[saki45]

In my point of view PC is a good Hifi source, but it highly depends on the digital interface and the dac you are using. And the port you're using might affect the sound quality. It is said that Optical/SPDIF and network port are better than USB.

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

In my point of view PC is a good Hifi source, but it highly depends on the digital interface and the dac you are using. And the port you're using might affect the sound quality. It is said that Optical/SPDIF and network port are better than USB.

From the point of view of high-end audio, a PC can be a good source, but, ultimately you are going to end up dealing with the imperfections of computers when it comes to sending out a good digital signal.  USB and optical tend to be worse options than coax out, itself ideally which should be a proper 75 Ohm BNC set-up. Some USB solutions manage to get around this though, such as the asynchronous ones.

 

[dallan]

Stated this somewhere else, after having spent over $2000. on a music program, and an expensive usb/spdif converter as well as the best usb cable i could reasonably afford, my computer audio is great/much better than originally by leaps and bounds, buuutt after plugging in my Oppo 980H (which costs under $200.) and plugging in the same spdif to my dac i have to say it is more transparent, quieter and more dynamic.  I was trying to make listening to my library easier but if i can dig up a cd i guess i should for better SQ.   With ease comes compromises.
 
Edit-I have a very transparent system so it is easy to hear little changes with many systems you may not hear the difference to a large degree.

 

[TheKisho]

Like screen door mesh.  [Maybe a bit larger holes].  Nothing that would significantly reduce air flow.

 

 

 

As for overheating Mac laptops there was a bad batch a while back all related to poor parts that Nvidia made, but it was not limited to Macs [I had an Acer laptop with one of these chips in it].  There was also the hotter original Core Duo which ran hot as well, but that's an hot Intel part being crammed into a laptop (off course it'll be an overheating hot plate) [That I would blame on Intel].  As for the bad batteries if you recall it was a problem with all Lithium batteries from all PC maker (Including Apple), they were recalled and replaced.

Macs crash no more no less then Windows computers do.  Major kernel crashes are extremely rare on Mac.  I'm sorry to hear about the education software lacking on Mac now days.  They use to be king of that realm.

 

I don't see why Photoshop wasn't running nicely on your schools computers (maybe a lack of hard drive scratch space and/or low RAM).  Schools often use a network login server which stores all the user's data and login information so a student can login on any computer in the school (Can be done for Macs and PCs).  This will lead to errors over all system slowness.  Photoshop always ran equally as fast on my Mac machines as it does on my Windows machines.  Which was fairly quickly.

 

The network admins didn't seam to do a very good job.  Sounds like everyone had admin rights and all the permissions were incorrectly set.  It's a unix-like operating system there is really no reason you couldn't configure it to be more secure then a Windows computer on the network.

 

 

Apple products are not as bad as the people make it out to be.  It's also not as world changing as the fanatics claim as well.  It's a solid computer that works very well with a bit perfect audio output out of the box.  They are usually small and nice looking.  You are able to get quality service from Apple, the store you bought it at, not just the users.  That said I'm in the PC camp because I enjoy tinkering with my computer and enjoy the cheap price (even though that means I have no free tech support from the company I bought it from (or none in my case (built it myself))).  I have a fairly unbiased view on Macs and PCs (Windows and Linux).

 

 

P.S.  Sorry to hear about your experiences with Macs.  School is no way to judge a computer.  I've had more problems with computers at school then I've ever had at home.

 

 

 

Transformers used in computers are not loud devices.  The biggest problem on these PSU are the fans.  Once you eliminate the fan it should be just as quiet as the laptop one, more or less.  It doesn't have to be 0dB, it just has to be lower then your average room noise which even in a quiet room is no where near 0dB.  All the research I've done seams to say a quiet room or library is typically 40dB.  I have no way of checking this, I don't even own a sound pressure meter.  I've always assumed that it was somewhere around 28dB but I guess I'm wrong.  Computer makers must fudge their numbers because some of these products (with fans) cannot be as quiet as they quote them to be.

 

 

[MooTaters]

A graphics card is generally a different story as they tend to hover around 50C give or take.  So unless you speak of a low end video card that isn't meant for much more than giving you a video output I'm not surprised that it died except that most GPUs should shut your display off when they reach a critical temp as a safeguard.
 
Quote:

I thought I could put a passive heatsink with headpipes on my video card and it died because of how hot it got.  Inside a case air needs to move, period.  Listening to music loud doesn't kill your hearing.  I listen to music loud but not too loud.  You can feel hearing damage.  Badly mastered loudness war crap is what kills hearing because it's constant loud.  A track with good dynamic range varies the levels of sound at your ears.  Listening to music quietly makes no use of dynamic range.  You might as well use speakers.  A computer will never hit a pure 0 dB of audible noise.

 

[Auzner]

A computer is a good source. The interface it provides gives a lot of control over what can be done. HDMI or S/PDIF provides the option to output to a superior A/V receiver. Using USB as an intermediate only decreases the bandwidth capabilities of the digital data. Its DC power source is provided by the very computer being used. Any highly regarded filtering circuits or ICs it would have would already be on a PCI or PCI-e device. Built in audio uses either of those buses without you knowing it. The interconnect is a pin interface, it can also be traces on a PCB. Whatever "god-like" circuitry an external box has does not have to just be tied to USB. There is I2S to make it all the same in any type of device.
 
The person in that video clearly knows nothing about microprocessors and digital signal processing. His "simplistic" speech is not only breathtakingly wrong, but if what he says were true, the product he's pushing would have the same flaws. I've never witnessed technology this oversimplified before that it's discussed as if it were Flintstones technology with a temperament and catch-phrases.
 
Also I should point out that CD players are computers. They use electrons through semiconductors in order to operate. They use integrated circuits which process binary data(digital logic). They have digital to analog converters which must start with digital data in order to become analog. If the CD player is using S/PDIF instead of its own DAC, then the whole bitstream is kept digital until it reaches the other device. There aren't tiers quality for that process.
 
I think this whole topic can only be discussed validly by those who hold an advanced degree in electronic engineering. Everything is just going to be hearsay. A discussion can't be valid if someone just takes a term they think sounds technical enough and claims whatever they desire about it. Here is a datasheet. http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/pcm1795.pdf Don't understand all 58 pages? Then how can someone like that be seen as an authority on this?
 
Just because engineers and physicists design this stuff doesn't mean that it's all a complete failure because they didn't "put their heart into it". ICs are mass produced, not hand carved by a carpenter. They'll be well aware of what would interfere with the signals in their device and know how to compensate for it and merge it into a larger device. I think too many people have had simple computer operator errors and like to blow their problems out of proportion. None of these things can be simplified

 

[danielghofrani]

well thanks! hopefully by the time I graduate I will understand what you are talking about! 
can you please elaborate in a less advanced manner for now!!??

 

[MooTaters]

By the way if you really want there are fans larger than 120mm though that's a more common size 140mm probably being the next most common large size though newer so not nearly as common.  There are even 250mm fans that you could buy.  I personally take air flow over low noise, I have 3 yateloon 120mm blue LED fans at 88cfm and 40dB.  I bought them from frozencpu.com for $7 each plus shipping.  They have a great selection of fans and anything else needed for cooling computers including phase change cooling.

 

[danielghofrani]

Quote:

By the way if you really want there are fans larger than 120mm though that's a more common size 140mm probably being the next most common large size though newer so not nearly as common.  There are even 250mm fans that you could buy.  I personally take air flow over low noise, I have 3 yateloon 120mm blue LED fans at 88cfm and 40dB.  I bought them from frozencpu.com for $7 each plus shipping.  They have a great selection of fans and anything else needed for cooling computers including phase change cooling.

thanks for your input. 
I will go no fan if I want to do the project. I currently dont have the time and the funds available. I dont need another PC. I have a laptop which offers serious performance. 

 

[ramicio]

Hell yeah, frozencpu!  The video card was a 7900-something, I don't play any games or do anything 3D.  It came to me used and had corrupt pixels already.  He swore up and down that he didn't overclock it.  Then I put the passive heatsink on, and it required me to lay a fan on it to keep it cool, with just desktop.  Now I have a 8800-something and use it for CUDA to offload video decoding from the CPU to do my own x264 encodes, and I kept the original HSF.

 

[RexAeterna]

he's full of crap. it has more to do with envoirment acoustics(windows open.noise level of other rooms/devices,ect.) and so forth that affects the sound the most. i keep my receiver/amplifier on the floor for better imagery and computer on the floor for lower noise level of the fans cause my 5870 can get loud. my computer is my main source for everything. have my 1972 Sansui 5000X driving a pair of 100w technic sb-t200 floor tower speakers using rca to 3.5mm adapter and sounds so wonderful. if your getting electrical noise it's usually due to ground looping issues(like my blasted ps3.that's why i always unhook it when not in use.) or can be a faulty or bad interconnect as well,but other then that using a computer or laptop as your main source is completely fine.  

 

[TheKisho]

With headphones room acoustics don't affect the sound [unlike speakers] unless you mean the amplification and reflection of the noise with in the room.  I agree you should always keep desktops under your desk on the floor to reduce it's noise.
 

Unless you have really expensive speakers and a pretty detailed amplifier I'm sure you'll never notice the noise being introduced into the analog output of the computer.  Unless it's a ground loop I cannot hear noise on my speaker setup.  But on my headphone setup it's obvious; Even more obvious on an unforgiving detail pair of headphones (with a headphone amplifier).  It's sounds different then a ground loop, definitely a digital noise.  I can record a sample if you'd like.  I think it also comes down to how revealing your setup is.  You can get away with more noise from your source if your amplifier and headphones aren't very detailed.

 

[MooTaters]

Quote:

Hell yeah, frozencpu!  The video card was a 7900-something, I don't play any games or do anything 3D.  It came to me used and had corrupt pixels already.  He swore up and down that he didn't overclock it.  Then I put the passive heatsink on, and it required me to lay a fan on it to keep it cool, with just desktop.  Now I have a 8800-something and use it for CUDA to offload video decoding from the CPU to do my own x264 encodes, and I kept the original HSF.

Yeah, I got an 8800gt right now that's factory overclocked and it's used for gaming.  I'm surprised though that this computer still plays most modern games pretty well.  Although obviously not full graphics, I just haven't had the cash lately to spend on a new card.

 

[musiclicn]

It is true that computer cause jitter because computer is not designed for hi-fi audio. Computer is for calculation and computation. 

 

[vert]

If you read Stereophile, John Atkinson has stated that he uses a Mac mini as his go to transport. I believe that best of show for RMAF was awarded to a computer audio room.
 
This is assuming you have the right playback software, SSD drive, and USB to SPDIF converter.