Hardware for Music Lovers

[BlueMax]

Plenty of music available to download. Not just as MP3s but in lossless formats such as APE and FLAC.

Apparently bits from your PC can sound better than the original CD!!

Has anyone tried streaming music from your PC and enjoying high fidelity sound reproduction?

What hardware do you use?
Sound Cards, USB, DACs, Active Monitors, why ?!

[EiGHT]

Sound Cards and USB

[Expeto]

Yes, bits sound way better than CD's even DVD's now.

I have experience streaming the music to the internet with VLC but never really made a hi quality local streaming. But if this is the goal general tips are;
share the quality equally, most expensive sound CARD most expensive speakers and normal cables gave ordinary results.Player also important, you need to get a whole set of audiophile skills to make a great install.

USB sound cards doesn't seems like good idea for such great expectations. Sound cards get the data directly from motherboard through so many pins. In USB it gets transformed for to be transmitted through just few wires of the USB cable and transformed again in the sound card.

But I'm not a sound expert, so hanging around at places like
http://forum.audiogon.com/
http://www.audioasylum.com/
may improve you

Also even the magnetic waves of the place effects the quality, many of the good cables are shielded by default.



Sound Cards and USB sound cards and USB? wtf?

[BlueMax]

Sound Cards and USBdid u mean external sound cards that plug into a USB port?
It is the only solution for lappies to get the digits out. Couple of years ago I had a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX feeding digital into a external DAC. Not exactly high-end hi-fi but not too bad.

Inside of a PC is full of interferences of all sorts. So I like the idea of having the sound card away from the PC with its own PSU.

Some people say firewire interfaces are better than USB. I haven't tried cos they are pricey.

Active speakers with built in DACs are promising. Most of them are made for the pro-audio world where they use mixers. But for home use an input selector and a volume control is needed.
I have been looking for something for a looong time but no luck yet.

[ihab22222]

I am using Creative X-Fi extreme gamer /i connected with my amp.

[yahav876]

mp3 knife the best for cuting !

[BlueMax]

with the use of compression ratios as high as of 20, MP3s were useful when memories of MP3 players were measured in kilo bytes rather than Giga bytes now.
Also with the broadband, download speeds are many times more than with the dial up services of few years back.

Many files in lossless formats such as .ape and FLAC can be downloaded from torrent sites.
But many pay sites are still using MP3s !!
MP3s are well past their sell by date; about time the vendors caught up ....

[BlueMax]

keep hearing bad things about getting data out of a PC via USB. :huh:
Has anyone tried something else?
Any good but not too expensive hardware bits out there?

[zomerozs]

what are these bad things !

[Speedo]

I can not for the hell of me understand why not the whole music industry moves over to linux because of latency. It's insane.

[bobmacans]

How about iphone, ipad, and mobile phones?

[TheSeeder]

I am using Creative X-Fi extreme gamer /i connected with my amp.

I am also using it and this HD Audio is awesome, it looks like there is a person inside my house singing

[Halogen]

A proper, dedicated sound card instead of the built in crap that sits on most mobos these days will make a huge difference. Personally, I like the Asus Xonar DX, but there are others that will fit the bill too.

[BlueMax]

How about iphone, ipad, and mobile phones?
Audioengine A2 and A5 are powered speakers, specially made for this purpose.
Not only for iphone, ipad, and mobile phones but any media player.
Comes with all u need, so easy to hook up. And they sound great.
http://audioengineusa.com/

They received rave reviews from all around the world and are selling like hot cakes
http://alatest.co.uk/reviews/speaker-reviews/audioengine-5-speaker-system/po3-32189667,35/

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A proper, dedicated sound card instead of the built in crap that sits on most mobos these days will make a huge difference. Personally, I like the Asus Xonar DX, but there are others that will fit the bill too.

M-Audio 24/96 has a good reputation among those switched from conventional hi-fi to computer based audio.
For stereo music, a better way is to use a USB DAC. Some are expensive but Beresford Caiman DAC and the recently introduced Arcam rDac are excellent value and highly capable.