I have my main PC with an M-audio 1010. I feed the spdif into a Behringer DEQ2496 which feeds my trusty old Pioneer SX-1250 old fashioned analog tunes. The Pioneer acts as a Pre for my Adcom GFA-555ii which drives my wonderful 2 to 4 ohm vintage infinities. I feed the analog ins with a 4 channel reel to reel, a cassette player and a turntable through the SX-1250 phono pre. I have archived a lot of my records and tapes in this fashion from the 70's on.
That PC currently has an E8500 w/ ATI 4870 and 9 hard drives in two raid5 arrays and a scratch drive that holds things like Norton AV and pagefile so the other drives can all spin down (5x1tb, 3x500, 1x320(laptop drive that runs 24x7)) and also serves as media server duty to the rest of the house. It primarily runs XP Pro, but also has Win7 64bit installed - although I am having some minor driver issues between M-audio and Win7. It runs 24/7 and sits in a closet with it's own AC vent. it has logitech bluetooth keyboard and mouse and a lot of other crap. The Weak link here is the Pioneer, followed by the speakers.
The second music player is a HTPC. It has a creative X-fi music which feeds it's spdif into an Onkyo TX-SR805. It is also an E-8500, it has 3.5TB of internal storage that serves as a backup to the important stuff upstairs (home movies, etc). It has an ATI 4850 connected to a panasonic 1080P plasma via hdmi. It gets really hot (both the Onkyo and the PC). The Onkyo plays through some ZaphAudio SR71's (a Seas DIY 2 way speaker), and sounds good. I don't know where the weak link is - Onkyo has Burr-brown DAC, Creative dig-out seems good. All reasonable mainstream stuff.
The third PC is a laptop feeding its analog out into a Pioneer SX-1010 into a set of Seas DIY Loki's. This one doesn't sound so good. . . Weak link - Laptop. I have a turtle beach USB sound card that I considered feeding into a DAC and into the pioneer, but instead I just leave it off.
All the setups sound reasonably good. In each case I normally use winamp playing mostly FLACs, but Foobar is also there.
That PC currently has an E8500 w/ ATI 4870 and 9 hard drives in two raid5 arrays and a scratch drive that holds things like Norton AV and pagefile so the other drives can all spin down (5x1tb, 3x500, 1x320(laptop drive that runs 24x7)) and also serves as media server duty to the rest of the house. It primarily runs XP Pro, but also has Win7 64bit installed - although I am having some minor driver issues between M-audio and Win7. It runs 24/7 and sits in a closet with it's own AC vent. it has logitech bluetooth keyboard and mouse and a lot of other crap. The Weak link here is the Pioneer, followed by the speakers.
The second music player is a HTPC. It has a creative X-fi music which feeds it's spdif into an Onkyo TX-SR805. It is also an E-8500, it has 3.5TB of internal storage that serves as a backup to the important stuff upstairs (home movies, etc). It has an ATI 4850 connected to a panasonic 1080P plasma via hdmi. It gets really hot (both the Onkyo and the PC). The Onkyo plays through some ZaphAudio SR71's (a Seas DIY 2 way speaker), and sounds good. I don't know where the weak link is - Onkyo has Burr-brown DAC, Creative dig-out seems good. All reasonable mainstream stuff.
The third PC is a laptop feeding its analog out into a Pioneer SX-1010 into a set of Seas DIY Loki's. This one doesn't sound so good. . . Weak link - Laptop. I have a turtle beach USB sound card that I considered feeding into a DAC and into the pioneer, but instead I just leave it off.
All the setups sound reasonably good. In each case I normally use winamp playing mostly FLACs, but Foobar is also there.
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I am fine with the DEQ - I leave all of its processing bypassed 95% of the time. I originally bought it with a mic to use as an RTA, I found that it's ability to switch between a few inputs was useful to me, and I think it sounds better using it as a DAC than the analog out from the M-audio card, and also solves some cable length and noise issues I was having. I end up with the PC connected to it through Coax SPDIF, my CD player through an optical connection and one of the Pioneer's tape loops through the analog in. It is great to be able to add a couple more sources.
I have never been able to compare a 'good' DAC with any of my stuff, so I don't know how much of a difference there is.
As for the hard drive space, I have been collecting stuff since the 1990 and never delete anything - so it is a requirement. I used to have hundreds of CD's, hundreds of records, and countless tapes - now they are all in the PC as well as lots of other additions sorted by year and genre. Sometime I will have to create a database because I find I am having to use windows search to find anything. What's strange is that I have thrown away the CD's but can't toss the records or tapes.
I have also moved all of our old VHS and 8mm videotapes onto the PC - our home movies take up a lot of space. It seems to be about 4gb per hour - and even with a VHS source, any compression I try makes it look worse. I need to optimize the process - but for now I keep them with very little compression hoping that I figure out a good way to shrink them later, knowing that it can not be undone.
If I ever lost that data I would probably jump off the roof - seriously I have considered that if it were destroyed I would not rebuild. which is why I have everything with hardware RAID5 and also backed up. Short of a big fire, both sets should not be destroyed at once.
As for the reel to reel, I have two Akai GX-270D-SS's one of which is the source I use the most. I have one tape that has a long trance mix on one side and a faster house mix on the other - I play it back and forth day after day. For some reason that is easier and quicker when I want to work out than using the PC - and I don't mind the lack of variety.
most of the old 4 channel tapes I recorded with a band through the 90's - everything else is 2 channel/4 track. Although for fun I have taken some multichannel beatles, doors, Moody Blues and The Who recordings from the computer and put them back on to 4 channel tapes. I don't have any other 4 channel sources.
I have never been able to compare a 'good' DAC with any of my stuff, so I don't know how much of a difference there is.
As for the hard drive space, I have been collecting stuff since the 1990 and never delete anything - so it is a requirement. I used to have hundreds of CD's, hundreds of records, and countless tapes - now they are all in the PC as well as lots of other additions sorted by year and genre. Sometime I will have to create a database because I find I am having to use windows search to find anything. What's strange is that I have thrown away the CD's but can't toss the records or tapes.
I have also moved all of our old VHS and 8mm videotapes onto the PC - our home movies take up a lot of space. It seems to be about 4gb per hour - and even with a VHS source, any compression I try makes it look worse. I need to optimize the process - but for now I keep them with very little compression hoping that I figure out a good way to shrink them later, knowing that it can not be undone.
If I ever lost that data I would probably jump off the roof - seriously I have considered that if it were destroyed I would not rebuild. which is why I have everything with hardware RAID5 and also backed up. Short of a big fire, both sets should not be destroyed at once.
As for the reel to reel, I have two Akai GX-270D-SS's one of which is the source I use the most. I have one tape that has a long trance mix on one side and a faster house mix on the other - I play it back and forth day after day. For some reason that is easier and quicker when I want to work out than using the PC - and I don't mind the lack of variety.
most of the old 4 channel tapes I recorded with a band through the 90's - everything else is 2 channel/4 track. Although for fun I have taken some multichannel beatles, doors, Moody Blues and The Who recordings from the computer and put them back on to 4 channel tapes. I don't have any other 4 channel sources.
Yeah I really don't have much respect for CDs. I used to at one time but at some point I just stopped really careing about the condition. Secure ripped backups put that over the edge for me to where I was just neglecting them and letting them get ruined. Maybe not as big of a collection as yours but I kind of think it's relative to the physical space. It that regard I am packed with recordings haha. One day I will start to move everything to HDs but I have just been using a ton of hd space making even more media
Sometimes the 1010 sounds perfect on my setup. Sometimes I can just hear a small shortcoming in the converter chain or something. I ran a spidif from my card which I think sounds slightly better and clocked the 1010 from that card and I thought it actually sounded better. But I really don't trust it the improvement is so small if it's even present. I could just be imagining it.
Yeah this is the way I get with transferring my media. I have been optimizing my processes for vinyl and analog for a while now and just trying every method I can. I get way too perfectionist with it to tell the truth.
Anyway I have tried to do a little bit of video captures. I know what you mean about the compression it is really easy to see artifacts with the video compression, it's almost like you need a monitor that smears the image a little to hide it. I had a laptop that did this with mpeg-1s and made them look better than a DVD just from the inaccuracy of the monitor.
I am really rusty with my compression game but lately I have been using ripbot264 gui just because it's one of those easy programs that does compression and I didn't want to get to involved. But I must say the lossy compression looks much better than it used to. I can't say it is totally transparent because I can still pick up on the occasional artifact but it is really close and I am sure it is all about tweaking it the right way for the right material. Which I wasn't really doing at the time.
I set up a modern Quad setup from my computer. I started with a Delta 1010 but now am using a Mackie Onyx 400f feeding the 1010. I have been doing some 4 channel recordings so maybe I can send you something to transfer haha. Add some warmth to my digital stuff.
To tell the truth I have to lap the tape head on my TEAC. I have a bunch of my families home recordings from the mid 60s-early 70s. I transfered some of them on the original machine they were recorded on before the inevitable cap blow up - which I was expecting but really didn't want to repair or fix before it happened. I don't even know whats on all of them but I should probably transfer them before the florida humidity gets to them - they sat in a basement in Michigan for a long time. The coolest thing I found was a radio show my uncle or someone recorded in Dearborn Michigan. I think it's the show that started the Paul is Dead hoax. Weird show - it basically listed the "clues" like someone else had found them but I am pretty sure this is actually the origin of the rumor. It's kind of heavy handed by todays standards.
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I collect live music so a PC is almost a requirement, so is lots of space. I currently have 1.6 GB dedicated to flac files.
I use foobar and ASIO4all. On my laptop I use a Bantam DAC, or a Gamma1 DAC; both excellent DIY projects. My PC has a M-Audio Delta so I use spdif to a CAL Audio alpha DAC. I use a Mini^3 or a CTH for headphones and a MyRef C driven by Diamantes (soon to be a direct coupled B1) into NHT Super Ones in a near field configuration for speakers.
I find CDs have become cumbersome and am really spoiled by having my music so easily accessible AND sounding great.
I use foobar and ASIO4all. On my laptop I use a Bantam DAC, or a Gamma1 DAC; both excellent DIY projects. My PC has a M-Audio Delta so I use spdif to a CAL Audio alpha DAC. I use a Mini^3 or a CTH for headphones and a MyRef C driven by Diamantes (soon to be a direct coupled B1) into NHT Super Ones in a near field configuration for speakers.
I find CDs have become cumbersome and am really spoiled by having my music so easily accessible AND sounding great.
I have a question. Not sure if anyone is or was using a X-Fi Extreme Music card, but I wanted to upgrade to this card or something that will give me better sound quality than the Sound Blaster Live card....I know its a dinosaur but it has produced sufficient audio quality for standard PC audio. Now I'm creating a PC based audio system and would like another card which will give me detailed harmonic and precise recreation.
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
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I love PC audio
I am a huge fan of PC based Audio. However I would rather not use a PC Based sound card.
Currently I am using Windows 7 RTM for my media server. I have been using Media center since shortly after it was born. I noticed a big improvement from XP to Vista sound quality wise. But a bigger improvement was moving my sound output from an internal card (soundblaster extreme I think it was called) to a USB DAC.
The USB Dac I use is the DDDAC1543 MKII. Its a Non Oversampling design with expandable conversion modules. I am currently using 2 DAC modules which gives 24 DAC chips in parrallel. I am aiming to upgrade this soon once I have had a case made large enough to accomodate more modules.
In terms of media, I stick to WMA lossless for my files. Flac is well reckoned, but WMA lossless is easy to use with Media Center software. Its the living room machine, so ease of use (especially for the fiance) is important. I experimented with other codecs and indeed other players such as foobar, but I could not hear much if any difference. The other benefit is that TV and movies sound really good through the DDDAC.
Unfortunately I have some hardware issues at the moment, but this is just a good excuse for a hardware upgrade. Moving up to raid enabled setup with 6gb of Ram, 64bit dual core processor. Not required for Audio, but I was getting the odd bit of choppiness when recording TV and playing back TV at the same time.
I am a huge fan of PC based Audio. However I would rather not use a PC Based sound card.
Currently I am using Windows 7 RTM for my media server. I have been using Media center since shortly after it was born. I noticed a big improvement from XP to Vista sound quality wise. But a bigger improvement was moving my sound output from an internal card (soundblaster extreme I think it was called) to a USB DAC.
The USB Dac I use is the DDDAC1543 MKII. Its a Non Oversampling design with expandable conversion modules. I am currently using 2 DAC modules which gives 24 DAC chips in parrallel. I am aiming to upgrade this soon once I have had a case made large enough to accomodate more modules.
In terms of media, I stick to WMA lossless for my files. Flac is well reckoned, but WMA lossless is easy to use with Media Center software. Its the living room machine, so ease of use (especially for the fiance) is important. I experimented with other codecs and indeed other players such as foobar, but I could not hear much if any difference. The other benefit is that TV and movies sound really good through the DDDAC.
Unfortunately I have some hardware issues at the moment, but this is just a good excuse for a hardware upgrade. Moving up to raid enabled setup with 6gb of Ram, 64bit dual core processor. Not required for Audio, but I was getting the odd bit of choppiness when recording TV and playing back TV at the same time.
Budget on the sound card, for a good quality card, I'm will willing to spend up to $200.
The prospects, from what I've seen, are mostly dedicated to multi channel applications. Nice to have, but not a necessity for me.
The card I have is the SB0200 version of the WDM SB live card....of course it's the "value" version of the standard SB Live card. However, it is 24bit and is multi channel 5.1 I believe.
Currently the set up is;
Sony N110 two channel amp @ 85watts/each
ADC Sound Shaper Analyzer SS-315
B&W 602 S3 speakers.
It sounds surprisingly good for what it is. I'm looking into tube amplifiers to replace the N110 soon also.
Look for an audio interface that is marketed to recording studios not PC gammers or home theater. Most of the interfaces sold to musicians and recording engineers sound good, they have to because these buyers have well educated ears. You will find features like balanced outputs and SPDIF but most importently _analog_ volume controls. SPDIF offers another option because then you can send the optical signal to an outbound D/A converter.
They make both USB and firewire. For such a simple task as outputing two channel audio USB is "good enough" Firewire works better for 8, 16 or 24 channel work.
These brands are worth looking at, all price about about $100
E-MU, Lexicon, PreSonus, Focusrite. With these prices there is no real reason to stay with the consumer/entertainment grade stuff.
Some resellers to look at: www.sweetwater.com, samash.com
You pay a bit extra because these all have good inputs, decent preamps ad so on. But maybe some day you will want to record something or if not measure a speaker with a measurement mic. Or maybe you want to rip from vinyl? Then you will need TWO input channels for stereo. The E-MU "0202" looks to be pretty good. http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?category=610&subcategory=611&product=15186
I have an Apple "Airport Express". It is a small little 3" box that will receive digital audio over wifi and send those signals out it built-in optical S/PDIF jack. Cost about $80. I put this into a conventional 74 WPC stereo amp and then to some vintage 1970's Infinity speakers.
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Would you consider and external solution?
SPDIF or USB DACs are excellent and can be had for as little as $40.00 for the Bantam USB, AMB's excellent Gamma-1 with the soon to be released Gamma 2 for just shy of $175.00 and I am sure there are many others. I can personally vouch for the Bantam and Gamma 1. I built and use both, the bantam in my portable rig and the Gamma 1 in my desktop.
SPDIF or USB DACs are excellent and can be had for as little as $40.00 for the Bantam USB, AMB's excellent Gamma-1 with the soon to be released Gamma 2 for just shy of $175.00 and I am sure there are many others. I can personally vouch for the Bantam and Gamma 1. I built and use both, the bantam in my portable rig and the Gamma 1 in my desktop.
There are a number of factors that come into play.
The most famous one is the software volume control Kmixer that older windows systems are infamous for. This has been mentioned already in this thread. To get round it a set of drivers named Asio (Asio4all) were developed, particulalry for musicians where the latency caused issues. Latency manifests itself as a delay between the music player and the end output. This was a bigger issue for musicians who were both playing back and recording at the same time. But the processing of the sound via kmixer had an undesirable effect on playback to those who's equipment was more than the usual tiny desktop speakers.
Another issue is that some of the drivers resample the music before outputing to the soundcard. The Live cards from Creative I seem to remember upsampled everything to 192khz regardless of the origional sample rate. Whereever sample rates are played with their is the posibility of degradation of the quality.
However more up to date MS OS's are not blighted by the Kmixer software and provided you keep DSP effects switched to off in the software things should not be too bad. I have played with so called audiophile software players, all I can say for sure is that I was not able to hear the difference on my setup.
Thanks ChrisA, I will consider your set up.
billyk. Absolutely I would consider external solutions....frankly I haven't followed new audio applications in recent years. I slip away for sometime and now want to get back in the game and up to speed on all the new equipment.
Assembling my own setup, like you have, is something I would really enjoy doing.
Blair, thanks; my computer is running Vista (which I don't like) and I have the mixer control always set full bore. The resulting player (using a PCI 24/192 sound card) has great measurements and sounds at least as good (if not better) than the modified HK CD player I was previously using.
I love the convenience, I must admit...
I love the convenience, I must admit...
Tomcat14, check out AMB Labs Gamma1 I built the ++ version and am waiting patiently for the Gamma 2 upgrade board. Those that have prototypesd it really rave about it. I know I really like the sound of mine as it is and I really had a blast building it.
SY, I use Vista on both the machines I use for audio. I found that using ASIO4all and foobar resulted in the best sound for me. Purely subjective, but I did try several players and sound cards before settling on this combo. Best part is you can try it free, they are both available for download.
Some folks don't like the foobar interface, I like it because I just drag what I want to listen to from my music directory...
SY, I use Vista on both the machines I use for audio. I found that using ASIO4all and foobar resulted in the best sound for me. Purely subjective, but I did try several players and sound cards before settling on this combo. Best part is you can try it free, they are both available for download.
Some folks don't like the foobar interface, I like it because I just drag what I want to listen to from my music directory...
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