What Does It Take To Turn The PC Into A Hi-Fi Audio Platform?

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Well, I mirror Listener B's thoughts on speakers, in that I've always found speakers a bit easier to use for evaluating sources, regardless of the price (and I have a Stax SR-007); maybe its because smaller differences are masked by the "headphone experience" whereas speakers present the material in a somewhat more natural way. Anyway, I liked the review, and I too feel that Realtek codecs often sound "good enough".
 
Bio-Star has produced a Hi-Fi motherboard in the AMD line and the quality is outstanding. The parts are what is making the difference. You can hear an A-flat. One of the simple tests is to turn up the volume and listen for background noise and here the $2 chip will fail from noise, computer power supply not regulated at chip/line noise, spurious noise from computer, lousier quality parts.
 


That won't happen if you're using SP-DIF though.

Also, every amp does that, even if not connected to anything. You turn it up far enough and listen well enough, and you will pretty much always hear a slight hiss.
 
i got some decent AKG's and a violectric v200 and initially i couldnt tell the difference in audio quality between $100 sony's , $200 v-moda and $600 AKG apart from closed back having more bass and open back AKG more positional and defining with frequency ranges.I persisted with the akgs for months an now i cant listen to my cheaper headphones cause they distort/too bassy/sounds are muddled together :sdo yourself a favour if you haven't used expensive headphones and stick with the age old 'ignorance is bliss' !
 
Thanks for the comparison and putting things into perspective. While modern digital audio equipment sounds perhaps very similar, I would like to add some of my own experiences when selecting audio gear:
1. Some (many?) people won't be able to distringuish nor appreciate the fine nuances between different devices, which doesn't mean these differences do not exist.
2. Most of the test tracks you chose are rather problematic in revealing the "true sound". Why? Except perhaps (???) for the classical piece, I bet they are all mixed from multi-track recordings, where each track may have been recorded at a different time / day even. It's essentially a "synthetic sound" created by the sound engineer and mixer to fit the taste of himself and the audience. For all we know it may have been mixed using $20 tin cans as headphones - and thus tuned to their accoustic properties.
When I choose my audio gear, I always bring along some CDs where I know the accoustic properties of the recording venue, and the recorded material. I do listen to life music, and that is my reference.If you were, for example, located in Boston or Chicago, try out the local symphony orchestras and listen to life concerts. Then buy some good recording using the respective orchestra and venue, preferably a performance you have heard in concert. Naturally, if you are not into classical music, forget it.I definitely will listen to Jazz music, as I've listened to quite a few concerts and am quite familiar with the unamplified sound of various instruments. Vocal music will also be a part of the repertoire to better detect differences, including recordings of singers I've heard in life concert, singing the specific repertoire (both classical material without amplification, as well as amplified Jazz, Rock etc. material).
When testing amplifiers, I always have the "Faure - Requiem, Rundfunkchor Leibzig, Lucia Popp, soprano; Simon Estes, bass; Sir Colin Davis; on Philips" with me. Most consumer amplifiers won't be able to play this CD at critical listening volume.
3. The first test track you mention - Skyrim - offers "deep vocals and bass-heaviness, intermixed with high treble female vocals". Remember the "Loudness" button on many amps from the 80s and 90s (and perhaps later)? Enhanced bass and trebble makes almost any system sound better. In my experience, this track will favor the "it sounds all the same" camp, as it's void of the subtleties of individual voices or solo instruments (woods, string, or similar).
4. All the above observations are perhaps irrelevant to many/most listeners who don't share my musical preferences. My main point of critique - where I would totally divert from the test methodology - is the short listening to a single track, and then switch to different equipment. At a certain level of fidelity, the differences between equipment is not so much in what you hear, but what's missing. You need to listen a long time to make out what's missing. Often the difference between one piece of equipment and the other is that you get tired during the listening process, that the listening process with model A is exhausting while with model B it is not. You don't notice that by listening to 5 or 10 minute track. However, if you listen, for example, to a symphony from start to end (provided you like that genre), you will know if the experience was uplifting or tiresome.
5. As much as I like to listen to headphones, there is no comparison to speakers. Using speakers, a high fidelity audio system and suitable listening room is capable of reproducing stereo recordings in a 3-dimensional manner, where I can clearly identify each instrument from left to right and front to back WITHOUT EXHAUSTING MYSELF. There is no guess work involved. I will be able to identify the recording location (if it's one that I am familiar with) with its individual accoustic properties, as well as the nuances of each individual instrument. I do hope you will be able to repeat this test (perhaps incorporating some suggestions) with speakers.

Last not least, I do think this test is quite valid for the music material you chose, except that perhaps with longer listening sessions for each test the results may have changed (higher hit versus miss ratio, or at least higher consistency). It might be interesting to test this theory.
 
One more note: Computeraudiophiles' C.A.P.S. V2 system uses power noise filters for USB that might very well make a difference in your setup. See here: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/405-computer-audiophile-pocket-server-caps-v20/ for more. I haven't tried it though.
 
Reading what you wrote about speakers,I thought I would tell you what I just bought to try is a 2.1 setup from Corsair,they advertise them as gaming speakers,but that doesn't mean they can't play music. The great thing about these is,every speaker has it's own amplifier. Tweeters have a 10w amp,the mids have a 40w amp/satellite.The Woofer has 2 60w amps,bridged to 120w.Total watts 220,it's a great sounding system. I payed 240 bucks on Amazon. The tweeters have Ferro-Fluid cooling also. I think you would like this.
 
Just wanted to add a little something here.
Back in the day when I was running a single core CPU, anything that took a load off of it was an improvement.
Soundstorm on my Abit NF7-S with single core Barton? Definitely better than any cheap chip on a motherboard and most dedicated sound cards sold to the gaming market at the time.
My Auzentech on my socket 939? That helped too. having a dedicated processor for just sound helped on the sound quality and even reduced my encode times while burning music and dvds.
If you're just using a 2 channel speaker setup or a pair of headphones with out current quad core to 8 core CPU setups you're not going to notice as easily now since we've got processing power to burn where back then offloading to a processor designed for that task increased performance and sound quality.
Grant it, if you're pumping the sound out to high grade speakers through amps and stabilizers, yes, the more expensive stuff is going to make a difference but that's the 1%.
 
I just noticed that you didn't mention the impedance matching option in the Asus Xonar Essence card (via driver settings: <64, 64-300, 300-600 Ohm). I use 250 Ohm Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro studio headphones which work nicely with the Asus Xonar Essence headphone amp, which I can't say about my onboard Realtek ALC 892 codec and amp.

Just for reference: I'd been looking to build a media center based audio system for a long time, but the onboard DAC never matched the quality of my CD player or CD drive + DAC combo. And I'm not talking high-end, just solid, affordable, well matched components. The Asus Xonar is definitely better than the onboard Realtek 892 sound, by a good margin, and it finally made me retire my CD player and DAC.
 


"it's a great sounding system" - that's what counts. The problem is, every one of us has a different opinion on what sounds great. It much depends on the kind of music you listen to, which you didn't mention.

By the way, manufacturers' specifications - particularly Watt - are most often totally irrelevant to sound quality or even the ability to drive speakers real loud. Which is why the article didn't mention (much) technical details (THD, etc. etc.) but the listening results.
 


Sure speakers are important. But the sound quality will be limited by the weakest link in the chain. Electronics are NOT negligible at all. Of course, Rock, Pop, etc. music is usually easy on the electronics. Now try this CD on a consumer-grade amplifier: "Faure - Requiem; Rundfunkchor Leibzig; Lucia Popp, soprano; Simon Estes, bass; Sir Colin Davis; on Philips Digital Classics" (this exact recording !!!) - just make sure not to smoke your amp (you've been warned).

For many years the weakest part in my discrete audio system was the CD/DAC. I know so because my friends AVI CD player solved the issue and got a grip on the bass which sounded somewhat out of control or imprecise with several other CD players and DACs I had tried. Unfortunately the AVI player cost more than I was able to afford then.

Here another example of how electronics matter: When buying a small stereo system for the bedroom, I spent some 3-4 hours listening to different setups in the auditioning room of the hifi store. I soon found a pair of really small but good sounding mini-monitors (speakers) but felt that the sound could be improved. Long story short - I spent well over $2000 for amplification and CD player/DAC to drive $300 speakers, and it was worth every cent. While listening to the final setup, a customer walked in and, noting the excellent sound, asked the dealer which speakers we were listening to. The dealer answered: the same ones you bought 3 days ago. Surprised at the answer, the dealer then explained to him that those speakers were now driven by a better (and more expensive) amp, CD player and DAC combo. Sometimes cheap speakers do have potential - I'm still using the same speakers and amp in my home threater setup and enjoying them.

Sorry to say, but electronics do matter a great deal, but perhaps more so with classical music, vocals, and Jazz.
 
Hmmm.Well, on-board processor chips must have improved out of all recognition in the past 10 years.However, my Asus P8Z77-V has one of these Realtek chips/codecs on-board, and I found that the stereo line-out (via 3.5mm jack) is simply NOT as good as that from the ageing M-Audio Delta 410 PCI I've been using since about 2005.Then I recently acquired a ESI MAYA44, and the difference is even more pronounced - it's CLEARLY a better (stereo) music source than the 2003-vintage M-audio, and MASSIVELY better than the Asus P8Z77/Realtek stereo-out - the difference's are not subtle at all, in fact it would be safe to describe them as "night and day".My personal goal is the best stereo reproduction, at any bit-depth/sampling rate, that I can get without spending stupid amounts of money (couldn't give a damn about surround/multichannel) out of my two Indeed Lab TA2020's, one driving a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 9.0's (ports plugged) the other a JPW passive sub (on a suspended stone slab).Sweeter treble? more vivid sound-staging? Deeper, more tuneful and better integrated bass? Better dynamics? Simply better music reproduction? All there in spades.However, having found that I can't get the MAYA44 to work reliably in my box (Win7 Pro 64), I've ordered a Xonar STX, which promises to at least match it, if not better it.Sorry, but I reckon you guys either don't really care about music, or you've simply become so inured to latter-day, congested, brick-wall-limited "production values" that you've forgotten what good recorded music sounds like (which is to say, you may be casualties of the "loudness war").
 


I didn't feel the need to get to technical,I just wanted to give him an example of a system he may want check out for himself, because speakers and headphones being the most important pieces of audio gear in a system,and the speakers I was referring to are good for this inexpensive little system. I would be more than happy to include those spec's if you would like to see them.
 
I have one issues with the testing, granted they were all set up to be as similar sourced as possible. What happens if you play through each product at its maximum quality settings? I.e. find a source that supports the “higher” features that some couldn't replicate and also supports the lower sources that the cheaper could, and then blind test those side by side over the same volume level and see if there is any notable "quality" difference when played over those headphones, try that same test at a higher stress level on the equipment and see if the cheaper equipment keeps up without distortion etc. Also as someone mentioned I do think a proper amp is needed to push that high end gear as well as a dac? What happens when you add an amp to the mix and play at the highest quality recording values? What happens if you introduce 2.0/.1 desktop higher end speaker options vs headphones? I really enjoyed the article, I'm not a headphones guy by any stretch of the imagination...I love my home theater paradigm setup and use my pc for gaming/mumble etc. It just struck me like you were hamstringing some of the capabilities of the higher end features by making everything play on a quality level that all could accomodate when some could accommodate a “higher” source/fidelity format...kind of like running a crysis 3 benchmark at 1080p and then saying the 100 dollar graphics card kept up with the 1000 dollar graphics card just fine. Just my 2 cents, again a great article just curious to see if side by side, at max performance levels, a discernable difference could be heard in imaging/distortion.
 
Let me get this straight, Toms hardware gives a 2k piece of hardware (More than a decently built 1.2k PC), but it's the same quality as something that comes on most Asus motherboards for free?A volume nob, the ability to listen to something through headphones and speakers at once (lmao?), the ability to listen to frequencies that we can't even subjectively hear are suppose to be worth 2k? Where is the value?
 
Here is something more worthwhile, how about doing an article on the best way to set up surround sound with headphones and get the most out of Blu-Ray movie sound formats, such as DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD?As far as I know, most onboard audio and even add-on cards do not support these sound formats.
 


You are correct, sort of. DTS and TrueHD technically require a hardware codec to be properly supported, but can be emulated via software if the audio codec you have supports true 5.1 and/or 7.1 and the necessary bit rates.
 
The article is a strong evidence proving that with more than half a century's evolution of IC industry,the chip's ability has overflow the demand of sound computing,especially for digital circuit which has little distortion than analog one.It seems like making subtraction with expensive computer or cheap calculator,the former has no advantege at all.If a $2 chip can handle it well ,why spending $2000 circuit just for more visibility for eyes?
 
What would have been more revealing is to use dual channel FFT measurements with a calibrated measurement microphone to compare the source to the output.
 
Interesting article, but I became a little sceptical (UK spelling) when I read this:'Having tried 24-bit/88.2 kHz (and 96 kHz) tracks without being able to tell the difference from Red Book audio, we were starting to get skeptical about high-def audio.'I have several identical tracks in Red Book audio, 24/96 and 24/192 and have listened to them intently to discern any differences. The difference between Red Book and 24/96 is easy to hear, that between 24/96 and 24/192 less so but still there. I would say that each step adds a refinement, rather than being black and white though.The first step gives a cleaner sound which takes off a slightly coarse 'texture' to Red Book recorded music, it allows each element (voice, instrument) to be more clearly defined and differentiated in its own space and is generally more 'natural'. The second step is much harder to hear, but the definition improves along with the 'naturalness' of each part. The main difference though is the ability to better hear the 'acoustic' of the recorded environment which adds to the 'space', location and definition of each part within it. It just sounds more 'real' and a sense of being 'there', wherever that may be.My sources were generally of acoustic instruments and natural (unprocessed) voices or direct and straight recordings of orchestras, choirs, quartets and the like rather than the 'computer generated' sound banks that are in wide use today. The main problem with modern attitudes to recording though is the use of compression that squeezes the dynamic range of music to suit radio and MP3 players rather than the enthusiast.There is a lot of hype in the audio world, I've walked around HiFi shows in the past and let my ears decide what I like, most I didn't irrespective of price (too hard, sharp and coarse), some I liked but couldn't afford (darTZeel amps for example), but I found a happy compromise in the middle using a combination of new equipment and second hand high end equipment (valve pre-amplification). At the end of the day it is what appeals to the listener. For me CDs can produce a fantastic sound, but listening to a high definition version is better.
 
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