[Luhaine]

Hallo fellow head-fi'ers!

I'm in a bit of a pickle since I recently began thinking about expanding on my (small) home set-up for the bedroom.

My thoughts have mainly been about an easy way for me to enjoy my digital music collection (read .mp3 and .flac). In the ideal situation I would have a single central stand alone unit with hard drive capabilities which would be connected through HDMI or TOSLINK to my receiver. Having looked at some of the options out there, the price seemed to be extremely high in some cases, up to 1.700 euro for a model with 500 GB. Then there are the cheaper models such as the squeezebox duet and touch. They however rely on an external drive which has / must have squeezecenter running on it, thereby forcing my to spend more money on a decent NAS.

This led me to consider the components I already have.

I am already streaming video's from my laptop to my PS3 with PMS (max throughput off laptop is 100mbit). I was thinking of doing the same with my music, however there are a few drawbacks that I can see with this set up. The first being that I need to have the laptop, the ps3, the tv (controls) and the receiver on. This seems a tad much just to play some music. The second one being that the PS3 doesn't natively support loseless audio formats such as .flac therefore the PMS application has to "mux" them, thereby potentially losing quality. The third is the PS3s sound quality in general, I'm not sure this is up to where I would like it to be.

I'm a little stumped at the moment on how to proceed. Therefore I have formulated some small questions in order to tap the central intelligence that is Head-Fi.

For example would an external DAC between the PS3 and receiver create a much better sound quality? If yes, then what should I be looking for around the 300-400 euro budget.
Is there a set up option that I have missed for a central stand alone unit that plays .mp3 and .flac which doesn't require a second mortgage so to speak?

Some info about my components:

1. Onkyo TX-SR607
2. Quadral - Rhodium 90 x2
3. PS3 80 GB
4. Gigabit network
5. Laptop (100mbit max)
6. 1 TB External USB Drive

Thanks in advance for any advice / tips!

-Luhaine

 

[estreeter]

Laptop -> portable DAC -> T3 -> phones

I got great results on the weekend with a similar configuration - the Topaz is a relatively expensive DAC, but read some of the current reviews of DAC and DAC/amps with small form factors - we would seem to be in a golden age of relatively big sound from tiny devices.

I would leave the receiver and the other kit in the living room. I had similarly crazy thoughts around bringing something like the CA Sonata into the bedroom, but its overkill when you dont need it.

 

[Luhaine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by estreeter /img/forum/go_quote.gif Laptop -> portable DAC -> T3 -> phones I got great results on the weekend with a similar configuration - the Topaz is a relatively expensive DAC, but read some of the current reviews of DAC and DAC/amps with small form factors - we would seem to be in a golden age of relatively big sound from tiny devices. I would leave the receiver and the other kit in the living room. I had similarly crazy thoughts around bringing something like the CA Sonata into the bedroom, but its overkill when you dont need it.

Normally I'd agree with you but the living room is already full of audio kit from my father, this is my personal kit

But your advice is to just get a good DAC to use with my laptop. My laptop only has a 3.5mm headphone out plug and no toslink option so I guess this goes over USB.

I've come across the DacMagic from camebridge audio which looks pretty good for 399 euro and I've read some good things about it. It has 2 Toslink and 1 USB input port. Another option I came up with is a popcornhour A110, plug in my external 1 TB USB drive. From the popcornhour -> DacMagic -> Receiver. With the added benefit off being able to play video files directly off the USB drive and hooking up the PS3 aswell.