Same sound quality from pc, hifi cdplayer

[gasolin]

So it must be my turn now to make a thread since blacksabbath25 already have made one *biggrin*.

I am using a Rothwell attenuator -10db for my Marntz CD5005, cd output is about 2 volt and that's way beyond what cd input on my amp need, is designet for, meaning i already at 10'o clock reach max volume an beyond that distortion, an attenuator makes the range much wider from low to max volume and should also make noise levels ,distortion a bit lower

http://www.decibelhifi.com.au/rothwell-in-line-rca-audio-attenuators-pair/

Heres a review where the reviewer actually notices a (big) difference,didn't expect that (compared to the first link where there was no difference using or not using the attenuators except for volume and mabye distortion that i noticed using them)

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0803/rothwell.htm

Was thinking why should my sound from my pc sound better(different) then my cdplayer (dragonfly vs the internal cs4398 dac, the same used in my amp/cdplayer and different interconnect) i use tidal hifi and never play anything then original cd's, no burned cd's in mp3 quality, i can buy cd's that have a dvd as a bonus that isn't available on tidal hifi,also some cd's are not yet on tidal hifi, some of them have bonus tracks and last but not least i can play my old cd's the normal ones,the greatest ones,.compilations or just se,le versions made in gold with no remastered sound just ripped from the master tapes

If i want the same sound quality from my pc/cdplayer i need to conect both to a dac and use interconnects from the same brand and models (one would be digital and the other analog or both digital, coaxial and optical)

I could use my internal dac in my amp for my pc and either that or just analog out of my cdplayer, it won't make a huge difference if i use analog or digital out of my cdplayer as long as interconnects are the same brand and model (since both dac's in the amp/cdpalyer is the same). Right?

How about jitter, there is a jitter filter in a audioquest dragonfly and most people say the signal out of a pc is not perfect (jitter), that's why there is something like the audioquest jitterbug

How about the gain,output from the cdplayer, it makes the sound from my cdplayer really loud at 10'o clock (without an attenuator) and i like the wider range from low to max with the attenuator that makes music sound less distorted

 

[Vladimir]

In a double-blind listening test expensive standalone DACs and soundcards sounded no different than the cheap and free integrated audio on your PC motherboard. Only real difference that may play a role is differences in loudness. The link of the test was posted before on the forum.

 

[MajorFubar]

In a double-blind listening test expensive standalone DACs and soundcards sounded no different than the cheap and free integrated audio on your PC motherboard. Only real difference that may play a role is differences in loudness. The link of the test was posted before on the forum.

They obviously didn't try my old Toshiba P300, despite being 24/96 which was impressive for a laptop soundcard of the day (2009 ish), it sounded utter crap.

 

[gasolin]

In a double-blind listening test expensive standalone DACs and soundcards sounded no different than the cheap and free integrated audio on your PC motherboard. Only real difference that may play a role is differences in loudness. The link of the test was posted before on the forum.

Does that include jitter and what about making the levels from my pc/cdplayer more equal,the same so theres a wider range from low to max volume without changing the volume that comes out of my pc (should have an negative effect on the sound) but doing it another way

I could ignore the difference in levels because i'm not using the cplayer that often (atm i do) , i was just wondering if i could make it tidal hifi as well as the sound from my cdplayer sound more the same,equal so the real difference only would be in the cd version i choose to listen to.

I do have tidal hifi but theres cd's you can't listen to on tidal and some have dvd's so sometimes the bonus is a dvd you can't se/hear with tidal, i could use the cd's (and dvd's) with my pc, but that cd/dvd player i have is soo noisy, mabye rip them on to my noisy old harddrive(not all dvd's i can rip on to my harddrive).

That makes me think why people with a non high end cdplayer have one, i mean if they have a silent pc,cd/dvd player and a good dac/soundcard why would they need a hifi cdplayer in the first place?

I mean spent a lot lees on a silent cd/dvd player instead of the marantz cd5005 i have

 

[Vladimir]

In a double-blind listening test expensive standalone DACs and soundcards sounded no different than the cheap and free integrated audio on your PC motherboard. Only real difference that may play a role is differences in loudness. The link of the test was posted before on the forum.

They obviously didn't try my old Toshiba P300, despite being 24/96 which was impressive for a laptop soundcard of the day (2009 ish), it sounded utter crap.

I have the same experience with HP, but was always pleasantly surprised with the quality in ASUS integrated audio. However, I've never done any DBTs to confirm my experience.

 

[Vladimir]

In a double-blind listening test expensive standalone DACs and soundcards sounded no different than the cheap and free integrated audio on your PC motherboard. Only real difference that may play a role is differences in loudness. The link of the test was posted before on the forum.

Does that include jitter and what about making the levels from my pc/cdplayer more equal,the same so theres a wider range from low to max volume without changing the volume that comes out of my pc (should have an negative effect on the sound) but doing it another way

I could ignore the difference in levels because i'm not using the cplayer that often (atm i do) , i was just wondering if i could make it tidal hifi as well as the sound from my cdplayer sound more the same,equal so the real difference only would be in the cd version i choose to listen to.

I do have tidal hifi but theres cd's you can't listen to on tidal and some have dvd's so sometimes the bonus is a dvd you can't se/hear with tidal, i could use the cd's (and dvd's) with my pc, but that cd/dvd player i have is soo noisy, mabye rip them on to my noisy old harddrive(not all dvd's i can rip on to my harddrive).

That makes me think why people with a non high end cdplayer have one, i mean if they have a silent pc,cd/dvd player and a good dac/soundcard why would they need a hifi cdplayer in the first place?

I mean spent a lot lees on a silent cd/dvd player instead of the marantz cd5005 i have

Louder source will always sound better, thus precise level matching before serious listening tests is important.

In that magazine DBT test they didn't adjust or take in consideration jitter, latency, SNR and such. just leveled matched the sources and compared.

Have you taken the Tidal Hi-Fi test? I have and can't tell the difference between lossy aac and lossless flac stream.

Why people buy expensive CDPs? Well, for various reasons, like raising their expectation bias (expecting better sound), better feel and look due to the higher build quality, pride of ownership... Some cottage industry audiophile CDPs are cheap OEM parts costing couple of tenners and selling for thousands after being tweaked to sound slightly worse just for the sake of sounding different.

 

[gasolin]

I have to say it again or atleast wonder,be amazed why i bought a Marantz CD5005?

I have a silent pc and all i needed was a much more silent cd/dvd player (mabye even one that could play bluerays) , i do have a fractal define r5 with a door i have to open every time i want to play a cd/dvd (a bit annoying but not a problem)

 

[MajorFubar]

In a double-blind listening test expensive standalone DACs and soundcards sounded no different than the cheap and free integrated audio on your PC motherboard. Only real difference that may play a role is differences in loudness. The link of the test was posted before on the forum.

They obviously didn't try my old Toshiba P300, despite being 24/96 which was impressive for a laptop soundcard of the day (2009 ish), it sounded utter crap.

I have the same experience with HP, but was always pleasantly surprised with the quality in ASUS integrated audio. However, I've never done any DBTs to confirm my experience.

Indeed. I've always been impressed with the standard audio from my old (2010) Mac Mini. I have it rigged up to a HRT II+ as I suppose most people have seen me say various times. I think (though I haven't proved) I could pass ABX or DB tests between the HRT II+ and the built-in audio output in side-by-side level-matched comparisons, but no point my lying, if I just walked in the room one day and you asked me which was playing, the differences are so small without direct A-B comparison I couldn't tell you.

 

[Vladimir]

Why bother playing from physical media at all? Just rip everything on a large HDD.

 

[gasolin]

Why bother playing from physical media at all? Just rip everything on a large HDD.

My 2 tb wd green harddrive is audioble, it's not hifi silent (have it in a usb box) the rest of my pc is very silent, since it's a 3.5" drive i have to manually turn it on and off (a bit annoying) have alot of cd's ripped to my "noisy" harddrive that take alot of space since they are just ripped in wave losless (a bit bigger then flac, have just used wmp since it easy to do it with wmp).

I do sometimes borrow cd's and a bit more dvd's from my local libary (which is free to do in denmark where i live) because i use my pc alot i more often watch a movie on my pc then on my tv, even when i have a surround system for my tv, so i do need a cd/dvd player for my pc and since it's noisy i don't use it for cd's, that's why i have and use tidal hifi alot, it makes no noise to use tidal hifi (or my cd player that is very silent).

 

[Vladimir]

7200rpm HDDs are anything but quiet.

 

[Jota180]

If hard drive noise is an issue during music playback you're **** scared of the volume knob! I have 9 hard drives and 9 computer fans all spinning within 3 feet of me and it's not an issue. Speakers work best with a bit of volume so playing music with the volume knob 3mm from zero is pretty much pointless. If there's times you can't play at reasonable levels it's headphone time!

 

[Infiniteloop]

There are those who argue that digital is simply all 1's and 0's so all digital has to sound the same regardless of source.

However, for those who prefer to listen and trust their ears, there are obvious differences in SQ that conflicts with that argument.

Expectation bias (if it exists) works for both types of people.

 

[hg]

In a double-blind listening test expensive standalone DACs and soundcards sounded no different than the cheap and free integrated audio on your PC motherboard. Only real difference that may play a role is differences in loudness. The link of the test was posted before on the forum.

This needs qualification because the built in audio in computers is not always audibly neutral. For example, the built in audio on my desktop PC is fine but the built in audio on my old Mac laptop was not and required the use of an external soundcard.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

If hard drive noise is an issue during music playback you're **** scared of the volume knob! I have 9 hard drives and 9 computer fans all spinning within 3 feet of me and it's not an issue. Speakers work best with a bit of volume so playing music with the volume knob 3mm from zero is pretty much pointless. If there's times you can't play at reasonable levels it's headphone time!

I Agee I have had a lot of PCs myself in the past but now have an iMac but the sound on the iMac speakers are rubbish so I got my self my own little active speakers that go on it instead And then I am running a 2tb external hard drive for my music and films and 1tb on the iMac I do not hear the harddrives at all even when I use to build my own gaming PCs it was not an issue and if you build you own you can put a really good sound card on board and not a standard one that you get when you buy one of the shelf plus you can turn down the fan speeds on a good PC or if the harddrives are too loud turn the volume up or get your self some solid state hard drive no noise with them . A very good sound card for a PC will be more then you paid for your marantz 5005 cd play and would sound better as long as your got the speakers to match the sound cards quality

 

[Vladimir]

I sampled DACs and soundcards and the little Behringer UCA202 simply does everything almost perfect for me. Cheap, no drivers, plug and play 16/44.1. Only downside is it can't do 2Vrms output like a CDP and proper powered DAC. Its max is 2dbV (1.26Vrms).

 

[Blacksabbath25]

I sampled DACs and soundcards and the little Behringer UCA202 simply does everything almost perfect for me. Cheap, no drivers, plug and play 16/44.1. Only downside is it can't do 2Vrms output like a CDP and proper powered DAC. Its max is 2dbV (1.26Vrms).

the creative sound cards are good and specially the pro series cards

 

[gasolin]

If hard drive noise is an issue during music playback you're **** scared of the volume knob! I have 9 hard drives and 9 computer fans all spinning within 3 feet of me and it's not an issue. Speakers work best with a bit of volume so playing music with the volume knob 3mm from zero is pretty much pointless. If there's times you can't play at reasonable levels it's headphone time!

I Agee I have had a lot of PCs myself in the past but now have an iMac but the sound on the iMac speakers are rubbish so I got my self my own little active speakers that go on it instead And then I am running a 2tb external hard drive for my music and films and 1tb on the iMac I do not hear the harddrives at all even when I use to build my own gaming PCs it was not an issue and if you build you own you can put a really good sound card on board and not a standard one that you get when you buy one of the shelf plus you can turn down the fan speeds on a good PC or if the harddrives are too loud turn the volume up or get your self some solid state hard drive no noise with them . A very good sound card for a PC will be more then you paid for your marantz 5005 cd play and would sound better as long as your got the speakers to match the sound cards quality

I personally have a good soundcard the audioquest dragonfly and the best supra minijack to rca/phono so it's pretty good

Just surprised i didn't thought of buying a good blu ray player for my pc instaed of my marantz

I thought the amp was more important then the speakers *biggrin*

 

[gasolin]

Same dac in my cdplayer/amp so optical from my pc and coaxial from my cdplayer should give more or less the same sound with cable from the same brand,model where only difference is, one is coaxial and the others is optical

also analog out of my cdplayer would give my same sound as digital out of my cplayer and digital in my amp,. right?

if i use an coaxial cable from my cdplayer would i be able to use my rothwell attenuater http://www.rothwellaudioproducts.co.uk/html/attenuators.html

Here's the solution to a problem from which far too many audiophiles suffer - too much gain in the system. The symptoms are easy enough to spot - the volume is plenty loud enough with the volume control set to the 9 o'clock position, too loud with the volume control at 10 o'clock, and fine control at low levels is impossible.

It’s the excess gain in the system which is the real problem. That in turn forces you always to use the volume control over a very limited portion of its travel. What's needed is a way to reduce overall system gain without compromising sound quality and without major modifications to the equipment itself.

The Rothwell In-Line Attenuators are the answer.