Is PC the best sound source? - Page 3

As a midrange, versatile sound source, the PC undoubtedly offers the best bang for the buck since you have most of the guts of it already. As far as high-end is concerned, I think I've run into a (still upper/midrange) brick wall with the Fireface, both in terms of technical and emotional listening, to quote one of hte previous posters.


A hybrid solution is more extensible IMO.


The PC is now probably my main listening platform in terms of time. Since I don't these days I don't usually devote my attention solely to music unless I'm say travelling on a train, as a rule certainly while I'm listening while working it doesn't have to be the best sounding... It just has to be decent. And that it is if components are chosen carefully.

I kind of fall in between.

I still use a computer as a transport. And I use an External DAC with it. Best way to have the best of both worlds.

Not even close to portable, but I don't think computers as a source and Portables should be grouped together, IMO.

-Ed

Nice story.
My PC based setup is comparable, performance wise, to the McCormack UDP-1.

Is PC the best sound source?
Probably not, but a quite good one.

And there are people who think they belong to the best transports.

Cheers

Nothing, its free EAC+FLAC=WIN

You can "rip" vinyl+8-track+tapes, but it is an extensive process.

You're going to be hard pressed to find a better source than CDs save for the original DAT tapes themselves. You were probably listening to them on a poor setup.

What kind of music are you listening to?

The bad quality you are hearing, is not to be blamed on the CD format, but either on the recording quality, or the gear your using.

nicknameless - Buy some CD's if you don't have some already and go to www.bestmp3guide.com to find out all you need to know about ripping and encoding them. If you follow that guide you will be set for great quality MP3's, and if you want lossless and have the space for it all you need to do is change the encoder to FLAC and decide how fast you want your rips to encode and choose your settings for FLAC accordingly.

Of course as an alternative you could just buy a good CD player and pop the disc in the tray. Much less convenient of course. Well it is quite a bit more than an extra 0.1%. And who said you need to spend $2000 on a cd player to better a computer source? I'd like to hear a sound card that has better sound than my Eastsound... and if you start factoring in a comparible DAC, your computer setup will cost _much_ more than my cd player. I wouldnt really say that, if anything DIY cables are more highly promoted on here and they are great value. The only reason that I lumped portable setups into my statement is that there are two very common beliefs here on head-fi:

1) Computer sources are better value for performance than dedicated rigs. [I don't believe this is true personally. The only reason to use a computer rig is for convenience.]
2) Portable CD players and DAP's with line out/digital out are just as good as full sized CD players.

The problem is that many [not all of course, there are always exceptions] of the people that believe this have little experience with good dedicated rigs. I myself was guilty of this not to long ago... head-fi is a growing experience, or a degenerative disease. Depends on how you look at it. I should hope it sounds better, your DAC costs ~1 1/2 times as much as the McCormack.

Personally, I think that if you choose to go with a computer source for convenience reasons [or so that you can listen to all of your illegal music] and then try to get the most out of it by using a modded sound card or an external DAC there is nothing wrong with that. But people who are going with computer sources due to some sort of percieved better cost/performance ratio are kidding themselves. Admittadly there are some great deals in computer as source... maybe a chaintech hacked to bit perfect and a reasonably priced DAC. There are also great deals in dedicated source components... like the Eastsound.

That's nothing, mine is >120GB and Iron_Dreamer's puts mine to absolute shame...

I'm not disagreeing with you, especially since you've had more experience with high end sources than me. But please tell me, what dedicated cd source sounds better than the E-MU 1212m ($160) or E-MU 0404 ($80) at their respective price points? I have yet to find one in this range.

I would agree that at that price range it would be hard for a dedicated CD player to compete... if you only factor in the price of the sound card. On the flip side, I doubt you could construct a computer as source rig that sounded better than the Eastsound CD-E5 for $700 as there is no external DAC that I am aware of available for under $2k that can equal it.

I havent heard one, but I would imagine that the Onix XCD-88 would be a great source at ~$300 as it is pretty much identical to the Music Hall CD25.

In my experience, people new to hi-fi are drawn to the dynamics these sound cards and older portables can pump out, but do not yet possess a discerning enough ear to be bothered by the harshness and peaky treble exhibited by many of these components. Within a year, most seem to have discovered these problems and end up buying dacs/cd players. I know I've been in one too many agruments over this hehe. Don't get me started on digititus...

I found the stock Music Hall CD25 to be bright and a bit harsh in the treble. Its also kind of metallic sounding with the stock cord. A cord change to something higher guage (such as one of those quail cords) and opamp change (opa627 is nice) are musts to get the full potential of the unit.

Biggie.

The problem here is the question asks if computers are the "BEST" source. The obvious answer being. . .it depends what you mean by the best. Even Best SQ is going to be relative. I think you can turn a computer into an incredible source. If you use it as a transport and go to an external DAC, I think you can get the Best of all worlds.

USB to DAC is really really good. I think its better than internal sound card.

I'm interested to know that as well.
What I mean is: compared to an $80 E-MU 0404 what priced cd player would you have to have to get similar sound quality?

I was thinking about buying an EMU 0404. I have a Marantz ki signature cd player that cost around £400 ($750) and I would be pretty pleased if I could get sound quality approaching it from the EMU for $80.

I think one of the points Phildox made is that the sound card can't work on its own. You have to factor in the cost of the Computer along with the card. So the $80 0404 is more like a $580 0404. Still a pretty good deal, but not nearly as good as $80.