In Reply to: And some people wonder why PC audio is not yet "mainstream"! [nt] posted by Charles Hansen on April 7, 2009 at 16:07:54:
Charles, this forum is for people who are interested in obtaining the last bit of quality from their audio systems no matter the cost of the components or their budgets. It is not for people who would never even consider or aspire to components from Ayre and other such specialty manufacturers.
I have heard very good to excellent audio from several different computer sourced system with relatively new Windows and OSX computer, uncompressed or lossless files and modestly priced cables and external DACs. I do not believe that the differences are night and day, but rather fairly subtle and improvements can be made by paying attention to file type, media player, input choice, components, audio settings on the computer. That is why I post here and seek others thoughts and impressions before I make my own decision. I think that many of the differences referred to here are probably the result of the subjective tastes of the listener, such as those one finds in people who prefer tubes v. solid state, class A v class A/B, etc., you get the point.
The media software is mostly free such as iTunes, Foobar, Windows Media Player, etc. The cost of computer sourced audio does not put it out of the means of most people who own computers. In fact, if bandwith increases and downloads or streaming audio from Apple, Amazon, etc. arrives in a lossless format, it will be mainstream.
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Follow Ups
- The mainstream do not and never will visit this forum - DSG 11:25:18 04/08/09 (0)
- RE: The mainstream do not and never will visit this forum - Old Listener 20:34:24 04/14/09 (0)