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  #21  
Old 02-04-2011, 04:55 AM
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Puma Cat Puma Cat is offline
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You can't necessarily go by that...lots of companies partner up and share a room at audio shows. I"m sure it works....the question is whether what is essentially nothing more than a PC worth 7 large.
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  #22  
Old 02-04-2011, 07:36 AM
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howiebrou howiebrou is offline
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You sound like you need to investigate a Meridian Sooloos System. The Sooloos can import all your 11000 songs with ease (I am up to about 23,000 I think) and pass it digitally to the 808.3 CDP or 861 processor. Then it can pass it digitally onto the speakers if you want to keep it in the digital stream.

The 808.3 can accept up to 6 digital inputs and the 861 way more than that since it is customizable.

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  #23  
Old 02-21-2011, 04:02 PM
skunark skunark is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chadhaas View Post
Apparently what PS Audio is able to do with their DAC is true.

This is a bit too technical from me, but why not get the word straight from Classé Audio. Even after reading this I have to admit quite a bit of confusion over the mp3 versus Lossless question. It sounds like, from the description from Classé that the iPod would become the "server". To achieve CD quality sound, you still would need CD quality file formats .... or am I wrong.

Anyhow here is Classé Audio's response:

"
Most USB DACs have asynchronous synchronization, since it is essential to audio performance. USB was originally designed to allow a PC to connect to a printer and print out, which is not a particularly time sensitive operation. USB therefore requires asynchronous synchronization to tackle timing errors that will reduce audio performance. Rather than the computer deciding when to send the audio, the DAC takes control and demands that the audio be sent exactly when it wants it. This delivers low jitter and performance.

In this context, the CP-800 will certainly have very high quality asynchronous synchronization but it will also benefit from our data de-correlation. This will deliver a whole new level of performance. Data is sent in packages, which are like moving containers. Data de-correlation involves removing the data from the containers, which will have timing errors, and repackaging them in our brand new, perfectly timed containers which are sent to the DACs. This has dramatic sonic effects.

Another major factor is our Single Clock Substrate. A clock is very simple. It's just a continuous sequence of 1010101010 that is used to synchronize the data. The speed at which the 1 changes to a 0 is the speed of the clock. Most of our competitors use multi-purpose microcontrollers to handle all aspects of USB, from the retrieving of the data from the PC to the re-clocking of the audio. This is not ideal. The data being sent from the PC is controlled by a clock that is running at a different speed to the audio clock and has no co-relation with it. This means that you have a variety of different clocks operating simultaneously on a single piece of silicon. This inevitably creates noise.
First I must say the internal pictures of the Classe Cp-800 look really clean and well designed, but I have to say that the paragraphs quoted above are rather hilarious. It's always fun to see where marketing folks don't fully understand digital design.

Data de-correlation... this again is nothing new, "logic" has to extract the audio payload found in the USB packet, move the data to a buffer and ship it to the DAC in either SPDIF or hopefully I2S bus. There are three modes of isochonrous transfers that USB Audio Devices have to pick and use: Synchronous, Asynchronous and Adaptive. By design Asynchronous and Adaptive requires the USB DAC to provide it's own clocks, where adaptive just needs one clock. For all three types, audio data is sent in intervals with hopes the data arrives safely and on time.

A continuos sequence of 101010101 is a clock in the "digital" world, this is nothing new, everything has this. I assume that their USB DAC is resynchronizing the data to reduce jitter and they just don't know how to state that. Perhaps fluff sells?

Every dealer demo with Classe I've done has been been a mix bag, sounds great, but awful to use. When the dealer handed me the remote I quickly got annoyed as each time I changed the track on the CD player, it changed the input source on the pre-amp as well. Dealer couldn't figure out how to fix it either.
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  #24  
Old 02-22-2011, 10:47 PM
ChrisG ChrisG is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Face View Post
Yes, he's talking about the music server capabilities sounding as good as using their transport.
Agreed. Paul waxes poetically quite a bit with his marketing, but he's never made the claim that MP3s sound as good as FLAC or WAV files. Nor has he made claims that the Bridge will make MP3s sound as good as these formats. He does believe that the Bridge makes digital files sound as good as the same files played through his PerfectWave Transport.

I own a PWD w/ Bridge and a SSP-800. Granted, the SSP does not do what the CP-800 will do with digital files directly, but I have compared the PWD run directly through the SSP on bypass (without DACs in the loop) and with it using bass management and the PEQ (which engages its DACs) and I think the PWD sounds better on bypass.

One of the issues I have with both Classe models is that subwoofers can not be used when the bypass option is used, consequently I have just purchased a dedicated 2-channel preamp (Parasound JC-2) so that I can use my JL Audio subs with my Vivid B-1s. I'll be hooking this up this week. In my room, the subs may not really be needed, but I hate not using the f112s.

Chad - let me know if you have more questions about either Classe or the PWD. BTW, Classe says that the CP-800 is their best sounding preamp yet, but I'd expect them to say that since it will be their only 2-channel preamp going forward.
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