[brunk]

Quote:

A transport just spins the CD- no digital to audio converter.  In the old days, a dedicated transport hooked up to an outboard DAC was the hot way to go.
 
With the Oppo stuff, Audio Adviser sells some modified / upgraded Oppo players.  Usually the upgrades are on the sound quality side of things, as the video from those players is already super impressive. 

Plus, the Oppo 95 has won multiple product of the year awards from both home theater and audio review websites. I have never met someone unsatisfied with the 95 either. The modded Oppos are the older ones, the 95 is alot better than those, and upgrades aren't even needed. The Oppo 95 is one of those rare "no brainer" products, that alot of companies try to mimic.

 

[bixby]

Ok, let's see if I can answer your questions.  First the Touch does not have a hard drive it is merely a wired or wireless device to get the streamed content form a server like your desktop.  As for the dac it int, let's put it this way.  I sold my Benchmark Dac 1 and used it with a good desktop tube amp and headphones and it did very well indeed.  I then did use a Ross Martin dac via coax or optical form the touch and it was a bit better.  You really have to search for good usb implementations to find a good usb dac under $500.  I do think there might be a hack for the usb port on the touch that may allow hooking one up but I have no experience in doing so.  There are also some tweaks you can do to the Touch to get it to sound even better.  I can get you a link if you wish.  I only did a few simple ones and it did sound better.
 
 
As for outputting bit perfect, yes absolutely, if the file on your server is bit perfect or the file you are playing is, unlike the Apple tv and some formats.
 
I did look up the j3 Cowan, the touch has no hard drive and is mostly used with the server software running on another machine or playing off the sd or usb.  So yes it is somewhat like the Cowan but it will also play flac, AIFF, Apple lossless files.  It also does internet Radio with tons of stations.
 
Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[esn89]

Quote:

Ok, let's see if I can answer your questions.  First the Touch does not have a hard drive it is merely a wired or wireless device to get the streamed content form a server like your desktop.  As for the dac it int, let's put it this way.  I sold my Benchmark Dac 1 and used it with a good desktop tube amp and headphones and it did very well indeed.  I then did use a Ross Martin dac via coax or optical form the touch and it was a bit better.  You really have to search for good usb implementations to find a good usb dac under $500.  I do think there might be a hack for the usb port on the touch that may allow hooking one up but I have no experience in doing so.  There are also some tweaks you can do to the Touch to get it to sound even better.  I can get you a link if you wish.  I only did a few simple ones and it did sound better.
 
 
As for outputting bit perfect, yes absolutely, if the file on your server is bit perfect or the file you are playing is, unlike the Apple tv and some formats.
 
I did look up the j3 Cowan, the touch has no hard drive and is mostly used with the server software running on another machine or playing off the sd or usb.  So yes it is somewhat like the Cowan but it will also play flac, AIFF, Apple lossless files.  It also does internet Radio with tons of stations.
 
Let me know if you have any more questions.

Yes, I understand that the Touch does not have a hard drive (therefore it isn't really an mp3 player).
 
Now, if we look at this picture here:  http://www.hometheater.com/images/archivesart/1010logi.bac.jpg

We can see that it clearly has a USB input.  So, instead of streaming over wireless devices, can I feed it a USB stick with a bunch of FLAC files and have it play from there?  Or is my only choice streaming over wired/wireless?
 
Also, can I see the link for tweaks?  Thanks.
 
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I am very happy to learn that it outputs bit perfect audio.  I guess that is a lot more manageable than the way my Cowon J3's analog signal, because it is simply too weak!

 

[bixby]

yes you can hook up a properly formatted usb stick or usb drive to the touch.  Here is one of the links on the touch mods, http://soundcheck-audio.blogspot.com/2011/11/touch-toolbox-30.html

 

[esn89]

Quote:

yes you can hook up a properly formatted usb stick or usb drive to the touch.  Here is one of the links on the touch mods, http://soundcheck-audio.blogspot.com/2011/11/touch-toolbox-30.html

 
Awesome, so bottom line here is....say if I have a 64GB SD card and a 64GB USB, I can treat this is as a very big "flac-player" (for lack of better name I didn't want to use mp3-player haha) with digital output? : )