Laptop as a credible source?

[stevebrock]

Been having a play about tonight!

Just connected up my MacBook Pro full of ALAC files fed straight into my Rega DAC being controlled by iOS remote app!

Well for the life of me I cannot distinguish it from red book CD played on my Rega Apollo R/DAC - in actual fact just been playing Kate Bush - 50 words for snow ALAC and can actuallly hear things I havent heard before - is this really possible or am I hearing things?

 

[Overdose]

Been having a play about tonight!

Just connected up my MacBook Pro full of ALAC files fed straight into my Rega DAC being controlled by iOS remote app!

Well for the life of me I cannot distinguish it from red book CD played on my Rega Apollo R/DAC - in actual fact just been playing Kate Bush - 50 words for snow ALAC and can actuallly hear things I havent heard before - is this really possible or am I hearing things?

I've always found computers to be perfectly viable as digital sources. Streamer, storage, media and disc player, all in one place.

 

[matt49]

Others will disagree, but I'm with Overdose on this one.

 

[Dutus]

I have a "conventional" hi-fi with a Pioneer DV-LX50 universal player (about the only thing it won't play is Blu-Ray), Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck, Rega Planar 3 record deck, Tascam DA-20MkII DAT deck and a Mission Cyrus II amp with PSX power supply. But I listen to Spotify via my laptop connected to the hi-fi via a Tascam US-144MkII audio interface.

Quite frankly the sound is virtually as good as the rest of my hi-fi.

Makes you wonder why people flaff around with all these streamers.

 

[stevebrock]

Well i have gone through a few more CDs and admittedly they all sound superb..........When Morcheeba - Big Calm came out circa 1998 I had a Marantz CD63ki sig and I could hear things on Track 4 that I have only been able to hear on the KI - fast forward 14 years. I cannot hear the same detail on my Apollo R/DAC combo but I can now hear it on ALAC via optical into my DAC.

I guess the transport in the Apollo R is losing some information then? Am I thinking along the correct lines? Are all cdp transports not created equally?

mmmmm I best play some vinyl!

 

[davedotco]

Believe it or not, you can even 'systembuild' with a laptop.......

A solid state drive, better ripping software (I like XLD), good playback software (or tweak itunes), an asyncronous USB DAC and you are on the way, depending on how serious you want to get.

On the other hand, just load up Spotify and send via an AEX/Apple TV. Mind you there are ways to improve even that.......... :rofl:

 

[MajorFubar]

The source's job, be it from a computer via its hard-drive, streaming from the internet, or even a CD player playing direct from a good ol' CD, is to send bit-perfect digital audio to the DAC with minimal jitter. There's no reason why a computer can't do that just as well as a CD player, and in fact there are several reasons why theoretically it should be able to do it better. So no, you're not imagining things.

Don't forget nearly all modern music is tracked (recorded) straight to a computer to start with. So it's a silly fallacy that they're inferior audio sources. It implies that nearly all the recording studios in the world are compromising the quality of their recordings.

 

[davedotco]

The source's job, be it from a computer via its hard-drive, streaming from the internet, or even a CD player playing direct from a good ol' CD, is to send bit-perfect digital audio to the DAC with minimal jitter. There's no reason why a computer can't do that just as well as a CD player, and in fact there are several reasons why theoretically it should be able to do it better. So no, you're not imagining things.

Don't forget nearly all modern music is tracked (recorded) straight to a computer to start with. So it's a silly fallacy that they're inferior audio sources. It implies that nearly all the recording studios in the world are compromising the quality of their recordings.

Quite right.

One additional point, computers are electrically noisy environments, out of band noise (particularly RF), can have a nasty effect on audio equipment. The ability of a DAC to reject or minimise this noise varies from model to model and without some pretty sophisticated equipment it can be impossible to quantify. If a DAC that normally sounds good is found to sound brash or even just a bit bright in a different system then noise could well be the issue.

 

[MajorFubar]

Indeed, and this is why generally it seen as a good idea (both in HiFi and in pro-audio) to keep the DAC (or ADC) physically separate from the core computer hardware.

 

[altruistic.lemon]

[One additional point, computers are electrically noisy environments, out of band noise (particularly RF), can have a nasty effect on audio equipment. The ability of a DAC to reject or minimise this noise varies from model to model and without some pretty sophisticated equipment it can be impossible to quantify. If a DAC that normally sounds good is found to sound brash or even just a bit bright in a different system then noise could well be the issue.

Mate said using optical stops that.

 

[MajorFubar]

...which is correct, but converting an electrical signal to light, transmitting it down a a FO cable and converting it back to electricity again obviously adds extra links in the chain which don't exist with a coax/USB connection. So if I was one of the people converse in the fine art of hair-splitting, I'd argue that the opportunity for data-corruption during the conversion/transmission/conversion processes cancels-out any benefits of using an transmission-system immune to electrical interference.

 

[davedotco]

There are advantages and disadvantages to both electrical and optical SPDIF protocols. they are both theoretical, such as the limited bandwith of optical connections and practical such as the usual poor implementation of electrical connections. It is not straightforward. At the highest level and providing the signal is within the bandwidth limitations, optical is probably superior, but you would never know this from the hi-fi world.

I am always surprised that this area is given such little attention, much is made of the difference between near identicle DACs yet the consistent use of rca terminated cables and their jitter inducing impedance mismatch can be far more important.

Those of a certain age will no doubt remember the Audio Alchemy 'Dac in a box', a cheap and entirely average add on DAC from times past. What was much more interesting, was Audio Alchemy's more expensive units which used the I2S format to pass the data stream from box to box.

They auditioned as clearly superiour to the more mainstream offerings from the likes of Arcam and Meridian but did not sell in any numbers, odd.

 

[chebby]

I never realised there was still any debate about laptops being a credible source (when used with an external DAC).

 

[stevebrock]

I never realised there was still any debate about laptops being a credible source (when used with an external DAC).

There isnt, I just thought I would share my findings!

 

[aero]

Sorry, this is an appeal for info rather than a reply, as I'm totally new to Hi-Fi (no kit at all yet). I have a fair amount of music in (legal) MP3 format, stored on my laptop. Although I could plug my laptop into an amp as an aux input, I don't really want to have to do this because I'd need my laptop turned on and connected to the amp to listen, which is restrictive.

What I think I might need is a large hard drive to which I can transfer my MP3s, which can also function as a viable source to be connected to the amp (via a DAC if desirable/necessary/possible). It would need a user interface of some kind to allow me to search and select which MP3s to play.

Does this exist? If not, are you aware of other solutions for people in my situation (of which there must be many)?

Thanks for any tips.

 

[john dolan]

You could put your music on a mem stick or external hard drive and plug them into a Squeezebox touch or even cheaper a Blu-ray player.

 

[tomlinscote]

You could use a NAS drive into your broadband router and then use a SONOS Connect into your amp. There is a separate forum for comp based music which could give you more detailed info but welcome to this one in the meantime

Tommo

 

[john dolan]

I use a NAS plugged into my router then my SBT the Cyrus StreamX and my Sony Blu-ray can all stream from the NAS.

I also have my music on a 1tb hard drive plugged into the back of the blu-ray for when the internet goes down.

Id also add that setting up a NAS is far from easy.

 

[hammill]

I use a NAS plugged into my router then my SBT the Cyrus StreamX and my Sony Blu-ray can all stream from the NAS.

I also have my music on a 1tb hard drive plugged into the back of the blu-ray for when the internet goes down.

Id also add that setting up a NAS is far from easy.

When the internet goes down? Do you stream from your NAS to your SBT across the internet?

 

[john dolan]

When the internet goes down i can play my music from the hd thats plugged into the usb on my Sony blu-ray or could plug ithe hd or memstick into the usb on the SBTor into the Cyrus StreamX.

 

[MajorFubar]

If the internet goes down you should still be able to access all the devices attached to your router, surely?

 

[john dolan]

If the internet goes down you should still be able to access all the devices attached to your router, surely?

Yes its just the outside connection you lose and everything inside like my network to the nas ect should still be ok.

 

[Overdose]

Sorry, this is an appeal for info rather than a reply, as I'm totally new to Hi-Fi (no kit at all yet). I have a fair amount of music in (legal) MP3 format, stored on my laptop. Although I could plug my laptop into an amp as an aux input, I don't really want to have to do this because I'd need my laptop turned on and connected to the amp to listen, which is restrictive.

What I think I might need is a large hard drive to which I can transfer my MP3s, which can also function as a viable source to be connected to the amp (via a DAC if desirable/necessary/possible). It would need a user interface of some kind to allow me to search and select which MP3s to play.

Does this exist? If not, are you aware of other solutions for people in my situation (of which there must be many)?

Thanks for any tips.

What you need is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) and fed into a media player.

Synology NAS's seem to be universally well regarded. The media player could be an Apple Airport Express, Sonos Connect or even a Blu-Ray player for example. Remote control apps are available for Android or IOS portable devices.

 

[Furtone]

Streamers are just teeny weeny embedded computers optimised for a purpose, there's nothing to say you couldn't tack a good DAC onto a PC and ultimately achieve exactly the same thing. I'm using an rPAC with my Windows PC right now and I'm quite happy with it.

Control is the killer though. I was really keen on SONOS until I read it couldn't handle WAV metadata well since WAV isn't technically specced for it. Now I'm thinking of keeping pretty much the same setup as I have now and just using iTunes remote for iOS since it's far better than any of the control apps I've seen for the streamers which I've found to be little rough around the edges. Or I could just stand up to change tracks every time I suppose :/