fmak said:
The caps & opamps can be 'upgraded':
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38123
"Of course I am being practical
1) I want the convenience of my whole CD collection in my HDD without loss of quality"
Are you planning to store them in .WAV format? I don't know about your CD collection but mine runs over 1,000 and is growing. That's a lot of HDD space - 500GB+. Not undoable but a 120GB / IDE drive I would need 5 drives and room to expand.
1) I want the convenience of my whole CD collection in my HDD without loss of quality"
Are you planning to store them in .WAV format? I don't know about your CD collection but mine runs over 1,000 and is growing. That's a lot of HDD space - 500GB+. Not undoable but a 120GB / IDE drive I would need 5 drives and room to expand.
PC as transport review
Hi,
I have just done a brief listening comparison between my reference transport & a hastilly asembled audio PC. I am impressed by the PC ! It is quite an experience.
History :
My system consists of mostly DIY equipment -
1) source - Theta Pearl with trichord III clock
2) TACT RCS 2.0 - bought second hand
3) DAC - heavily modified AN dac 1.1
4) DIY linestage based on Allen Wright's FVP
5) DIY OTL based on Transcendant sound T8
6) DIY speaker based around Mitsubishi Diatone 610
PC setup :
Hardware-
1) Asus MB with 512MB RAM
2) RME DIGI8/96 PAD sound card
3) Seagate barracuda 80GB HDD X 2
4) Monarchy DIP classic
Software-
1) Windows XP pro
2) Foobar with asio output
3) EAC for ripping cd to uncompressed WAV
The evaluation
This started last night. Installed Foobar & tried to use the kernel streaming feature. This resulted in no sound. Can't figure out why & instead switched to either wave out or direct sound for comparison. The sound was muted & felt as if someone has put a blanket over the speakers (best that I can describe). I tried both output of wave out & direct sound. There was not much difference. Compared to my reference, my rig sounded airy, fast & sweet. Decided to call it a night .
Tonight, tried the same thing as above & still same result. Then, as a last ditch effort, I decided to try the ASIO out by installing the asio plugin for Foobar. Took me a few tries before I managed to get the configuration to work. The digital output of the sound card is fed to the Monarchy then to the digital input of the TACT. I switch between the CDT & PC using the TACT remote (TACT has 6 digital inputs) while playing the same songs (from HDD on PC & orginal CD in the CDT). The sound level did not require any matching as they were near identical. Quite a revelation. I was not expecting this at all !
Track 1 : Cai Qin (Singer from Taiwan - Ji Yu (Coincidental meeting) - audiophile disk played in many Asian Hi fi shows
I played track 6 & was struck by the ability of the PC to match the airy presentation when compare to the CDT. There is a very slight edge the CDT has over the PC though.
Track 2 : Jennifer Warnes - The Hunter - track 8 (Way Down Deep)
This track is distinguished by the bass (60 ~ 70 hz). The PC has an edge in this deaprtment.
Track 3 : Michelle Branch - Hotel Paper - Track 14 (the game of love)
pop/rock. Not much difference at all
Another track that was used for comparison was Heather Nova's Siren track 4 (what a feeling). Again, perception of heavier bass by the PC.
Tomorrow night, I will test the soundstage & other things that I can think of. Anyway, it has been quite enlightening. I was all set to banish the PC to my study to serve as a juke box after last night.
I feel the PC can be improved further. My mini-itx parts are still in transit. Let's see what happens when I get my hands on that.
Regards,
Joe Ling
Hi,
I have just done a brief listening comparison between my reference transport & a hastilly asembled audio PC. I am impressed by the PC ! It is quite an experience.
History :
My system consists of mostly DIY equipment -
1) source - Theta Pearl with trichord III clock
2) TACT RCS 2.0 - bought second hand
3) DAC - heavily modified AN dac 1.1
4) DIY linestage based on Allen Wright's FVP
5) DIY OTL based on Transcendant sound T8
6) DIY speaker based around Mitsubishi Diatone 610
PC setup :
Hardware-
1) Asus MB with 512MB RAM
2) RME DIGI8/96 PAD sound card
3) Seagate barracuda 80GB HDD X 2
4) Monarchy DIP classic
Software-
1) Windows XP pro
2) Foobar with asio output
3) EAC for ripping cd to uncompressed WAV
The evaluation
This started last night. Installed Foobar & tried to use the kernel streaming feature. This resulted in no sound. Can't figure out why & instead switched to either wave out or direct sound for comparison. The sound was muted & felt as if someone has put a blanket over the speakers (best that I can describe). I tried both output of wave out & direct sound. There was not much difference. Compared to my reference, my rig sounded airy, fast & sweet. Decided to call it a night .
Tonight, tried the same thing as above & still same result. Then, as a last ditch effort, I decided to try the ASIO out by installing the asio plugin for Foobar. Took me a few tries before I managed to get the configuration to work. The digital output of the sound card is fed to the Monarchy then to the digital input of the TACT. I switch between the CDT & PC using the TACT remote (TACT has 6 digital inputs) while playing the same songs (from HDD on PC & orginal CD in the CDT). The sound level did not require any matching as they were near identical. Quite a revelation. I was not expecting this at all !
Track 1 : Cai Qin (Singer from Taiwan - Ji Yu (Coincidental meeting) - audiophile disk played in many Asian Hi fi shows
I played track 6 & was struck by the ability of the PC to match the airy presentation when compare to the CDT. There is a very slight edge the CDT has over the PC though.
Track 2 : Jennifer Warnes - The Hunter - track 8 (Way Down Deep)
This track is distinguished by the bass (60 ~ 70 hz). The PC has an edge in this deaprtment.
Track 3 : Michelle Branch - Hotel Paper - Track 14 (the game of love)
pop/rock. Not much difference at all
Another track that was used for comparison was Heather Nova's Siren track 4 (what a feeling). Again, perception of heavier bass by the PC.
Tomorrow night, I will test the soundstage & other things that I can think of. Anyway, it has been quite enlightening. I was all set to banish the PC to my study to serve as a juke box after last night.
I feel the PC can be improved further. My mini-itx parts are still in transit. Let's see what happens when I get my hands on that.
Regards,
Joe Ling
Attachments
hey joeling39 i am thinking bout building a pc for just music. I have an old hewlett packard that i dont really use any more, (since i just finished building a new one), and i know i could fix it up a bit and make it very usable for a project like yours. I am not sure though as to what soundcard i want as of right now.....any suggestions would be appreciated... but i am curious as to what program you used to rip uncompressed cd's.
I also wanna know how much that 7 inch touch lcd was
I also wanna know how much that 7 inch touch lcd was
Dear Konnan 101,
I have little experience in this area as well. My purchase of the RME DIGI8/96 PAD sound card was based on recommendations from searches from the net. It turned out to be good advise after all. I bought my card for around USD385 delivered via courier from Singapore.
I am using EAC to rip my CD into the HDD as uncompressed WAV. Again, I am using the simplest setting without any tweaking yet. Search the net & you will come up with a lot of hits on this.
I paid EUR313 for my 7" touchscreen. However, EUR55 was spent on shipping the unit all the way from Europe (Germany if I am not mistaken). The irony is that this screen is probably highly likely to have been manufactured in China. No market for this in Malayisa unfortunately. The place where I bought this from is CarTFT.
Regards,
Joe Ling
I have little experience in this area as well. My purchase of the RME DIGI8/96 PAD sound card was based on recommendations from searches from the net. It turned out to be good advise after all. I bought my card for around USD385 delivered via courier from Singapore.
I am using EAC to rip my CD into the HDD as uncompressed WAV. Again, I am using the simplest setting without any tweaking yet. Search the net & you will come up with a lot of hits on this.
I paid EUR313 for my 7" touchscreen. However, EUR55 was spent on shipping the unit all the way from Europe (Germany if I am not mistaken). The irony is that this screen is probably highly likely to have been manufactured in China. No market for this in Malayisa unfortunately. The place where I bought this from is CarTFT.
Regards,
Joe Ling
i just ordered parts for a music only PC too.
using the M-AUDIO | Audiophile 2496.
2 Seagate 80GB Hard Drives
1 Maxtor 300GB Hard Drive
Enermax Noisetaker PSU
I'm doing this mostly for the convienence of having my CD library
quickly accessable. Plus it sounded like a fun project. With about
450 GB of storage approx 650 CD's in WAV format... now just to
have the time to rip them all down with EAC!
will post my results and thoughts too.
Which touch screens are you guys using??
m.
using the M-AUDIO | Audiophile 2496.
2 Seagate 80GB Hard Drives
1 Maxtor 300GB Hard Drive
Enermax Noisetaker PSU
I'm doing this mostly for the convienence of having my CD library
quickly accessable. Plus it sounded like a fun project. With about
450 GB of storage approx 650 CD's in WAV format... now just to
have the time to rip them all down with EAC!
will post my results and thoughts too.
Which touch screens are you guys using??
m.
moe29 said:i just ordered parts for a music only PC too.
using the M-AUDIO | Audiophile 2496.
2 Seagate 80GB Hard Drives
1 Maxtor 300GB Hard Drive
Enermax Noisetaker PSU
I'm doing this mostly for the convienence of having my CD library
quickly accessable. Plus it sounded like a fun project. With about
450 GB of storage approx 650 CD's in WAV format... now just to
have the time to rip them all down with EAC!
will post my results and thoughts too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Careful, the Enermax 350W is actually quite noisy! The old Barracuda 4 is also quieter than the 5!
Soundcard???
Hey
What`s your problems?You don`t need a soundcard to play music with a computer as source.
I`m using USB.One bluetooth dongle at the computer and two at the speakers.
And I can`t hear any difference in opposition to cables.
PS.Where are the good practibel DIY solutions for a digital xover?
That`s the only think I need to go in speakers heaven.
Hey
What`s your problems?You don`t need a soundcard to play music with a computer as source.
I`m using USB.One bluetooth dongle at the computer and two at the speakers.
And I can`t hear any difference in opposition to cables.
PS.Where are the good practibel DIY solutions for a digital xover?
That`s the only think I need to go in speakers heaven.
fan noise really doesnt bother me at all, definately not enough to by a fanless psu, but i mean with a heatsink fan a power supply fan and maybe one case fan, you really wont be able to notice the fan noise.
my computer has like 7 fans and it sounds like a vacumn cleaner, and it doesnt really bother me at all, especially when i am playign music or a game.
my computer has like 7 fans and it sounds like a vacumn cleaner, and it doesnt really bother me at all, especially when i am playign music or a game.
I recommend you all buy a KVM and place your computers in a seperate room like I done..
Eliminates noise generating from the cooling of the humble PC.
First, go buy yourself a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI soundcard.
It has the ability for coaxial digital out, but I think the analog line-level output is just as good already.
I currently own an aopen AW-744 "Cobra" since 2001 and yes they whip the *** of any ISA Creative card and quite possibly those very nasty Creative SB Live! cards..
Remember just because they are the only mass distributed card in the computer industry for the past 15+ years, doesn't mean they're good.
The TBSC costs about $80 and about $80 to ship it anywhere other than $merica.
I would strongly recommend anyone stay away from the Creative ISA cards as yes they do have nothing above 20khz but hiss!
The first PCI cards (Budget lines) were all ripoffs of the ISA ones!
Oh and a very important comment, DONT USE MP3! theres heaps more codecs laughing themselves dead rich in midrange response when compared to MP3.
For example:
MPC:
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/11/1/3/11-1-3-18.shtml
I've found that codec to be incredibly responsive for rock and Jazz , MPC that is...
OGG:
http://www.vorbis.com/
OGG is great for everything and has no filesize penalty against MP3.
You /can/ gain response from mp3's encoded at 128kbps by converting them to wav and then back to ogg at 128kbps..
But of course I encode all of my material and only use material at least 192kbps.
If you are going to rip and chuck ANYTHING, do it at 192 or MORE!
and
Please!
use
OGG.
Cheers.
Eliminates noise generating from the cooling of the humble PC.
First, go buy yourself a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI soundcard.
It has the ability for coaxial digital out, but I think the analog line-level output is just as good already.
I currently own an aopen AW-744 "Cobra" since 2001 and yes they whip the *** of any ISA Creative card and quite possibly those very nasty Creative SB Live! cards..
Remember just because they are the only mass distributed card in the computer industry for the past 15+ years, doesn't mean they're good.
The TBSC costs about $80 and about $80 to ship it anywhere other than $merica.
I would strongly recommend anyone stay away from the Creative ISA cards as yes they do have nothing above 20khz but hiss!
The first PCI cards (Budget lines) were all ripoffs of the ISA ones!
Oh and a very important comment, DONT USE MP3! theres heaps more codecs laughing themselves dead rich in midrange response when compared to MP3.
For example:
MPC:
http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/11/1/3/11-1-3-18.shtml
I've found that codec to be incredibly responsive for rock and Jazz , MPC that is...
OGG:
http://www.vorbis.com/
OGG is great for everything and has no filesize penalty against MP3.
You /can/ gain response from mp3's encoded at 128kbps by converting them to wav and then back to ogg at 128kbps..
But of course I encode all of my material and only use material at least 192kbps.
If you are going to rip and chuck ANYTHING, do it at 192 or MORE!
and
Please!
use
OGG.
Cheers.
We are aiming for high-end here right?
A TBSC isnt up to the task... yeh, it is a good sound card, but the line-outs are of avg quality and the SPDIF out is resampled 48Khz.
Ogg is "true" VBR... you dont set a encoding bitrate... you set a quality level.
So im not sure why you are refering to 192kbit when even a brilliantly encoded OGG will go below this.
MPC is actually better than OGG due to it not using sub-band encoding which produces pre-ringing effects.
But for quality, lossless is the only way to go... APE, FLAC, etc are the codecs to use.
And with HDDs as big and as cheap as they are now... why wouldnt you use lossless?
Did you read the rest of this thread?
All of this has already been discussed.
Yes I've read this thread throughly.. and most of them still use mp3, so NO I was most definatley not going for high end audio reproduction..
The TBSC is mountains above anything these guy's have apart from going for an external SPDIF dec box that converts it into analog or whatever...
Yes I agree with you to death about MPC being a better codec.
1# Because when you set OGG using the dumb-founded 'quality' setting bar, you are setting the encoding bitrate!'
2# People still want to encode in mp3 because it's so popular, so I set a starting point for (my view) almost good-to-cd
quality encoding of mp3's so that maybe later on they can convert it to OGG and get the better 'sounding' codec if they do so wish!
(But not limited to doing only 192 but also conversion with 128)
3# the TBSC is cheap $$$
Only way I can describe it.
Cheers
The TBSC is mountains above anything these guy's have apart from going for an external SPDIF dec box that converts it into analog or whatever...
Yes I agree with you to death about MPC being a better codec.
1# Because when you set OGG using the dumb-founded 'quality' setting bar, you are setting the encoding bitrate!'
2# People still want to encode in mp3 because it's so popular, so I set a starting point for (my view) almost good-to-cd
quality encoding of mp3's so that maybe later on they can convert it to OGG and get the better 'sounding' codec if they do so wish!
(But not limited to doing only 192 but also conversion with 128)
3# the TBSC is cheap $$$
Only way I can describe it.
Cheers
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