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Inexpensive PC rig

ProAc_Fan

ProAc_Fan

Addicted Member
Source is a Hitachi DVD drive, receiver is a Sony STR-V25 and speakers are the recently acquired Allison CD-6's. Total outlay is about $150 CAN. Speaker wire is cheap 14ga Audiosphere and cables are your factory RCA plugs you find with any audio purchase.
 
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Good to see your Allison. They are back in business and started selling again in year 2002.

I got the bigger ones of Allison but mine probably have the same drivers as yours.

What's your opinions on your Allison's sounds? I am considering re-coning and replacing a tweeter.
 
head-fi.org

mayorbill11 said:
what kind of sound card do you use? are there any good ones?
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Check out the computer as source board at head-fi.org. Vast amounts of info on a bunch of good soundcards.
 
Heres my problem. I've got a top of the line laptop from Dell...9100 series. All my music is above 192 KBPS, but none sounds even compares to cd much less a record. Can you get it to sound any better? Its just very flat and one dimensional (or is it 2-Dimensional?) Just not all that good of quality, in my opinion.
 
your speakers

Sugardawg34 said:
Heres my problem. I've got a top of the line laptop from Dell...9100 series. All my music is above 192 KBPS, but none sounds even compares to cd much less a record. Can you get it to sound any better? Its just very flat and one dimensional (or is it 2-Dimensional?) Just not all that good of quality, in my opinion.
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What speakers are hooked up to your laptop? Are you using the built in speakers?
 
onboard sound?

Does your laptop have onboard sound or a seperate soundcard? Onboard sound has improved over the years, but a quality soundcard is better.
 
mayorbill11 said:
mp3s, even at their highest bitrate are only 1/3rd CD quality.
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:blah: Aren't you the guy who asked if using the EQ built into Foobar 2000 would make 128K Mp3s sound natural and "airy"?

I may not know much about vintage audio, but I know enough about Mp3's and lossy encoding to tell you flat out what you are saying is incorrect.

Look, encode your favorite CD using LAME 3.92 (an MP3 encoder) and Exact Audio copier. Encode one track 3 times, one with 128k Standard, 192k standard, and -APS (variable bitrate 320k max, known as the 2005 year standard).

Have a friend randomly copy all tracks including an uncompressed original onto a CD.

I bet you $5 you will have a hard time guessing which one was the original, but I bet you $10 you will know which one was the 128k. Want to know why? Because the human ear cannot hear some frequencies at the same time. That is the trick that makes Mp3s possible. Get a bitrate high enough and you will find it nearly impossible to tell a difference. Now, throw equalization crap all over it and play it through a stock Gateway 2000 sound card and 64k would probably sound "airy". More like crap.
 
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If I had an entire collection of my favourite CDs I wouldn't even bother with mp3s.

Also, I never said anything about natural and airy and I was speaking more to making speakers with somewhat lackluster highs sound good using a computer based EQ, not to making my mp3s sound CD quality or airy, whatever the hell that means.

I can tell the difference between an mp3 and a CD recording, moreso with certain types of music. Human ears might not be able to hear all frequencies at once, but can an mp3 codec tell what i'm going to hear at a certain time? I doubt it. And I can tell when a codec ****s up and gives me some shitty sounding garbage.
 
Sugardawg34 said:
Heres my problem. I've got a top of the line laptop from Dell...9100 series. All my music is above 192 KBPS, but none sounds even compares to cd much less a record. Can you get it to sound any better? Its just very flat and one dimensional (or is it 2-Dimensional?) Just not all that good of quality, in my opinion.
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What are you using to interface the computer and the receiver. I had the same problem until I spent $35 on a Griffin iMic USB Audio Interface. Now it doesn't hurt to listen to my music from my computer. When I stream the music into the living room through my Airport Express into my Marantz SR-880 the limiting factor is the POS DAC in the Marantz. Still sounds better than the iMic USB interface, but not as good as my Rotel RCD-955, unless I bypass the 955's internal DACs and use the Marantz DAC, then they're the same. I need an outboard DAC for the living room.
 
I've had a few laptops and they have all had pretty bad sound. All of them were very, very noisy. The onboard sound on most computers is a little better, but leaves much to be desired. There are a few exceptions. The sound quality of the older A/V-equipped Macintoshes (7500-9600 series) is pretty decent. These computers even sported RCA I/O.

Another alternative to the external solution is to find the S/PDIF header on your PC motherboard and pipe it to an outboard D/A converter. You might have to force the digital output to 2 channel mode using the volume control panel.

My personal setup is a Mac with a Digidesign AudioMedia III sound card. This card has a S/PDIF output which feeds a Tascam DA-P1 DAT deck. My other computer (PC) has an external Sound Blaster Live!. The Mac and Tascam setup has a cleaner and purer sound than the external Live!. The analog outputs on the AudioMedia III are pretty noise-free, but have a "mechanical" sound.
 
For the laptop, I have an Echo Indigo soundcard. It plugs into the PC cardbus type II slot and produces spectacular sound. In my computer, I have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card and I am very happy with the sound. It will even allow DVD-Audio playback.

I can tell the difference between an mp3 and a CD recording, moreso with certain types of music
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Well, you could always burn CDs to a lossless format if that was the case. I choose to use different types of encoding for different records. I personnally have not done a double blind test of the different types of music at different mp3 settings, but HydrogenAudio forum has many case studies. From what I remember, most folks can't hear much difference above 224KBPS.

One other thing to consider is the ability to apply wavgain or mp3gain to CDs when they are burned to a computer. Clipping is a major problem on most CDs and wavgain can decrease the amplitude of music recorded at too high a level. This actually makes a lossless file that has "gain" applied sound better than the actual CD.
 
I'm now seein just how much my posts are read here....I been posting about the benefits of using 'DFX' processing for MP3s...and how it makes them sound so much better for many months now......but nobody is listening or just don't give a ****!....I even went as far as to take it to 'AK fest' with me...

If you use
Windows Media player..
Musicmatch..
Realplayer..
Winamp....

There is hope for mp3s....It isn't for trying to keep up with a super high end Vinyl system...but it is impressive....

If you dont give it a try ...not my problem....but don't sit there and bitch about how bad MP3s sound...
If you dont like them... then don't use them...but if you use your computer, and want to hear Mp3s sound decent on a reasonable system...all it takes is to give it a try....

Just remember MP3 is a compressed format and can give the room needed on a computer for a very large library....

Might as well make the best of it




Try DFX here
 
to follow up,im using it on some live concerts ive recorded off the net and all i can say is god damn, makes one hell of a difference in clarity....thanks gary :thmbsp:
 
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