How To Configure Computer for HD Sound in trad. 2 channel system

[atc363]

I have gleamed the following from Computer Audio and Stereophile sources:
First, the desktop needs to have a digital optical output called a S/PDIF. It further will need to have a high quality sound card, such as an RME HDSP 9652 Hammerfall DSP or the Lynx AES16. These sound cards use the ASIO protocol which allows the computer to bypass its PC audio handling altogether. If you add a PCMCIA based Firewire card, it needs to be compatible with audio, preferably using a Texas Instruments chipset. You connect the desktop to either an A/V receiver that accepts S/PDIF or highend DAC or even a Logiteck Squeezebox Touch which includes a DAC alllowing Wifi remote controlled or ethernet connected access to transfer 24 bits up to 88.2 or 96kHz. Finally, it has been recommended to use either Foobar 2000 or Media Monkey software to transfer CDs to desktop for playing on your 2 channel system. So has anybody tried this and did it result in better sound using transferred CDs than the sound of the CDs themselves in a pure analog system? Thanks for considering this query.

 

[darkswordsman17]

You definitely got the gist of things, although CD is not analog.

It being better or worse will depend on your equipment.

My personal advice is to be careful that you don't spend hundreds chasing fractions of a percent in stuff like cables, and other things, and invest your money primarily where it counts (which in my opinion will be your speakers, the source itself, and possibly the amp, with order of importance in my opinion being 1, 2, 3).

As for transferring CDs to PC, the best choice would be using Exact Audio Copy to rip them, and then hopefully encode into a lossless format such as FLAC. From there, I'd recommend using whatever media player suits you but enables the use of WASAPI/ASIO so you can keep the audio clean. I personally use Foobar, but there's lots of good players out there, and I believe even iTunes and the Zune software use WASAPI on Windows (and iTunes on Mac is already bit perfect).

Do you already have any of the equipment? If not, do you have any specific needs/wants? What about budget?

 

[moonboy403]

You can always just use iTunes and Apple Airport Express to streaming your music wirelessly from your computer to the Airport Express and connecting that with your DAC via toslink. It's convenient and you get bitperfect output.

My setup is exactly like that.

 

[kornphlake]

I believe you're putting a disproportionate amount of concern into the DAC. Unless you're spending thousands of dollars on speakers, and an equal amount on an amp, I don't think you'll be able to hear a significant difference between an analog output from a good quality, affordable, sound card and the digital output on a high end sound card. Yes a computer is a noisy environment and it makes sense to move sensitive analog equipment outside of the computer, but in real world listening I don't believe the difference is noticeable. It seems like you're researching a very complicated system of parts to get sound from a computer. Why burden yourself with a computer at all? A good SACD player will reproduce music as well or better than any computer based source. Where are you going to be getting your content? If it's ripped from CDs you're limited by the quality of the recording, even an exact digital copy is only as good as the source. Arguably a pure analog source (vinyl) is the most accurate, since it hasn't been digitized.

What exactly is your goal with this setup? What do you plan on listening to and where will you listen to it?

 

[atc363]

Thanks for the responses. I have a traditional 2 channel set up - cd player going to preamp. The preamp does not have optical S/PDIF. The stereophile article indicated a M-Audio USB Transit ($80.00) could be used to convert USB data up to 24/96kz sample rate going from the desktop to a D/A converter. While the article mentioned expensive DACs such as Musical Fidelity X-DAC for $1500, the Squeezebox Touch at $300 would seem to be a better DAC for the money, particularly where it allows for remote control by wireless.
What I am unclear on is exactly how the cabling is done - does the PCMCIA Firewire Card (or internal Firewire card) go to the USB Transit which in turn goes to the Squeezebox Touch? But, which of these components is going to cable by RCA plug to the preamp?
Thanks again for your helpful assistance.

 

[atc363]

The goal of the setup is to have ease of use playing transferred CDs and SACDs to wav files on the computer via the Squeezebox Touch which allows the music to be played with upgraded signal by wireless remote control, which has been complimented in reviews on its ease of use. Assuming sound quality will not sacrificed by elimination of the SACD/CD player as a component, you benefit by the remote control being able to access your entire music collection from hard drive.

 

[sdifox]

There is no way to improve signal that has been butchered...At most you can playback the CD content to its full potential.

just stick the CD into your SACD player and it will sound better because it has better DAC.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Thanks for the responses. I have a traditional 2 channel set up - cd player going to preamp. The preamp does not have optical S/PDIF. The stereophile article indicated a M-Audio USB Transit ($80.00) could be used to convert USB data up to 24/96kz sample rate going from the desktop to a D/A converter. While the article mentioned expensive DACs such as Musical Fidelity X-DAC for $1500, the Squeezebox Touch at $300 would seem to be a better DAC for the money, particularly where it allows for remote control by wireless.
What I am unclear on is exactly how the cabling is done - does the PCMCIA Firewire Card (or internal Firewire card) go to the USB Transit which in turn goes to the Squeezebox Touch? But, which of these components is going to cable by RCA plug to the preamp?
Thanks again for your helpful assistance.

If you're gonna use a Squeezebox, then you should be able to skip the sound card and that USB transport as well, as you'll just stream the music over your network to the Squeezebox and then choose to handle it from there. It will have analog output, as well as digital.

Or are you wanting both that and output directly at your computer? If so, then you can get a sound card and/or an external DAC, or you could possibly just get another Squeezebox.

I don't know about the more current ones, but the early Squeezebox(es) had pretty decent DACs in them, although they were allegedly hampered by the analog output, but many of these people already had much more expensive DACs that they'd prefer to use anyway.

It'd be up to you what you do, as you'll have plenty of options. If nothing else, start with the Squeezebox and see how it suits you. If it sounds good enough then you can save yourself some money, and if not you can give something else a try. There are a lot of good DACs these days.

I'm not sure if it would surpass your current player, as I don't know how good of quality it is (and when dealing with competent sound equipment, it often very much comes down to preference more than absolutes).

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, and granted I haven't kept on it all that well so I'm not entirely certain myself, but I don't believe SACD is easily ripped to computer, so that could present a problem if you have a lot of SACD content. Its definitely something to check into though.

But basically, what you would do is connect your computer to a Squeezebox via your network (wireless, or you might can even do direct ethernet), and then you can do analog out from it to your preamp. Or you can get a separate DAC, where you'll do digital out from the Squeezebox to the DAC, and then analog from the DAC to your preamp.

 

[electroju]

You will not get a higher sampling and higher resolution from CD because the information is not there. The best you can do is use a DAC and speakers that sound good to you. It is the same for SACD. If you want good sound quality from a computer and prefer just 2 channels, a Cambridge Audio DacMagic will be your best option. You should get away from using Windows and use either Mac or Linux. Low latency for audio only matters for recording and not for playback. What matters for digital audio is jitter distortion which the Cambridge Audio DacMagic tries to minimize.

For quality from analog, use balance connections. It helps minimize noise. Unbalance connections for audio are OK if the cable is short, shielded and the electronics are properly grounded.

 

[calvie]

Money should be spend on better speakers. For the most part, speakers make the difference on how music sound, not DAC or amp. You can spend $10,000 and get the best DAC and amp. But if you are using $200 speakers, it will not sound better than a pair of $1000 speaker that is using the soundcard from the motherboard.

 

[atc363]

One suggested idea of particular interest is simply starting out with a Squeezebox Touch. I am not quite sure this gets around the problem of getting a jitter free datastream out of the desktop. It was also noted that ripping an SACD is not easy to do, which is in line with what I have read as well. As regards dealing with the "jitter" issue, the Stereophile article also referred to an older sound card, a Digital Audio CardDeluxe which goes up to a 96kHz maximum sample rate. In terms of getting this datastream to the A/V receiver or preamp, the article noted that if the computer had optical S/PDIF digital data outputs, there would be no need to convert the data to analog on its way to the A/V receiver, stating "Some Macs do have optical S/PDIF digital data outputs, eliminating the need for [an external converter]." I have since seen an inexpensive used Dell desktop, the Studio, that has a S/PDIF connector, which hopefully would do the same thing. I would think you still need to include the Squeezebox with its jukebox program to play the desktop's music folder by wireless remote (as well as to access internet radio, Pandora, etc.).

 

[darkswordsman17]

You will not get a higher sampling and higher resolution from CD because the information is not there. The best you can do is use a DAC and speakers that sound good to you. It is the same for SACD. If you want good sound quality from a computer and prefer just 2 channels, a Cambridge Audio DacMagic will be your best option. You should get away from using Windows and use either Mac or Linux. Low latency for audio only matters for recording and not for playback. What matters for digital audio is jitter distortion which the Cambridge Audio DacMagic tries to minimize.

For quality from analog, use balance connections. It helps minimize noise. Unbalance connections for audio are OK if the cable is short, shielded and the electronics are properly grounded.

The Squeezebox actually does well with jitter, so no real worry there. There's no need for switching OSes as it, and many other products will do just as well out of Windows as they will MacOS or Linux.

I get the impression that he's already got the speakers/amp/preamp figured out, he just wants to find some way of storing and accessing his music collection more easily than using physical media. I don't know that we need to get overly technical, he more or less wants to know if the Squeezebox will offer comparable quality, as well as be easy to use, which I think will be yes on both accounts.

 

[moonboy403]

Same thing with the Airport Express. The jitter measured by Stereophile was around 250ps which is very low compare to any typical transport.

 

[joetekubi]

+1 on most all of the posts. Lots of good ideas in this thread.
I don't have "golden ears", but I hang out with guys who do.
Lots of them are very happy with using Squeezebox. A few of the guys are very particular, and use Exact Audio Copy to rip CDs. I would think that a good SACD player would have quality DACs and low jitter. Oppo is a good brand if you want to go that direction.

Also strongly agree that top quality speakers are necessary to hear any differences for this setup.

 

[moonboy403]

And also, the room has a lot more impact on your perceived sound quality than any DAC can bring you in a speaker setup. So as long as your DAC is decent, you shouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[JSt0rm]

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac/dac1-hdr

^^ thats what you want for 2 channel playback from your computer

 

[atc363]

I am one and the same as sta363, but unfortunately sta363 is not working at this time. I wished to followup to hear more about Squeezebox Touch, from those with experience with the Touch. One poster mentions two choices that you have: (l) putting your music directly on an external hard drive and using the server built right into the Touch; (2) using an Network Attached Server or your computer. One poster preferred using the external USB drive, provided the drive had its own power saying it had none of the drawbacks of using your computer. Another poster disagreed, on the basis that hearing your music (at 24bit/96kHz) through a computer digital output to a high quality DAC had better sound quality, plus it was more reliable. It has also been stated that FLAC is the preferred encoding format over wave, since it is bit perfect; takes about half the space and is easily tagged and also easily decoded by the Touch. Any comment from people who own the Squeezebox Touch would be much appreciated. Thx.

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