sammyrambler
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2011
- Posts
- 24
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- 0
[size=small][size=10pt]I recently purchased an Emotiva ERC-2 CDP that I primarily use as the source in my headphone rig (ERC-2>Woo Audio WA6 SE>Grado RS1i or Sennheiser HD 650).[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]So here’s where I need help: I have almost 2 TB of music files that are housed on External Hard Drives and are primarily in FLAC (with the rest being in SHN) codec, but I don’t know how to incorporate those into my headphone set up (the good news is that the headphone amp has 2 source inputs).[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]Do I have to buy a computer and load it with Foobar2000 (my media player of choice) and connect via USB? Or are there stand alone music server-only interfaces on the market I could connect to my hard drives? (Budget being $1,200 or less...the Emotiva XDA-1 DAC I'm looking at is $349.)[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt](I’ve heard that computers are “noisy” and generally bad as a music source…does a stand alone DAC solve those problems or do I have to upgrade sound cards, etc., to get the best sound.) [/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]In addition to USB, the DAC I'm looking at has AES/EBU and Toslink inputs (though I have never heard of AES/EBU or Toslink.) Are these options better than USB?[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]I apologize for my ignorance when it comes to all of this, but I’ve been researching these topics and there doesn’t seem to be consensus. So I figured I'd see what you guys would do?[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]So here’s where I need help: I have almost 2 TB of music files that are housed on External Hard Drives and are primarily in FLAC (with the rest being in SHN) codec, but I don’t know how to incorporate those into my headphone set up (the good news is that the headphone amp has 2 source inputs).[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]Do I have to buy a computer and load it with Foobar2000 (my media player of choice) and connect via USB? Or are there stand alone music server-only interfaces on the market I could connect to my hard drives? (Budget being $1,200 or less...the Emotiva XDA-1 DAC I'm looking at is $349.)[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt](I’ve heard that computers are “noisy” and generally bad as a music source…does a stand alone DAC solve those problems or do I have to upgrade sound cards, etc., to get the best sound.) [/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]In addition to USB, the DAC I'm looking at has AES/EBU and Toslink inputs (though I have never heard of AES/EBU or Toslink.) Are these options better than USB?[/size][/size]
[size=small][size=10pt]I apologize for my ignorance when it comes to all of this, but I’ve been researching these topics and there doesn’t seem to be consensus. So I figured I'd see what you guys would do?[/size][/size]