A couple questions about PC's that provide 'Digital Out'

Posted by dburna (A) on November 6, 2006 at 15:12:23

I am looking to replace my laptop that I use as the "driver" for my FLAC hard drive-based audio system. I still have a CD player but it gets very little use at this point. In shopping around, I noticed that several laptop manufacturers actually supply digital audio out (S/PDIF) on several models. The main machines I have seen that do this are from Acer and Hewlett-Packard (Pavillion). So my questions are:

1. Is there any laptop that can provide an "optical audio out"? Are there any other laptops (at or around $1k or less) that provide either S/PDIF or optical audio outs?

2. In theory (a big *IF*, of course), a computer providing S/PDIF out should be better than USB->S/PDIF->DAC, correct? Right now I'm using a HagUSB to convert the sound from my laptop. Does anyone have any direct experience using the H-P Pavillion S/PDIF outputs that can comment on the jitter and/or sound quality?

3. I like Macs as a concept, but I can't go with them because they don't support FLAC (inexcusable as far as I am concerned -- Apple doesn't seem to have learned from their proprietary/closed architecture mistakes from the '80's and '90's). I know there are several ways to get a Mac to play a FLAC file. Has anyone found one that they consider a good solution for a very (very) large song repository?

4. Semi related question: I also have an Airport Express that has a (mini-) optical audio out. I know you can't play FLAC files on an Apple system directly, but can you use a laptop to play FLAC files and stream the output to an Airport Express? I guess the question is this: when a laptop streams audio to an Airport Express, in what format does it do so? If it converts the audio to WAV before streaming (which Airport Express *DOES* support), perhaps that may help to solve considerably my problem.

As an FYI to inform this discussion, I just received a battery-powered Altmann DAC for my system. If I can find a good laptop solution that would allow me to use one of the two Altmann inputs (S/PDIF and Optical) for the laptop and one for the output of the CD player, I think I could be done churning equipment for a while.

Thanks in advance for any help/insight you can provide.

-dB (a unit measure of noise)

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Topic - A couple questions about PC's that provide 'Digital Out' - dburna 15:12:23 11/06/06 (18)

the solution is simple if you would just try it - hermanesque 06:20:37 11/14/06 (0)

Re: A couple questions about PC's that provide 'Digital Out' - audioengr 13:11:20 11/07/06 (0)

I use a MAC PowerBook running XP - Gordon Rankin 06:56:39 11/07/06 (12)

Re: I use a MAC PowerBook running XP - dburna 10:03:24 11/07/06 (10)

More info, Simple setup info - Gordon Rankin 07:38:43 11/09/06 (3)

Re: More info, Simple setup info - dburna 12:32:38 11/10/06 (0)

Re: More info, Simple setup info - dburna 04:30:46 11/10/06 (1)

Re: More info, Simple setup info - Gordon Rankin 07:51:17 11/10/06 (0)

Re: I use a MAC PowerBook running XP - xmasparty@mac.com 01:00:16 11/08/06 (0)

New MacBooks due over the next few weeks - restock 18:02:10 11/07/06 (3)

Re: New MacBooks due over the next few weeks - dburna 19:45:32 11/07/06 (2)

New MacBooks shipping today :) - restock 23:41:47 11/08/06 (0)

Re: New MacBooks due over the next few weeks - restock 21:09:16 11/07/06 (0)

Re: I use a MAC PowerBook running XP - g_man 12:04:54 11/07/06 (0)

Gordon, Why XP instead of OS X? (NT) - cornfeded 09:48:22 11/07/06 (0)

Re: A couple questions about PC's that provide 'Digital Out' - analog guy 01:33:57 11/07/06 (2)

"The network *IS* the computer...." - dburna 10:34:26 11/07/06 (1)

Re: "The network *IS* the computer...." - analog guy 10:39:20 11/07/06 (0)

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