PC-Audio vs. High-end CD Player-GAME OVER

The drives, memory, processors and interfaces in the PC-Audio are powered with the noisy switching power. You can isolate this from the DAC but that does not help anything when it comes to the actual data processing.

Isolating the DAC from the PC brings an obvious improvement. Why? Try supplying your DAC from the switching power supply in the computer and see what happens with the sound.

It is very interesting to me that no one acknowledges the fact that PC-Audio remains powered by the noisy switching supply. But it does not end here. How about the fact that your audio data is being transformed to many different protocols inside the computer so it can be processed and stored? Do you really believe this can be a better solution compared to a quiet linear powered and precision clocked dedicated audio DSP directly hooked up to the DAC with 5 inches long cables? Not in my book!

Again, convenience and nice sound is a suitable description for PC-Audio. But when it comes to the best possible audio quality, I will have to disagree.

Finally, I have 5 desktops and 2 laptops here. :-)

Regards,
Alex

Alex,

Have you experimented with the Slim Devices Transporter. This device seems to take out all of the factors of which you complain about PC audio. Linn has even jumped on board with their $20,000 Klimax DS. Both are network servers. So, if you stream wave files over the ethernet cable, no processing. The Transporter with a great DAC should equal or best most stuff on the market. Maybe not your players, who knows, but have you tried a network streaming device. You are right about PC audio. This is probably a dead end, as well as USB DACs, but network streaming seems to combine the best of both worlds. If you added an ethernet port to the NWO, that would be exciting for me.

I have a rubidium clock hooked up to my transporter right now and it sounds pretty good, but the dac is certainly inferior. I would love to hook up my transporter and clock to an Alps DAC. Is it out yet?

Thanks,
andy

The SD Transporter and SB3 are effected by the PC noise. The ethernet port is connected to the PC's noisy switching power supply.

Both the Transporter and SB3 also use SMPS units to power internal circuits.

Alex,

I am trying to understand what you have written about the noisy switching power supply of a computer. I can't see how the digital information would be modified by a switching power supply.

Once it leaves the computer via an optical USB cable, the DAC would have its own linear power supply to process the information.

By the way, I also suspect that you build and design great CD/SACD players.

Thank You

I believe the arguments are two-tracked:

1. Will the PC/Mac download + DAC system kill the CD?

2. Does the high-end PC/MAC setup kill the high-end CD player?
2.1. Does it kill (or comparable to) the APL NWO?

Now, Alex of APL is making both general remarks about the noisy PC power supply, etc. and specific remarks that NWO is leagues better than anything PC audio has to offer.

I think the general remarks are, as always, theoretical at best. Didn't we think that bits are bits so theoretically all CD players, or transports sound the same in the past? :)

If we get down to specifics, this is where it gets fun. What's to stop people with NWO's (or any other high-end CDPs) from comparing that against the best PC Audio setup? I for one, look forward to listening to what others have to say AFTER doing some comparative (or competitive ;)) listening between the two.