What to do when soundcard DAC beats standalone player's?

[dc]

I started out by using EAC. It's not the most user-friendly program and importing to Media Center (then, Media Jukebox) always screwed-up the tagging (I know, it's not really called 'tagging' unless you're using MP3 files, but, you know what I mean). I asked around trying to fix this because I really wanted to use EAC. I got a number of responses, both from Media Center developers and other users assuring me that the Digital Secure mode on Media Center produced rips as good as or better than EAC. And, no problems with file naming.

 

[net-david]

Noisy apartment?

What is considered a quiet home dwelling? Right now, with my PC on, using my Goldline ASA10B at my woking position, I am getting:

31.5Hz 55dB
63 52.5
125 50
250 47.5
500 40
1k 40
2k 40
4k 40
8k 40
16k 38.5


While not a sound chamber, I thought this was fairly quiet. This is with the AC actually blowing and a ceiling fan on, this is Georgia, ya know.

 

[cdwitmer]

Re: Noisy apartment?

What is considered a quiet home dwelling?

IT SURE AS HELL AIN'T MY HOME DWELLING -- THEY'VE BEEN USING PNEUMATIC JACKHAMMERS OUTSIDE MY WINDOW FOR THE PAST THREE DAYS AND I'M ABOUT TO TURN INTO JACK NICHOLSON IN "THE SHINING." OH, TO BE BACK IN THAT ZEN TEMPLE WHERE THE LOUDEST SOUND WAS THE WATER DRIPPING FROM THE TREE LEAVES OF THE GARDEN . . .

 

[ojg]

This review site: http://www.silentpcreview.com/ had a link to this company: http://www.deltatronic.info/index.html who makes a completely passively cooled P4 3GHz computer. Don't know what temperatures they get though...

There's also the very stylish Hush PC: http://www.stayward.com/onlinestore/hush.html but it only comes with the mediocre VIA processors.

Personally, I'm running a 17 Watt P3 667MHz with a big AMD heatsink on it in a desktop case with no fans. It stays comfortably below 45C with the processor at <20% load (which you will never exceed by just playing audio-files). I have plans of installing a slow fan that only switches on if the temperature gets above 60C. The P3 is highly recommended for silent audio-PC's Look at the Tualatin for better performance for same amount of heat.

-ojg

 

[JOE DIRT®]

hmmm....78.7 db A weighted tonight with tv on just audible and computer running with a Quest spl meter....Linear was 80.7

 

[fmak]

Re: Noisy apartment?

31.5Hz 55dB
63 52.5
125 50
250 47.5
500 40
1k 40
2k 40
4k 40
8k 40
16k 38.5


While not a sound chamber, I thought this was fairly quiet. This is with the AC actually blowing and a ceiling fan on, this is Georgia, ya know. [/B][/QUOTE]
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LF SPLs seem very low with fan and ac. Are the nos. dBA or dBC. If former, then the LF and HF nos are attenuated.

 

[MWP]

Yes and no; as long as you have an exposed case fan, you get flow noise. If you enclose too much, you get tempetature problems. In my caes, I want a computer, not a coffin.

Ah, i said no "exposed" fans... not no case fans at all.
You put the fans inside the case and use tubing or other case designs to get the air out of the case while keeping the majority of the noise in the case.

Its easily done when building your own case from MDF.
I had two 120mm fans (running at 7V) in my case moving air in the case, over the three power supplies (PSUs were out of their cases) and out the back of the case... was dead silent.
BTW... the two 120mm fans were the only ones in the case as it was water cooled. The water pump was modified to make it also dead silent (far quieter than a HDD anyway).

All it takes is a good case design.

 

[amo]

MusicMatch sounds good and I'll certainly look into it.

I have a question. I can see using EAC to dump discs onto a hard disk drive to obtain better sound, but as for scanning pamphlets and then selling off the original discs, is the return on the time investment worth it? Doesn't it take a lot of time to scan 400 pamphlets?

Thanks,

Christopher Witmer
Tokyo

To be completely honest, this project started out not to better the sound quality, but to better manage my music collection. I found that I listened to my music alot more when it was available through a graphical interface. Handling CDs proved too much, and a "corusell" proved completely useless! Fortunately, better sound quality was a big bonus. I am using the Lynx L22, and the sound is great. I am looking for ways to somehow shield the card from interference, vibration, etc from inside the case, but that is a whole other story completely. As far as scanning pamphlets, I will admit that this part was not fun. However, my scanner is rather fast, and I only scanned the front of the pamphlet. I would not dream of scanning the whole thing, and anyway, I do not need it. The main reason behind the pamphlet thing, is to display it in high resolution while the song is playing. When one has a large collection, and a large part of that collection is electronic music, it really helps to have a visual identifier behind the music. My favorite thing to do is to load up all my songs into the play list, randomize, and play away. The front of the pamphlet then comes up on one of my large LCDs. I think it was really worth the effor. Obveously it is simple now, since I just scan what new CDs I get... As far as online services that offer cover art for free, it is all low resolution, and would not serve my perpuse.

P.S. When you consider the cost of hard drive space, even in a 100% non-efficient RAID 1 configuration, the original CD becomes useless, at least to me. I did not do this to make money, but to simplify the whole process. But I must say, that when you look at buying 1,000 discs at even a low USD $16.00 (as new), and then selling them at $4.00... you are looking at 25% more discs for the same price, after a process that you will carry out anyway...

 

[net-david]

Re: Re: Noisy apartment?

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LF SPLs seem very low with fan and ac. Are the nos. dBA or dBC. If former, then the LF and HF nos are attenuated.

Acording to the ASA10B manual- "Weight Curve: The ASA10B has three frequency response functions which are selected with the WEIGHT switch. In FLAT, there is no shaping of the response curve. In "C", C type weighting is applied to the response curve, and the 31.5Hz display channel is switched to broadband showing the overall level in dBC. In "A", A type weighting is used, and the 31.5Hz channel shows overall level in dBA. "A" weighting is often used when making speech interference measurements and "C" is often used for music and environmental noise measurements."

I had the unit set to flat.

Like I said, our apartment is fairly quiet, and all of the parts in my PC were selected specifically for quiet operation.

David

 

[karma]

hope this helps

http://www.bigfootcomputers.com/Mer...en=CTGY&Store_Code=Bigfoot&Category_Code=0335


http://www.bigfootcomputers.com/Mer...en=CTGY&Store_Code=Bigfoot&Category_Code=0130

i use a vantec nexus fan controller super quite. i have a total of
5 fans

 

[karma]

1

1

 

[travis]

8db compu

 

[amo]

I started out by using EAC. It's not the most user-friendly program and importing to Media Center (then, Media Jukebox) always screwed-up the tagging (I know, it's not really called 'tagging' unless you're using MP3 files, but, you know what I mean). I asked around trying to fix this because I really wanted to use EAC. I got a number of responses, both from Media Center developers and other users assuring me that the Digital Secure mode on Media Center produced rips as good as or better than EAC. And, no problems with file naming.

What's better then a bit-perfect rip?

 

[dc]

I don't think anything is better than a bit-perfect rip. I didn't phrase the statement you quoted very well... I asked about the quality of rips done by MC9. The response was that people had as much or more confidence in the quality of the rips done by MC9 in digital secure mode as they did with EAC rips. I'm not making that statement myself, but, I suppose that means that they feel MC9 is at least as likely to give you a bit-perfect rip as EAC. I haven't tried to verify that, I'm just passing along information, hoping that it might lead someone else to something they find useful.

I can say that I'm happy with MC9 and satisfied with the quality of its rips and Monkey's Audio compression. Naming files ripped with MC9 is much easier, too.

brad