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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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In Reply to: Re: HELP!....I OFFER YOU A CHALLANGE AS I'M LOST IN A BINARY WORLD! posted by mjatabor on November 13, 2006 at 13:11:55:
Hey Mike,It is pretty simple.
I just bought a silent computer (the Hush looked cool and was affordable), added a high end sound card (don't let the "computer is a noisey place" argument stop you as long as it is a studio grade card like the Lynx cards- just like regular audio, you have to spend some dough for quality), and a control device (in my case, I chose a wireless airpanel, but a pda or IR remote could be configured to work, and some people choose Laptops as their pc and use USB dacs (it is quiet has built in control, and can be affordable).
The PC requirements are pretty basic...I use a 1ghz processor and one gig of ram. The main mistake people make is trying to use it as a computer AND a digital source. The requirements go WAY up when one tries to make it do everything IMHO.
Playing audio doesn't require much by way of computer processing, but if you want to add things like room correction and upsampling, you will need some more speed. That said, the only time I have found my pc wanting of power is when I was upsampling to 32/96. Of course, the better upsampler required way too much cpu, but a less good one was able to run no problem. But, it is very possible that I will just convert the files to 32/192 using another program, and then play them back (not uspampling realtime)...if I ever conclude that it makes an improvement......
The Room correction and crossovers can be part of a player such as the one I am using: Foobar (Foobar2000.org) or, you can get a stand alone software that is "always on" meaning that any sound that comes from the computer goes through the crossover, not just the ones from the player. This is only a big deal if one is using analog and digital inputs (using the computer as a pre-amp). For the most part, the software is FREE, with the stand alone crossovers less than $100.
If you don't plan on bi or tri-amping, than you could get a card like the Lynx 22. This is a great sounding card and the mixer software is is super flexible as one would expect from a studio card.. Put it in a quiet pc and the hardware is done....well, you would still want to do anything you would normally do to a CDP like using good power cords, and reducing vibrations.
The software is easy too: Eac (exactaudiocopy.de) is used to get secure rips of your existing disks. This is the most tedious part of the whole thing, but once it is done...and backed up, you are ready to go. I chose uncompressed .wavs for my 200 cd collection, but if you have more, something Lossless like Flac might be the ticket. Yes, the disk drive is important at this step, but after that, all the music comes from the hard drive, and that is why a properly done pc music system can sound better.
Play back is done by Foobar. This is free and not really for the weak of heart, since its flexibility is daunting, and the learning curve is huge, but nothing you couldn't lick especially with all the helpful people out there. One of the important things is that the player support ASIO or Kernal streaming (which bypasses the dreaded KMIXER). I use the player to control volume. I know, the anti-digital volume control crowd will freak at this, but I can't tell any detriment from doing this, perhaps because the files are padded to 32bits. Also, IMHO ditching another component in the signal path can only help...
Foobar has the added option of showing cover art, lyrics, and number of times played, etc. There are many 3rd party plugins, and there is a user interface that is 3rd party that lets you make it look however you want.
Anyhow, I dig the Pass gear, and own an x-150 myself. My PC front end is not outclassed by the Pass gear, and actually they go together really well. Very very accurate, but still musical and not fatiguing.
Finally, I will say that I have never built my own computer. Sure, I have swapped memory and hard drives, installed windows, replaced some PSUs,etc. but never built one from scratch. So, IMHO if you can build some cables, putting a music PC together is within your grasp. The software and control are by far the hardest part, and there are many good forums to help.
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- Re: HELP!....I OFFER YOU A CHALLANGE AS I'M LOST IN A BINARY WORLD! - Dawnrazor 16:29:37 11/13/06 (0)
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