computer audio newbee

[anhdat]

hi all i am newbee here,i am interesting in computer audio,

somebody please give me some help.

right now my system has:

B&W 802d speaker

Mcintosh MC501 amp nomo block

What will do i need ?computer or the DAC or both of them? and which DAC should i get to work with my system? i only have about 5k for it

 

thanks for any help,

 

 

[esldude]

Certainly I am not best qualified to answer.

 

If you have a DAC already, you might need a way to get sound files from a computer into the digital input of the DAC.

 

You will need a computer unless you get a ready made music server. Something like a Squeezbox or Auraliti or even use something like an Apple Express or Apple TV. Different mixes of approaches and different levels of sound quality of course at different costs.

 

If you don't have a DAC already, one of the ready made music servers would work, or you could buy a current DAC that has USB inputs. Or you can buy a DAC and proceed with converting the signal from a computer via USB to your new DAC.

 

I can speak most directly to my own situation. I owned a good DAC already. I used a laptop computer which fed an outboard USB to SPDIF converter. Plug this into USB port on the laptop, plug the other end into one of the digital inputs of my DAC. Use software on the laptop to feed a signal out the USB onto the rest of the system. Initially put music files on the laptop hard drive. Eventually ripped all my CD's to an external drive I plugged into the laptop.

 

For software I used Foobar which is a fairly simple music player on Windows. Ripping all my CD's using the laptop and a couple desktops with CD drives took quite awhile. However, once done, it is very convenient. All my music available via simple software. This can be very high quality playback also.

 

If you do rip music, read Chris' excellent how to on ripping on the main page of this site. I guess the main issue to be aware of in ripping is meta data. Data about your music, who it is, what album, song titles, album art etc. Wav files don't do a good job of that. FLAC files do the best followed by Apple ALAC files perhaps.

 

So hopefully some of this is a little helpful. I remember feeling a bit lost about it just a year or so ago. Maybe my disjointed reply will shake loose a few more questions that will be helpful to you.

 

 

 

[darascal]

Hi @anhdat,

 

Have you had a chance to browse through this websites Computer Audiophile Academy? There's quite a bit of good information there. You may have to page through a bit to find the more introductory material - the last few pages may be most relevant to you.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/category/Computer-Audiophile-Academy/Computer-Audiophile-Academy

 

To give a summary answer to your question, you will want some kind of "music server" and/or a dac. Music servers can be roughly divided into two classes: 1) General purpose computers such as a Mac or PC, and 2) Specialized boxes for playing music from some kind of storage device.

 

For #1, the most common choice is a PC or Mac (a few opt for a Linux box). I believe this site leans slightly toward the Mac side. No one choice is necessarily "better" than the other, each has pros and cons. In general, the analog output signal from a general-purpose computer is of poor quality. So the most common set up is to obtain a digital output from the computer and feed this into an external dac. The most common connection used is USB. There are also some folks who use high-end (usually professional-level) internal sound boards to do the d-to-a conversion.

 

#2 - there are a growing number of music-server-in-a-box solutions on the market. These contain computers that are stripped down for the sole purpose of playing music. There a variety of these, some contain internal dacs and output an analog signal. Some of these (most?) have an optional digital output to connect to an external dac so the user can enhance the sound quality. And example of this is the SqueezeBox Touch (quite a few owners of these on this site). Some boxes only have a digital output, so must be paired with an external dac. Some players contain internal storage for holding music, some require you supply an external storage device.

 

Both #1 & #2 require some way of getting your music into a storage. The most common methods are ripping (importing) music from a CD to a hard drive (or other storage medium) or downloading higher-resolution audio files. You should avoid "lossy" (e.g. mp3) file downloads, since these are of a lower sound quality.

 

You'll need to do some research and listening to find out what dac will work best in your system. There are a ton of them out there. And, btw $5000 is plenty to buy yourself an excellent computer audio setup!

 

Hope that helps & that it isn't too much information.

 

Rascal

 

[anhdat]

Hi@esldude

I am very appreciate for your help, i am going to order C.A.P.S. v2.0, and the DAC, but on the meantime i would like to use the laptop,and the foodbar to play the music connect to my system,could you please tell me how to set audio signal feed out to the USB port in the laptop, if i use the foodbar and the USB to SPDIF cable where can i get ,any brain name?

Again thanks very much.

 

 

[anhdat]

Hi@ Rascal

Hi Rascal after i did browse through some of this websites Computer Audiophile Academy? I find out the C.A.P.S. v2.0. which is design by Chris Connaker it is look very interesting ,i love to use it for my music server, but i don’t know much about computer so i can’t build it, do you know any computer store can build it? I would to order it.

Again thanks very much

 

 

[darascal]

No, I've no idea about getting one of the caps boxes built. Way too much work for me. Who would you turn to for support? To me the caps specs seem more geared toward the more technically savvy individual.

 

I bought a Mac Mini and a dac. Simple.

 

As far as connecting your laptop to your system (using foobar, rather than "foodbar"). I don't know what kind of laptop you have, but most have a headphone jack, and this is what you'd use. You can't use USB without a Dac. Most computers do not come equipped with SPDIF outputs.

 

In this case the only way I know of is to get a Y cable that has an 1/8" mini-plug on one end and two rca connectors at the other. Plug the mini-plug into the headphone input of your laptop & the rca plugs into the aux inputs (or CD) of your amp. Best to turn the volume on you laptop & foobar up to 80-100% max & use your amp to control volume.

 

But um - don't expect anything great as far as sound quality.

 

If you're impatient and want to jump into the CA game quickly, you can always get an inexpensive Dac, such as an HRT Music Streamer II ($150). There are even some cheaper models (around $100), but they're not coming to mind right now. Some can provide good-quality sound, provided they are fed a bit-perfect digital signal.

 

Rascal

 

[esldude]

Do you have a computer now? If so what is it? Windows PC, or Mac? Laptop or desktop? Do you have a DAC already?

 

Foobar is a free program you can download to any Windows PC.

 

A desktop may have a sound card with optical Toslink or coax SPDIF digital out. A Mac laptop usually has an optical output. Other laptops usually don't. You would need a USB to SPDIF converter if that is the case.

 

Lacking any of these, most computers have analog out which can be fed from Foobar or other playback software. It is usually of modest quality if done that way.

 

[Stryker63]

http://shop.smallgreencomputer.com/CAPS-20-CAPS.htm

 

[samwisesam]

hi

 

i was in the same boat as you about a year ago and received invaluable advice on this site. I posted a query "help with getting started" on the DAC forum 47 weeks ago and there is some helpful stuff there. My advice would be decide on your PC/Mac source and software first. Get your head around how you want to rip your CD's, what file types, what media software. Foobar was recommended to me but I struggld with it and ended up using JRiver Media Centre which I much prefer. I am not very computer savvy and found Foobar not very intuitive. JRiver I found is more user friendly. Sound wise I believe both are rated highly.

 

Most of my ripping at that point had been to I Tunes so I stuck with Apple lossless files (ALAC)because I didn't want to re-do everything into FLAC. JRiver works fine with ALAC files with a plug in. Any music I have since downloaded from HDTracks for instance is in FLAC though as ultimately I intend to convert all my albums using DBpower amp software. Don't forget to backup your collection. I have my collection saved to a portable harddrive and ITunes on my desktop. I am beggining to think about getting a NAS drive for yet more backup as my collection builds I am getting paranoid losing everything!

 

I purchased the Audiolab 8200CD player which has a quality DAC and a quality CD player as I was still sceptical about whether Computer audio could compete with conventional CD playback. This player has an excellent USB asynch connection which works great with my laptop. I prefer the sound on this to the optical connection I sometimes use to feed 24/96 albums via my Bluray player e.g. some Neil Young albums on DVD disks. If I was starting agai I would have got the CDQ version of the Audiolab as I would like to bypass my AV processor pre amp ideally. You clearly have more money to play with than I had but the principle is the same I think, take your time considering the hardware whilst you get your computer side up and running. I have been impressed by the quality that can be achieved by CB audio and too be honest it has suprised me as I had thought it was more about convenience than SQ - I was wrong. The quality particularly o 24/96 recordings is top notch.

 

I have recently read great things about Musical Fidelity Clic by the way which you may want to check out.

 

Good luck

 

cheers Jamie

 

[Audio_ELF]

If you have neither computer not DAC; as well as the more common suggestions I'd try to get a demo of devices such as Naim ND5XS and NDS and Linn's DS and DSM (you didn't say if you have a pre-amp) ranges.

 

Eloise