The Pandora Audiophile Setup


ekianjo

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I thought I should share the following since it turns the Pandora into the ultimate audio player:

You need:

- Pandora

- Audacious installed

- Hub for USB 1.x compatibilty

- Soundblaster USB to Optical exit 

- A decent amplifier at home with optical in, and decent pair of speakers.

1.JPG

Here is the soundblaster USB to optical device:

2.JPG

Set the following in Audacious: OSS3 for output

3.JPG

Then go in preferences and set USB for both menus in there.

4.JPG

Now enjoy pure, lossless sound from your Pandora on large and powerful speakers. Must have!
 
Does it sound better / any different using the Pandora Headphones / line out for audio out?

If you use USB then my understanding is that the audio hardware in the USB device is used rather than the rather excellent internal Pandora DAC.

Will certainly give this a go to see if I can get my USB speakers working.
 
I personally use my Pandora to play every digital audio medias since the sound is far better than all my other devices.

I just use a short "jack to RCA" cable to connect it to my valves amp.

Going through usb will only lead to bypass the excellent DAC and Amp part of the pandora.
 
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Does it sound better / any different using the Pandora Headphones / line out for audio out?

If you use USB then my understanding is that the audio hardware in the USB device is used rather than the rather excellent internal Pandora DAC.

Will certainly give this a go to see if I can get my USB speakers working.
It seems better to me, especially when you go on higher volumes, sound seems to be a little clearer. The USB to Optical hardware I am using is very decent so it may depend on what you use as well.

Even if you have an excellent cable you certainly have losses due to the analog connection. I do not think you can beat the optical cable there : there is absolutely no loss until the Amplifier. I have very big speakers (and decent quality ones) so you may not be able to hear the difference on average or small speakers, this being said.
 
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"Audiophile" and "Bluetooth" something do not belong in the same thread. A2DP works, but doesn't make you happy.
 
"Audiophile" and "Bluetooth" something do not belong in the same thread. A2DP works, but doesn't make you happy.
sorry wrong thread.
 
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It seems better to me, especially when you go on higher volumes, sound seems to be a little clearer. The USB to Optical hardware I am using is very decent so it may depend on what you use as well.

Even if you have an excellent cable you certainly have losses due to the analog connection. I do not think you can beat the optical cable there : there is absolutely no loss until the Amplifier. I have very big speakers (and decent quality ones) so you may not be able to hear the difference on average or small speakers, this being said.
I've tested a real audiophile setup: With the NAD amp + Linn Keosa speakers of my friend, we compared the sound of the Pandora to his M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (ICE1712) using some FLAC files, which we previously compared to his matching NAD CD player using the original CD the FLACs were created from. The difference is noticeable, but it's way closer than I would have expected, the Pandora really doesn't need to hide from audiophile hardware.

Shifting the audio output to digital makes the amp's DAC the element with probably the most influence on sound quality, and from my humble experience a "decent" sound card will perform better than a "decent" amp. The loss happening through the cables when going analogue are really negligible with a classic home setup, just like cables coated with solid silver or gold won't make any noticeable difference in that situation.

And I don't want to know whether that Creative device tinkers with the audio data... My friend's dog didn't like his previous Creative card messing with it at all - totally nervous (Creative) vs. instantly falling asleep, even at rather high volume (M-Audio) (at late evenings), and once he made a direct comparison with other decent chips he literally kicked it out, even preferring his on-board Realtek chip while waiting for the M-Audio, because it sounds more authentic. Granted, it wasn't one of the high end ones, but it's still something I would not have expected from Creative.

That ICE1712 chip is btw by far one of the best you can get for your money when running Linux, if you ask me - M-Audio is the only one who gives (extreme) long term driver support, though, meaning they have the only ones that have proper Win7+ drivers (and the only ones still being actively sold)... Cards with other chips of similar quality cost a fortune and may have no Linux support at all.

It's really a shame how the mainstream market went down - in the old times you could get mainstream laptops with audio chips that outperform a lot of decently priced modern sound cards (e.g. Pentium-III Sony Vaios with Yamaha YMF7xx audio chips - classic instruments sound awesome with these!).
 
"Audiophile" and "Bluetooth" something do not belong in the same thread. A2DP works, but doesn't make you happy
Indeed, how would you paint arrows to make sure the signal knows which way to go?
 
I run a 24-track digital DAW based on Linux and Presonus FirePOD hardware .. it is superlative!  

The Burr-Brown bits of the Pandora put it in the same league of device as things like the Access Virus synthesizer, and so on ..
 
We take a pretty non-spurious stance on real life, henceforth if you mean that in a meta sense of way, yes, we do not subscribe to anything but objectifiable results, and we expect to be held to that regard.

So, i would inherently need to answer you based on technical merits, Rotational Velocidencity is impossible to achieve in the sense that it is not an issue anyway in areas where it would apply, and secondly openpandora uses solid state storage.

You can even use a journaling file-system if you want. Checksum your files before and after use at will.
 
But which Filesystem (ext2, ext3, ext4, vfat, etc) yields the least jitter? :)
 
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They are probably read into a buffer and relocked sometime later. So my guess is irrelevant. Inode read times dont produce jitter, in case they do try with noatime filesystem flag, change resampler or change to realtime-kernel.
 
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sadly Pandora can't play vinyls...

Has anyone ever tried a USB turntable?

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Buddy at work's big on trying everything when it comes to audio (have bought all my gear from him), and I mean everything.  He says that those players are crap.  YMMV.
They are. If someone's going to go the effort of copying their vinyl, it seems like an odd option unless they're tone deaf or just don't care.

Ever see one of those optical (laser) turntables that read the groove like an analogue CD? I've always wondered when scanning heads would reach a resolution sufficient to scan a record - you could have a spindle with a scan arm, one revolution and the record could be played back from the scanned image! No point carrying the actual vinyl with you, that was silly the first time they tried it........

http://www.retrothing.com/2005/11/sound_burger_vi.html
 
There are a few USB turntable which aren't that bad.

Dual DTJ 301 is one of them. IMHO it is far better to use a regular turntable and hook it to your digital recorder via an USB sound card or plug it via jack.

A few years ago, I recorded vinyl to Mini Disc to have it ready for the car but the effort isn't worth it...
 
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