netbook as source
Aug 23, 2009 at 3:15 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 27
sno1man

sno1man

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I guess this forum is the right place for this. In my never ending quest to minimize gear carried with me at any one time, I'm looking at netbooks.
I can find lots of information on them as computers but not much on the quality of the audio output.
My thoughts are these. Several of these units have long battery life (5-6 hours or more), built in broadband and a decent size hard drive.
So I'm thinking a decent pair of phones and one of these things for my daily travels.
Anybody doing this and if so which unit (i am currently looking at HP, Toshiba and ASUS). Sound quality is a priority

Also i really want to stay with the netbook form factor as size is an issue.

Thanks
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 3:23 PM Post #2 of 27
Funny, I've been thinking the same thing. I also use a Pico DAC/AMP combo with my macbook pro, and the improvement over the headphone out is REALLY noticeable. That is the route I would go.

It seems a pretty cool idea, though. As much or more storage than an iPod, as well as basic computer and web access functionality in a pretty small package, and not much more cost than an iPod. It would beat carting a full size laptop around.

I guess my addition to this thread is that a Pico, Predator, Ibasso D10 and other DAC/Amp combos can easily address any SQ issues with the netbook HP out. I guess this comes at additional cost and an additional "thing" to carry, though.

Thanks for starting the thread, I'll monitor with interest!
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 3:55 PM Post #3 of 27
From my experience:
EEE PC 901 & Corda 3Move = very good SQ & 6 hrs of the battery life
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 4:16 PM Post #4 of 27
Yes, I do agree that an Asus EeePC 900 (or any of them) sounds great with a Corda 3move. Too me it sounds better than any mp3 player I've ever tried (cleaner sound and it provides more juice to headphones).
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 4:51 PM Post #5 of 27
Just get one with a 160GB hard drive and not an SSD.
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 5:18 PM Post #6 of 27
I have a MSI Wind U100 netbook. The built-in audio is definitely lacking in terms of sound quality and I would suspect that this is the case for most other netbooks as well. However, if you pair it with a decent portable DAC/amp combo you can get good sound without having to carry around much extra. I am happy with sound I get with using the Practical Devices XM5 paired with the Wind netbook, but any decent DAC/amp combo should be fine and give a major improvement on the built-in netbook audio.
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 7:55 PM Post #9 of 27
Just got the new Acer Aspire with the 11.6" screen. As a computer this is good enoght that most days I wont need to carry my big notebook. The sound from the headphone out to my ESW9 is barely acceptable with my ESW9 but much too thin with Ety's.It gets around 8 hours on the battery. SQ improves a lot with my D10 through usb but a Pico dac/amp would be more convenient for size. And it has buildin 3G as well.
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 8:10 PM Post #10 of 27
I bought the gateway e-100m. It a ULV 12" laptop which is equivalent to today's netbook. I've loaded it with a 320gb hard drive and have all my music duplicated at 320kb. This works fine for me when I want something larger than my Ipod Classic, Mini, or 5th Gen. The other great thing is that it only cost me a couple hundred dollars and it weighs less than 3lbs.
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 8:12 PM Post #12 of 27
I dug my Macbook as a laptop, and the Asus Eee PC 1000HE is noticeably inferior out of the headphone-out. It really improves with a DAC to become an excellent choice, however. I think very few netbooks out there will sound very good straight out of the headphone-out.
 
Aug 23, 2009 at 8:25 PM Post #15 of 27
please do tell
smily_headphones1.gif
 
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