Devialet Chat

Review compares the Bryston BDP-2 to the Moon MiND 180D:

http://www.audiostream.com/content/bryst...-and-bdp-2

(07-Sep-2014, 15:03)patcam Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-Sep-2014, 14:37)Rufus McDufus Wrote: [ -> ]I was dragging and dropping tracks and also manually selection bit depth/rate. I must try it again just to confirm and figure what's going on.

Audivarna Plus from Mac (wireless, integer mode on, not from iTunes (I think)) - wow, this is good

Thanks Rufus because I don't understand, are you sure you use A+/Air wireless/ integer mode / without Itunes ?

Well. I'm sure I had it selected, but not sure it was doing anything! Yes, I don't use iTunes. Unfortunately my eval licence has expired so I can't check whether I'm imagining things.

(07-Sep-2014, 19:19)Rufus McDufus Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-Sep-2014, 15:03)patcam Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-Sep-2014, 14:37)Rufus McDufus Wrote: [ -> ]I was dragging and dropping tracks and also manually selection bit depth/rate. I must try it again just to confirm and figure what's going on.

Audivarna Plus from Mac (wireless, integer mode on, not from iTunes (I think)) - wow, this is good

Thanks Rufus because I don't understand, are you sure you use A+/Air wireless/ integer mode / without Itunes ?

Well. I'm sure I had it selected, but not sure it was doing anything! Yes, I don't use iTunes. Unfortunately my eval licence has expired so I can't check whether I'm imagining things.

And just to clarify... in your own setup and not in the one used for the comparisons as per the title of this thread.

Guillaume

Correct, and this is going way off-topic! I do recall I couldn't get integer mode ticked initially but later on, and for no apparent reason, I could. I haven't actually used Audivarna that much since getting the trial licence.

I bought Audirvana+ to use with my Hugo on the move.
I just tried using it with a flac file but Air was disconnected from the Devialet as soon as I tried to use it.
Works with VLC but sample rate is set to 44.1.
No idea why! I will put the higher rate flacs on my Meridian Control 15.
Certainly can't be bothered to play about for more that 10 minutes so that is me, back to listening to music.

New and interesting information just arrived on the French forum regarding how Air works. I am not sure I understood everything but apparently, the computer would only decompress the files (into wave format) but all the decoding to the audio flux and transfer of the audio flux is managed by the Devialet and its clock. This information is said to be coming directly from Devialet support.
It is getting more and more interesting and confusing at the same time to really understand what is going on but if this is true, any external server like Totaldac would have in theory not a lot of interest on top of the Devialet. But so many people find the solution Totaldac server better than Air...
I guess the discussion is not over on this subject but let's hope we can learn more about it.
That is a good question for the Guilford Audio Workshop on October 11th & 12th 2014...
regards
philoouu

(08-Sep-2014, 13:56)philoouu Wrote: [ -> ]...the computer would only decompress the files (into wave format) but all the decoding to the audio flux and transfer of the audio flux is managed by the Devialet and its clock.

That's what I was trying (failing?) to express in my posts 57 and 64 earlier in this thread. Good to have it confirmed, though.

(08-Sep-2014, 13:56)philoouu Wrote: [ -> ]New and interesting information just arrived on the French forum regarding how Air works. I am not sure I understood everything but apparently, the computer would only decompress the files (into wave format) but all the decoding to the audio flux and transfer of the audio flux is managed by the Devialet and its clock. This information is said to be coming directly from Devialet support.
It is getting more and more interesting and confusing at the same time to really understand what is going on but if this is true, any external server like Totaldac would have in theory not a lot of interest on top of the Devialet. But so many people find the solution Totaldac server better than Air...
I guess the discussion is not over on this subject but let's hope we can learn more about it.
That is a good question for the Guilford Audio Workshop on October 11th & 12th 2014...
regards
philoouu

That is very interesting information - thanks for posting it.

I think the Totaldac server is still very interesting when you want to use a streamer rather than a PC/Mac as the source and you want to link from that streamer to the Devialet via AES/EBU or USB.

If you want to stream from a PC/Mac via ethernet or wifi then AIR is the best (only?) choice currently. The interesting question then is which software player sounds best or because of the way AIR works do they all sound the same?

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(08-Sep-2014, 14:04)thumb5 Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-Sep-2014, 13:56)philoouu Wrote: [ -> ]...the computer would only decompress the files (into wave format) but all the decoding to the audio flux and transfer of the audio flux is managed by the Devialet and its clock.

That's what I was trying (failing?) to express in my posts 57 and 64 earlier in this thread. Good to have it confirmed, though.

Thumb,

I understood what you meant and agreed with you. I think the thread got a little confusing as posts alternated between comments on the totaldac and comments on AIR (and it was getting late...).

Regards,

Philip

I think the original AIR (the one JA used in the Stereophile rewiew of D-Premier) was actually a file player. It only got the file path from iTunes. If we'd had wired ethernet back then I believe that solution may have survived. The amp clock was used to control playback as well as transfer. Then compatibility with "everything" became priority and the sound card emulation took over.

Ok, I tried to understand the post on the French forum which explains how AIR works (according to a Devialet engineer). I used Google translate but as is often the case the output is not always perfect English so I made some changes. My French is certainly not perfect ...

"AIR transmits stored data and not a digital audio stream...

AIR transmits only the audio portion of digital audio files removing metadata, data length, and associated files. It sends only one format of file (presumably WAV - my comment). The computer decompresses compressed formats and transcodes as necessary.. The file is then transmitted in packets with a buffer at the start and the finish, speed controlled by the Devialet. AIR works only with bi-directional connections with flow control and the ability to re-issue a lost frame." For them (Devialet) 'bit exact' is to find all of the information stored in the audio file.

There's then a discussion about how if AIR is bit-perfect then no other way to transmit an audio file can be more bit-perfect. Hence philloouu's comment about no need for a Totaldac.

As I said before, I think the Totaldac is still very interesting if you want to use a steamer rather than a computer source and Guillaume and Rufus clearly preferred it using AES/EBU to AIR so I don't think we have the whole story yet

Philip