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 September 1, 2009 Computer Audio Downloads for the Beginner: Great Sound, Cheap and Easy! It was a summer day like any other when I received an e-mail from fellow Soundstage! Network reviewer Colin Smith. The e-mail was titled "Intervention." Was Colin in a crisis? Had his friends and family intervened and he was now telling the world? This didn’t sound like the Colin I know, so I opened the e-mail with some curiosity only to discover that the intervention was not about Colin, but me! For several years, Colin has been trying to get me to move to computer audio. Whenever I speak to him, he never fails to remind me that WAV, FLAC, and similarly named file codecs represent the future of high-end music reproduction. This time, however, Colin had had enough. He’d just heard his first 24-bit/176.4kHz HRx WAV file from Reference Recordings and was, to say the least, highly impressed: "The HRx recordings are stunning!" he wrote. "They have a data throughput of over 8 kilobits per second -- that’s five-and-a-half times more data than a standard 16-bit/44.1kHz CD track! The headroom on the recordings is monumental, and there’s no distortion, no peaks. Just bloody awesome. And detail and ambience like I’ve never heard before." Colin would now not rest until there was a computer attached to my audio system. My interest was piqued. By chance, however, my friend David Cockrum had just finished telling me that the whole computer-audio thing almost wasn’t worth it, at least not yet. Dave is a guy of extreme technological savvy, well known in audiophile forums for his wealth of knowledge about everything from optimizing a tonearm to dialing in the room-correction software of a home-theater processor. Yet Dave was lamenting that his recent foray into computer audio had brought him nothing but headaches. Talking with Dave, it seemed that most of his frustration came from challenges in selecting a ripper and a player, dealing with the incompatibilities of that software and different types of music files, and storing and cataloging the files on his hard drive. In fact, from my conversations with other audiophiles, it appears that these often complex and trying issues have kept some of them, too, away from computer audio. "Hey, Colin," I said in a subsequent telephone call; "Dave says this computer audio stuff is a pain in the #&$!" "Don’t worry," he responded. "Sometimes you have to forget about the technology and just listen to the music." "OK, OK. I’ll do it." Still, I had reservations. I’d long been saving my pennies for a high-end disc player, and diverting any funds to computer audio would empty that particular piggy bank. Also, I had a heavy review schedule, and knew I wouldn’t have the time to troll the Internet forums soliciting help about some highly esoteric computer problem. Thus, I approached computer audio with two Nonnegotiable Requirements: 1) The experience had to be inexpensive, and 2) It had to be painless. By this point, Colin had already contacted Blue Circle Audio and arranged for them to send me one of their D/A converters, the USB Thingee HO ($299 USD). This USB DAC (the HO stands for High analog Output), which I refer to below simply as the Thingee, should not be confused with the Thingees Blue Circle makes for other applications, including phono stages and headphone preamplifier-amplifiers. Colin had reviewed the standard version of the USB Thingee ($169) in the May 2008 edition of GoodSound! and found it to be very, very good. In his review, Colin said that the Thingee was "Proof positive that, with a computer and an inexpensive converter, it’s possible to assemble a digital source that easily keeps up with +$2000 standalone players." The USB Thingee HO Colin ran down the basics of the standard USB Thingee in his review. I won’t repeat them here, but one thing worth repeating is that, to keep costs to a minimum, and like other versions of the Thingee, the USB Thingee HO is housed in a short length of ABS pipe. This out-of-the-box thinking makes for one of the more interesting appearances you’ll find in an audio product.
The standard Thingee draws power from your computer -- according to Blue Circle, not a problem in most applications. However, when a Thingee is used with amplifiers of unusually low gain, or integrated amplifiers that have a passive preamp stage, additional output may be required. The Thingee HO has an external power supply claimed to output a maximum of 3.5V, enough to drive almost any component to full power. In addition to the Thingee HO, Blue Circle sent me a Biggie Pipe, an optional external power supply that’s larger and more robust than the standard one. A Biggie Pipe adds $200 to the price of a USB Thingee HO, for a total cost of $499. Those who’ve already bought a standard Thingee should not despair. If the HO version is what you now need, Blue Circle has recently made available an upgrade that will transform your Thingee into a Thingee HO for $165. Retrofitting your previously purchased Thingee HO with a Biggie Pipe will cost an additional $250. (There is no Biggie Pipe upgrade for the standard USB Thingee.) Cables Choosing a USB cable presented a problem. My desktop computer was across the room from my audio system and really wasn’t convenient to move. I knew that a long audiophile USB cable would be expensive. Also, when it comes to USB cables, the consensus is that the shorter the link, the better the performance. Colin suggested that I buy a dedicated laptop and place it next to the Thingee, but I didn’t want to do that until I’d found out what, if anything, the soon-to-be-introduced Windows 7 operating system would mean for audio reproduction. I therefore purchased a general-purpose, 16’ Belkin USB cable to run from the desktop computer to the Thingee. The cable cost about $10.
Finding a suitable pair of interconnects was easy -- I have an assortment of cables buried in my closet from years past. I chose some DIY cables I’d made from DH Labs BL1 wire and Vampire 557 RCA connectors that offer excellent performance for their cost (under $35). Music and media player I had a large library of MP3 music files, but nothing of high resolution. So the next thing to do was to contact Reference Recordings in order to buy some of their 24-bit/176.4kHz files. However, Reference told me that the Thingee HO would not pass 24-bit audio; the maximum resolution possible would be "Red Book" CD quality (16/44.1). No problem, Colin assured me -- through the Thingee, 16-bit, CD-quality files could sound incredible. Reference then put me in touch with HDtracks, who agreed to supply me with a password that would let me download some 16-bit titles from their website, www.hdtracks.com. To keep things simple and sidestep the problems that Dave and others had stumbled over, I decided to rip no CDs to my hard drive -- yet. I also skipped the more esoteric media players available and used only Windows Media Player. Of course, the iTunes media player will work fine if you have a Mac. I’ve been told that while these players aren’t the best-sounding out there, they’re not the worst. These decisions greatly simplified my task and meant I didn’t have to back down on Nonnegotiable Requirement 2: My experience had to be painless. Setup Inserting the USB Thingee HO in place of my computer’s soundcard was a breeze. I connected the DAC to its external power supply via the included XLR cable. I then plugged the power supply into my line conditioner, connected the Thingee’s analog outputs to my preamp via the DIY interconnects, and connected the Thingee to my computer via the Belkin USB cable. At first, I placed both the Biggie Pipe and the Synergistic Research USB cable aside and auditioned the Thingee HO by itself. Performance For a short period, I had everything set up but was still waiting to receive the audio files from HDtracks. To kill some time, I began listening to some of my MP3 files. The music had more air, and a larger soundstage, than I was used to hearing from them. Clearly, these files had never sounded like that before; I was experiencing a substantial improvement in performance over what I could get using my computer’s soundcard. Despite the improvement I was hearing, the sound was still not up to lofty audiophile standards, particularly in terms of transient speed, imaging, and dynamic range. Even so, the potential was clear; I was eager to receive the password from HDtracks so that I could start downloading and listening. Finally, I got the password. Downloading the files in FLAC format (on Colin’s advice) from HDtracks was easy. Not only that, each album came with cover art and liner notes. One caveat: I had to download a codec to get Windows Media Player to play the FLAC files. This was easy, and shouldn’t present a problem to anyone familiar with using a computer. Just a few mouse clicks later, I was listening to what absolutely was audiophile-grade sound. "The Bat Part II," from the Pat Metheny Group’s Offramp (CD, ECM 1216-2), is a prime example of Metheny’s often reflective and wandering style, which effortlessly transports the listener over a vast and open sonic landscape. (Part I of "The Bat" appears on Metheny’s preceding album, 80/81 [2 CDs, ECM 1180/81-2].) Heard through the Thingee HO, Dan Gottlieb’s cymbals were clean and shimmering, floating effortlessly in space. On "Eighteen," the Thingee wonderfully flushed out the warmth and richness of Lyle Mays’ synthesizer. Another mouse click cued up The Coryells, by Murali, Julian, and Larry Coryell (SACD/CD, Chesky SACD325). On this album, the guitar notes of Larry and his sons were rich and clearly delineated, with very respectable textures. Percussive slaps against the guitars’ wooden bodies sounded natural and demonstrated surprisingly good transients, particularly in "Something Pretty." To say that the Thingee outdid itself would be an understatement. Was the sound better than what I get from my CD player and very-well-mastered CDs? No. For example, the very highest and lowest octaves were a bit less resolved than I’m accustomed to. But we’re talking about $299 here. The USB Thingee HO is an insane value that plays in the same audiophile ballpark as many CD players costing 10 to 15 times as much. It was now time to plug in the Biggie Pipe, which, unlike the Thingee HO’s stock power supply, has a detachable power cord. I experimented with a number of cords, each of which bettered the stock cord by a significant degree. Chick Corea’s Return to Forever (CD, ECM 1022-2), from 1972, introduced the first edition of the now-famous band of that name. On track 2, "Crystal Silence," the Biggie Pipe took the harsh edge off Corea’s electric piano. Joe Farrell’s soprano sax now emerged from a much darker background. Both instruments also displayed increased detail and better image solidity, spatial placement, and soundstage depth. All in all, the Biggie Pipe allowed the Thingee HO to more effectively display the nuance and delicacy this track is famous for.
After playing several other selections with the Biggie Pipe, it became clear that the Thingee HO was now performing at levels I hadn’t anticipated before starting on this article. In fact, although I never would have believed it possible, when powered by the Biggie Pipe, the Thingee HO was at least equal to, if not better than, the "Red Book" performance of my Marantz DV-9600 disc player. (Not surprisingly, and no knock at all on the Blue Circle, the Marantz still resoundingly beat out the Thingee HO when playing higher-resolution discs such as SACDs and XRCDs.) I then temporarily dragged my computer over to the other side of the room so that I could replace the Belkin USB cable with Synergistic Research’s Tesla Tricon. Holy guacamole! This cable caught my attention like a splash of cold water on my face. The noise dropped to what seemed an inaudible level. Dynamics further increased, details emerged, and the music took on an intoxicatingly three-dimensional quality. For example, the Tesla Tricon USB brought Badi Assad’s jazzy scatting on "Num Pagode em Planaltina," from her album Solo (CD, Chesky JD099), to a totally different level of realism, revealing vocal clarity, intonation, and inflection that simply have no business emanating from a $299 piece of gear. The liner notes of Solo state that "the dynamic range of Assad’s very dramatic music includes some of the most delicate sounds ever captured on compact disc. As a result, the noise of [the] tube mike preamplifiers maybe [sic] noticeable but this is perfectly normal and will not interfere with the enjoyment of this album." The Tesla Tricon USB link fully uncovered for the first time not only the hum of the preamplifiers, but the many beautiful and exotic microdynamic subtleties audible in Assad’s work. While dragging my computer back to the other side of the room, I confronted the fact that many would question the sanity of spending more on a USB cable than on a USB DAC itself. In this instance, however, a good case could be made that, based on the Tricon’s jaw-dropping performance, it would be insane not to do so. Conclusion It will come as no surprise to hear that taking the inexpensive computer-audio route won’t get you the best sound out there. Blue Circle Audio’s USB Thingee HO won’t let you listen to 24/176.4 files, its power supply won’t outshine the Biggie Pipe, and a Belkin USB cable won’t provide the stunning performance of the Synergistic Research Tesla Tricon. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say that a USB DAC as well designed and inexpensive as the Thingee HO provides more performance per dollar than any other source that has come the way of high-end audio, be it reel-to-reel tape decks, turntables, or CD players. For very little money (including cables) and no hassle, you can have front-end performance that has traditionally cost thousands of dollars. Yes, you can spend more on some quality upgrades, such as those mentioned above, and undoubtedly it will be money well spent. In fact, it probably won’t take much more than a couple thousand dollars to find a USB DAC offering a level of performance that even some extremely high-end CD players simply can’t match. But you don’t have to spend that much just to get extremely satisfying audiophile quality sound. In fact, as a result of the commanding cost/performance ratio of computer audio and its sheer mouse-click convenience, I am now hooked on it. There is no turning back. Colin Smith was right: There are times when you need to forget about the gear and the technology and just listen to the music. . . . Howard Kneller Blue Circle Audio, Inc. E-mail: bcircle@bluecircle.com
Synergistic Research E-mail: service3@synergisticresearch.com
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But despite this newfound
thrift, my inner cable junkie couldn’t resist experimenting a bit. I knew from having
read 
