HD-Audio chips like those from Realtek, they have included D2Audio's DAE-3 class-D PWM controller with this motherboard. This controller includes the standard HD-Audio interface and works with one of two add-on PCIe cards, either a 7.1 preamplifier card or a 5.1 amplifier card.

This isn't the first time someone has integrated an audio amplifier with a PC motherboard. A little over 5 years ago, Acer introduced their AOpen AX4B-533 Tube motherboard with built-in tube amps. I don't know how well it sold, but it got some attention, probably because of the novelty of the combination. Obviously, it didn't revolutionize the way other manufacturers designed motherboards because we haven't seen anyone else release a similar product until now. However, it does look like more PC manufacturers are working toward making convergent products and taking the HTPC market more seriously. This time, instead of using tubes, the D2Audio amps use class-D circuitry.

These products are exciting to AVSForum readers because they may finally have an HTPC that can replace their A/V receiver and many of the source devices. With something like this, you wouldn't have to deal with the current hassle of trying to pass HD encoded audio, like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, via HDMI to your AVR. You can just connect your HTPC directly to your hifi speakers. I guess the next question is, how will it sound compared to a good AVR? Based on D2Audio's literature it is designed to compete head-to-head with current AVR gear. Chris Morley, President of Omaura North America has listen to it and says it sounds fantastic.

I don't doubt that it would sound as good as a low to moderate priced AVR, but after researching class-D amps for several years, I'm skeptical that this technology can sound as good as dedicated or even integrated amps. For those of you that are interested in high end sound quality, I created this chart to compare common specs of the D2Audio amp card to other class-D amp modules:

Product	Power Rating	Distortion THD+N	SNR / Dynamic Range	Power Efficiency	Peak Output Current	Frequency Response
D2Audio 5-Channel x 100W (AAIC100-5) Card	100 W Peak at 8Ω	less than 0.1%, f = 1KHz, P = 1W	more than 105 dB	93%	?	±0.5 dB (20Hz to 20KHz)
ICEpower250A	125 W at 8Ω, 210 W at 4Ω	0.005%, f = 1KHz, P = 1W	112 dB A-weighted	93 %	> 25 A	±0.3 dB (20Hz to 20KHz, all loads)
Hypex UcD180 HG Version	105 W at 8Ω, 180 W at 4Ω	0.008%, f = 20Hz to 20KHz, P = 1W	120 dB A-weighted	92 %	10 A	±0.3 dB (10Hz to 50KHz, all loads)
Huygens MHzpower-2	100 W at 8Ω, 200 W at 4Ω	0.0035%, f = 1KHz, P = 10W	123 dB	91 %	26 A	+0/-3 dB (DC to 150KHz, at 8Ω)
CAD Audio D250A	250 W at 4Ω	0.02% typical	110 dB	?	20 A	+0/-1 dB (20Hz to 20KHz)
CL3 Gemincore	250 W at 8Ω	0.002%, f = 1KHz, P = 1W	115 dB	97 %	19 A	0 to 70KHz
PowerPhysics A-108	100 W at 8Ω	less than 0.05% P = 0.1W	115 dB A-weighted	more than 90 %	?	20Hz to 20KHz

It's hard to make valid comparisons because all manufacturers don't use the same measures. My first concern with the D2Audio amp board is its power rating. To be fair, I limited the comparison to modules that were close to the AAIC100-5's power rating of 100W. D2Audio has calculated the power rating based on an 8Ω speaker load. A lot of the amp manufactures will quote power ratings based on 4Ω loads, but 200W at 4Ω is similar to 100W at 8Ω. The specs from D2Audio's website list their power rating as 100W peak at 8Ω. Most of the other manufactures will list the power rating using an rms (root-mean-squared) calculation. D2Audio may mean you can get 5 x 100W peak power for a short period of time before the PC's power supply cuts out. That's probably why they state in their literature, "the DAE-3 engine provides real-time power management to protect against power supply overload and potential Media PC shutdown from loud music or explosive sounds that occur during movies or games." So maybe if you have a large enough power supply it can provide a continuous 100W rms power. If not, if they really mean peak, then the rms power is actually 50W per channel.

The distortion figures for the AAIC100-5 are not that impressive when compared to most of the others in the chart. Not too bad when you compare it to some tube amps, but not as good as most solid state AVRs on the market. It also depends on the type of distortion. A tube amp may have a lot more distortion, but some people perceive the relatively high 2nd order harmonic distortion to be pleasing and adding "warmth" to the sound. Even though solid state amps have much lower 2nd order harmonic distortion, the other higher order harmonic distortion is not too pleasing. With most inexpensive solid state amps, the distortion increases as frequency increases making them sound bright or harsh. The THD (total harmonic distortion) for class-D amps are primarily second harmonic in nature, but there are also some higher order harmonics present. The best class-D designs use a feedback loop to compare the output to the input so they can minimize any errors in the output. With a pure digital PCM-PWM amp, you have nothing in the input to compare to, so without some pretty expensive and complicated circuitry, it is nearly impossible to get good distortion ratings. That's probably why D2Audio's digital amps don't match the THD specs of these other analog class-D designs. It's also probably why most respected class-D designers abandoned the pursuit of pure digital amps a few years ago in favor of analog class-D. I've been very impressed with Hypex's UcD amp modules and if you look at their THD figures you can see why. They are able to get very low THD over the entire frequency range (well at least from 20Hz to 20KHz). Older class-D amps without feedback circuitry had pretty poor THD at higher freqencies and this is why they were used mostly in active subwoofers and got a bad reputation for true hi-fi. I hope the high frequency performance of the D2Audio PCIe amps don't help to reinforce that reputation.

You can also see that the dynamic range of the AAIC100-5 doesn't compete with the others in the table. Considering the fact that many of the DACs in popular soundcards have SNR specs around 120 dB, the D2Audio amps might become the weakest link in the audio electronics chain of your system.

The other specs compare favorably to the others in the chart. Power efficiency and frequency response are in the same range with the other amp modules.

There are a few other audio specs that are not listed in D2Audio's literature that would be worth knowing. Since the AAIC100-5 is installed inside your HTPC and is dependent on the PC's power supply, I'd like to know the spec for power supply rejection ratio (PSRR). PSRR indicates how good a device is at rejecting noise from the power supply. The PSRR of the ICEpower and Hypex amps are about 60 and 65 dB, respectfully.

In conclusion, I think the new MSI motherboards with integrated D2Audio technology is a pretty cool thing. I'm happy to see any product that makes HTPCs more useful and popular. I'm not a big fan of digital amps, mainly because their specs, especially THD, don't measure up to good quality class-D analog amps. I also don't like the fact that these amps are totally dependent on the PC's power supply. If you've read some of my previous blog posts about HTPCs, you also know that I like my HTPCs to be pretty small. Ideally, I'd like a fully functional HTPC about the size of a Mac Mini. This would be impossible if you throw in the amps. So, unless this sort of technology makes some dramatic improvements in the future, you won't see anything like this available from Amplio.

update 3/28/08: I received a more detailed datasheet for Huygen's MHzpower-2 amp module and noticed some differences with the specs in my chart. So I updated the chart above to match their datasheet. I also noticed that the PSRR of the MHzpower-2 is 71 dB. These are pretty impressive specs. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to test them out. Fumac, if you read this post, please remember to email me your price sheet. I also haven't read or heard any feedback from any of Huygen's customers, but I know there are a few European amplifier manufactures that are using the Huygen modules in their expensive amps.

More Hypex Announcements

2008-02-28T08:30:00.006-06:00

Hypex, the Dutch electronics company known for their high quality class D amplifier technology, sent out a newsletter yesterday announcing a couple new products.

First, they announced a new line of switch mode power supplies designed for use with audio amplifiers, especially Hypex's own OEM series of class D amplifier modules. The first one, the SMPS180, will be available some time this summer ('08).

The second announcement was for their new 2500W (yes, this was not a typo, it is 2500W not 250W) class D module, called the UCD2kW. It will also be available coming up this summer ('08).

Web Anonymity Bites Back

2008-02-19T12:20:00.007-06:00

One of the class D amp / SMPS module manufacturers I've been watching is the Spanish company, Coldamp. The owner/designer's name is Sergio Sanchez Moreno. Coldamp is one of the few companies that offer both an audio grade switching power supply (SMPS) and class D amplifier modules. The advantage to the SMPS, especially with a multichannel product, is the decreased weight and size. The challenge is to get them to sound as good as a linear supply. Sergio claimed Coldamp's SMPS sounded better than linear supplies and several DIY'ers from the diyAudio forum supported this claim. They also claimed the Coldamp class D amps were comparable to Hypex's highly regarded UCD amps. I don't think anyone was suggesting that they were better. Just different, but in a positive way. Several DIY'ers were satisfied with using a combination of the Hypex UCD amps with Coldamp's SMPS.

Anyhow, we are following the progress that all designers are making with both class D amps and SMPS development. Probably the most respected designer, Hypex's Bruno Putzey, was just written up in IEEE Spectrum magazine. You can read the online version of the article here.

I have also noticed that our blog regularly gets several hits from people doing a Google search for Coldamp. So obviously there is some interest in their products that seem to direct traffic to our blog. Since we have a few posts announcing Coldamp's products (see: Coldamp Plans to Offer 750W Class-D Amp Module), I felt obligated to update our readers with some disappointing news. The moderators of diyAudio have confirmed that Sergio was also signing on with another alias, named Pierre, claiming to be a happy Coldamp customer. It appears Sergio was using this alias on other websites as well. Most of the time, he was posting as just a very satisfied Coldamp user, sharing his experience with others looking for advice. As misleading as this may be, sometimes Pierre's posts were basic design and engineering questions directed to the experienced engineer's on the forum. These experienced engineers are particularly upset with this deception since they may have helped a potential competitor. They are also shocked that many of Pierre's questions were so basic that it demonstrated a fairly elementary level of expertise with the technology. One experienced designer/engineer named JohnW, stated, "Reading back though the "Questions" posted as Pierre; some are at such a basic fundamental level that they should never have been asked by a competent designer already SELLING SMPS!" Another diyAudio forum member, Eva responds, "The main problem is not how a designer gathers the knowledge, it's the fact that it's completely unfair to advertise and sell your very first prototypes as if they were state-of-the-art class D and SMPS, when they are full of hidden pitfalls that you don't know how to solve or don't know about at all because you still have a lot to learn."

Since this discovery, Sergio and his alias, Pierre have been banned from diyAudio's forums. I've also noticed that Coldamp's website is now down. So it appears they might be out of business. I think this is extremely unfortunate. Hopefully, Sergio and Coldamp can come straight and avoid a total collapse. Some of Coldamp's customers have posted in the diyAudio thread that they are happy with their purchases and felt the service and support from Coldamp has been very good. They work and apparently many people say they sound great. The problem is with how they learned to build class D and SMPS products, and are they really going to be safe and reliable over the long term?

Here's the diyAudio thread, in case you want to read more comments and judge for yourselves.

30 Minute Music Hour

2008-01-17T13:21:00.000-06:00

My friend Andy Moore has a very cool new show on the Wisconsin Channel (WPT 21.2) called "The 30-Minute Music Hour." I don't know quite the best way to describe the show. It's kind of like Austin City Limits without the studio audience. It's a bit more intimate because Andy talks a little bit with his guests between songs.

For those of you in the Wisconsin viewing area, be sure to check this out. Here's the current schedule:

#101 30-Minute Music Hour – Pat MacDonald

Digital (20.2, aka The Wisconsin Channel),

January 18, 10:30 am and 5:30 pm.

January 19, 6:30 pm.

January 20, 6:30 pm.

Analog (WHA, etc.)

February 9, 10:30 pm (lead-in to Austin City Limits)

#102 30-Minute Music Hour – Robbie Fulks

Digital (20.2, aka The Wisconsin Channel),

January 25, 10:30 am and 5:30 pm.

January 26, 6:30 pm.

January 27, 6:30 pm.

Analog (WHA, etc.)

February 23, 10:30 pm (lead-in to Austin City Limits)

#103 30-Minute Music Hour – Willy Porter

Digital (20.2, aka The Wisconsin Channel),

February 1, 10:30 am and 5:30 pm.

February 2, 6:30 pm.

February 3, 6:30 pm.

Analog (WHA, etc.)

February 27, 10:30 pm (following American Masters: Pete Seeger)

For everyone else, you can watch it streaming from their website. Here's a writeup on Andy's program in Isthmus' 'The Daily Page'.

CES - Day 3

2008-01-13T10:03:00.000-06:00

I spent a little more time viewing HTPC solutions during my third and final day. I started at the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center where there are a few really large booths for the big electronics and computer companies. Sony was there showing their Blu-ray technology and acting a bit smug about Warner's recent announcement that they will exclusively support Blu-ray from now on. The Sony guys were careful not to say anything about what this means for them, but it was pretty obvious that they think the format war is coming to an end and they will be declared the winner. They mentioned that the HD-DVD camp was scrambling to figure out what to do next. Like I said in a previous post, since an HTPC owner can purchase a dual format (Blu-ray & HD DVD) drive, it doesn't really matter what format a movie is on. However, I'm a little concerned because it sounds like people have more problems trying to play Blu-ray discs and less with HD DVD with their dual format LG drives. Microsoft doesn't seem too happy about these recent events, but they are also saying this doesn't really effect them that much. Microsoft certainly would have benefited if HD DVD came out as the winner, because they developed and license the interactive layer (HDi) for HD DVD. A Microsoft guy said they will still move forward with HDi and offer it with downloadable content. A lot of people, including Microsoft seem to be saying that the real winner in a few years will be downloadable and streaming content and that optical disc media will be unnecessary. I've got mixed feeling about this because HTPCs are the perfect device to use with downloadable content and our business currently depends in large part on the success of HTPCs, but the bandwidth is pretty limited (at least in the U.S.) and it currently isn't real practical to download content with quality comparable to HD DVD or Blu-ray (1080p video and lossless multichannel 24bit/96KHz audio). If they downrez and lossy compress the video and audio to 720p and 16bit/48KHz quality and people are content with this, just like they've accepted compressed audio formats like MP3 and iTune's AAC, then we've taken another step back in quality. Hopefully, since people seem to be very excited with the latest 1080p display technology, they will demand content that takes full advantage of its resolution. Once they experience high quality video from their new 1080p displays, they might just invest in an audio system with quality to match, like the products were are developing.

Speaking of new display devices, I stopped by the booths of Sharp and Samsung. While standing and gawking at the big Sharp LCD displays, I had a conversation with a technology guru from Disney. He recommeded that I should take a look at Samsung's OLED displays because he is confident that within 5 years it will be the dominant display technology. He thinks it will be cheaper to manufacture, provide higher quality and be the most green technology, which is very important for all products from now on. He might be right, but I was still pretty impressed with the panels Sharp was demonstrating in their booth. The LCD technology has evolved over the past year. Last year the big deal was 1080p. Now everyone does 1080p. Another big thing last year was panel size and that hasn't changed much over the last This year it seems to be 120 Hz or higher refresh rates. The other thing is style. Many of the manufactures are showing off their ultrathin panels and the high quality finish of the frames. Sharp was showing off their 108" (or was it 120") monster. The photo on the right is one of their ultrathin 120 Hz displays (sorry about the quality of the pic, I prefer to turn off the flash, but since it's relatively dark in the exhibit hall, I have to keep the aperture open for up to 1/4 sec. and sometime they come out blurry).

Samsung had a huge booth at CES this year. They seem to be into everything. A guy at their camcorder area said they (Samsung) wanted to reach the same level of success in camcorders as they have with LCD televisions. Speaking of camcorders, Canon was demonstrating their compact HD camcorders they plan to release this Spring. Wow! Being the owner of a 3 CCD DV camcorder, I never would have expected such great colors from a single sensor camcorder when compared to my Sony TRV900 DV camcorder. On top of that, you get great HD resolution, a very convenient, portable size and instead of using tape, you can use SD flash memory. I'd tell you the name and model, but I seem to have lost the brochure. Oh well, back to Samsung and their display screens. Samsung was also showing off their big 120 Hz displays. And of course they had the stylish ultrathin technology as well. They even had a big ultra high resolution (3840 x 2160) screen which they claim is 4 times the resolution of conventional LCD. I don't quite follow their math if they are comparing it to 1080p because it comes out to twice the resolution (maybe since it is 2 dimensions, we are getting 4x the number of pixels). Either way, it is pretty impressive looking. Finally, I made my way over to the OLED displays. Samsung was demonstrating their 31" OLED. After looking at this, I hope the Disney guy is right and we get to buy inexpensive 60" OLED displays in the near future. These things are beautiful. The colors seem to be really great without looking over saturated like some LCDs. And the contrast ratio, 1 million to one, that's as good as your eyes can see. These really are great looking. Oh, and they're thin as well.

I also wanted to check out the Nextgen Home Experience, but the lines were too long and I had places to go and people to meet.

Then I went over to the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center to talk to a few more companies. BridgeCo is a manufacturer of FireWire and USB interfaces for audio and video. The guys manning their booth (or meeting room) weren't very helpful. I explained what I was doing and they responded that they didn't support multichannel surround playback with either technology. They said their solutions are really geared to pro-audio and this isn't going to change in the future. ArcSoft also had a meeting space in the South Hall. They are the developers of another Blu-ray/HD DVD software player that many people on AVS Forum have been raving about. They currently have a trial version of their Japanese version and are planning to release the English version in the very near future. It may have already been released. They gave me their Product Licensing Guide with a DVD full of evaluation versions of all of ArcSofts applications, including TotalMedia Theatre, which is the player everyone is excited about. They also gave me the business card of the VP of Sales and Marketing and told me to contact him to get a full version sent to us.

While walking around the South Hall, there were a couple of TechZones I wanted to check out that sounded interesting. One was the Sustainable Technologies area that was said to "explore the pioneering technologies that benefit the environment, sustain the global economy and improve daily life in developing countries." I wanted to see if they had more ideas of how we could improve in this area in addition to what we already have with highly efficient Class-D technology. Unfortunately, they weren't located where they were shown on the program map. There were a bunch of lounge chairs, which are shown on the map, but nobody was there except a few people grabbing a bite to eat. Nearby there was the Advanced Display Technology TechZone. I didn't find it very interesting because it was mostly displays for mobile devices.

Walking between sections of the Las Vegas Convention Center, I ran into a jazz performance sponsored by MusicGiants. These are the folks that offer high resolution downloads from their online music store. Their booth was suppose to be at the Sands Convention Center, but as it turns out they were really located here. I was planning to stop by and talk to them, so I was glad I didn't search for them at the Sands. I told them about my business and how potential users of my product would probably appreciate their higher resolution audio. The guy I spoke with recommended I contact Elliot Mazer, who is a pretty well known audio producer/engineer who is trying to encourage high-end audio manufacturers to develop technology that will be compatible with their downloads.

Next, I headed over to the Sands Convention Center to visit the booths of MusicIP and SiliconDust. MusicIP has a software application that can generate playlists from your music library by analyzing a song and finding others that are a close match. They just came out with a plug-in for iTunes and are working on one for Windows Media Player. It's pretty cool technology, but not as flexible as what I can already do with J.River's Media Center. SiliconDust are the folks who provide the HDHomeRun. They said they are working on adding functionality to support satellite dish and encrypted cable (cablecard) in future products.

For the remainder of this day, I spent time back at the Venetian to listen to more high performance audio. I'm not particularly impressed by a lot of the expensive stuff on display in many of the suites. Many of them just seem to be ultra expensive monstrosities. This is where I think the "emperor has no clothes" tale is really true. I don't like to bash other products, but I pretty much share the viewpoint of Gene DellaSala who wrote this report for Audioholics. I too was impressed with Dali's on-wall speakers. I didn't think you could get such great sound out of these type of speakers.

Okay, that's about all I have to report on CES 2008. The fourth day was basically a travel day, so nothing to talk about there. All in all it was a pretty good show. I had the opportunity to talk with several potential partners that specialize in industrial design or manufacturing. I got several recommendations for high quality manufacturers in Asia, which is very important at this stage.

CES 2008 - Day 2

2008-01-11T19:01:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday I walked up to the Sahara Hotel to buy a monorail pass and travel to the Las Vegas Convention Center. I visited the Microsoft booth and talked to some of the people involved with Media Center and some others with Windows Home Server. I'd really like it if Windows Home Server were part of my TechNet subscription, so I tried to find someone that could forward my request. I also wanted to find out why there isn't better integration between Vista Media Center and Windows Home Server. It sounds like better integration between the two is definitely in the plans. Microsoft's eHome Program Manager told me that adoption on Vista Media Center has been very good and based on EPG (electronic program guides) downloads, the data supports this assertion. I gave him my card and he is going to send me this data if he can.

I also visited the DTS booth. They were demonstrating their Surround Sensation technology that creates a virtual surround from only 2 channels. I listened to the headphone demonstration, which played the same clips from the original 2 channel mix and the enhanced virtual surround version. I think it did a pretty good job, at least it seemed better than the surround headphone technology that Lake Technology licensed to Dolby a few years ago. I still wasn't very impressed with DTS's demonstration because the levels were so much different between the stereo and surround samples. It's pretty hard to determine which is better when the volume level is so different. Of course the Surround Sensation sample was much louder than the stereo sample, so it seemed to be much better.

After talking to DTS's Director of Product Management about licensing, I walked toward the next exhibitor on my list, Dolby Labs. My left show felt very loose, so I look down to see if my laces untied. I noticed the laces were still tied, so I lifted my foot to get a better look. The sole of the shoe was separating from the upper part. It was falling apart with every step. I realized that I couldn't continue walking around with my shoe coming apart, so I headed to the exit to get a cab to drive me back to my hotel so I could get the only other pair of shoes I had with me, my Nike running shoes. I must have looked like thump-drag because I had to drag my foot on the ground so the shoe would hold together. That didn't really help. The shoe came completely apart just before I reached the elevator to go up to my room. The pic on the right is what they looked like just before I threw them in the trash. Anyhow, that wasted a good chunk of my day.

From there I went to the Venetian to check out the "high performance audio". More and more of these vendors are realizing that computers are pretty good at storing and playing music. Many of them had their equipment connected to PCs. Some of them were just using a S/PDIF connection to their high end processors or preamps. Others had USB connections. Most were limited to 2 channel stereo sound. The only ones playing surround were playing off of stand alone players. If you want to see some pretty pictures of some of the equipment at the high performance audio exhibits, check out Steve Guttenberg's blog.

For those of you that are frustrated with audio playback of HD DVD or Blu-ray discs using Cyberlink's PowerDVD, I wish I had some good news. I stopped by Cyberlinks suite at the Hilton to see if I could speak with them to learn what we need to do with our products to support high resolution playback (with no downsampling, etc.) and the whole protected path. Since I didn't schedule an appointment, they wouldn't speak with me. I tried setting up a later appointment, but they weren't interested. I was also interested in speaking with representatives from TC Electronics. They sell the DICE chips, which are suppose to be pretty good IEEE1394 (FireWire) chips. When I went to the TC Electronics booth I learned that it was a different company. There was another booth for a company called Dice Electronics (you never know, maybe they are changing their name to match their flagship product). Both of these companies were selling something related to automobile electronics.

I did spend some time speaking with representative for HDMI, USB and IEEE1394 technologies. The USB folks had a section of the exhibit floor with several companies displaying their solutions. None of them were dealing with USB audio. I did get a chance to meet with the Chapter leader for the USB3 spec. He mentioned that they've received several requests for allowing clocking from the host system over USB3. That's currently a big problem with USB1.1 and USB2 because you have to reclock everything if you use USB. Anyhow, he said they are considering adding this to the USB3 spec. I also met with the people that are promoting IEEE1394 at the HANA Alliance. Obviously, they think we should stick with FireWire and they made a pretty good case. They also seemed to endorse the DICE technology as our best solution.

CES 2008 - Day 1

2008-01-11T19:00:00.001-06:00

My flight arrived in Las Vegas at around 2:30 PM. Then it took at least 30 minutes to get my luggage. I also had to wait another 45 minutes for the shuttle bus to show up. By the time I got to my hotel room at the luxurious Circus Circus Hotel and Resort, it was about 5:30 PM. There wasn't enough time left in the day to visit any exhibits, so I just stayed in the hotel. Las Vegas traffic really sucks, especially when they have a big event like CES. So after I got unpacked, I called home to let my wife and kids know I arrived safely. Then I went downstairs to eat dinner and watch "The Ohio State" Buckeyes lose to LSU in the National Championship football game. Oh well, another let down for the Big Ten. How can Ohio State lose 2 years in a row?

CES 2008 Overview

2008-01-11T12:32:00.001-06:00

I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas again this year. As usual it was big, crowded and flashy. The main reason I went to the show was to network with people that might be able to help us with our development. Since CES isn't really a developers conference, there was limited opportunities to meet with some of the people or companies that can really help us. Many of these companies only send their sales and business development people, so you usually don't get to speak with the engineers. However, sometimes the business development people can be fairly helpful. Some of the chip manufacturers were there, but many of them don't have exhibition booths and instead only meet with people by appointment in their meeting suites. Unfortunately, some of them don't really want to take the time to talk with small companies like ours. I also enjoy seeing the latest and greatest electronics, so I try to save some time for browsing the big companies booths. There weren't any significant announcements, so it didn't seem to be all that exciting.

I decided to attend CES Monday through Thursday. This actually worked out to only two productive days, because I arrived late Monday afternoon and had to leave early on Thursday. Prior to leaving Madison, on Sunday night I watched Bill Gate's opening Keynote address streaming live over the Internet. This was suppose to be his last keynote since he is stepping down from his full time position with Microsoft to work full time on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I thought he might include some big announcement, but there really wasn't a lot to really get me excited. They showed a pretty funny video clip of Bill contacting a handful of celebrities and asking them for help or advice on what he can do after retirement. BTW, the image quality of his address was much better than this link's archived video. You'd think Microsoft would want to promote the highest quality video to help promote online streaming or even provide a high quality video for download.

I think it was a good thing that I didn't fly in earlier just to see his last keynote live. I was able to save a little money. Besides, it's nearly impossible to get a seat in the hall. I think it must help to have some good connections to get tickets to these sorts of things. Since it was his last keynote it might have been cool to be there...

New FireWire S3200 Spec

2007-12-17T09:06:00.000-06:00

Back in September, the 'USB Promoter Group' announced the next 'USB 3.0' specification. Many people were speculating that it might be the death blow for FireWire. Well, the FireWire folks aren't standing still. They just announced their next FireWire version called 'S3200', which builds on the earlier spec of IEEE1394b, also called FireWire 800. S3200 quadruples the speed from 800 Kbps to 3.2 Gbps and can use existing FireWire 800 cables and connectors.

We'll probably first see S3200 used with storage devices like external hard disks and optical drives. Eventually, they hope it will be adopted by consumer electronics manufacturers and used with home entertainment products. The new spec will let consumers connect HDTVs, set-top boxes and computers via coax cable with distances more than 100 meters.

Even though many motherboards are designed with a FireWire port, all include several USB 2.0 connections. With the huge success of USB and the expensive FireWire royalties, unless consumers see a big advantage like better audio and video performance, I think FireWire S3200 will have difficulty becoming as common as USB. Maybe people will understand that FireWire was specifically designed to be used for high speed streaming data and is ideal for a hard drive moving large chunks of data, like video. USB was originally designed for low bandwidth, low latency peripherals, like mice and keyboards. It allocates data bandwidth in inverse proportion to demand, so for example, mass storage gets whatever's left after mice, keyboards and tablets have had their share.

Here's a little more technical information on the topic. The USB 3.0 spec claims transfer speeds up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0, but the real world throughput of FireWire S3200 and its peer-to-peer technology might be better because of the overhead caused by USB's host/client technology. FireWire uses a double-simplex architecture, so for example, with the original FireWire speed of 400 Mbps, the actual aggregate speed is 800 Mbps. USB 1.0/2.0 uses a half-duplex architecture and 10% of its bandwidth is reserved for host commands. There are more delays inserted between TX and RX packets while the host and target devices' transceivers switch directions, wasting several microseconds each time. However, FireWire S3200 might become irrelevant because USB 3.0 is suppose to be 4.8 Gbps using double-simplex fibre, which is faster than S3200 on raw speed and finally gets rid of USB1/2's half-duplex overhead.

Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest

2007-12-13T09:38:00.000-06:00

We've decided to participate in the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Contest to try to win possible seed capital. The contest description also mentions that participating in this contest may also provide valuable assistance that might help taking the company to the next level. We certainly could use some advice when it comes to manufacturing and taking our products to market. The contest consists of three consecutive phases:

an idea abstract
executive summary
final business plans

Once we complete the idea abstract, a panel of judges takes two weeks to pick the companies that move on to the next phase. For the idea abstract we need to provide responses to four basic questions in less than 250 words. Contestants must choose between four different business categories - Advanced Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Information Technology, and Business Services. Our business does include some IT because we will be developing software for our drivers and control panel applications, but if we really have to choose something it should probably be advanced manufacturing. Here's what I've written in response to the sections for the idea abstract:

Product or Service Description:

Amplio Audio is in the Home Theater Personal Computer industry with an exclusive focus on the audio component of the Home Theater experience. Amplio’s product combines the functionality of a soundcard, A/V receiver and amplifier into a single device, providing consumers with an affordable, audiophile quality listening experience.

Customer Definition: Their Needs - Your Solution:

Our target customers are audio/video enthusiasts who use their personal computers (PCs) to play music, watch live TV, movies, and other content as well as to control and manage their media libraries. Amplio’s products provide customers the best possible audio for their media systems through a direct digital interface to their audio data complemented by a world-class amplifier system.

Market Description, Size and Sales Strategy:

The primary market Amplio Audio hopes to attract are relatively young, technically-savvy, Internet connected North American males with some disposable income. Secondary markets will include the same profile except woman and international markets and professional A/V installers and businesses or educational institutions that purchase presentation equipment. Using the market buildup method to analyze our potential market, we determined the size to be approximately $69 million. Customers will be able to purchase our products directly from Amplio Audio’s website. This is the most effective channel based on our customers preferred way to purchase electronics and computer related products.

Competition: In this section identify possible competitors.

Amplio’s products are designed to compete with the high end of their target market while selling for significantly less than current offerings. This market is currently served with a combination of products from several manufacturers, none of which are designed specifically for home theater applications.

We have until January 31, 2008 before the judges look at our idea abstract, so we will probably make modifications before that time. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any suggestions on ways we can make improvements.

The HD Format War - Be Neutral and Pick Both.

2007-12-11T11:58:00.000-06:00

I should have written this post back in October, but been a little busy with other things...

The consumer electronics press likes to make a big deal about the HD format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Does anybody really care? Most of my friends don't even seem to know either exists. They seem quite content with their DVDs. I thought their lack of interest was because of the confusion created by the choice of two different systems and apparent changing of alliances from the major movie studios, but most haven't even been paying attention to any of that news.

For those of us that do pay attention, why not just use both formats, especially if you use an HTPC. Back in September I wrote a post about the LG hybrid drive that supports both HD DVD and Blu-ray. Actually, I first wrote about these way back in May, but I was more excited about LG's hybrid drive that could also burn Blu-ray discs. LG also announced that its "Super Blu" BH200 HD DVD / Blu-ray combo player is now available at retailers nationwide for a not so cheap $999.

Well, LG started selling these drives in Japan back in September. They finally showed up in North America toward the third week of October. NCIXUS, a Canadian vendor, was the earliest reliable source. They were offering them for around $275 and they were selling faster than they could get them in stock. For some strange reason they weren't available from US online vendors like Newegg.com and PCAlchemy until a few weeks later and they were priced a little higher at around $300.

Now there seem to be a lot of very satisfied owners who no longer have to worry about which format wins. I will probably join them in the near future. Originally, I was waiting for the drive that included the Blu-ray burning capability. Since the Blu-ray blank media prices are probably going to be prohibitively expensive, I'll probably wait to see if the price of the player-only drive goes down when the burner becomes available. I owned a double layer DVD burner for a long time before the media prices were reasonable. At least you didn't have to pay a premium for those DVD-DL drives. The current pricing for a single 25 GB BD-R disc is around $10 - $17.

HTPC Help, What Happened?

2007-12-10T16:28:00.000-06:00

Back in August, I wrote a post about some guy, Troy aka pcCinema, who on the AVS Forum proposed to help people build HTPCs. He was going to test different components to make sure they could play all the disc formats (HD included), play and record TV, play music, etc., etc. This would be real helpful for people that have struggled with matching the right hardware with drivers and codecs to play their media glitch free. He would post a list of components that passed his tests so people could just purchase the hardware from online vendors and feel confident that it would just work. He was also going to create installation routines to help people get the correct software, drivers and codecs to tie everything together seamlessly. A lot of people responded to his offer and a few of them offered to help out. A couple of guys, greeniguana and binary64, offered to do more sophisticated scripting to take it to the next level. This included tracking the current versions and automatically going to websites to download the most stable and compatible software. Like I said, it was pretty promising and it generated a lot of interest judging by how many people were responding and reading the thread. There were quite a few people who even donated to a fund so Troy could buy some of the hardware needed to start testing.

Troy/pcCinema decided to quit his own project. I don't know exactly what happened. You could try reading the thread to see if you can decipher it, but it looks like pcCinema just couldn't continue the project. Maybe his injuries (I think injured back) were more than he could handle. Or some people accused him of being a scammer and using his plan to get some donations so he could buy some hardware. I think the former is probably the real reason. There were a few people who were suspicious from the start and they questioned his motives. He didn't handle the criticism very well and probably helped fuel the fires of doubt. After quiting, it would have made sense for Troy/pcCinema to either return the donations or pass the hardware on to people who were willing to help out with the project. He did neither and instead probably pissed off everyone who trusted him, especially greeniquana and binary64.

Meanwhile, it looked like greeniguana and binary64 were going to continue on without him. If they could get their software to work with any hardware, they could really help a lot of people. If you are interested in what they are doing, just respond to the original thread. They also meet every so often on the IRC chat line called "HTPC Project." I think the irc address is 71.244.119.244:6667. The hostname is irc.htpcprojectchat.com. If you search the thread you can probably find the information you need to contact them.

There was also a guy named "renethx" who provided a lot of really good information about hardware. Troy/pcCinema basically delegated all hardware choices to him because of his impressive knowledge. As it turns out, renethx created his own thread with detailed hardware recommendations. I even used it to help select a few components to upgrade our demo HTPC.

So maybe there is still hope. Between renethx's hardware recommendations and the other guy's software scripts, people can find some very good information and potential setup tools to help them build and setup advanced and stable HTPCs.

iTrax Almost Ready

2007-11-02T09:47:00.000-05:00

In a previous blog post, What is HD Audio?, I mentioned that AIX Records was going to launch a new website where you could purchase and download 24bit/96KHz high resolution audio tracks and albums. It looks like they are almost ready to go.

For those of you who have never heard a HD audio track, here's your chance. They let you download a sample track after you register on their website. Their HD audio was actually recorded using HD recording equipment. This isn't previously mastered stuff resampled into HD, like a lot of music currently on SACD or DVD-Audio. It was recorded, processed and mastered in high resolution.

To check this out, go to their website at iTrax.com.

When you register, they will reward you with a sample track that you can download. If you pick 'Login' at the bottom of the webpage, it will take you to another page that will let you register. I think the website is still in beta, so some things may not be working. Unfortunately, they don't let you download both a 16bit/44.1KHz version and a 24bit/96KHz version for comparison purposes, but at least you can try out the 24bit/96KHz track.

BTW, it sounds really good on our demo system. I'm looking forward to purchasing more of their music. I'm not familiar with most of their artists, so I'm open to any recommendations.

Go Green with Class D Amps

2007-11-01T09:58:00.000-05:00

Here's an article from Electronic Design that talks about the advantages of running a Class D amp when compared to other amplifier designs with regard to power efficiency.

They explain that an amplifier works by applying a voltage of alternating polarity to a loudspeaker, driving it back and forth to move the air that produces the sound. The amp basically has 2 power rails for the + and - polarity voltages.

With a Class A amp, both switches are on simultaneously to create the required voltage, so they're only about 15% efficient. This means that only 15% of the power is used to drive the speakers. The other 85% is lost as heat. That's why the higher power (over 100W) Class A amps are usually pretty large and include massive heat sinks. With Class B amps, only one switch is on at a time, resulting in efficiencies of around 75%. Unfortunately the trade off is poorer sound quality. Class AB is a combination or compromise between A and B with both switches on simultaneously, but the non-load carrying rail was only minimally on. This improved the sound, but only resulted in efficiencies of about 30% due to switching losses. The Class D amp does this by switching these voltages on and off. With the Class D amps, the switching losses are very low resulting in an overall efficiency of more than 90% with very good sound quality.

Read the article if you are interested in more of the details.

Report Shows More Home Theater Owners Want PC Integration

2007-10-19T00:06:00.000-05:00

A recent study by The NPD Group found that 17 percent of consumers are interested in accessing PC content from their home entertainment system (25 percent for consumers with a home network).

“[Faster] Internet access, new content sources, and the evolution of the PC as a multimedia repository promise to change the features and functionality of devices in the home entertainment center,” says Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group.

Now I need to update my business plan with some of this informtion.

Michael Fremer Takes the Million Dollar Challenge

2007-10-17T23:29:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday, I wrote a post about James Randi's offer to pay anyone $1 million if they can prove that a $7,250 pair of Pear Anjou speaker cables sound different than their Monster Cable equivalent. It looks like Michael Fremer, a Stereophile Magazine writer, has decided to take up the challenge. To learn more, read this post in Gizmodo. This should be fun.

Sony BD-ROM Drive

2007-10-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

I read another article today that mentions Sony plans to sell a Blu-ray disc reader for the PC aftermarket in early 2008. They plan to sell the drive, which will not include any writing capability for any disc format, for under $200.

Since many people (NCIX) have reported seeing $299 prices for the LG GGC-H20L hybrid Blu-ray and HD DVD reader, which is also capable of writing DVD and CD disc formats, I don't think people will get too excited by the Sony price. For $99 more, you get a hybrid drive that reads both of the HD disc formats and can replace your DVD/CD burner.

Download & Install The New Vista Service Pack

2007-10-16T09:23:00.000-05:00

This post is just a link to the instructions. Not sure if I'm willing to go through this hassle to get the service pack myself, but you are welcome to give it a try. I think I'll wait until the official release.

How To Download & Install the New Vista Service Pack

How Much Storage Space Will I Need For HD Audio

2007-10-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

I've been following several threads (including this AVS Forum thread) that talk about how the audio tracks of an HD DVD or Blu-ray movie when played on your HTPC using PowerDVD Ultra are downrez'd from 24bit/48kHz to 16bit/48kHz because of copy protection issues. I think they say you cannot pass the full resolution digital audio of protected (flagged) sources unless you have a protected path. The protected path is all part of the solution that makes it impossible to copy high resolution audio and video using DRM schemes like AACS for audio and HDCP for video. It seems PowerDVD is trying to comply by just converting every audio track down to 16bit/48kHz even if the tracks are not flagged to be protected. I also thought this rule only applied to digital audio and not analog audio. Nobody seems to have a complete handle on what's really going on here, but I did read that Microsoft and Cyberlink (the developer of PowerDVD) are trying to work together to get this resolved. Hopefully they'll come up with some solution so we can listen to the audio tracks from these discs in all their high resolution glory from our PCs.

'jdyoung75' commented that maybe people aren't even going to get 24bit/96kHz or 24bit/192kHz soundtracks anyhow because the movie studios will probably only provide at best 24bit/48kHz soundtracks. (Actually, I would probably be satisfied with that, but I'd still like to hear 24bit/96kHz surround and/or 24bit/192kHz stereo tracks for concert performances.) His post implies that since the studios aren't going to include anything with a sampling rate higher than 48kHz, then maybe the problem with PowerDVD downrez'g isn't such a big deal. They're still converting the bitdepth from 24bit to 16bit and I'd like to hear them in 24bit. He referenced an article that appeared in EngadgetHD that said the real reason is because of storage space. There isn't enough space to include the uncompressed high resolution audio. But that's why they use lossless compression like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA to give you the same high quality using less space. These losslessly compressed HD tracks should still maintain the same resolution of 24bit/48kHz or higher (if available).

Just to give you an idea of how much storage space you need for uncompressed HD audio files, take a look at the following chart:

Bit Depth	Sample Rate	# of channels	Bit Rate (Mbps)	File Size for 1 minute	File Size for 90 minutes
16bit	44.1KHz	2 (stereo)	1.411	10 MB	900 MB
16bit	48KHz	2 (stereo)	1.46	11 MB	990 MB
16bit	48KHz	6 (5.1 surround)	4.6	33 MB	2.9 GB
24bit	48KHz	6 (5.1 surround)	6.9	49.5 MB	4.35 GB
24bit	48KHz	8 (7.1 surround)	9.2	66 MB	5.8 GB
24bit	96KHz	6 (5.1 surround)	13.8	99 MB	8.7 GB
24bit	96KHz	8 (7.1 surround)	18.4	132 MB	11.6 GB
24bit	192KHz	2 (stereo)	9.2	66 MB	5.8 GB

As you can see, these HD tracks take up a lot of space. However, those numbers are for uncompressed audio. Don't get confused by the way they measure bit rate and storage size. When calculating the bit rate they refer to million bits per second (divide by 1,000,000) and for storage requirements, they refer to megabytes (divide by 1024 a couple times and also multiply by 8 bits to get a byte).

I don't know exactly how much space we'll save by using the losslessly compressed codecs. The only information I could find regarding the efficiency of these codecs was from this FAQ for Dolby's TrueHD. If I'm interpreting this correctly, with a 24bit recording, they achieve compression ratios of about 2 to 1, for a file size savings of about 50%. So we might be able to store 90 minutes of a 24bit/96Khz 5.1 surround sound track in 4.3 GB of space.

Since HD DVD has a storage capacity of 15 GB for single-layer and 30 GB for dual-layer discs (and 51 GB for single sided triple-layer discs); and, Blu-ray's capacity is 25 GB for single-layer and 50 GB for dual-layer, you'd think they'd have enough space at least for one of the losslessly encoded HD tracks.

Tchaikovsky SongSpot

2007-10-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I updated my SongSpot. I don't know if anyone noticed, but they've improved the widget so you can now create a playlist of several songs. I did that with my last SongSpot which included songs from Billy Bragg, Elliot Smith and the Barenaked Ladies. However, I think I might prefer the single song approach unless they'd allow playback of full albums, but I doubt that will happen anytime soom. Anyhow, I decided it's time for an update so I went to Sonific's site to choose something. I noticed the list of "Most Played," so I decided to play a few to see what other people think are the best songs.

My first click was on Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra. This is really beautiful music. It's a live performance of Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony at the Musikverein in Vienna from March 25, 2001 by the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Hobart Earle, Conductor. Winner of the "Best Classical Album" Award at the 2002 Just Plain Folks Music Awards. Here's a link to the CD. Hope you enjoy it.

Teleportation Tweak

2007-10-05T00:05:00.000-05:00

Machina Dynamica's Teleportation Tweak

The Teleportation Tweak is the phenomenal new product from Machina Dynamica. The Teleportation Tweak is an advanced communications technique discovered and developed by Machina Dynamica for upgrading audio systems remotely -- even over very long distances. The Teleportation Tweak has a profound effect on the sound and is performed during a phone call to Machina Dynamica; the phone call can be made via landline or cell phone from any room in the house. The tweak itself takes about 30 seconds.

Remarkably, the Teleportation Tweak is independent of distance and signal transmission medium and will work anywhere in the world. The "signals" transmitted over the phone by Machina Dynamica remain robust even over great distances. It is not necessary for the system to be ON at the time of the telephone call; however, if A/B comparison of the Teleportation Tweak before and after the call is desired, the customer's audio system should be turned ON and warmed up prior to the call.

The effects of the Teleportation Tweak are instantaneous and the improvement to sound quality will be audible immediately. The Teleportation Tweak excels in 3-dimensionality, lushness, inner detail and air. Bonus: The picture quality of any video system in the house will also be improved - better color and contrast! Customer should pay via Paypal or check/MO (payable to Geoff Kait) prior to calling Machina Dynamica via landline or cell phone. Machina Dynamica's Teleportation Tweak $60.

Amazing huh! And you probably thought the Bedini Quadra-Beam Ultra Clarifier was the most phenomenal tweak available. This one, which was also from another comment in the Slashdot post, takes the cake so far. I'll let you know if I discover anything that tops this.

BEDINI - QUADRI-BEAM ULTRA CLARIFIER

2007-10-04T23:55:00.000-05:00

BEDINI/QUADRI-BEAM ULTRA CLARIFIER

New! Featuring four beams, nearly twice the rotation speed and improved timing processing, the Quadri-Beam is an ultra cool disc treatment. This patented process reduces the noise floor allowing far more information to be retrieved from the disc. It also works great on DVDs, giving you a picture that is brighter, sharper, crisper and cleaner. For those of you who have never experienced the sonic benefits of the Bedini Clarifier, it significantly reduces high frequency glare and increases retrieval of information, enhancing dynamic range. Detail and resolution are improved dramatically.

This is one of the great audiophile tweaks listed on the website that I linked to in my previous post. I also discovered this after reading some of the comments from the Slashdot post. I couldn't resist sharing this.

The $1,000,000 Challenge

2007-10-04T16:49:00.000-05:00

James Randi is offering US $1 million dollars to anyone who can prove that a pair of $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables is any better than the equivalent Monster Cables. He offers a personal invitation to Dave Clark, Editor of the audio review publication Positive Feedback Online, who provided this rave review:

"…way better than anything I have heard…Simply put these are very danceable cables. Music playing through them results in the proverbial foot-tapping scene with the need or desire to get up and move. Great swing and pace – these cables smack that right on the nose big time."

"…simply way better than anything I have heard prior to their audition."

It looks like he made a similar offer to John Atkinson of Stereophile Magazine, but it was never accepted. Unfortunately I can't find any specific information on that challenge.

I probably shouldn't write anything that either pokes fun of or challenges the credibility of these writers, since who knows, maybe I'd like them to evaluate or review one of our products in the future. Oh well... these outrageous claims drive me nuts and I really enjoy it when someone challenges their credibility.

I first discovered Mr. Randi's offer on Slashdot. I don't know if I've ever made this clear, but I'm not a big fan of some "audiophile" tweaks. Especially since I think a lot of them are just snake oil. Here's a list of some pretty humorous products.

James Randi has an international reputation as a magician and escape artist, but today he is best known as the world's most tireless investigator and demystifier of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Randi has pursued "psychic" spoonbenders, exposed the dirty tricks of faith healers, investigated homeopathic water "with a memory," and generally been a thorn in the sides of those who try to pull the wool over the public's eyes in the name of the supernatural.

Radiohead - Choose Your Price

2007-10-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

I'm sure most of you have read the interesting news about what Radiohead is doing with their next album, In Rainbows. Initially, they plan to offer it as a download and are letting you name your own price when they release it from their inrainbows.com website on October 10th. You can also purchase the discbox version, which includes - the new album on CD and on 2 x 12 inch heavyweight vinyl records; a second, enhanced CD contains more new songs, along with digital photographs and artwork; the discbox also includes artwork and lyric booklets, which are encased in a hardback book and slipcase. The discbox version will be released around December 3rd and will cost £40.00 including postage (with current exchange rates this comes out to US $81.52 -- and I don't know if this will also include shipping to the U.S. or if that is limited to Great Britain).

What's interesting to me is they are releasing this album with no record label backing. In this Audioholics article, they mention "As one of the few innovative music acts with any significant degree of mainstream popularity, Radiohead has apparently decided on an equally innovative approach to music sales: boot their recording label, give the music away, ask only for a donation, and only ask a fixed price for value added content." They go on to explain how this differs from other artists who create their own independent labels, but still use the same basic business model. By providing the album as a download, not only do they avoid the recording industry's unfavorable contract terms, they also avoid all the middle men like iTunes and other online music retailers. And since they are offering the downloads without DRM and almost for free, they eliminate any of the incentives that contribute to online piracy. The Audioholics article is really about how Radiohead and other artists are leaving the traditional recording industry. They include a copyright statement from Robert Fripp to explain what they mean by the industry's unfavorable terms.

I still don't know if they will offer the tracks in a lossless format. I doubt it, but that would be really great. Especially if they could somehow show that the lossless tracks generated more income than MP3s. This would encourage other artists to also offer lossless as an option. Since they are appealing to "audiophiles" by offering their music on vinyl, they should consider offering lossless tracks for download and maybe even 24bit/96kHz for download or on a disc format. Someone on this AVS Forum thread mentioned when they emailed the support contact listed on the Radiohead website and asked what format and bitrate they planned to provide, the response was 'MP3'. This makes sense, since they are letting us name our own price. I'd love to pay $15 or $20 for the album download in a lossless format especially if it was available as 24bit/96kHz tracks.

USB 3.0 Spec Proposed

2007-09-19T17:00:00.000-05:00

There was an Intel press release yesterday announcing a group of companies including Intel, HP, Microsoft, NEC, NXP Semiconductor (formerly Philips Semiconductor) and TI have formed the 'USB Promoter Group' to create a superspeed personal USB interconnect that can deliver over 10 times the speed of today's connection. "We don't want to be the bottleneck in the system," said Jeff Ravencraft, an Intel executive overseeing the USB 3.0 initiative.

More from the press release: "USB (Universal Serial Bus) 3.0 will create a backward-compatible standard with the same ease-of-use and plug and play capabilities of previous USB technologies. Targeting over 10x performance increase, the technology will draw from the same architecture of wired USB. In addition, the USB 3.0 specification will be optimized for low power and improved protocol efficiency. USB 3.0 ports and cabling will be designed to enable backward compatibility as well as future-proofing for optical capabilities."

Some people are saying USB 3.0 will finally supplant FireWire. If it really delivers the 300 Mbytes/second or 4 Gbits/second theoretical speeds it obviously leapfrogs the 400 Mbit/second performance of FireWire 1394a and the 800 Mbit/sec for 1394b and 1394c. If the "Quality of Service" support for HD video also results in a very low jitter interface for audio, USB 3.0 is definitely the way to go. The only advantage for FireWire is cable distance. FireWire's 1394c can work over ethernet cable with speeds of 800 Mbit/second up to 100 meters and USB 3.0 may be limited to only 2 meters. However, it might be a long time before we see any audio interfaces that support 1394c. I've also read that the 1394 Trade Association is reading proposals for a 10 Gbit/second FireWire spec. For more detailed information on this, read this article in EETimes.

It will be awhile before we see any USB 3.0 chipsets and drivers for USB Audio, so this probably won't have any impact on our current development efforts. It would be nice if we finally had an interconnect that was very high performance (meaning it could handle up to 24 or more channels of 24bit/192kHz audio with extremely low jitter) and was available on all shipping PCs.

LG's Super Blu PC plays Blu-ray, HD DVD and DVD

2007-09-18T17:43:00.000-05:00

Korean manufacturer, LG Electronics announced they will start selling a PC that includes their hybrid HD DVD / Blu-ray drive. It looks like it is probably the drive that reads both HD formats and burns DVD and CD. The PC comes with a Core 2 Duo cpu and an NVidia GeForce 8xxx series graphics card. There's no information on the price or availability.

Oh, and you gotta love the models. Kind of reminds me of an American trade show from the '70s.

Modular / Open Architecture Design

2007-09-17T15:00:00.000-05:00

I like the fact that you can purchase the building blocks to assemble a PC to your exact specifications. The technically savvy person can buy the chassis, power supply, motherboard, cpu, memory, graphics card, sound card, disk drives, etc., etc., from several different manufacturers and put together a system that costs less or performs better than the pre-assembled systems from the major PC manufacturers. Of course, if you are not technically savvy, you can also purchase a complete system from the hundreds of retailers. Since there are so many PC manufacturers, the prices are very competitive. This is possible because of the open architecture of the PC. I think this might have contributed to the popularity and growth of the PC. On the other hand, Apple's proprietary products may be considered a little higher quality, and that may be due to the fact that Apple has greater control over their supply chain, but they also charge more for their PCs. When you compare market share, the open architecture PC is the clear winner.

Open architecture or modularity might work for an audio system similar to the way it has for PCs. Standard components could be available for the power supply(s), PC audio interface, preamp, amp modules and chassis. The preamp would be similar to a PC's motherboard. This is where the source devices would be selected and routed to the amp modules, plus it could include circuitry for analog volume control. The PC audio interface would have all the functionality of the PC's sound system. It would include the interface to the PC using USB or FireWire, along with the DSP, ADC and DAC chips. An amp module would provide the power for one channel or speaker output. Or maybe some manufacturers could design modules that provide stereo pairs at less cost. Amp modules of different power ratings, like 100W, 200W, 400W, etc. could be available, just like we currently can choose hard drives with different storage capacities. These amp modules could also come with integrated power supplies like the ASP Series from IcePower shown on the left. The chassis could be designed with standard layouts and connectors similar to what is currently available for today's PCs. There might be small cases for 2 channel stereo systems, larger 5.1 or 7.1 surround or even huge tower systems that could house enough channels for a sizable whole house audio system. Someone could choose a very basic chassis with a plastic or painted sheet metal skin and save some money, while others could purchase an expensive thick gauge aluminum chassis with a polished finish.

This open architecture approach has a few serious challenges. To be successful, the components have to be designed with standard connectors and form factors. Just like the hard drive's enclosure is designed with a 3.5" form factor and standard connectors for data and power or a PCI card that fits into the connector on the motherboard, has standard heights and widths and includes the backplate to attach to the back of the chassis. It will probably be difficult to get the component manufacturers to agree on standard connectors and form factors unless they are confident there is a large market for these standardized products. In the early PC days, the IBM architecture was very popular because IBM was a well established, respected company. I don't know of any other manufacturer that could have accomplished this level of standardization and there really isn't anybody in the audio industry with that type of clout today. Besides, most of the manufactures prefer to offer their mostly proprietary solutions.

In addition to the open architecture with standard components, there's also modular design. By this, I mean providing specific components for certain tasks. Separate components for the PC interface, the preamp, amp modules, power supplies, chassis, etc. There's also the separate components you can purchase for your home theaters and sound systems. For example, you can buy a CD and/or DVD transport, D/A processor, preamp, and amplifiers. The specialized components usually sound better, look better and cost a lot more than an integrated solution. Amplio's prototypes have been integrated solutions that include the PC interface, DAC/processor, power supplies, and amp modules all in the same chassis. However, some customers might prefer the flexibility of separate modules. We could provide different products like a preamp that combined the PC interface, DAC, volume control, etc., and amps that can be purchased in mono, stereo or multichannel configurations. Two flavors of preamps might let you choose between a 2 channel or 8 channel solution. The combination of an 8 channel preamp and 3 - 2 channel amp modules plus 1 mono amp module would result in a good 7.1 system. Here's an example of an interesting modular design for PCs called the UNI Computer. Maybe we could do something similar for the preamp and amp modules.

If you have any thoughts or questions about modular and/or open architecture design, I'd love to hear from you. Please feel free to post a comment!

The Bad Plus

2007-09-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

The Bad Plus are performing in Madison on Friday, September 21st at The Annex.

I can't wait!!

Dynamic Range and HD Audio

2007-09-11T16:52:00.000-05:00

Recently, I responded to a comment in an AVS Forum thread where someone posted that people shouldn't get too upset if their high definition audio is converted and resampled to 16 bit/48KHz. Apparently PowerDVD, the only PC software capable of playing HD DVD or Blu-ray movies, converts and resamples all of the HD 24bit/96kHz uncompressed or losslessly compressed audio (DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, etc.) to 16bit/48kHz. Many people are upset and would like to find a way to play the full resolution HD audio tracks from their HTPCs. The developer of PowerDVD says they have to downsample the audio because the PC doesn't provide a secure pathway for digital or analog output. I can understand why there might be some problems with a secure pathway for digital output without something like HDCP or AACS, but I don't understand why they have to downsample the audio for analog output. Anyhow, he/she basically stated that since the highest frequency a human is capable of hearing is 20,000 Hz, even when applying the Nyquist theorem to 48 kHz, the downsampled audio can still easily reproduce all audible frequencies. Therefore, I think he/she assumed the only advantage to 24bit/96kHz HD audio is the fact they can play higher frequency sounds. Well, there's a lot more to it than that...

My response just touched on the issue of how the resolution of the audio data is related to dynamic range. There are other factors that come into play, like the tonal effects of high frequency harmonics and phase accuracy. There's also the argument that when an analog waveform is converted into digital data, the higher the sampling rate and resolution of the data, the representation of the original analog signal will be much more accurate. There are also concerns about the quality of the resampling algorithm, etc., etc.

Let me get back to the subject of this post - dynamic range. Dynamic range, when used in audio measurements, refers to the difference between the loudest undistorted sound and the quietest passages. In digital audio, the maximum possible dynamic range depends on the bit depth of the audio data.

To calculate the maximum theoretical dynamic range based on a digital audio bit depth, you multiply the log of the total bit depth by 20.

Dynamic Range = 20 * log(bit depth)

For example, CD audio has a bit depth of 16 bits. A bit is a binary unit, so they are actually referring to 2 to the power of 16, which comes to 65536 decimal units. To be more accurate, we would use 65535 because they use values from 0 to 65535.

When we apply this to the formula above, we get:
DR (16 bit CD) = 20 * log(65535) = 96dB

The maximum theoretical dynamic range for 24 bit audio comes to:
DR (24 bit) = 20 * log(16777215) = 144dB

If it is true that some classical music performances can have a dynamic range of over 110 dB, then it's also possible that an HD movie could also have this large of a dynamic range. Hopefully, there will also be some other musical performances (live or studio) that were recorded in HD and become available in HD DVD or Blu-ray that will also have this high of a dynamic range.

My point is, if the audio data is always converted down to 16 bits, we won't be able to enjoy the full dynamic range available from a high definition audio performance.

Test Your Sense of Pitch

2007-09-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

From the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders:

Have you ever wondered how a musician can pick out a single wrong note in a complex piece of music? Has anyone told you that you are tone-deaf or have a tin ear? These all relate to a sense of pitch—roughly speaking, the highness or lowness of a sound. It's what distinguishes a soprano from a bass singer and gives each piano key a distinct identity.

Our ability to distinguish pitch is not fully understood, but we do know that it involves some processing by the brain after a sound is perceived. This means tone deafness is not necessarily linked to any hearing disorder. An individual with perfect hearing may still have trouble distinguishing pitch because of how the brain interprets the sounds.

Research shows that several percent of the U.S. population has problems with pitch perception. Studies in twins also indicates that the role of inheritance in deficits in pitch recognition is extremely high, with little effect of environmental experience. Tone deafness appears to stem from nature, not nurture.

Want to test your own sense of pitch? We've developed an online version of the Distorted Tunes Test, a standardized survey in use for over 50 years. In it, you'll listen to a series of snippets from well-known tunes—some of which have been distorted by changing various notes' pitch. Your task is to pick out the incorrectly played tunes.

Give it a shot. I picked 26 out of the 26 snippets correctly, so I must have a fairly good sense of pitch. Most of the tunes were pretty familiar to me, so it was easy to hear mistakes. The test may not be so easy if you are not familiar with the songs.

Prototype Sketch

2007-09-10T15:37:00.000-05:00

OK, so maybe this isn't really a prototype sketch, but I thought it was a pretty cool illustration and that readers of the blog might appreciate it. I came across the drawing on Audio DesignLines article "Amazing Hi-Fi' cartoon/illustration from 1950s". It was drawn by Roy Doty for the April 15th, 1958 issue of Look Magazine. Click on the Audio DesignLine article link to download a copy of the original image.

How Much Power Do I Need?

2007-08-29T10:37:00.001-05:00

Have you ever wondered how much power you will need from your amplifier to drive your loudspeakers?

Maybe this information will help you figure this out.

Amplifier power is usually given in watts, which is the amount of energy expended in one second (1 joule per second). In electrical terms 1 watt is equal to 1 volt multiplied times 1 ampere. Not sure if that helps here, because this doesn't seem to directly relate to how much sound you can generate with an amplifier. We usually measure the loudness of something using decibels or dB. The dB uses the logarithmic (base 10) scale because that is how our ear/brain perceives sound changes. Theoretically, the smallest change in sound level the human ear can perceive is 1 dB.

The following chart shows the amount of dB per watts ((dBW), which will make it a little easier to relate the amplifier's power rating to the amount of sound it can provide:

dBW	Watts	dBW	Watts
17	50	24	251
18	63	25	316
19	79	26	400
20	100	27	500
21	126	28	630
22	156	29	795
23	200	30	1000

As you can see from this chart, an increase of 3 dB results in a doubling of power. So to handle an increase in dB from 23 to 26dB, you will need to double the power from 200 to 400 watts. To be able to notice the next incremental increase in loudness, you would need to go up to 500 watts.

Another factor that we need to consider is -- How loud do you need to go? That depends on your listening preferences. If you normally listen at fairly quiet levels, you don't need a lot of power, but if you like listening to rock music at live concert levels, then you may need a lot. Here's another chart (I love charts) to show how the dB relates to different sound levels:

Decibel (dB) level	Cause or Effect
-80 (p)	Underwater nuclear submarine microphones listening to shrimp chewing on food at 100 meters distance
-30 (n)	One human talking 20 miles away (60 db / meter at a distance of 20 miles)
-4 to +4 (n)	The ticking of an ordinary wristwatch at 1 meter
0 (n)	Beginning of hearing, a mosquito 10 feet away, the ear drum moves less than 1/100 the length of an air molecule
10 (p)	Absolute silence, AT&T - Bell Labs "Quiet Room"
13 (p)	Ordinary light bulb hum
15 (n)	A pin drop from a height of 1 centimeter at a distance of 1 meter
30 (p)	Totally quiet nighttime in desert - impossible anywhere near city
35 (p)	Anechoic hearing test room
40	A whisper
50-65	A normal conversation
80	Average city traffic noise
85	Beginning of hearing damage (8 hrs), earplugs should be worn
85-90	Lawnmower, food blender
100	Normal average car or house stereo at maximum volume
104-107 (p)	The beginning of pain at the most sensitive frequency of 2750 hertz
110	Symphony orchestra
116	Human body begins to perceive vibration in the low frequencies
117-123	Home stereo system, a very loud and powerful 200-2000 watts
120-130	front row at a rock concert - up to 200 refrigerator size speakers and 50000-300000 watts of clean, full frequency sound
125	Drum set - only at the moment of striking, continous level 115
127	Human tinnitus (ringing in the ears) begins
128 (p)	Human, loudest scream measured at a distance of 8 feet 2 inches, head hair begins to detect vibration, can begin to detect very slow “blast wind” of 0.124 meters/second
130 (n)	Marching band - overall level at a distance, 100-200 members
132	Eardrum “flex” totally noticeable
133 (n)	Gunshot- ear level, may vary greatly to size and type of gun, duration converted to one second, peak level may reach 140-160
130-135 (n)	Large train horn
135	Human, a slight cooling effect begins to be noticed, from air expansion
137	Human body vibration is strong
137-140	Human ear all frequencies are painful
140	Extremely damaging to hearing no matter how short the time exposure, human throat and vocal cord vibration begins
141	Human body begins to feel nausea after a few minutes
142	Human body chest pounding is intense
143	Human body feels as if someone just football tackled your chest
144	Human nose itches
145	Human vision begins to vibrate making it slightly blurry, 1-3 degrees
148	Human vibration very uncomfortable and slightly painful
149	Human lungs and breathing begins vibrating to the sound
150 (n)	Rock concert “The Who” two 10 story stacks = 144 double refrigerator sized speakers, actual level reached 120 db at a distance of 32 meters for this normalized reading of 150 db. Continuous level 114-118db (p) at 32 meters
158	Human body vibration is violent, nausea becomes more intense
153-163	N.H.R.A. Dragsters- 5000 to 7000 horsepower, liquid nitroglycerin fuel, earthshaking at 50 feet, humans find it hard to see, and breathe 140db (p)
163 (p)	Glass breaking level, minimum, it is very hard to break glass windows. Many stories come from breaking glass but it is highly variable: it is easier to break if the window already has a crack, is very large or old and brittle and not car safety glass which can flex massively before breaking. An opera singer at 110 db may break a wineglass but it is an example of frequency resonance, and not high sound db level
145-165 (np)	Common type of fireworks at professional pyrotechnic shows
172 (n)	Boeing 727, 737, 747, 757, 767 cruising at 6 miles high mach 0.84, at the ground (sea level) loses an additional 6 db because air density is only half sea level at a height of 6 miles
180.5	Alan Dante reportedly set a new record in the world of in-car bass output by using four Stetsom 7KD amplifiers, 15 Power Master batteries, and a single Digital Designs 9918Z subwoofer.
183 (p)	6 p.s.i. Total destruction of all structures, particle velocity (blast wind) is 180 miles per hour. 0.9 miles from Hiroshima atomic bomb and 3.3 miles from 1 megaton nuclear bomb, less 0.1 % object survival
190.6 (np)	Richter scale 0 (zero) earthquake
190-195 (p)	Human eardrums rupture 50% of time
210 (np)	Richter scale 2.0 earthquake
215 (n)	Thunder, the largest positive giants. Ordinary thunder 165-180 db. Lightning strike on ocean surface 234db (p) at 2exp-5 newtons per square meter
240 (n)	Tornado, Fujitsu 5, energy guess based on 300 mile per hour wind, 1 mile wide
257 (n)	Nuclear bomb, 1 megaton (1 million tons of t.n.t.)
300 (n)	Hurricane – average, extreme energy is “diluted” by covering 500,000 square miles. Energy = approx. 1000 nuclear bombs a second.
320 (n)	Volcano eruption, Tambora Indonesia, 1815, ejected 36 cubic miles. Approximately equal to 14,000 megaton nuclear bombs or a 14 gigaton bomb based on ejected volume, change in megatons times 1.345 equals volume ejected change. If was a nuclear bomb it would create a crater about 12.4 miles wide and 1.33 miles deep. Internal pressure is believed to be about 47 million p.s.i. = 347 db (p)

(n) = Normalized total air power energy level sound plus any wind, watts or joules per second. These levels have been converted.
(p) = actual Peak pressure meter readings i.e. a force per unit area
(np) = Normalized Pressure used in explosive measurements, blast wind is not included
sources: Ultimate Sound Pressure Level Decibel Table, COPYWRITE WILLIAM HAMBY 2004, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Update 9/11/07: new entry for 180.5dB from Engadget post.

So, if you want to listen to your sound system at the same level as a symphony orchestra (I assume this is during a loud passage), you would want amplifiers with enough power to deliver around 110 dB. For rock concert levels, something between 120-130 dB. Most of the time you're probably not going to listen at these levels, especially for those of us who share their dwellings with other people, like wives, children, pets, plants, etc., etc. Maybe an amplifier that can provide 105 dB without clipping would be good enough, since you are probably listening between 85-90 dB most of the time. The dynamic range (the difference between the loudest and the quietest sound) for a good system should be from about 105dB down to maybe 35dB. This gives us a total dynamic range of about 70dB.

Now let's take this information and apply it to choosing the right size amplifier for your loudspeakers (if you like to do things ass backwards - you can also choose the right loudspeakers for your amplifier).

You need to find the loudspeaker's efficiency or sensitivity specification. This is the sound pressure level (SPL) at 1 watt from a distance of 1 meter, given in dB. My Precise Monitor 10s have an efficiency spec of 88dB/1 watt/1 meter. My Era D5s use those 5" long excursion drivers that provide good bass for a small driver, but they are not super efficient with a spec of 86dB. There are a lot of speakers out there today with higher efficiency, but that doesn't mean they will sound better.
Subtract about 10db SPL to account for the drop in sound level from the speaker to the listening position. (When you double the distance from the speaker, the SPL drops 6dB. The speaker's efficiency spec is based on a distance of 1 meter, and if the distance between the listening position and the loudspeaker is 2 meters, then the SPL drops 6dB. If this distance is 4 meters, the SPL will drop another 6dB for a total of 12dB. If the total distance is 10' (just over 3 meters) then the SPL will drop about 9dB.)
Add 3dB for each additional speaker in the room that will be playing music at the same level (so when you do this calculation for a stereo system you simply add 3 dB).

Next, I need to calculate how much amplifier power is needed to get peak levels to 105dB without clipping.

So I take the difference between the peak level and the loudspeaker value:
105dB - 79dB = 26dB, which gives me the amount of power needed from the amplifier.
Using the first chart, you can see that I will need 400W of power to get 26dBW.

Using this method, I would need about 250W to power my pair of Precise Monitor 10s. It gets a little more complicated when you try to calculate power requirements for multichannel 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound amplifiers. That's because the amount of sound from the surround speakers is usually less than the front right, center and front left channels. If you use bass management to send all signals below a certain frequency to a powered subwoofer, that will also decrease the power requirements of the multichannel amplifier. If I find a little more data on the most common multichannel surround mastering methods, maybe I will try to tackle this problem in a future post.

Here's a handy dandy dynamic slide rule that you can also use to perform these calculations.

Update 4/8/08: I discovered that Crown has a good article on their website to help you determine how much amplifier power is needed for your loudspeakers.

1/3 of Home Networks Used for Entertainment

2007-08-28T12:51:00.000-05:00

This was reported awhile ago in ars technica, but I thought it was significant enough (at least for our business plans) to post here.

A study by Forrester Research found that 27% of online adults in the U.S. have a home network. One third of all these home networks are now used to stream music, movies, TV shows, and other media throughout the home.

Some of the numbers used in our business plan to estimate potential market size are based upon a typical user who is tech savvy, etc. If the user has a home network, specifically used for entertainment purposes, they are more likely to be interested in a product like ours, as opposed to someone who doesn't. It is interesting to note that one of the biggest reasons given for using their home networks for entertainment uses was for streaming music.

It's nice to know there is an actual study that shows how many people who fall into this category.

Microsoft Responds to Vista Audio Problems

2007-08-27T12:41:00.000-05:00

Last week's post, 'Networking problems when Vista Audio is Active' linked to reports from the 2CPU forums about networking problems in Vista during audio playback. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes in his "Gear for Geeks" column for ZDNET received a response from Microsoft regarding these problems. You can just read his article, but I might as well provide his list of Microsoft responses here:

“We have been looking into this problem and are working on a doc that will go into the technical details of what we have found.”
“Please note that some of what we are seeing is expected behavior, and some of it is not. In certain circumstances Windows Vista will trade off network performance in order to improve multimedia playback. This is by design.”
“The connection between media playback and networking is not immediately obvious. But as you know, the drivers involved in both activities run at extremely high priority. As a result, the network driver can cause media playback to degrade. This shows up to the user as things like popping and crackling during audio playback. Users generally hate this, hence the trade off.”
“In most cases the user does not notice the impact of this as the decrease in network performance is slight. Of course some users, especially ones on Gigabit based networks, are seeing a much greater decrease than is expected and that is clearly a problem that we need to address.”
“Two other things to note. First, we have not seen any cases where a users internet performance would be degraded, in our tests this issue only shows up with local network operations.”
“Second, this trade-off scheme only kicks in on the receive side. Transmit is not affected.”

Seems pretty strange to me. Slight degradation? Some people have reported network performance throttled to 5-10% when playing audio. Heck, when using Windows Media Player the network performance is reduced even when the audio is paused (using other media players like Foobar2000, the network performance is only throttled during playback). Anyhow, I never had any pops, clicks or skips when playing audio on my old Pentium III or IV hardware running Windows NT while connected to a network back around 1999. So I still don't understand why they are having this problem with today's hardware. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future patch or something.

HTPC Help Is On the Way, Go Troy Go!

2007-08-24T13:20:00.000-05:00

If you've recently tried building an HTPC that can do all the basics, like play music, DVDs, plus play the latest HD formats like HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and have been frustrated with the incompatibilities between hardware, operating systems, drivers and A/V codecs, there might be some help in the very near future.

Troy, aka "pcCinema" on the AVS Forums, is offering to help everyone out. Troy started a thread titled, "Suppose I make it easy for all the newbies and budget folks?" back on August 16th to first announce his intentions and gauge interest. Troy is a former MCSE Senior IT Consultant who was responsible for the large scale automated rollout of PCs to corporate clients. He specializes in writing scripts or deployment tools that would make building high performance HTPCs easy for every newbie out there. He plans to maintain a website that would provide a list of high quality software and hardware components that have been fully tested for performance and compatibility with the required HTPC applications. Best bang-for-the-buck components would be included to make sure systems built from the recommended hardware list would also be affordable. Whenever, newer more advanced hardware or software is available and passes the necessary testing, the list will be updated.

After the user purchases his components based on the recommended hardware and software list, Troy's scripts would be used to assist with the process of assembling and installing all the hardware and software to create a trouble free HTPC. No more driver or codec conflicts. Finally, HD DVD and Blu-Ray playback will be stutter-free without all the hassles many people currently deal with today to get the correct combination of hardware and software to work together.

It's also interesting to note that Troy doesn't plan to charge a penny for any of his services. Troy doesn't sell any of the hardware or software, the user will have to shop for everything on his/her own. This is something he plans to do out of the goodness of his heart. Actually, it sounds very altruistic (it is), but he's also doing this out of self preservation. Troy explains that he is disabled and unemployed, waiting for Social Security benefits. He says he has nothing better to do with his time and since this is something he is very good at, he might as well do something he enjoys and allows him to be productive.

"It has been good for me to have a purpose again. I actually feel better physically and mentally now that I have this to focus on," Troy writes. "I've said it before that I've been going out of my mind with boredom, etc. I also want to make it good for the volunteers, and the community at large, and not just those that benefit from the plans directly. What's that they say about how people live longer if they have work to do? And the number one killer of retired people... "

Troy is hoping enough people will donate to his non-profit organization to help pay for the latest hardware and software that will be used to test for performance and compatibility with a high quality HTPC.

Interest in his proposal has been pretty positive. Of the 149 responses so far, it looks like more than 95% have been very encouraging. People are even willing to volunteer their time to help build a website (this one was thrown together pretty quickly by someone with the user name "pc1984" to demonstrate what he can do with a content management system (CMS) based website), help with the legal issues regarding setting up a non-profit organization, writing more advanced automation scripts, writing how-to guides and testing systems.

Well, I hope it works out. Personally, I'm pretty annoyed by all the hassles we have to deal with to get an HTPC to play all the high definition formats today. The latest dual/quad core CPUs from Intel or AMD and video cards from ATI or NVIDIA show promise, but sorting out the right combination of drivers, codecs and applications is enough to piss off an experienced HTPC builder. It will be interesting to see where this leads. I'll be paying close attention.

Good luck Troy!!

Networking problems when Vista Audio is Active

2007-08-22T11:25:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd relay some news about Vista audio that has been spreading around the last few days...

People have reported on the 2CPU forums that network performance is throttled whenever they play audio in Vista. It looks like more of an annoyance that a critical problem. Hopefully Microsoft will respond with a bug fix in the near future.

UPDATE 8/24: more information about this issues discussed in this AVS Forum thread.

HD-Audio - more comments

2007-08-21T11:13:00.000-05:00

Constantin Gonzalez posted this excellent article: "So, where's the future of HD Audio?" in his blog a few days ago.

He explains that the music industry has 2 major problems with high definition audio:

most fans, retailers and music publishers don't care about HD audio
those that are interested in HD audio are a small niche scattered across many competing format choices

The first problem is due to the fact that most people have been told CD quality audio is good enough. Heck, most people are perfectly satisfied with less than CD quality - lossy encoded MP3s or AACs they either download from peer-to-peer sites or purchase from iTunes or other online music stores. Constantin explains that the human ear/brain is much more accurate and capable of hearing a higher dynamic range of audio and phase differences than is possible with CD recordings.

He's right. If only people knew what they were missing, maybe there would be more interest in HD audio. Some may argue that DVD quality video is also good enough, but the fact that more people are purchasing HD televisions, obviously they must believe there are added benefits to the higher resolution video images. Otherwise, why bother spending a few thousand dollars on a new screen when the standard definition screens are only a few hundred bucks and they work fine for watching DVDs. Now that they own a nice HD monitor, maybe they'll want to match it with a sound system capable of reproducing the audio tracks in all their higher resolution surround sound glory. If they appreciate the improved quality from the movie's sound tracks, maybe they will demand higher quality audio from the artists that provide rock, jazz, classical, etc., recordings.

Constantin says the second problem is really a mess and it is really about how the companies in the music business are competing to control the next popular format(s). The combination of competing media like SACD, DVD-Audio and now HD DVD and Blu-Ray, along with competing encoding methods like DSD or 24bit PCM with compression schemes from either Dolby, DTS, Meridian, etc., etc., AND the DRM methods employed to restrict copying resulting in a variety of hardware incompatibilities have just made the transition to HD audio very difficult.

All of this has created so much confusion with the average consumer that they are more inclined to just wait it out until a clear winner emerges so they don't mistakenly invest a lot of money in a bunch of discs or equipment that aren't supported in the future. Besides, the latest technology is always pretty expensive. Look at the historical prices of any consumer A/V products. Early VCRs were over $1,000, as were the earliest DVD players. Now look at how much they cost. Nobody wants to repeat the mistake of purchasing a $1,200 Beta VCR, like I did.

So, combining these problems we have the old chicken and the egg dilemma. Most people don't care about HD audio, but why should they? There's really not enough HD content out there to make it worth while on any single format. Maybe the big record labels are unwilling to produce albums on HD media until they are confident a secure HD format is popular enough to make it worth the necessary investment. Since most of the current HD audio content is offered through many small niches on either SACD or DVD-Audio and possibly HD DVD or Blu-Ray in the near future, there obviously is no clear winner. From a business perspective, compared to regular CDs and DVDs all of these higher quality formats are huge losers.

Oh, and to add to the confusion... Interactive MVI discs are the CD's newest rivals.

I guess this is one of the reasons why I think PC audio is the way to go. With a PC, you can play almost every media type and encoding method out there. You might not even have to deal with multiple media types if you choose to download from online music stores that offer HD audio albums.

I Got a Rocket in My Pocket

2007-08-20T14:58:00.000-05:00

I found this great NRBQ clip on YouTube. I also got a kick out of some of the comments following the clip:

Huzzab: "Before I ever heard these guys, I read two reviews. One was "Good music to get drunk to." The other was "NRBQ doesn't let their exceptional musical ability get in the way of their playing". They certainly didn't let me down! Terry Adams is the devil incarnate."

seantgould: " best American rock and roll band EVER...u can't name any band with keyboard and guitar solos as cool as the Q...sorry, just my opinion"

chalkdavid: "Outstanding. Al and Terry solo their asses off and Joey and Tommy are about the most inventive rhythm section around."

What is HD Audio?

2007-08-07T09:36:00.000-05:00

I just read a response by Mark Waldrup, Ph.D., to an article on HD Audio that appeared in SmartHouse News. Mark is the chief engineer at AIX Records. He's also the founder and director of the High Definition Surround Music Association (HDSMA), a non-profit dedicated to supplying accurate information and demos of HD Audio.

In his comments, Mark answers "What is HD Audio?"

Here's the definition the HDSMA prefers - "HD Audio is music or sound that is captured from the acoustic source at or near the fidelity of human hearing."

Mark explains that this means recorded/reproduced sound that has a frequency response of at least 20 kHz and a dynamic range of around 124 dB or more.

He goes on the say that the only consumer formats capable of supporting HD Audio fidelity are SACD and DVD-Audio. However, most of the SACD and DVD-Audio discs released are not true HD Audio because they are performances that were recorded before HD recording equipment was available. The analog tape equipment is only capable of a frequency response of 18 kHz and a signal to noise ratio of 72 dB, which is equivalent to a sample rate less than 44.1 kHz and a bit depth of 12 bits. Mark explains that even though you re-record it at 24 bit/96 kHz, it won't sound any better than the original analog master tape.

Mark also mentions that the HD in HD Radio doesn't stand for high definition, but is instead something like "hybrid digital." I agree that this is only adding to consumer confusion, especially when you consider that the resolution of HD Radio is only 64 kbps, which is half the bitrate of the worst quality MP3 or iTunes downloads available today.

Personally, I think the marketers have really screwed things up. It probably started when the marketing folks at Microsoft referred to the quality of their WMA encoder as "CD quality" when the bitrate was set to 128 kbps. The marketers probably know that if this kind of thing is repeated enough people will just accept it as fact (hmmm, that sounds familiar). Other companies simply play along. Now MusicGiants refers to their losslessly compressed tracks, which are really CD quality, as HD audio to distinguish it from the lossy encoded tracks available from the big music services like iTunes. Their 24 bit/96 kHz tracks are now referred to as "Super HD Audio". According to Mark, MusicGiant's "Super HD Audio" isn't even HD Audio because it was re-purposed from the original analog master tapes instead of recorded with actual HD equipment.

I have listened to 24 bit/96 kHz recordings (both 2 channel and 5.1 surround) from MusicGiants and they do sound better than the same recordings that I already owned on CD. However, I haven't had a chance to listen to the HD Audio offered by AIX Records. I first read about Mark (Dr. AIX) last Winter and am still waiting for them to launch their itrax.com website, which will offer HD Audio downloads. I thought their website was going to go live in June. I wonder what is holding them up... Anyhow, I am looking forward to hearing what Mark calls True HD audio. Hopefully they will have a diverse catalog with a lot of great artists to choose from.

Free "Seduction Music"

2007-08-04T13:43:00.000-05:00

Every month, Magnatunes gives away free downloads of
one compilation album on magnatune.com/freemusic.

August's freebie: their "seduction mix," The Art of Persuasion.

What's taking so long?

2007-08-01T14:06:00.000-05:00

Just a little update for those of you that might be wondering how our development is coming along...

We are still working on the 2nd generation prototype. There are a lot of updates to the original design. The amp modules are higher quality, the audio interface/soundcard section is going to be much improved and we hope to have a new power section. The main things holding us up are:

The audio interface/soundcard section still uses a FireWire (IEEE1394a) interface. Although, this still seems to be the best solution for multichannel sound, we are searching for a good multichannel USB2 solution. In either case (FireWire or USB2), we have a lot of work to do before completing the drivers and the control panel applet.
We are still waiting for a couple of key vendors to finish the development of their high quality (audiophile grade) switch-mode power supplies (SMPS). A SMPS will be a much more practical solution for a multichannel system. Linear supplies with adequate power will be very large and heavy and we'd like to design chassis' that weigh a lot less than 40 lbs and are smaller than a 1 drawer filing cabinet.

Flashback!

2007-07-28T13:26:00.000-05:00

In my Enjoying My Tunes post from June 7th, I mentioned a Genesis concert that I went to in St. Louis when Peter Gabriel was the lead singer. My friend Rocky just sent me a link to this YouTube clip from another concert of Peter Gabriel and Genesis performing the same song: "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", so I decided to post it to show what I meant when I said Peter Gabriel's performance was very theatrical.

Thanks for the flashback, Rocky!

2nd Generation Hybrid from LG Announced

2007-07-27T10:35:00.000-05:00

This Engadget post (from 7/19, I know... old news, but I was on a short little vacation in northern Wisconsin and missed it) reports on another announcement from LG about their 2nd generation hybrid drives. The $500 GGW-H20LI reads both HD disc formats, and writes at 6x dual-layer BD-R/RE discs (as well as DVD±RW). There's also a cheaper drive that only reads the HD formats, but will write DVD±RW and CD-R/RW. Since the 1st gen drive was priced around $1K and now the 2nd gen is $500, I wonder how long it will take before these are offered for under $100. Maybe a year??

New SongSpot - Reggae Genius

2007-06-22T14:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not a huge fan of reggae music like some of you that may have adopted the Rastafarian lifestyle by growing dreadlocks and smoking ganja all day, but I like it (sort of the opposite of the 10cc song "I don't like reggae - I love it") Reggae music brings back fond memories of when I visited Jamaica during my freshman year in college with my UW teammates. I'll never forget walking down a valley road in the suburbs of Kingston around Christmas 1972 when some Jamaican guy told us we were on the wrong side of the earth. Actually he said, "Hey mon, you on da wrong side of da earth." It's probably one of those 'you had to be there' kind of experiences to appreciate.

Like a lot of casual fans of reggae, I like music from Bob Marley, Ziggy, Peter Tosh, Third World, Jimmy Cliff, UB40 etc, but I'm not as familiar with some of the lesser known reggae musicians. Thanks to our friends at Sonific, I found a reggae artist that seems to have slipped through the cracks of my reggae music universe. The latest SongSpot (I know, I've neglected this for awhile) is the song "Fight to the Finish" from Lee "Scratch" Perry. His biography sounds interesting: "Some call him a genius, others claim he's certifiably insane, a madman. Truth is, he's both, but more importantly, Lee Perry is a towering figure in reggae -- a producer, mixer, and songwriter who, along with King Tubby, helped shape the sound of dub and made reggae music such a powerful part of the pop music world."

External Video Cards, Pt. 2

2007-06-18T17:59:00.000-05:00

Back in February, I posted an article about external video cards and the possibility of creating a new type of PC audio/video receiver. This would combine the audio functionality of the product we are developing with an external video card.

I haven't really been spending much time researching this, because we are focusing on the audio side of things and video is definitely out-of-scope at this time or our project will never get finished.

Anyhow, I came across another Engadget article (I haven't read other blogs for quite a while, so this is maybe a little dated) about MSI's Luxium external graphics solution. The Chinese translation isn't very clear, but most of it makes sense.

Toshiba's HD DVD burner and Hitachi's hybrid Blu-Ray / HD DVD Drives

2007-06-18T17:20:00.000-05:00

Bring on the competition and let the prices drop!!

Toshiba announced a slimline HD DVD burner for laptops (shown on the left) with a writing capacity of 15GB+
(I'm not sure what the plus is for, and I'm to lazy to look it up today. I might update the post at a later date.)

I also found this report on Engadget about the Hitachi GGW-H20N (shown on the right). This internal Blu-ray writing / HD DVD reading combo drive looks to have the same features as this LG drive. Actually, it might be a bit better because it can burn 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray discs, along with BD-R, BD-RW, and the typical flavors of writable DVDs and CDs.

Enjoying My Tunes

2007-06-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

When I was young and first getting into music, I only had a few singles or 45s. Actually, most of the collection probably belonged to my two older brothers. I still have a few of those 45s, but nothing to play them on. 'Bend Me, Shape Me' by the American Breed and a bunch of Beach Boys singles (Be True to Your School) are the only ones that have survived. Like a lot of kids, my musical tastes were influenced by what I heard on the radio and from friends. My brothers also had a huge influence on the stuff I liked and my friends older siblings also exposed us to a variety of different music. When I was in Junior High, I started purchasing albums. I liked mostly American rock and roll at that time. I think one of my first albums was Santana's first. The one with the big lion's head on the cover. It was the 60s, so I also liked a lot of the psychedelic and folk/rock that was popular like The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane and The Doors. Of course, I really liked some English rock as well, like the Who, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Then in high school, thanks to my friend Marc Aserlind, my tastes began to expand and I was introduced to Frank Zappa's music. Frank was a genius and I still love his music. However, it's not something that I play as background music while having dinner with my wife and kids ;). My older brother Scott, who by then had started college, introduced me to English prog rock from bands like Yes and Flash. During Scott's freshman year, he bought a really nice stereo system from his college dorm mate's older brother, who I think got it in Hong Kong on his way back home from Vietnam. The system included a big reel-to-reel 1/4" Teac tape deck, so Scott also taped a lot of albums from his friends at his dorm. I really liked the sound of that system, which he set up in our shared bedroom when he came home for the summer. Scott's system was my first introduction to good stereo equipment.

In college, like most people during that time, I was introduced to a lot of new music. By the way, it was cool to have a big stereo, at least for guys (I never met a girl who was obsessed with stereo equipment, but plenty of guys). The bigger the speakers the better. Especially when you could hang them out your window during Saturday afternoon parties before and after college football games. I don't think it's like that today, is it? Do college guys still buy hifi? Or, do they invest in fast gaming rigs and a notebook for their school work? Obviously, a lot of college kids have portable mp3 players like the iPod. So they're using their PCs for storing their music collections and transferring tracks to their iPods for playback through their earbuds. Ah, if they could only hear good speakers, they'd know what they were missing. I just don't think they buy a lot of hifi equipment like they did in my day, but I could be wrong. Anyhow, when I was in college, I shared a house with nine other guys. They were the Preston brothers, Bruce and Keith, Beazer, Jimmy Mac, Murph, Rocky, Brad, Nigel and Captain Dan. They weren't exactly your typical or I should say normal, well-behaved college boys (even though a few of them were real All-Americans). They were from a variety of places - the Prestons were from St. Louis via Racine, Beazer and Captain Dan were from the Minneapolis area, Murph was from San Diego via Cleveland, Jimmy Mac was from Brandon, Manitoba, Rocky - Vancouver, Nigel was from Australia (actually Papua, New Guinea, but he went to school in Brisbane) and Brad and I were home town boys from Madison (and there was Rawdon Peterson, also from Australia, who occasionally lived in our basement). Each of us brought with us our own unique musical tastes. Come to think of it, our musical tastes were all fairly similar or complementary.

The Prestons were huge progressive rock fans. Through their influence, I got into Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues, King Crimson, Mike Oldfield, Hatfield and the North, PFM, the Strawbs, Gentle Giant, Soft Machine, McDonald & Giles, It's a Beautiful Day, Caravan and Van Der Graaf Generator (to name a few). A lot of the guys in the house were into this type of music and we went on several road trips to Chicago or Milwaukee to see their concerts. I'll never forget the Genesis concert I went to in St. Louis with Bruce and Keith. Peter Gabriel was amazing to watch. I can still remembering him singing, "Me, I'm just a lawnmower - you can tell me by the way I walk" when they played "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)." It wasn't just the uniqueness of his voice, but the way he performed, it was very theatrical. He was a lawnmower, not an actual machine, but just a guy who mows lawns.

Nigel had to go back to Australia to study dentistry or his grandfather threatened to cut him out of any future financial support. I think they were worried that he'd turn into a Yank if he stayed here too long. While he was here, Nigel signed up for one of those mail order record deals from some company like Columbia. They'd start out by giving you 6 or 12 albums for a buck. I don't remember exactly how it worked, but I think every month you'd get a few more to sample. If you liked them, you kept them. If not, you could send them back. You were billed for the ones you kept and I think you were obligated to purchase a certain number of albums over a set period of time. It was kind of deceptive and I think the practice was probably outlawed. Anyhow, Nigel just kept all the albums and never paid for anything (except maybe the initial $1 to sign up). After he moved back to Australia, we started getting a lot of mail from Columbia asking for payment. They were pretty aggressive, to the point of harassment, even though we told them Nigel no longer lived in our house, or the country. They always included an addressed envelope you could use to pay the bill. It wasn't the same as prepaid postage. Columbia would only get billed by the post office for packages or envelopes they received. So we returned one of their bills after taping the return envelope to a big heavy cinder block (the type college students used to build bookshelves), which we wrapped up with heavy duty packaging paper. We never heard from Columbia again.

I think it was Rocky or Murph who introduced me to Todd Rundgren's music. At first I didn't really know what to think of this androgynous guy who sang "Hello It's Me". I wasn't a big "pop" music fan, but there was something different about Todd's flavor of pop music. I think a lot of it had to do with Todd's humor. He seemed to be having fun and it came across in a lot of his music. Maybe he was the antithesis of macho rock, even though he could really rock. I think later in his career when he took himself too seriously, his music became boring. Todd also provided a link between prog rock, psychedelic rock and pop rock. I really liked how he was able to weave in and out of those genres with a lot of his music, especially his "A Wizard, A True Star" album. Maybe Todd is an acquired taste, because you either love him or not, kinda like Frank Zappa, but once I was hooked, I couldn't get enough of his music. However, I'm not a big fan of his more recent music (maybe I should give it a listen again) and I've been looking ever since for newer music that combines the psychedelic, synthesized pop with his bizarre, irreverent humor.

After finishing college, like most people, I got a job and my circle of friends became smaller and smaller. I didn't go to as many clubs or concerts and didn't just hang out with my friends as much to listen to music. Besides, a lot of my friends - the ones who shared my passion for music, got jobs and/or married and moved away. So I was no longer exposed to the latest and greatest music, at least not like I was during college. Of course I continued to enjoy my music collection, but it wasn't really growing at the same rate.

I was a little slow to go digital. I had a pretty nice analog system, so I was in no hurry to convert everything over to CDs. Obviously, I've made the transition because I use a computer to store and manage my collection, but there are still quite a few LPs that I haven't been able to find on CD. During the 80s I discovered only a few new artists like the Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, XTC, the Police and the Clash.

Musically, the late 80s to mid to late 90s seems pretty blurry to me. I didn't really get into hard core punk or the Seattle grunge rock and alt-rock scene. By then I was married and we started having kids. I didn't buy much new music or spend a lot of time really listening to music. The combination of my job and having small children, etc. was all consuming. There were still a few bands that caught my attention, like the Dave Matthews Band, Barenaked Ladies (finally another band that doesn't take things too seriously) Stereolab, Tortoise, the Flaming Lips and Radiohead.

In the late 90s I went to work for Sonic Foundry, a company that developed software for musicians and audio engineers. Most of my fellow employees were pretty passionate about music, many were musicians. That helped to reinvigorate my passion for music. The Internet was also a huge part of my reawakened interest in music. I know the RIAA seems to blame the Internet for all of their problems, but personally, I know I wouldn't be buying as much music if I didn't have such an easy way to learn about new artists. The other component that has really made music fun is my computer. It's wonderful being able to store music on a media server and pipe it around the house or feed a nice speaker system in my listening room. The ability to make custom playlists auto-magically is also something I really enjoy and could go on and on about, but will save for a future post. Obviously, I rediscovered my passion. This is one of the things that has inspired me to start a company to build audio components so others can get high quality sound when they use their PC as a source component.

I've heard a lot of people from my generation complain about the lack of any really good new music. They usually complain that none of the new artists compare to the bands from the 60s or 70s. I think they're wrong. There's a lot of good new music. I'm discovering something new every week using Internet radio like Slacker or going to websites like NPR's "All Songs Considered". I discovered artists like Paddy Casey, the Shins, Postal Service, Bright Eyes, Arcade Fire, the Decemberists through those websites. It's also broadened my musical horizons and I listen to a lot more jazz and classical music. I highly recommend checking out bands like the Bad Plus. I've learned about others while reading the overviews of artists in the allmusic guide and following links to similar artists. And recommendations from artists I already enjoy are pretty helpful. Check out one of these artist's MySpace page and see if they include comments about other artists that have inspired them or that they enjoy. You'll probably discover some older music you may have skipped over and some new stuff that would otherwise never get your attention.

Hybrid Blu-ray & HD DVD from LG

2007-05-19T08:47:00.001-05:00

This Blu-ray / HD DVD combo drive from LG is more like it (except the price is wrong). It's called the Super Multi Blue’ (GGW-H10N) and was announced back in January at the CES show. This drive actually burns Blu-ray discs. It only reads HD DVD, but that's okay with me, since (like I said in last Thursday's post) there's plenty of capacity with Blu-ray discs.

Another announcement I missed was HP's plan to include this drive in new media center PCs (goes to show that HP isn't abandoning the HTPC market afterall) .

I wonder how much more HP will charge for the systems that include the Blu-ray / HD DVD combo drives. The base price of the systems are around $925 - $950 and LG set the retail price of the drive somewhere around $1,000, so a safe bet would be somewhere around $1,950, but I've read rumors that the drive addition might be as low as $560, which would make the system price about $1,500. That's not too bad considering LG's stand-alone combo player is priced at $1,200.

Steven Page - More Comments on DRM and the Music Industry

2007-05-18T10:21:00.000-05:00

This is really just a link post, but I also wanted to bring attention to the latest SongSpot as well, which is another song by the Barenaked Ladies.

Steven Page, singer and guitarist for the Barenaked Ladies, talks about DRM in this interview with Mark Blevis on Electric Sky posted earlier today.

There's also this article by Nate Anderson for Ars Technica who spoke to Steven Page about a compulsory license model that would allow consumers access to all the music they want and would ensure that artists get paid.

I'm currently reading "The Future of Music, Manifesto For The Digital Music Revolution" by David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard (Sonific's Founder and CEO - the folks who give us the SongSpot technology). I really think everyone in the music industry should read this book and Gerd's Music Like Water Manifesto and his more recent comments in this post titled, "Flat Fee Music" & The MUSIC LIKE WATER MANIFESTO". After I finish the book and have a chance to absorb everything, I'll post my views.

Pioneer BDC-2202 Blu-ray Drive -- Getting Closer

2007-05-17T14:34:00.000-05:00

I just read this announcement about a new Blu-ray drive from Pioneer. This new Pioneer BDC-2202, priced at $300, is getting closer to the price I might pay for a new HD capable internal PC drive for my HTPC. I'd still like to see these at a little lower price and I'm sure that will happen, especially if the HPs and Dells of the world start including them in their system packages. I also expect to see the price of the HD drives follow the same downward pricing trend that happened with CD and DVD drives.

From the Times article linked above: "The BDC-2200 can both read and write Blu-ray discs and standard DVDs and CDs. It records BD-R discs — standard writable discs — at 5X (five times the speed of the first Blu-ray recorders) and writes double-layer Blu-ray discs at 2X."

Ideally, I'd like to buy a drive with the functionality of the BDC-2200 AND the ability to play HD DVD discs. It doesn't have to burn HD DVD, because the Blu-ray capacity is sufficient. Hopefully we'll see something like this from Samsung, LG Electronics or Liteon in the near future. Afterall, both Samsung and LG have announced dual Blu-ray/HD DVD format players.

UPDATE: It looks like the New York Times article was mistaken about the capabilities of this new drive. I should have checked a few other sources before writing this post. It turns out that the Pioneer BDC-2202 does not burn Blu-ray discs. I wondered why the front panel shows BD-ROM. Otherwise, it would have probably been labeled BD/DVD/CD Writer. The quoted stats for writing discs is actually the read performance. I fully expect to see lower priced drives with the ability to burn Blu-ray discs in the future. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer than I thought.