Lot of good points here from both sides. Here's a few of my unsolicited thoughts:
NO PC can play SACD. So why should I waste money in a high end sound card when my main choice of format for DSD is not compatible with a PC?
Totally true. No PC can play SACD or DVD-As and there's absolutely no point in busting, say, $200 on a soundcard if all you want to do is listen to SACD or DVD-A. But then how many SACDs do most of us have? What a HTPC CAN be very effective in giving, is seamless access to the hundred's of Audio CDs that you have, without physically needing to take each out and placing it on a CDP. No more scratched and lost CDs for me. If you're really keen on listening to HD audio, you can always download 88 kHz/24 bit or even 96 kHz/24 bit tracks and play it from the PC. Also, I can't imagine a CD player matching the versatility of a PC in creating customized playlists from different CDs. Though it may be frivolous for some, I value the ability to have the lyrics and album cover of the song on display to be a nice value-add that a CDP don't give you. These are just a couple of things that a PC has over a CDP.
When I am in the mood to listen to music, and be inside it, I call it dedicated use/ listening. If the music is only playing in background and I am doing something else, I call it casual listening.
Ofcourse, all of the above features of PCs I mentioned are part of my 'serious listening' mode experience.
Anyway, I am not saying that PC with a high end sound card will NOT sound good. Maybe it's better than an average CDP. But it's not easy setting up and running the music with consistency. In fact the media players/ codecs are so powerful & customizable, that unless you set them right, it's very easy to end up playing the wrong sounds.
Actually the sound quality of a PC can hang with the very best, not just 'average CDPs', if you can add a soundcard (not necessarily expensive) with a digital-out and pipe the music through to a top-flight DAC. If you have the aptitude for a little experimentation, I believe you can push the SQ from a PC really high. But as you say setting up a suitable media player with the correct settings would not be as easy as pressing Play on a CDP, but then it's not too difficult either. Besides, it's a one-time affair.
Mostly they are without remote controls, so not easily accessible at your fingertips from your listening position. Even if you have high range cordless mouse/KB, there are those sounds "clicks" & "bursts" on selecting tracks manually. Then you will face some skip or jump of tracks from time to time due to OS/SW being resource hungry or having some other issues.
Yes, using a keyboard and mouse is not a very elegant solution. There are a lot of remote controls I'm aware of that can control Windows Media Player as well as others that one can use.
I have done enough system re-boots all my life. I don't want to continue doing that even for simple music...
Tell me about it. Honestly, if I can live without ever having to touch a PC again, I'd gladly oblige.
But sadly, I can't imagine using CD players or any proprietary format device for music, say 10 years into the future. If you ask me,
this is the future. At some point in the not so far future, music (and possibly other media content) would be delivered completely by the digital medium, none of the shiny disc nonsense. Look what the iPod did to the music business. Though you could buy devices, like the
Sooloos for instance, I sincerely believe you could put up a PC to handle all the music and get a SQ
very close to these dedicated devices, without having to bust big money. After all, media player devices are just PC's with a pared down OS and customized applications.
I believe the Rethms are priced more but has anyone heard the Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1 and the Rethms and if so how do the Anthony Gallos compare when pitted against the Rethms?
Though I've not heard the Rethms, I did listen to the Gallos about a couple of years back. It was a very clean sounding speaker but somehow I felt that the transition from the mids to the bass was not as seamless as I'd have liked. Also, the bass, as I perceived was a tad weak but this could've been because the sub-amps were not hooked to the second voice-coil of the bass drivers. If you're not DIY inclined, I'd suggest you audition the
Emerald Physics CS2s or the
CS2.3s (if it's available in India yet)...
