PC music players

[RFScheer]

I'm currently designing a dac for a dedicated music pc. It may go through a few generations but eventually it will be something that anyone in this forum could be proud of. I'm so grateful for the previous work on dacs documented in this forum, but can we step into the future a bit further?

While researching for this project, I became convinced that the pc should be considered THE best source for music, better than or at worst equal to any disc player, however a survey of diyAudio forums would give one the impression that disc players are better or at least more worthy of diy effort.

Using my current M-Audio Delta 410 soundcard and quiet-enhanced pc, either playing through the analog outs or using s/pdif into a Krell A/V Std, the sound is already in the "nice" category. And this is just using std 16b wav files or flac or 192kbps ogg or wma. It's hard to imagine what will be possible later with my new dacs plus digital crossovers, equalization, attenuation and so forth.

I have had fun learning Linux and can see that there is a huge diy playground of basically free software to make a low-cost, advanced player. I've been able to get good sound from both Linux and Windows and will probably continue using both in the future.

There's been a small bit of discussion previously on this topic in diyAudio but other forums are currently ahead in this area.

So, can we have a good discussion about the promise of the pc for music and where it fits into your diy hifi plans? Why do so many of you spend so much effort on disc players when pc's would take you further?

Oh - please, please, please no arguments about macs vs. pc's (I'm not trying to promote a particular flavor of computer), no discussions of mp3 players , and if your only experience with computer sound is with a Creative SoundBlaster of any generation or Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or any of that ilk, please DON'T bother posting. And if you still think pc's are always fan-noisy or hard-drive-noisy, etc, please hesitate before complaining in that direction. Too many people already have silent or near-silent machines.

[rfbrw]

Originally posted by RFScheer
Why do so many of you spend so much effort on disc players when pc's would take you further?

In what way will a pc take me further?

ray.

[lucpes]

For windows use this player ( http://www.foobar2000.org ) 24 bit out capability, resampling possible, using ASIO output plugin ( http://www3.cypress.ne.jp/otachan/fo...asio(exe).html ) and compress your 16bit wavs securely ripped using this ( http://exactaudiocopy.org ) to lossless ( http://flac.sourceforge.net/ ) or very high quality lossy compression ( http://www.rarewares.org/mpc.html )

Setup guide for ripping/conversion here: http://www.rex-guide.de.vu/

More PC-audio related discussions at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org and http://www.avsforum.com in the HTPC section.

For the M-Audio 410 itself, if using analog out, try to locate the two 470uF/16V caps PS filtering caps, replace with quality low esr (Panasonic FC) 2200uF/16V optionally bypassed with 0.1uF mylar (polyester green cap). Change all NE5532 to OPA2134 (or AD8620 expensive!). Bypass the output coupling caps for out 1 and out 2 with wire and check for offset. Last, do not use Monitor Mixer to control volume if you do not have a preamplifier like me, it slightly degrades the sound.

[RFScheer]

I'm hoping some people with more experience - like lucpes who posted while I was writing this - will discuss some of the ways their pc's have extended the quality and experience of music playing or at least what they're currently attempting.

However, it is clear that some useful aspects of computer playback are (in no particular order):
- playlists (avoids interruptions of changing cd's and skipping past yucky songs)
- playlists (no more disc jockey at parties)
- file serving (allows my daughter to play music without scratching cd's)
- integration (many formats on the same player, eg cd, dvd, mp3, internet radio...)
- software upgrades (codecs, player interfaces, dsp...)
- synergy (you already use a pc and would benefit from learning more about it)
- instant music (you can play Pink Floyd and Beethoven tracks back to back)
- recording & mixing (musicians already do this on their pc daw's)
- software dsp (you can split 10 surround channels or feed hi/mid/low channels)
- software dsp (make your listening room sound like the Mormon Tabernacle)
- software dsp (volume control - avoid spending $$$ on stepped attenuators)
- software dsp (future software will be able to "fix" original source problems)
- organization (where did that Claudio Arrau version of Etudes go???)
- consolidation (how about integrating pc, dac, gc amp, etc all in one box?)

Can I stop for now?

Needless to say, Linux, open-source-software development and pc hardware are also fun diy subjects on their own.

PC hardware can be cheap to obtain for the diy'er due to the huge volume of this business and the rapid replacement of last generation models. Or it can be very expensive if that appeals to you. The dramatic evolution each year automatically pumps up your music player with more storage, more bandwidth, more user interfaces,...

Enough for now.

-Robert

[RFScheer]

lucpes,

Great post and thanks for the useful M-Audio hints. I'm skipping those mods and going for all-digital to an external dac but most people would be surprised how good the sound is (and can be if mod'd) directly from the analog outs from this type of card (there are many others in the same $US150 category). I've been listening for about the last 4 hours to Radio Paradise (eclectic intelligent) over the internet and it's been fun without interruption and definitely no fatigue.

Does anyone have sound that they believe is as good as the cd players discussed throughout this forum?

-Robert

[MWP]

There is no reason why you couldnt get high end CD player quality audio out of a PC.

The main problems that people come across are:
- Power supply noise (use optical SPDIF to get around this)
- General PC Noise (move it into another room)
- Jitter (HQ clock mods for soundcards?)

If you address these 3 problems, you should be able to get top quality sound.

As for your DAC question, i built this for use with my PC:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/~mwp/dac3/

Im just about to start building another that has 6 channels which ill use wth brutefir for speaker xover and room EQ.

[pburke]

Originally posted by RFScheer

However, it is clear that some useful aspects of computer playback are (in no particular order):
- playlists (avoids interruptions of changing cd's and skipping past yucky songs)
- playlists (no more disc jockey at parties)
- file serving (allows my daughter to play music without scratching cd's)
- integration (many formats on the same player, eg cd, dvd, mp3, internet radio...)
- software upgrades (codecs, player interfaces, dsp...)
- synergy (you already use a pc and would benefit from learning more about it)
- instant music (you can play Pink Floyd and Beethoven tracks back to back)
- recording & mixing (musicians already do this on their pc daw's)
- software dsp (you can split 10 surround channels or feed hi/mid/low channels)
- software dsp (make your listening room sound like the Mormon Tabernacle)
- software dsp (volume control - avoid spending $$$ on stepped attenuators)
- organization (where did that Claudio Arrau version of Etudes go???)
- consolidation (how about integrating pc, dac, gc amp, etc all in one box?)
.
.
.
.
.

- software dsp (future software will be able to "fix" original source problems)

Can I stop for now?

yeah, all except for the final point are matters of interface and convenience. Not one of them make anything sound better. Thus they are unimportant to me. Get an IPod and you've got all your ease of use.

As for the last one - when that stuff is actually ready for prime time, get back to me. I see the potential, but until we get to a point where you can get a cleaner SPDIF signal out of a PC than out of a high-end transport, without becoming a sound card engineer, I'll stick to old fashioned CDs. Jitter, noise of the PC (expensive to build totally silent, especially if you want a large array of hard drives in it), and all the switching power supply crap that permeates a PC just make we kick back and wait.

Peter

[RFScheer]

MWP,

Enjoyed looking through your pics and schematic! Obviously you've spent years getting to this stage and it looks great. Since you are continuing on with a next-gen project, you must think a) it's fun, b) you're optimistic about benefits and c) you haven't reached perfection yet.

Have you compared your Burr-Brown config vs. anything else?
What components will you put into next-gen?
Have you compared sound vs. high-end cd player(s)?

Based solely on reading the work of of others and my own unworthy ideas, I am planning a separate super-regulator power supply for each analog supply pin (receiver, dac, digital attenuator) and LT1962 series regulators for digital supplies. I'm expecting to use a Tent clock (or can this be improved with Valpey-Fisher XO?) and perhaps sync the soundcard to it as well.

Regarding PC fan etc noise, I've greatly improved my current office music pc with quiet Nexus PSU, CPU cooler and chassis fan, removed the video card fan and mod'd the case with simple sound deadening. Could and will go much further until it's a non-issue. Next step is a better case and then a simple muffle cover to go over the whole case. And I'm moving my main Linux workstation out of the room using a CAT-5 cable KVM extender (1st try didn't work though using IOGEAR GCE700 ).

Regarding isolation between pc and dac, I've just received a few transformers from Mini-Circuits (T4-6T) and intend to use one for s/pdif input. I'm assuming most people would vote against toslink and I've heard that usb might have interruptions.

Haven't yet decided how or whether to reduce electrical supply and EMI noise to the sound-card. The experience of others here would be really useful.

Nobody yet has addressed why they prefer to work on disc players and avoid pc's. I'm still curious. (pburke posted of course while I was writing this and his point about the quality of the s/pdif coming out of the soundcard is the crux of the whole issue, isn't it? How important is that or can improve the jitter enough by reclocking in the dac and master-clocking the sc?).

-Robert

[RFScheer]

pburke has posted the first salvo from the disc-player "camp" to join the debate.

yeah, all except for the final point are matters of interface and convenience. Not one of them make anything sound better. Thus they are unimportant to me. Get an IPod and you've got all your ease of use.

Ok, fair enough, let's dismiss all the advantages of interface and convenience for this debate.

However, let's look at pburke's sweeping dismissal of all my points as unrelated to better sound?

My daughter scratches cd's. They don't sound very good after that! Many of you married people (but of course not all) are in the same boat as me on this one.

Integrating many formats into one player has the potential to remove lots of other sources from your music system and perhaps could improve sound by eliminating the preamp/source-selector from the signal path for example. That's for all of us who like to hear good quality radio or mp3's sometimes. I think it's funny to devote entire music systems to that single hi-end cd player.

Software upgrades are obviously very important to sound quality. Does your cd player get upgraded over the internet? Ipod's are more upgradable than that!

To be a bit more clear, software dsp is my main point about improving sound compared with a cd transport. As MWP has already posted in agreement, you can implement a digital crossover, which will obviously allow you to remove that troublesome analog hardware element from your signal path, assuming you have a crossover in the first place. Experimenting with crossover settings with software is a whole new ball-game compared with those expensive, time-consuming actives and passives.

Similarly, digital volume control can be implemented, as Wadia has done, without degrading sound and this saves more than just the $$$ for those high-end attenuators. Eliminating hardware attenuators without degrading the digital source MUST improve the sound. Does anyone know if there's a good software volume control yet?

There is HUGE potential for software dsp to improve your music in other ways. It's a diy paradise (or hell if you don't like vast, wide-open opportunities).

Anyone who claims to be an audiophile, even a cheap diy audiophile, and believes pc's are expensive (pburke claimed mod'ing a pc for quietness is expensive), that's not even putting up a good fight. You are trying to tell me that it costs less to create a high-end transport than to mod your pc for the purpose???? I'm seeing probably hundreds of posts in this forum discussing new and mod'd transports that people have spent comparable and higher $ on.

I'm wondering whether people just like watching the disc spin round and round?

-Robert

[pburke]

Originally posted by RFScheer
pburke has posted the first salvo from the disc-player "camp" to join the debate.


My daughter scratches cd's. They don't sound very good after that!

Integrating many formats into one player has the potential to remove lots of other sources from your music system

Software upgrades are obviously very important to sound quality.


I'm wondering whether people just like watching the disc spin round and round?

-Robert

a few replies (I actually work with digital audio all day long, so I am not really in that "CD spinning camp" - I just like ot listen to music in high fidelity when I take the time to do so, and the PC solution doesn't promise me that right now.

As for your daughter - my kids scratch their CDs, they don't touch mine, and if they did, they'd be scratching my back CD-R dupe of a master that's tucked away in a filing cabinet anyway. I use EAC to create better than store bought CDs for playback - like I said, I don't mind the PCs when they do what they do better than other solutions.

Software upgrades? you mean "bug fixes?" There is no software in my player. Just hardware, and when it doesn't work right, I'll replace those parts. Works for me. As for Wadia - I had one of these in my system last summer. Wow - what an overpriced heavyweight. It just sounded totally flat and without soul (latest firmware updates installed), especially fed directly to the power amps via digital volume control. I guess it does need it's quarterly software updates until they figure out how to do it right. The Wadia owner left rather disgruntled from my house, probably contemplating what he could get for that thing on Audiogon. My tweaked $250 player clearly outperformed it.

All the other things you list are either not available at this point (I'd love a digital crossover, then feed the output to a stereo 3-way attenuator and send it off to 6 amps, but we're just not quite there yet unless you buy dedicated hardare for mucho $$$), or are a matter of convenience.

But back to the key issues that keep me from getting into a PC-based transport and beyond: As far as I undestand jitter, it is an issue for data coming off a hard drive just like off a CD - something has to know at what pace to feed it to the output - SPDIF or whatever - and that something ideally needs to be in synch with your DAC. If that cna be resolved at a clearly better performance level than current CD transport technology can do, I'm all game. The PC noise can easily be eliminated - I have CAT-5 throughout the house and probably would run a server downstairs with a noiseless laptop or custom fanless PC as a control source in the listening room. Meanwhile, I will just keep spinning CDs and enjoy the music. I don't shuffle - I listen to entire albums. When I don't sit down to listen, there is no music.

Peter