PC playback as an alternative to CD Players

[gobble]

I feel that Computer Audio should be given a try only after a 'serious' CD Player is owned.

...
<snip>

Good points by both shanti and Venkat and Thad and others. Very interesting discusison. (no multiquote feature in HFV )

I would recommend a budget CDP in the 20k range as a "gold" standard for the first timer and then attempting to exceed it with a DIY computer based player. Then comparing with a CDP at twice or thrice the price when opportunity permits.

Thad has made very pertinent points. Operating systems are not yet there in providing low latency audio streaming from the onboard chips 100% of the time. The home user may almost never notice it when it happens randomly and rarely across tracks and never repeated at the same position in a track across months and years of listening just for a second. But if you are a studio cutting a master copy for commercial gains with distribution running into a million copies then one has to tailor the system to reduce the mathematical probability that a latency inducing event might occur. For home use, minimizing the context switching from one process to another during audio playback will require running almost nothing on it except the player interface with an indexer running whenever the player is not running and a new collection is added to the disk.

--G0bble

 

[Bluu]

no multiquote feature in HFV
--G0bble

Yes, there is! It's right next to the quote button!

 

[ajay124]

In 2010 I was not willing to consider computer audio. I was was a 'cdp only' person. Therefore when the urge to upgrade my cdp gathered force I only considered more expensive and supposedly better cdp's. I first contemplated a Bryston BCD1 to go with my Bryston amp. But when I discovered that the BCD1 and the BDA1 are their first cdp and dac respectively to be manufactured by Bryston I lost interest. Bryston does not have a history of building cdps and dacs. Although they have a long history of building amplifiers which qualify as an entry into serious hifi. They may not be the best that money can buy, but they are relatively affordable and offer oodles of clean power. Enough to drive any speaker that I would ever have the inclination and the budget to acquire.

Since an audition was not possible I researched on the net, spoke to dealers in Singapore, began a thread and read the viewpoint of forum members like Prem, Dr. Bass, Shanthi, Dinyaar, Manav....people who had experience with good cdps. I shortlisted a few few cdps which were roughly in my budget.

Esoteric SA10
Accuphase DP 400
Ayre 7xe
Meridian Go6.2
Ayon CD1
Electrocompaniet ECC1.

I finally narrowed the choice down to Esoteric and Accuphase because I felt they had the best build quality. For overall sound quality the most favourable comments I received were actually for Ayre and Meridian. But when I read that they were sourcing a cd rom drive from Teac to use in their transport section my interest rapidly diminished. I don't clearly remember whether both Meridian and Ayre use a Teac cd rom, but I was not very happy with the transport they were using. I felt that the VOSP or VRDS transport from Teac/Esoteric would be the best option. I was suggested an Esoteric SA 50 by a dealer in Mumbai. The SA 50 seems to be attempt by Esoteric to throw a huge net into the audiophile ocean to gather as many fish as they can. Take a look at the features being offered:

SA-50 | Audio Players | Esoteric Company

But the 250K price tag gave me a pause. I was tempted to sell the Bryston BP6 preamp and use the preamp built into the SA50. Selling my preamp would have bought the SA50 into a more affordable region. But finally I decided not to break the Bryston pre/power pairing. I finally selected the SA10 for it's well built minimalist design, VOSP transport and sacd capabilities. It was the only Esoteric which was in my budget, and with a little bit of digging around, I found a demo unit with a dealer in England at a reasonable price. I have spent the last six months waiting for someone to bring it over. During this period I have tentatively become interested in computer audio. I am willing to admit that PC playback is an alternative to CD Players. But is it equally good or better or worse? I really can't say at the moment.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Did I mention, in passing, how I have, at times, yearned for a card from Lynx?

I think we sometimes mention in the regular "do I need a DAC" threads that the answer is "only if it is better than the one you already have in your CD player."

Right. Just how good does a DAC have to be to be better than the one on a thousand-uk-pound sound card? Just maybe, as good as the DAD DAC for sale elsewhere on this forum, possibly... at nearly 2 lakh rupees second-hand? DAC Dogma is Dangerous!

...Wait! Shanti can tell us, of course ! I don't deny that some of you guys do have gear like this. But then (unless you have strayed into the professional audio protocols) I do not believe that a seriously expensive sound card is necessary to connect to it.

It's the shopping list. First, you need a DAC. Then you need a sound card. Right... I need two things that both do the same thing? No: I don't think I do. And I think that the manufacturers of high-end sound cards have actually thought about electrical interference long ago, because these things have been sold to sound professionals long before the hifi industry thought of another box to market to us. And stuff like dynamic range and SNR will be in the specs.

Of course, few of us buy thousand-quid sound cards (the Lynx card with just two channels is about 600 GBP). but still...

Listen to the card, not the theory: give that analogue output a chance, especially if it is on an expensive card. Gives you the luxury of a future upgrade path too .

In fact, listen to the MB's built-in, then people will know the bottom line they are upgrading from. I remember the early Soundblaster cards: they were awful!

ASIO and the sound path

This from Wikki:

ASIO bypasses the normal audio path from the user application through layers of intermediary Windows operating system software, so that the application connects directly to the sound card hardware. Each layer that is bypassed means a reduction in latency (the delay between an application sending audio information and it being reproduced by the sound card, or input signals from the sound card being available to the application). In this way ASIO offers a relatively simple way of accessing multiple audio inputs and outputs independently. Its main strength lies in its method of bypassing the inherently high latency and poor-quality mixing and sample rate conversion of Windows audio mixing kernels (KMixer), allowing direct, high speed communication with audio hardware. Unlike KMixer, an unmixed ASIO output is "bit identical" or "bit transparent", that is, the bits sent to the sound card are identical to those of the original source, thus having higher audio fidelity.

I took the liberty of adding some bold. The final sentence struck me as so important I italicised it as well hyeah:

Let me even repeat it... Unlike KMixer, an unmixed ASIO output is "bit identical" or "bit transparent", that is, the bits sent to the sound card are identical to those of the original source.

Let me rephrase it, having run it through my personal bias machine: Microsoft doesn't play your music, so the less MS code it passes through the better.

It's not about hardware paths, it is about software paths, and that is even more important. (And it doesn't affect those of us who don't use Windows, he-he ha-ha )

Latency, I think, is not very important to the music listener. As long as it is consistent, it doesn't really matter how long it takes to reach your sound card and be output. It is important to studios. When you are recording multiple tracks by dubbing, the time taken for the sound to reach your ear, added to the time taken for the recording sound to be recorded ideally, would be zero. If it is audible amount of time then the task is just impossible. And that's "audible" to a pro studio engineer's ears.

However, battling with one set of problems, I did once have to set buffering to 3000 ms. That's 3 seconds delay before you hear your music, before it pauses, restarts... This nobody wants.

You can do all that by connecting the PC directly to the NET. If you connect to a LAN, you are loading the memory with some 'watchers' for LAN traffic and the necessary drivers for all that.

This puzzles me. How do you get to the street without walking through the door?

 

[venkatcr]

This puzzles me. How do you get to the street without walking through the door?

Simple - you have two doors to the street, one of which has less curtains blocking your path - a modem or a router. When you install a LAN, you are adding a lot of internal networking protocols and the drivers needed for that - file sharing, printer sharing, etc., etc.

Also Thad, though the path followed by the music data is managed by the software, in a PC there is a physical path it has take to reach the connectors at the back.

Cheers

 

[baijuxavior]

^^ A PC needs LAN to connect to modem or router. Even for wifi access corresponding device driver is needed. Without a device driver the pc will never recognise network.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Simple - you have two doors to the street, one of which has less curtains blocking your path - a modem or a router. When you install a LAN, you are adding a lot of internal networking protocols and the drivers needed for that - file sharing, printer sharing, etc., etc.
Also Thad, though the path followed by the music data is managed by the software, in a PC there is a physical path it has take to reach the connectors at the back.

Cheers

Vencat, with respect, you have some computing stuff very wrong.

a modem or a router. the box that you connect to your phone line is a router, even if it has only got one network port that goes to your PC. What you have then set up is a LAN --- and it works the same, whether it has one, two, or two hundred machines attached to it. It is true that you do not have to run various Microsoft network protocols and services, though, frankly, if you do not do any file or print sharing, then there really is going to be no resource usage. TCP/IP and internet access happens via your LAN. Even if that LAN is one cable.

I'm told that wireless network adapters "do" quite a lot, and can a big contributor to that dreaded DPC Latency (nothing to do with the "latency" of your sound card). Wired LAN cards do very little unless told.


I've mentioned before that you can find the physical pathways if you look at the block diagram in your motherboard manual. Your sound card is attached to the PCI bus. That's how the data reaches it. Your sound card has to relate to the OS, working via interrupts, etc. It can take control, but only to a limited extent. If it were unlimited, the sound card would be saying "where's my data from the file?" and the OS would be saying, "How can I get it or give it to you: you've got total control of the bus."

 

[gobble]

Yes, there is! It's right next to the quote button!

Wow! I never looked twice at those funny looking symbols in all these years!! hyeah:

Did I mention, in passing, how I have, at times, yearned for a card from Lynx? ,..
(the Lynx card with just two channels is about 600 GBP). but still...

which one is this? Is it that good and better than the Xonar?

It's not about hardware paths, it is about software paths, and that is even more important. (And it doesn't affect those of us who don't use Windows, he-he ha-ha )

The problem here is that most device drivers fail to take advantage of the capabilities of the audio processing chip.

This puzzles me. How do you get to the street without walking through the door?

Chill!! This simplest LAN is a Xover cable in a back to back configuration hyeah: if you go the cabling route i.e.

Any other LAN with network middlebox will consist of buffers or packet queues with varying latency in forwarding the packets.

But what has all this got to do with audio reproduction when the last stage before DAC can buffer the packets?

--G0bble

 

[ssf]

A lot of stuff that has been said in this thread is new to me and having very little understanding of AV, I though I will get some of my doubts cleared.

The way I see from a layman's point of view, to get music from my laptop to my AV receiver, I can use the sound card in my laptop (audio out to audio in of AVR) or connect the PC to the AVR via the network ports of the laptop and AVR.

I see more sense (again as a layman) in going via the network route as I am now using the DAC in AVR which I am thinking is better than the soundcard in my PC, unless I have installed something special.

Will the network option work and if so is it better ? Is that what Smart TV's do ?

Or have I got myself completely wrong here ?

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

ssf, so far, we're talking about reproducing sound, not video, which is a whole other ballgame

Chill!! This simplest LAN is a Xover cable in a back to back configuration if you go the cabling route i.e.

The simplest LAN is still ...a LAN!

 

[ssf]

Deleted and posted below.

 

[ssf]

ssf, so far, we're talking about reproducing sound, not video, which is a whole other ballgame

Cross links :lol:

I gave Smart TV as an example Thad. I am assuming that audio files in the laptop can be played on the AVR connected to the Laptop via the network port. Can it ?

Edit:

Something similar to a shared drive on the laptop being recognised and accessed by the AVR as a external storage akin to a pen drive connected to the USB port of the AVR.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

ssf, I know a bit about audio, a bit more about pcs, but almost nothing about video.

 

[ssf]

ssf, I know a bit about audio, a bit more about pcs, but almost nothing about video.

Sorry, I got all excited with the current discussions on music playback from PC and probably did not frame my questions right. Will read more about it and get back with doubts.

Although I am familiar with networking basics, having forgotten most of what I have learnt on configuring switches and routers, getting introduced to it in the world of Audio Video got me all excited.

Regards,

ssf.

 

[venkatcr]

Vencat, with respect, you have some computing stuff very wrong.

Your are right. When I connect to BSNL using a modem and/or a router, I am connecting to a LAN. The network protocols needed for this comes installed in the OS. What I meant, though, was the installation of a LAN within your home to which you connect multiple PCs, a printer, maybe a NAS, etc. If you have such a setup, the audio PC should best be kept out of this.

Cheers

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Why?

With the possible exception of wireless adapters (and I am taking somebody else's word on that: I can't assert it from my know-how) I cannot see any technical justification for that. Once you have a LAN (and one pc and a router/modem is a LAN), that's it, you have a LAN --- but, by all means, turn off the Microsoft print and file sharing, which may do some twittering. Turning off unwanted Windows services is not a bad thing to do on any pc.

 

[venkatcr]

Why? ..... Turning off unwanted Windows services is not a bad thing to do on any pc.

Sigh!!

PCs have a way of collecting junk forcing, at least me, to format and reinstall the OS and needed programs once every now and then. Towards this end, I always partition the HDD as C and D drives, and I keep all personal data in D drive. This allows me to format the C drive for a cleansing act every now and then.

Essentially I see the Audio PC as doing a single job - that of playing music with the highest quality possible. Once the minimal software is installed, I intend to keep it isolated so that it does not collect junk. For me, the Audio PC is equivalent to a expensive CDP.

All the points I have mentioned have been after reading across the Net. I think each person has to make his own decision as to what is needed and what is not in the Audio PC. I have followed a similar rule in my HTPC and it is giving me wonderful results till now. The HTPC, though, is connected to the Net 24x7, as some of the software I use crawls across the Net for information on the movies and suggest other similar movies or tidbits of other information.

I do not see a similar need in audio where, most of time, I have my eyes closed and enjoying the music. Towards this end, I have and am cleaning and optimizing the PC, keeping it minimally functional for the task at hand.

Connecting a PC to a LAN would mean opening up the system to the possibility of junk collection. You would be tempted to install software and drivers to read or access information that you may come across - photos, music samples, video, etc. I have enough machines at home to do this, and the audio PC need not be a part of that. I connect it once a week to the Net to update the anti virus database and that is it.

Cheers

 

[xiro]

Connecting a PC to a LAN would mean opening up the system to the possibility of junk collection. You would be tempted to install software and drivers to read or access information that you may come across - photos, music samples, video, etc. I have enough machines at home to do this, and the audio PC need not be a part of that. I connect it once a week to the Net to update the anti virus database and that is it.
Cheers

I don't agree with you on this particular point, not all OS's are junk magnet. You just need to do a switch at system level and you're done. Since 2006 I have made 3 different HTPC for my own consumption (mostly hardware upgrades) and none of them had junk magnet system and all of them were always connected to network including the current one.


Regards .....

 

[venkatcr]

I don't agree with you on this particular point, not all OS's are junk magnet.

The junk need not come in only through the OS and/or applications.

Many times, the junk is sucked in by the users themselves. You will receive a photograph. You need to see it and you will install software for that. Someone will want to urgently chat with you. So in comes Yahoo! or GTalk. And the list goes on.

And Oh, I am sure you will say that is not the fault of the OS or LAN. Yes, I know that. It is far just much easier to keep the system unconnected so that there are no issues. I have a laptop that can handle all the connectivity and other issues needed for e-communication.

Cheers

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Sigh!!

If you must. I'm happy to learn from you as an audio person: I really would recommend that you get your computer technical information from computer sources, not audio sources.

PCs have a way of collecting junk forcing, at least me, to format and reinstall the OS and needed programs once every now and then.

By themselves? No... they don't.

Towards this end, I always partition the HDD as C and D drives, and I keep all personal data in D drive. This allows me to format the C drive for a cleansing act every now and then.

Very good practice. No machine, whether it is a kiddy's gaming machine, a commercial tool or a media player, should have one partition with user's data sharing with the operating system, especially if it is Windows. It is also true that Windows has this habit of "ageing" with the addition and use of more and more software, or perhaps, just with time.

In passing, let me suggest that you use software (I'd say Drive-Image-XML and Bart-PE [EDIT: This works for XP. I do not know about W7) to save you this reformat/reinstall hassle. Install Windows; Install your software (maximal or minimal, depending on the machine); tweak your settings, both in Windows and user software. Take image. Restore from Image. Voila! As-new PC, just as you like it, without all the hassle. Do remember though, to back up your Documents and Settings folder with your data backup.

(Or... don't use Windows. Your choice of hardware may dictate that you must)

Essentially I see the Audio PC as doing a single job - that of playing music with the highest quality possible. Once the minimal software is installed, I intend to keep it isolated so that it does not collect junk. For me, the Audio PC is equivalent to a expensive CDP.

But you told that you wanted to connect it to the internet! OK, let me answer your new assertion: disable the built-in networking card in the BIOS.

I do not see a similar need in audio where, most of time, I have my eyes closed and enjoying the music.

Fair enough.

Connecting a PC to a LAN...

But you said you want it to access the internet. You have to make up your mind about this (sigh )

...would mean opening up the system to the possibility of junk collection. You would be tempted ...

I can't answer for your temptations. I can only answer for some of the technical aspects of computers, operating systems and networks.

By all means, keep a stand-alone PC as a media player, but don't argue that you want to connect to the net, but not to a LAN*, or that your temptations have anything to do with the technical aspects.

I suspect that many or most will want to network their audio pc. Otherwise, the net card comes within the general recommendation to disable anything that is not being used.


*Pedantry dept... OK, you could, if you are using wifi broadband with a USB gizmo. Don't like the idea myself. (someone may out-pedant me by saying that you are still connecting to a LAN, just a very large one belonging to your ISP)