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

Okay, if an audiophile CD player can run you anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000, how do you build a PC that is in the same league? With the audiophile CD players you have to figure that every part of them is maximized to be the best that it can be: Transport, circuit designs, DACs, power supply, signal path, power cable...

How can a PC compete when you're stuck buying consumer grade CD burners, power supplies, motherboards etc.? Even if they are the most expensive that you can find. Is there a way to build a PC that rivals a $5,000 CD player? Of course you can add an audiophile power cable to your PC, but I have to believe that it's just throwing good money after bad when you consider the rest of the non-audiophile components used (and non-audiophile components are the only ones available as far as I know).

Does anyone know the answer to this? I know that the better CD players use great DAC's, but I am not so concerned with that as I use an RME sound card which is indeed a beautiful sounding converter. But I can't help wondering about the rest of the machine... What separates this $1000 computer from a $5000 CD player???
studioray
eandylee
124 posts
 
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.
mark02131's avatar
mark02131
99 posts
 
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
coffee_nudge
120 posts
 
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.
hepl
147 posts
 
Edesilva,

I agree with you. I am using a Bel Canto Dac2. To avoid the "noise" and "ground loops" I changed the Coax for an Optical cable and it does sound cleaner. I use an external hard drive (1,000 GB) and the I-Tunes program to store all my cds using the WAV encoder.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
"How can a PC compete when you're stuck buying consumer grade CD burners, power supplies, motherboards etc.? Even if they are the most expensive that you can find. Is there a way to build a PC that rivals a $5,000 CD player?"

Certainly, infact, it will beat your $5K transport. Read this article for more info:
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/nugent.htm
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