Need Help! Audiophile sound on a PC?

[Nephi]

Hi Guys,

I am very familiar with HT and home audio systems however when it comes to the world of computer audio I am a complete noob. The amount of choices/options is overwhelming.

Hopefully if I list my goals you guys can help me out.

My computer is a new build (Intel 477K, GTX 780, Asus Hero IV mono) and I have not yet bought a sound card and/or speakers.

My goals are as as follows:

1. Listen to CDs (on my computer).
2. Play games.
3. Listen to MP3s.
4. Listen to headphones.
5. Audiophile quality sound solution.
6. Set up a 2.1 system.
7. Budget is $500 to $2000 (for everything). I much prefer to spend closer to the $1K mark if possible.

I have looked at the Peachtree Audio M125 preamplifier/dac/amp unit to use w/ passive speakers. I have also looked at Audioengine's A5+ speakers and sub. However, I am not 100% certain on the best way to hook these up and what I would need to do so.

A few questions that I do..... Is there such thing as an "audiophile" CD-player for the computer to replace the standard disc drive? Do I want to use or avoid the 3.5mm analog input/output? I read this can lead to low quality sound.

Lastly, if I need a SC I am looking at the SBlaster ZXR card.

Thanks for ANY help and feedback!

-Brian

 

[mfenn]

At your budget, definitely get components instead of some all in one active solution. In general, you want the signal to go digital (S/PDIF or USB) to a DAC then to an amp (probably in the same box at this budget), and then to speakers.

The general rule of thumb is that your speakers should cost more than the rest of your setup combined. You have a decent budget, but not outrageous, so I don't think that many super high-end DAC/AMPs are in your price range. I would probably look at an A/V receiver like a Yamaha or Denon. Less audiophile street cred, more bang for your buck.

(Crutchfield links for reference only, shop around for pricing)

Denon AVR-E300 $400
Polk RTi A5 (pair) $800

There's no replacement for displacement. With the 6.5" woofers in those Polks, you will not need a subwoofer for music. You might miss out on some bass in games, but not very much. The system is set up to add on a sub at any point.

As for CDs, don't play them back directly. Use EAC to get a verified good rip and the play them back from your hard drive. Optionally encode the WAV files to FLAC.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> A few questions that I do..... Is there such thing as an "audiophile" CD-player for the computer to replace the standard disc drive? Do I want to use or avoid the 3.5mm analog input/output? I read this can lead to low quality sound.

Rip your CDs to "lossless" FLAC format and play them from your hard drive. You can fit ~1,000 CDs into 300 GB of storage that way.

Rip: dbPowerAmp has a good ripper that supports "AccurateRip" and will use multiple read passes for the best error correction. Exact Audio Copy is good too.

Play: Foobar2000 has FLAC support and also supports (if you want it) ReplayGain to adjust audio levels between CDs to be more consistent.

For my home office, I use a dedicated PC with intel i3 prcessor, 1 TB hard drive, optical digital connection. I have it connected to an Onkyo receiver and Polk bookshelf speakers. For headphone listening I plug them into the receiver.

 

[mfenn]

I don't think there's really any need to put quotes around lossless when talking about FLAC. FLAC really is lossless, as in you can decode it to the exact bit-for-bit wave representation that was used for input.

EDIT: I agree with you in general though.

 

[DaveSimmons]

To be more clear, I wasn't quoting "lossless" to mean not-really-lossless I was quoting it as not being a proper English word

FLAC is indeed a 100% lossless compression format that will de-compress back to the identical data of the WAV file. And unlike WAV, FLAC supports storing metadata such as the artist, song title and track number.

 

[Cerb]

CDs: rip 'em. Check your optical drive, though, regardless of software used. Some are good at error reporting and correcting in hardware, and others aren't. Those that aren't are hopeless, when it comes to damaged or unbalanced discs, and a good one can be had for $20 or less (Asus 24B1ST, Samsung 224BB or 224DB).

EAC is still the best free ripper, when it comes to getting the right data, but honestly, for discs that aren't problematic, iTunes will do just fine. dBPowerAmp is great, but not free.

While the cost spread is far less, the same general thinking w/ HPs applies to speakers: HP first, amp second, DAC third--but, in many cases, you get the best value with a DAC+amp combo. Don't pay more than the ODAC+O2 combo costs, for both. You can get by with much less, but watch out for DACs that only support 48kHz multiples.

Audio chips are generally very good these days. But, even the cheap ones need good circuitry, and clean power, and that's quite difficult and costly to do inside your computer.

 

[bononos]

.....
A few questions that I do..... Is there such thing as an "audiophile" CD-player for the computer to replace the standard disc drive? Do I want to use or avoid the 3.5mm analog input/output? I read this can lead to low quality sound.
......

What does a audiophile cd reader do over a normal one?
Like the others have said, ripping and converting flac is more convenient than swapping cds.

The soundcard may have optical outputs which you can use to connect to your receiver or external dac (in which case a soundcard may be unnecessary since some build in mb audio may have optical out for audio).

 

[Phantomaniac]

IMO if you are looking for audiophile quality as opposed to features, you are much better served by an external DAC and amp than an internal sound card. There are actually a good number of amps and DACs that are meant for computer audio setups and will not require a lot of space on your desk:

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=NUDIA
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AUN22
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=310-312

Two of those products actually have DACs built in, saving you the trouble of buying a separate. As for speakers, just go with quality bookshelf speakers that you would use as fronts in a home theater setup. Most computer setups only have subwoofers because they lack good mid-range drivers. Here are a few recommendations from sites I have ordered from:

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=CAS30
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=MOAVI1
http://www.tsto.com/Mission_MX1_Bookshelf_Speakers_p/3382.htm
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=303-402

For a mere $200, the topping amp/dac and BIC speakers will kill any creative or logitech setup for sure.

 

[Zap]

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=303-402

For a mere $200, the topping amp/dac and BIC speakers will kill any creative or logitech setup for sure.

I second these BIC speakers. We had DV52 (older and smaller versions of the DV62, not the "Adatto" ones) and DV62, and they sound great.

Take it with a grain of salt because I'm not an "audiophile" but I've listened to many, many, many "multimedia" speakers and none are as good. Probably only ones that even come close are the Audioengine speakers. For non-multimedia unamplified bookshelf speakers, I've listened to Polk, Yamaha, Infinity and maybe a few others, and these cheap BIC are pretty competitive in that price range.

AFAIK original MSRP was just under $300, and compared to other $300 bookshelf speakers these were just average. However, these make great $110 speakers.

BTW similar pricing at Amazon, but with free shipping.

 

[Sheninat0r]

The simplest way is to just use spdif and connect your pc to any audio gear you want. Get a nice DAC and forget the sound card, your onboard spdif is going to be exactly the same.

You sound like you know a thing or two about sound, it shouldn't be hard for you to build another set of audio gear for your computer -- there's literally no difference between home theater and pc audio, I don't know why you're getting so hung up on this.