I know that by this point I've become something of a broken record regarding computer based digital audio but I really don't understand how some statements are allowed to be printed.
Case in point: Stet Siblerman's quote "The QB-9 isn't a computer peripheral. It makes computers real high-end music sources." While the statement is basically true its sin is in omission. Don't Logitech's Transporter and Linn's Klimax DS also make computers into "real high-end music sources"? And for that matter the Klimax DS supports even higher resolutions than either the QB-9 and the Transporter, going all the way up to 192hKz.
All this won't trouble my all that much coming from a reviewer or magazine unfamiliar with music servers but coming from WP and Stereophile it is completely inexcusable. Music servers do away with many of the problems that the USB based QB-9 and iTunes present, namely no jitter and no jumping through hoops to get iTunes play hi-rez files. I've been downloading and enjoying high resolution (24bit/96kHz) FLAC files from HDTracks played back through my Transporter without having to convert the files to another format and without having to restart SqueezeCenter (the softwqare used to control the music server and access my hard drive based music library) every time a file with different resolution comes up. Plus while my computer is not dead quiet it really doesn't matter since it's located in another part of the house, far away from my listening room. To quote WP: "DUH!"
Once again, as all too often seems to be the case these days as far as computer based digital audio is concerned, it's one step forward (since the QB-9 does appear to be an excellent USB based DAC) but two steps backwards (no mention of or comparisons to music servers).
I know that by this point I've become something of a broken record regarding computer based digital audio but I really don't understand how some statements are allowed to be printed.
Case in point: Stet Siblerman's quote "The QB-9 isn't a computer peripheral. It makes computers real high-end music sources." While the statement is basically true its sin is in omission. Don't Logitech's Transporter and Linn's Klimax DS also make computers into "real high-end music sources"? And for that matter the Klimax DS supports even higher resolutions than either the QB-9 and the Transporter, going all the way up to 192hKz.
All this won't trouble my all that much coming from a reviewer or magazine unfamiliar with music servers but coming from WP and Stereophile it is completely inexcusable. Music servers do away with many of the problems that the USB based QB-9 and iTunes present, namely no jitter and no jumping through hoops to get iTunes play hi-rez files. I've been downloading and enjoying high resolution (24bit/96kHz) FLAC files from HDTracks played back through my Transporter without having to convert the files to another format and without having to restart SqueezeCenter (the softwqare used to control the music server and access my hard drive based music library) every time a file with different resolution comes up. Plus while my computer is not dead quiet it really doesn't matter since it's located in another part of the house, far away from my listening room. To quote WP: "DUH!"
Once again, as all too often seems to be the case these days as far as computer based digital audio is concerned, it's one step forward (since the QB-9 does appear to be an excellent USB based DAC) but two steps backwards (no mention of or comparisons to music servers).