Who has switched to pc audio and is happy?

zybar · « **on:** 30 May 2005, 12:20 am »

Has anybody moved to a pc based audio system and feel that it improved things?

If so, what did you switch from and how did it improve?

I am especially interested in anybody using their pc as a transport. This might be a great way for me to feed my TacT preamp.

Thanks,

George

thayerg · « **Reply #1 on:** 30 May 2005, 01:24 am »

I have. I'm not too hung up on absolute sound quality but with the right DAC and high bitrate encoding, plus a tube or maybe tripath amp and the right speakers, pc based audio can give you a very musical experience. You'll find that you can eventually guess which bitrate a file is encoded at pretty accurately, but that's not necessarily a bad thing--it means that if the file has got more resolution the pc-based system doesn't obscure it.

I use a Revo 7.1 soundcard through its digital output. The rest is synergistics.

CSMR · « **Reply #2 on:** 30 May 2005, 03:05 am »

I have used a PC both as a source and a transport. It's a matter of covenience mainly, unless you want to do DSP. There are sound cards and cd players with low jitter spdif. I have a quiet computer in an adjacent room from where I use it and listen to music so it's inaudible, so it makes sense to use it for music.

hometheaterdoc · « **Reply #3 on:** 30 May 2005, 04:57 am »

Quote from: zybar

Has anybody moved to a pc based audio system and feel that it improved things?

If so, what did you switch from and how did it improve?

I am especially interested in anybody using their pc as a transport. This might be a great way for me to feed my TacT preamp.

Thanks,

George

George,

As I'm sure you've read in my meeting's thread, we did a comparison with PC based audio and a Bel Canto Player feeding a Tact 2.2X. I still prefer the Bel Canto player used a transport over the $350 Dell computer, Revo 5.1 card, and cheapo digital cable. But the fact that it is in the same league as a phenomenal $8700.00 player speaks volumes....

The PC is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar more convenient than the stand alone transport because you can build playlists and store hundreds or thousands of albums all in one place, all accessible at the touch of a button. No need to get up to change discs all the time and you can mix and match stuff with only a few keystrokes.

If you don't already have the flat panel monitor, wireless keyboard, and cabling, it's going to be a bit more... but if you look around and take advantage of specials on hard drives, you can get one heck of a music server for under $1K for everything. It's a steal for what it is....

Carlman · « **Reply #4 on:** 30 May 2005, 02:43 pm »

If you go a little farther and build an Audio PC with attention to detail, I feel certain you will create a transport that relays music better than any cd player. If you get a really good hard drive and really good soundcard... and use a nice power supply with a good audiograde power cord... and condition the power... etc... You will achieve great results.

Having a transport that competes in the multi-thousand arena that also serves as a 'jukebox' of sorts has made me very happy. The ONLY hassle (for me) is having to rip cd's to your hard drive. You don't do it all at once, though... just when you're in the mood... and it doesn't take long... but you'll run out of disc space and need a few hard drives for a small-to-medium-sized collection. Anyway, it's a small price to pay to be able to listen to anything in your music library in seconds.. and having it all organized is fantastic too... and you can re-organize it however you like fairly quickly.

-C

thayerg · « **Reply #5 on:** 30 May 2005, 03:58 pm »

Another benefit of a hard-drive based music system is that you can use products like Apple's Airport Express, the Slimp Squeezbox (or whatever it is called) and others to bring music to other spots in your home. Not to mention all the other computers in your house if you have a home network. Both the above products have digital outputs too.

shokunin · « **Reply #6 on:** 30 May 2005, 05:25 pm »

In my office I have ripped almost half of my CD collection onto HD and currently use a lynx card in my office system. In the future, I hope to try out a USB SPDIF (empirical maybe..) or the Lynx in my main rig into my DAC. My comparison between PC and Transport will be apples vs. oranges since my Transport upconverts redbook into DSD.

However, one can't downplay the convience of choosing whichever song in any order. Plus, I find I enjoy the entire range of my music collection rather than focus on a couple of dozen of discs that are usualy in heavy rotation at one time or another. Just have it randomly select tracks and it's great for background music when I'm working. It also a lot easier to sync my music with my iPod when I travel.

jermmd · « **Reply #7 on:** 30 May 2005, 08:00 pm »

George,

You're only interested in the PC as transport right? You would use the Tact's DAC for music and your DVD player for home theater (this is where the PC will really shine, though). I'm not sure how a PC would sound in comparison to a dedicated transport. Would you play CD's in the PC's player or would you strictly play from files you've downloaded onto the hard drive? What format and what player is best (probably wav via foobar)?

I like the PC for convenience and I like watching the visualizations on my TV with music but like I said earlier, playing movies and video scaling is what really makes a HTPC special.

zybar · « **Reply #8 on:** 30 May 2005, 10:53 pm »

I would most likely just use the computer in place of a transport. I am not looking to use it as an HTPC.

I would rip the cd's to the HD and play it that way. I don't believe you get any of the pc benefits by running it directly from the cdrom drive.

George

JoshK · « **Reply #9 on:** 30 May 2005, 11:28 pm »

Just another thought to consider. I am in the process of building a Linux file server with a moderately large disk array. This server will be in the basement just below my system. I am then using a Squeezebox for playback. I have heard quite a number of great things about the sound quality of this option and it is nice because it is pretty cheap, the disk array can go somewhere else so that noise isn't an issue and you still have an S/PDIF output into your TACT, or in my case DEQX.

zybar · « **Reply #10 on:** 31 May 2005, 01:00 am »

Quote from: JoshK

Just another thought to consider. I am in the process of building a Linux file server with a moderately large disk array. This server will be in the basement just below my system. I am then using a Squeezebox for playback. I have heard quite a number of great things about the sound quality of this option and it is nice because it is pretty cheap, the disk array can go somewhere else so that noise isn't an issue and you still have an S/PDIF output into your TACT, or in my case DEQX.

Josh,

I have already posted on the TacT boards checking to see if anybody is using the Squeezebox 2 in just such a fashion.

I don't want to get my hopes up too much on a device that is under $300 new.

George

Garyg · « **Reply #11 on:** 1 Jun 2005, 06:19 pm »

I use an Empirical USB Off-Ramp Turbo directly into a Wadia 27ix DAC. It's not quite a match for a Wadia 270 transport but it very good for a PC based solution, it beats my Audiocom modified Meridian G98.

I used to use a Tact RCS but found it wasn't totally transparent and robbed some of the life out of the music, you might want to consider using an Apogee Big Ben to re-clock your source into the Tact, it can make quite a difference, as can a good external DAC.

Regards
Gary

JoshK · « **Reply #12 on:** 1 Jun 2005, 06:27 pm »

Yeah, I have/had reservations too, but consider what function the Squeebox (mine is the 2.0 too) does it isn't too surprising it is cheap. I have got to imagine that it has a buffer for the incoming data via ethernet, so jitter TO the SB is moot. Then it is converted to SP/DIF format and out it goes.

You could try an Apogee BigBen to reclock the S/PDIF signal if you wanted, which might be a really high end solution, or can have the SB modded with a better clock. I am thinking that down the road, after some of my other projects are cemented, exploring the avenue of building a nice external TentClock or other DIY Uber clock and slaving my digital sources and maybe even the DEQX off of it.

Garyg · « **Reply #13 on:** 1 Jun 2005, 06:34 pm »

I can vouch for the Big Ben, I use it with all my digital sources, it even manages to improve on Wadia's 'clocklink' interface between transport and DAC, highly recommended.

Regards
Gary

Jon L · « **Reply #14 on:** 1 Jun 2005, 07:29 pm »

Quote from: Garyg

I use an Empirical USB Off-Ramp Turbo directly into a Wadia 27ix DAC. It's not quite a match for a Wadia 270 transport but it very good for a PC based solution, it beats my Audiocom modified Meridian G98.

Regards
Gary

Hehe, that's not a fair comparison for Empirical b/c Wadia 270 connects to 27ix via their proprietary clocklink, which slaves to DAC's clock. Not to mention 270 costs $8,000

If only Steve could figure out a way to install a separate clock stream off of his transit and slave it to DAC's easily... Now, that would be a more fair fight! I'd rather have the superclock installed on the DAC and slave everything to it if possible..

Out of curiosity, what software player/file type are you using from your computer. Is it Foobar, and if so, are you using ASIO, KS, waveout? At 96kHz?

Steve says the Transit firmware bypasses K-mixer even in Waveout, but for some reason, using modded Transit's analogue output, things sound different between ASIO and Waveout

Garyg · « **Reply #15 on:** 1 Jun 2005, 09:42 pm »

Fair comparison?

From the Empirical website:

Quote

In fact, the sound quality is generally superior to a CD player or even an expensive Transport and outboard DAC.

Quote

Both 24/96 (24/96 compatible DAC required) and iTunes are significantly better that even upsampled 24/96 DAC output when using a CD Transport.

Those quotes were the reason I bought it, I want to off-load my 270 and use a computer based system, anything Steve can do to improve it's performance get's my backing.

I use the Off-Ramp through a Big Ben, even though I've got the SuperClock 3 version the Big Ben improves the sound, I also use the Big Ben on the data line between the 270 and 27ix.

I've tried both iTunes and Foobar 2000, and the variations of FooBar with 24/96, waveout, ASIO etc. Using Steve's recommendations at the moment, I initially thought ASIO was better than waveout/direct but after further listening wasn't so sure, need to do the comparison again as I got listening fatigue trying to pick out the differences.

Looking forward to Steve's battery power supply in the hope that it notches the performance up nearer to the 270.

Regards
Gary

zybar · « **Reply #16 on:** 2 Jun 2005, 03:03 am »

Quote from: Garyg

I use an Empirical USB Off-Ramp Turbo directly into a Wadia 27ix DAC. It's not quite a match for a Wadia 270 transport but it very good for a PC based solution, it beats my Audiocom modified Meridian G98.

I used to use a Tact RCS but found it wasn't totally transparent and robbed some of the life out of the music, you might want to consider using an Apogee Big Ben to re-clock your source into the Tact, it can make quite a difference, as can a good external DAC.

Regards
Gary

Gary,

The TacT with the Aberdeen Audio power supply is transparent and a very big improvement. I agree with you that with the stock ps the preamp/dac isn't as transparent and clean as I would have liked. However, the correction capabilities more than made up for it. Now I feel like I have my cake and I can eat it too.

George

Garyg · « **Reply #17 on:** 2 Jun 2005, 07:10 am »

George

Do you have a link for Aberdeen Audio? My main reason for selling the Tact was the problem with transparency, if that can be cured I would consider buying another.

Regards
Gary

zybar · « **Reply #18 on:** 2 Jun 2005, 10:45 am »

Quote from: Garyg

George

Do you have a link for Aberdeen Audio? My main reason for selling the Tact was the problem with transparency, if that can be cured I would consider buying another.

Regards
Gary

Gary,

Here is the link:

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?accstwek&1120967134

George

tdangelo · « **Reply #19 on:** 2 Jun 2005, 01:51 pm »

I love my SB2 - had the SB1 previously and the V2 is better all around. The SB2 feeds my Tact 2.0S DAC and that feeds my Aragon amps. The SB2 replaced my Wadia 301. No looking back! I absolutely love it. I tried wireless with the SB1 - that didn't work real well so I wired it and use the SB2 wired. Flac's sound excellent!

Tony D.