[ROSSOred]

Hey im about to put the finishing touches to the following PC as a rig;

AMD 64 3200
512 MB Ram
MSI K8T Neo motherboard
Maxtor SATA HD 250 GIG
M Audio 24/96 Audiophile
Cardas Neutal Ref cables to Linn Classik

Expecting a Larocco PPA to drive RS1s

What are peoples comments on PC rigs? I shall be using uncompressed .wav files. No point compressing when i can fit 400 cds onto my HD. What im thinking of doing is keeping it as a library and then just ripping whatever i want to CDRW to listen to on the Linn Classik as im dubious of the M Audio soundcard.

Hey if u guys have PC rigs set up then please post some pics. I shall be posting some soon!

 

[lan]

PCs are great for the convenience. Why don't you use lossless compression? The 2 most popular options are FLAC and APE (monkey's audio).


I just put my camera away. I'll take some pics later.

 

[loveheadphones]

i've been doing lots of reading on pc-transports and i thought this was a very interesting thread (on headwize):
http://headwize2.powerpill.org/ubb/s...=monarchy;DIP;
it makes a lot of sense to me. just wanted to share
p.s. i'm getting a monarchy DIP

 

[Jasper994]

Just an fyi, I have the Audiophile USB and I find it both a bit bright and compressed. You may want to consider a different soundcard. Currently most people seem really happy with the RMD digi 96/8 PAD. I've heard it and I agree that it sounds really good. I'd also recommend that you compress to .APE or .FLAC. Even though you'll have a lot of room there's no reason to take up more room then you have to. Nice rig by the way! Oh, one other thing, you might consider running RAID 0 with two 120 gigs instead to help reduce bottlenecking. Also consider water cooling and case insulation to help keep things quiet. I didn't consider those things when I built my box and it's so freaking loud that open cans are hard to enjoy from it.

 

[sbulack]

Since you ask for people's thoughts about PC rigs, here's another way to skin the PC cat. I bought a Terratec EWX 2496 sound card ($100 at jdsound.com) for my PC. While the quality of its analog audio was a step up in quality from my previous Audigy sound card, I definitely preferred the analog audio output from my Pioneer DV563AS player. I recently bought an AOS Piccolo DAC (published price $230), and use the Terratec now only for its PC connectivity and its optical digital output to feed the Piccolo DAC. The analog audio produced by the Piccolo is easily as captivating, enjoyable and high quality as that output by the 563, if not more so, in its own flavor. If I had the soundcard purchase to do again, I'd look for a card with a decent optical digital out and a lower price than the Terratec, since I just use the sound card to feed the Piccolo. And the standalone DAC is a more versatile audio component to invest in than a higher end sound card. Just a thought.

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper994 Oh, one other thing, you might consider running RAID 0 with two 120 gigs instead to help reduce bottlenecking.

RAID 0 gives you more chance of harddrive failure and it would suck to lose your music so I don't recommend that. I myself use RAID1. There's no bottleneck really.

Quote:

Originally posted by sbulack If I had the soundcard purchase to do again, I'd look for a card with a decent optical digital out and a lower price than the Terratec, since I just use the sound card to feed the Piccolo. And the standalone DAC is a more versatile audio component to invest in than a higher end sound card. Just a thought.

The better soundcards have lower jitter and thus better digital outputs. So you'd have to go more expensive on the soundcard.

 

[loveheadphones]

anybody try the MD-port from Xitel in conjunction with a DAC? it's cheaper than the Xitel Pro Hifi Link and the only output is toslink. I would guess that the circuitry (at least for the optical out) is the same. I would just get the Pro HifiLink but this is $30 cheaper.
Does anyone know if the optical outs are identical?

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally posted by lan RAID 0 gives you more chance of harddrive failure and it would suck to lose your music so I don't recommend that. I myself use RAID1. There's no bottleneck really.

Not to nit-pick, but it actually gives you a higher chance of data loss in the case of an HDD failure, but is doesn't make your disks any more prone to failure.

 

[audiosceptic]

I built my PC music system around a ASUS PC4800 MB, Intel P4 2.6GHz, Radeon 9500 Pro, Antec Sonata case with Zalman CPU and video coolers. The PC is virtually silent. I store all my CD's uncompressed on a 500GB RAID 5 server in the basement over gigabit ethernet. I had a RME 96/8 but preferred the sound of the SPDIF out on the motherboard connected to a Bolder SMART Dio DAC. I prefer the sound of the PC to DAC system over a Rega Jupiter I owned for 3 months. I now use a Marantz DV-6400 only for an occasional DVD-A or SACD title.

 

[ayt999]

my headphones have this as a source:
dual 2.4Ghz xeon @ 2.93Ghz
iwill DP533 motherboard
1GB PC2100 RAM
480GB storage (was 720GB before my RAID0 failed, I should fix that sometime)
RME hammerfall DSP 9632 soundcard (with optional balanced analog out for the headphone amp)
creative soundblaster audigy 2 ZS platinum (for my klipsch promedia 5.1)

I've only had the RME for a month or so but it seems good... I haven't compared it with other sources / soundcards yet but hopefully will sometime soon.

 

[ROSSOred]

I've now been thinking about using the Digital out of the M audio audiophile to a Bel Canto Dac 2 direct to an amp. But isnt this introducing more of a singal path hence degrading sound? Also i have a few qestions on audio storage;

1. How does one categorise 400+ cds?

2. What programmes shall i use if any for this?

3. Whats the best media player to play them on? I like Foobar

4. Im using Exact Copy to Rip to HD is this ok?

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally posted by lan RAID 0 gives you more chance of harddrive failure and it would suck to lose your music so I don't recommend that. I myself use RAID1. There's no bottleneck really.

The only reason there's more chance of harddrive failure is that you have 2 drives. The chances aren't increased dramatically and there's no more reason for one drive of a RAID set to fail then there would be for a single drive to fail. I don't really consider this that much greater of a likelyhood. That's like having to cars and saying that the likelyhood of them crappnig out is greater. Well yes, any time you increase the number of variables that have a possibility of failure the overall possibility goes up but come on... If you buy two good cars/hardddrives, I'm sure you're going to be just fine unless you buy crap. And anyway, of all the data you could possibly lose, losing audio data isn't a huge deal unless you get rid of the original discs. Sure it would be a pain to re-rip but come on... I would agree though, a RAID set with redundency would be best for data loss prevention if that is a large concern.

As far as bottlenecking goes, you wouldn't notice it when playing back audio but there is a bottleneck created by your harddrives in your computer. Everytime the system has to wait for the harddrive to access data you have a bottleneck. The same goes a level up of that everytime the chip has to access the RAM rather than cache. By running Raid0 you at least increase the bandwidth for data throughput from the harddrives.

 

[Edwood]

I was sooooooooo happy when I learned that I could have my cake and eat it too.

My next upgrade is a better DAC , and use the RME PAD as a transport.

Although, I think I'll get a nice pure glass optical cable and try the optical input on my Grace.

-Ed

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper994 The only reason there's more chance of harddrive failure is that you have 2 drives. If you buy two good cars/hardddrives, I'm sure you're going to be just fine unless you buy crap. And anyway, of all the data you could possibly lose, losing audio data isn't a huge deal unless you get rid of the original discs. By running Raid0 you at least increase the bandwidth for data throughput from the harddrives.

Double the harddrives, double the probability.

There's no way to tell if you get a good harddrive. Who would've known IBM 75GXP had issues?

Time is $. I have no time to waste reripping audio. Is it worth the $ to spend on RAID1 or 5? To me it is.

Most user access is random so bandwidth isn't that necessary. Accesstime is better so I would recommend WD Raptor or 10K+ SCSI drives.

 

[Wodgy]

Quote:

Originally posted by Edwood Although, I think I'll get a nice pure glass optical cable and try the optical input on my Grace.

Yes, definitely

I've always wondered why you hadn't done this yet, since you like the Grace amp so much, and the RME digital out works best in optical....