First off, I searched but with no luck, I may have missed something here though so appologize if I should of found my answers.
My son and I are building an audio comp system into a Scion TC, this is not your everyday audio install, for naysayers please be cool, if you have not heard what truely can be done then you have no real base to make disparaging comments
We attend CES, we listen to all the high end home audio, we hardly listen to any cars there as mostly they suck. We personally know Dr Edgar and we will have his horns someday, we know good audio
I have used dual 20 bit ladder DACS, rack mount modified analog EQ's, super high end transports, etc, etc, in cars, even a $7k set of seperates that to this day still blow me away when I think of how good they were.
Ok, now I should of made my point but just in case, this car will have SEAS Lotus Ref mids and midbasses and am trying to fit Aurum Cantus 2Gsi tweeters, it will have a custom outboard DAC, all analog processors(still the best to my ears), really great amps that will be replaced in 6 months or so with balanced line, etc, etc, amps I cannot say more about yet, still in development.
The goal is the best SQ car ever built and I am totally serious.
Ok, here is the question after all that mumbo jumbo. We are also going to build a carputer for it with all the usual Voice Nav, WiFi, etc, etc. HOW WELL, will a HDD work as the source unit with my audiophile CDs stored in full uncompressed format(could use somem sort if no degradation) ?
I will have a transport, looking at a high end home unit that is being setup to run in a car. I just want to know if the carputer HDD can output well enough to have no loss of SQ feeding into the DAC. I would love to have a couple of SATA drives loaded up with a ton of great source material.
Sorry for being long winded but wanted to let those with valuable info to share how serious we are, my 17 year old son and I. There is a good chance we will go for a world title in car audio (if any orginization is still viable enough when we are ready, a but shaky lately
Sincerly,
Rick
RAAMaudio
(530)340-0501
My son and I are building an audio comp system into a Scion TC, this is not your everyday audio install, for naysayers please be cool, if you have not heard what truely can be done then you have no real base to make disparaging comments
We attend CES, we listen to all the high end home audio, we hardly listen to any cars there as mostly they suck. We personally know Dr Edgar and we will have his horns someday, we know good audioI have used dual 20 bit ladder DACS, rack mount modified analog EQ's, super high end transports, etc, etc, in cars, even a $7k set of seperates that to this day still blow me away when I think of how good they were.
Ok, now I should of made my point but just in case, this car will have SEAS Lotus Ref mids and midbasses and am trying to fit Aurum Cantus 2Gsi tweeters, it will have a custom outboard DAC, all analog processors(still the best to my ears), really great amps that will be replaced in 6 months or so with balanced line, etc, etc, amps I cannot say more about yet, still in development.
The goal is the best SQ car ever built and I am totally serious.
Ok, here is the question after all that mumbo jumbo. We are also going to build a carputer for it with all the usual Voice Nav, WiFi, etc, etc. HOW WELL, will a HDD work as the source unit with my audiophile CDs stored in full uncompressed format(could use somem sort if no degradation) ?
I will have a transport, looking at a high end home unit that is being setup to run in a car. I just want to know if the carputer HDD can output well enough to have no loss of SQ feeding into the DAC. I would love to have a couple of SATA drives loaded up with a ton of great source material.
Sorry for being long winded but wanted to let those with valuable info to share how serious we are, my 17 year old son and I. There is a good chance we will go for a world title in car audio (if any orginization is still viable enough when we are ready, a but shaky lately
Sincerly,
Rick
RAAMaudio
(530)340-0501
There's a lot of computer-as-source stuff over at the head-fi forums. I would say that your primary concerns should be:
1) Vibrational shock to the harddrive(s) possibly ruining your disks
2) The quality of the soundcard you can put in there.
There are a TON of really awesome soundcards in the $200-1500 range, depending on what you want to do. I'm guessing you're going to look at a Via EPIA type system with a DC-DC switchmode PSU?
Most folks seem to recommend Toslink for the connectivity between a computer source and an external DAC. If you're going to do a long run between the computer and the DAC, AES/EBU may be another option since it's balanced and has higher output voltages (several volts versus .5 volts) than S/PDIF.
Anyhow, I would say go for it. I got into home audio because of the killer car audio systems out there. Anyone who thinks you can't make a great system in a car obviously has never listened to a true competition system. Earl Zausmer's BMW still makes me drool (the B&W Silver Signatures that pop out of the dash, 801 subs in the fenders, powered by Milbert Bam tube amps for the top end and Zapco's for the subs.)
It sounds like you're off to a great start. Please post pictures when you finish your install. If you're ever in the Seattle area, drop me a PM so I can hear your car! Heck, PM me with the thoughts of what else you'll be doing with your car, as I'd love to hear about it. It doesn't seem like many folks are building badass SQ competition vehicles anymore
1) Vibrational shock to the harddrive(s) possibly ruining your disks
2) The quality of the soundcard you can put in there.
There are a TON of really awesome soundcards in the $200-1500 range, depending on what you want to do. I'm guessing you're going to look at a Via EPIA type system with a DC-DC switchmode PSU?
Most folks seem to recommend Toslink for the connectivity between a computer source and an external DAC. If you're going to do a long run between the computer and the DAC, AES/EBU may be another option since it's balanced and has higher output voltages (several volts versus .5 volts) than S/PDIF.
Anyhow, I would say go for it. I got into home audio because of the killer car audio systems out there. Anyone who thinks you can't make a great system in a car obviously has never listened to a true competition system. Earl Zausmer's BMW still makes me drool (the B&W Silver Signatures that pop out of the dash, 801 subs in the fenders, powered by Milbert Bam tube amps for the top end and Zapco's for the subs.)
It sounds like you're off to a great start. Please post pictures when you finish your install. If you're ever in the Seattle area, drop me a PM so I can hear your car! Heck, PM me with the thoughts of what else you'll be doing with your car, as I'd love to hear about it. It doesn't seem like many folks are building badass SQ competition vehicles anymore
I will check them out, thanks!
HDDs will be shock mounted.
No sound card, all audio will route via SPDIF (very short distance) to custom DAC then to very high end analog EQ then crossover.
Exactly, most home audio buffs would change their tune if they heard a truely outstanding system and his certainly was!
I will send a PM, going to be living on the Columbia River sometime this summer, not all that far from Seattle
Rick
Oops, no PM or email setup to contact you, just tried. Send me an email if you wish, would like to be in touch.
raam@raamaudio.com
HDDs will be shock mounted.
No sound card, all audio will route via SPDIF (very short distance) to custom DAC then to very high end analog EQ then crossover.
Exactly, most home audio buffs would change their tune if they heard a truely outstanding system and his certainly was!
I will send a PM, going to be living on the Columbia River sometime this summer, not all that far from Seattle
Rick
Oops, no PM or email setup to contact you, just tried. Send me an email if you wish, would like to be in touch.
raam@raamaudio.com
RAAMaudio said:
Are you going to use an onboard soundcard for the S/PDIF? That's why I made the suggestion of a professional audio card -- you may get a better S/PDIF or AES/EBU signal out of those than the standard onboard Toslink or 1/8" S/PDIF.
I would guess that an EPIA MII-10000 motherboard (http://www.directron.com/epiamii10klvds.html) in a case like the Casetronic C134 (http://www.directron.com/c134.html) or the Ontashi-1000 (http://www.directron.com/otonashi1000.html) would be perfect. There are some sites out there that sell 12V DC-DC converters for these motherboard to put in cars.
That has a 1 Ghz VIA C3 CPU, which should be plenty for audio and generic computer apps. It also has a S/PDIF output onboard (but you have to sacrifice the TV-Out to get it). If you still need the TV-out, you could go with a professional quality USB soundcard to get your S/PDIF.
RAAMaudio said:
Exactly, most home audio buffs would change their tune if they heard a truely outstanding system and his certainly was!
I will send a PM, going to be living on the Columbia River sometime this summer, not all that far from Seattle
Rick
Oops, no PM or email setup to contact you, just tried. Send me an email if you wish, would like to be in touch.
raam@raamaudio.com
Hmm.. That's odd. I have PM's enabled. I'll drop you an e-mail.
Thanks,
Mike
There is also a USB->SPDIF group buy over at head-fi..
Corresponding DIYaudio link is here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53286
Head-fi link is here:
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1279489
Might be very very useful for your computer->dac project
Corresponding DIYaudio link is here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53286
Head-fi link is here:
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1279489
Might be very very useful for your computer->dac project
Why brother, the product already exist.
Check out the following, it has a unit for car that has spif out.
http://www.tvixusa.com/default.asp?id=51&mnu=51
Check out the following, it has a unit for car that has spif out.
http://www.tvixusa.com/default.asp?id=51&mnu=51
Well, first off, this is a "DIY" site, so I'm assuming he wants to build various parts of it himself. Second, you get a full-fledged computer for not much more than what that TIVX costs, and it's non-proprietary. That's not to say the TIVX couldn't be handy, but I don't think it'll be as high-quality as building a system from the ground up to do what he wants.
The TVIX sounds great for it's intended purpose but will not do voice nav, play games(not that I care), etc. I want a touch screen computer in the car
Today I removed the axle back exhaust, heat sheild, inside of the hatch floor materials and hammered out the shape for the motor stucture of the Arc Audio 15" sub we are installing. It will have 1,000 watts of AB Arc Audio xxk 2500 to make it happy. I may have enough room to do a sealed/ported box with a diveder to set it up for both when want to play the loud game
The amps and sub will be mounted as low and forward as possible and I am removing every bit of weight that is non essential to help compensate for the added mass of the audio gear. It just so happens that this coinsides with stealthyness, better acoustics as far as the location of the front speakers and the sub will be quite loud when wanted but also very well integrated(crossover slope, phase, etc) There will be no rear seat speakers, just a great active three way front stage.
I could do a horn install, pillar mids and tweets, just pillar tweets and midbasses in the doors for a two way, kick panel mid and tweets with a midbass in the doors, etc. This is the most versatile car I have ever worked on.
And, plenty of room once a few simple mods are done for the touch screen and transport, controllers, etc, in the dash.
When done the car will have full factory functionality and be an incredible competition level audio system, carputer, and performance plateform, this sure is fun
Rick
Today I removed the axle back exhaust, heat sheild, inside of the hatch floor materials and hammered out the shape for the motor stucture of the Arc Audio 15" sub we are installing. It will have 1,000 watts of AB Arc Audio xxk 2500 to make it happy. I may have enough room to do a sealed/ported box with a diveder to set it up for both when want to play the loud game
The amps and sub will be mounted as low and forward as possible and I am removing every bit of weight that is non essential to help compensate for the added mass of the audio gear. It just so happens that this coinsides with stealthyness, better acoustics as far as the location of the front speakers and the sub will be quite loud when wanted but also very well integrated(crossover slope, phase, etc) There will be no rear seat speakers, just a great active three way front stage.
I could do a horn install, pillar mids and tweets, just pillar tweets and midbasses in the doors for a two way, kick panel mid and tweets with a midbass in the doors, etc. This is the most versatile car I have ever worked on.
And, plenty of room once a few simple mods are done for the touch screen and transport, controllers, etc, in the dash.
When done the car will have full factory functionality and be an incredible competition level audio system, carputer, and performance plateform, this sure is fun
Rick
Horns are rather rare but can be incredible when done right. The latest install method, devised by Matt at Image Dynamics, is to mount the horns as far back and wide apart as possible instead of flush with the bottom of the dash. This can greatly increase the depth and width of the soundstage and helps the high freq extension. I know this for a fact as have heard it, in Matts truck no less.
This will be a stealth install with some flash when opened up for shows but not alot, I prefer just the music, flash is marketing, having a hard time making myself do it though!!!!
I spend today getting ready and glassing a Baltic Birch, fiberglass, Arc Audio 10" sub, under front passenger seat for the STI. This is the second version, had to move the sub back a bit, only mm to spare in all directions, compound angles, ducts for the rear seat heaters, etc. A great SQ sub with 16mm xmax was not easy to fit under there, going to be manf these soon
Rick
This will be a stealth install with some flash when opened up for shows but not alot, I prefer just the music, flash is marketing, having a hard time making myself do it though!!!!
I spend today getting ready and glassing a Baltic Birch, fiberglass, Arc Audio 10" sub, under front passenger seat for the STI. This is the second version, had to move the sub back a bit, only mm to spare in all directions, compound angles, ducts for the rear seat heaters, etc. A great SQ sub with 16mm xmax was not easy to fit under there, going to be manf these soon
Rick
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