Can a PC match the quality of the best CD players?

Here's my narrow and non-technical view:

Each time a CD/Transport reads data off a silver disk, its doing it in real time. Yes, there is error correction and yes there is error tolerance. But, its subject to the vagaries of reading in real time or near real time.

Computers read blocks of data off a hard drive a lot faster, and those data storage systems are built with much better error detection--yes, disk sectors go bad, but how often do you see that? When you rip responsibly (i.e., EAC), you end up with a copy of the disk that has had each block read over and over and compared to make sure you minimize faulty read data that might occur on a one-time only play.

Onto the computer. There are several things you can do to make computer audio sound better:

- Use an external DAC
- Optimize the digital connection; in some cases this may be a USB path to the DAC itself. In my case, it means a USB audio device (waveterminal U24) to a DAC via coax digital. I tend to dislike sound cards generically; I think a computer is a noisy environment in which to perform that format change.
- Use decent software. Foobar, for example. Make sure you are bypassing the kmixer in windows.

YMMV, but I think a decent computer can sound as good as a $5K transport.

CD drives/burners on PC are never used. Also, never use DAC on PC.

Digital data is read off from hard drive and sent directly to a external USB device such as U24 via USB cable, then the signal is sent to the external DAC via digital cable.

If this is done properly, it'll sound quiet good.

Check out HUSH PC's they are fanless and are of pretty high quality, you can put them right in your rack if you want, they would make a pretty nice music server. I agree use an external DAC with a nice Digital cable could make a big difference.

http://www.hushtechnologies.net/

Mark

I am currently experimenting with computer based audio using a Squeezebox (http://www.slimdevices.com/). I ripped my CDs to hard drive using EAC and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compression). The Squeezebox directly supports the FLAC format, and decodes it.

I have my computer in a different room from my audio system, and have the Squeezebox connected to it with a CAT 6 Ethernet cable (you can also do it wireless). The Squeezebox decodes the FLAC and then I send that digital signal via a DH Labs D-75 digital cable to a Bel Canto DAC2 (you can also use the Squeezebox's own internal DAC).

At this point, the ease of use is fantastic...I have approxmately 3000 songs available instantaneously, all searchable by song, album, artist, genre and year. The sound quality is pretty decent, but not in the same league as my Wadia 861 with GNSC Statement mods.

I am going to be playing with different DACs and cables etc. to see just how good the audio quality can get.

If nothing else, it's a lot of fun to play with.

Cheers.