noob DAC question

The best way to interface a PC with a DAC is using USB converter. These are available from $150 to $4K depending on the sound quality you want. They have USB input and digital coax output, as well as AES/EBU and I2S output on some units. The best are powered from good external power supplies. Sounds cards are not in the same league.

This USB converter is where the MASTER CLOCK resides, so it is the most important part of the digital system, more important than the DAC even.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I am a fan of just having the music server on the electronically noisy general purpose computer and using a wireless connection from a physically remote player client device (which can also output to a standalone DAC if desired). This provides a lot of isolation and is excellent for keeping pesky and hard to predict PC noise artifacts out of teh story.

Sonos is one of the more popular solutions of this type out there at present, but there are many other devices out there that play music from a server via a network connection (wireless or wired)but are designed as a component to connect to a good hifi, like a traditional CD player.

THe main limitation with a wireless connection will be bandwidth. A strong connection will generally be needed. CUrrent common Wifi technology can easily handle CD resolution digital files I find with a decent to strong connection and no major competition from others on the network. The latest and greatest wifi devices, where availble are even better and better suited probably for hi resolution files/streams available today that might exceed resolution of Redbook CDs.

I'm not sure wireless will speak well to my pocketbook, though it's a compelling way to configure a system. As I visualize in my mind's eye how the setup will work, what I foresee is using a Blu-ray rather than a standard CD player because of the variety of inputs available. I'd thought initially to steer clear of Blu-ray because more features means more things over time that could break - but variety of inputs seems to trump.

So first question is if bypassing the soundcard is imperative? If I use any of the soundcard outputs will the soundcard attempt by definition to interpret the data or can it be a straight pass-through? If the latter, what about using the video card's HDMI? Can the digital data pass straight through to the Blu-ray?

Does motherboard quality enter the picture - that is, does anything that touches the motherboard become subject to its quality as well? If I use an internal hard drive (2TB already sitting there ready to go), would I need to consider upgrading the SATA cable?

I use a Sonos myself for general background listening, but I reclock it with a Synchro-Mesh. It is very easy to use and the software works well, as long as you keep it up to date. The main limitation is that it only plays 44.1 files. It is one of the cheaper ways to get good audio, about $1K total.

I use USB for all of my 88.1-192 files, which are about half of them.

Sart- I don't understand why you are bringing the blu-ray player into the conversation. This is for playing disks and movies, nothing to do with computer audio.

The computer quality and particularly the power supply and the USB ports and topology all affect sound quality, but not as much as the interface that contains the MASTER CLOCK. This is the most important thing to get right. Here are some tips to get the optimum sound from a computer:

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/recommended-systems

The problem with soundcards is they usually have cheap jittery master clocks and they are powered from a very poor computer power supply. I have had the very best ones here, (over $1K) and they need reclocking to sound decent. It is best to not use them and instead use a USB DAC or better yet a USB converter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Every Bluray player I've seen can also play CDs and DVDs, so a Bluray player is a nice way to consolidate all of your shiny disc playback into one machine.

And if you can afford to get something like the Oppo BDP-103 ($499 new, $375+ used) you can then use the DACs in the Oppo to convert digital signals from your cable box or any other device which outputs a digital signal.

The Oppo also lets you stream music and videos from the web, making it a very cost-effective centerpiece for your system....

-RW-