Will computer to DAC replace transports and cdp's?

Let me jump in here with a slightly off topic question I'm very curious about. There is one so far unmentioned problem with computer audio I haven't seen addressed, namely fan noise. How do the contributors to this thread deal with it? I nearly went crazy figuring out how to minimize the 24db. computer fan in my PS Audio Power Plant, so the thought of more fan noise from other sources puts me off.

search posts on this subject by Edesilva. also check out the links given in these discussions (some comp hardware possibilities there).
as far as the comp noise - theres several ways to have a dead quiet pc, including keeping it in another room, having a fanless soution (some mini IPX simpleton to run the media front of the system) and lotsa ways of making your pc quiet (passive cooling, quiet fans, water cooling, quiet case, or noise killing enclosure for the machine), if it has to be close to the stereo.

Great thread! I am very close to going down this road. One FM question. I understand you can feed FM off your computer just like CD's. Seems there are FM streams which can be used. Is the sound quality as good as everything I am reading about here (CD) ? I think this could replace my FM tuner. I would assume the sound has a dead quiet background and no reception issues. Can someone tell me if these "FM" computer streams are free? Uncompressed? Choice of Jazz, Classical etc??

Great stuff and most exciting to me.

Thanks,

Bill

One other question. Can't we send our current high end players with great DAC's in for moding by the builders? They can simply install a S/PDIF input. Now I can use my player as the DAC for a computer based front end or use the transport in my player when playing CD's, DVD's , SACD's and DVDa's. I can do it all! I would think this is a pretty simple mod for our players?

One thing I forgot to add to my above post is that all my tunes were ripped in Apple Lossless format.

There is no fan noise on my Apple Laptop -- I have the unit on a stand that keeps one end propped up and it is virtually silent.

FM Radio: Many radio stations offer a webcast of their boradcasts and the sound quality is good. Not all stations do this though. That said, I subscribe to Live365 which is an internet radio clearing house that has thousands of stations of both FM and CD quality, commercial free, in every genre imaginable. I spend almost as much time listening to this as I do my CD collection on hardrive. It is not that expensive given what you gain access too.

I have heard that it is easy to add a digital input on some CD players and extremely difficult with others.

There are other people who participate on this site who are far more qualified than I to answer the questions about why the hard-drive transport can sound as good as a dedicated CD transport. In fact, they have done so on other threads on this very same topic at this site.