My New Computer Audio Player

I have just finished putting together a Windows XP based Digital Music Player. The build was chronicled in a thread titled hard drive question, but I wanted it to have a new thread with a proper title so here it is.

I wanted something that could fit into my audio rack, and basically take the place of my CDP.

It has a 1TB hard drive. Digital is sent directly from the motherboard's optical out ----> Zhaolu 2.5C DAC -----> Integrated Amp.

The computer has no internet access so it is just a music player.

Currently I have the computer hooked up to my 42" LCD via a VGA cable. I will eventually move to a monitor placed next to the listening position, so the TV will not need to be turned on to navigate.

I did some A/B comparisons between the computer and my Arcam CD73 CDP, and the sound is virtually identical.

I am very pleased with the results. I have the option of upgrading my DAC in the future OR adding a PCI soundcard later if I want. I am running Foobar2000 in Kernel Streaming mode, and am still trying to figure out if I am achieving bit-perfect playback, but so far I am happy.


Here are the components I went with.

Here is the price of the build.

Case-50
Motherboard-45
CPU-30
HDD-90
Memory-30
DVD-25
CPU Fan-20
Wireless KB and Mouse-20

I'm at $310.

I still need a cheap LCD monitor. I wish they made small ones. Smallest seems to be 15".

 

Here's a pic.

 

Nice, straightforward look.
I have an Antec Sonata case (vertical) which looks great, but it had a very bright blue light that I had to disable.

How about the noise from case fans or other fans?

Does your case price include the PSU?

When does the your “rip CD collection to digital” start?

 

Good work on the low price you managed.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_streaming

Bypassing KMixer and Windows volume control is a step in the right direction toward bit-perfect!

 

Thanks. HDD light is not bright at all. The case came with power supply. Give me a little more time to comment on fan noise. It isn't silent, but it isn't in my rack yet either, so we'll see. I do not think it will be a problem.

Right now, Im transferring music that was on my old computer. I have transferred about 25 GB using an 8GB flash drive. Once I'm finished with the ~50GB on the old computer, my main collection will start getting "ripped". I will use the old computer for ripping/tagging as it can connect to the internet and accurate rip databases which seems to save much time.

If I was to do it again, I don't know if I would include a DVD drive in the CAP (Computer Audio Player).

 

I just bought a new duo-core computer for my wife for $399 with Windows 7, 3gig of ram and a 320 gig HD and a DVD burner. The audio coming out from the stock sound card is very good. www.tigerdirect.com

I bought her a 19" LG LCD mnonitor for $140 which is very nice.

I am going to buy another one in a month and make it my home recording rig when I add a real soundcard to it, possibly one from RME or I might just buy a $200 Echo Firebox which will do 2496.

I have loved my Echo Indigo I/O card for my laptop which has allowed me to make some very nice 2496 recordings using Sony Sound Forge. Those file burned to DVD+rs with $40Audio DVD Creator sound amazing.

Windows 7 is very nice, by the way.

 

Upgrading to a modern OS like Windows 7, using ASIO and leaving KMixer in the dust is a step.

 

I am "pretty sure" I am getting bit-perfect output and am bypassing KMixer.

I do not believe that I will need to update to Windows7 to accomplish this.

I have a realtek alc883 codec with SPDIF in and out on my motherboard, and I am able to choose the sampling rate...either 44.1, 48, 96, or 192. Others have reported problems with some Realtek codecs re-sampling everything to 48K. I chose this motherboard/audio codec because of it's ability to play the most common sampling rates. Others have said they have lost bit-perfect output when updating drivers, so this may be a concern as well. My current driver is 5.10.0.5286.

With Foobar, I choose 24-bit depth.

 

Does foobar correctly change the sample rate of the sound card's S/PDIF output for you depending on the sample rate of the file being played? It doesn't for me but that is probably because I'm in shared mode (DirectSound).

 

A drive that can read DVDs (and CDs) is pretty cheap insurance.
You never know when you might want to transfer something from a data DVD to the HD.

I have a similar workstation setup for the main stereo (FLAC-> DAC - -> Pre) and have only once used the DVD drive for something that was on DVD - I am glad it was there.

Also, I sympathize with the search for a small LCD monitor. I hate turning on the big *** LCD for computer use only. Even though I have the big *** LCD on the wall, I don't watch very much TV or movies. Except when baseball starts (3 weeks to opening day!!!) then I bleed Dodger Blue for several months.

 

I don't believe it does. I have to go into the realtek audio manager and change the settings.


I'm not able to play 192Khz files either, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is my DAC???...perhaps it is windows???...Perhaps it is the realtek??? Not sure how to figure it out.

 

Well neither Windows nor foobar have a problem with 192kHz audio so if your DAC supports it then your sound card obviously does not. Mine can do 192kHz but I get random pops in the audio so I leave it on 96kHz.

 

Realtek motherboard audio doesn't do high rez. You need a good sound card installed to do this project full justice. The Asus Xonar is a fine budget card. I use pro cards in my desktops due to working reasons.

 

Why does the realtek audio manager have a 192khz option?

My guess is the DAC is the problem.

 

Don't worry about hi-rez unless you actually have hi-rez audio, like ripped DVDA discs.

 

That case reminds me of my 2000 Gateway Esential it's a compact horizontal form case. The Power supply went out on it but I'll get that fixed and I'm seriously thinking about doing an in rack music server the way you have done yours. I think I'll have it connected to the net for various reasons and I love the idea of using the TV as a monitor but that will have to wait for our TV upgrade in 2 years.

Thanks for the push to get this done.

 

You should consider buying an exact duplicate of your HDD and use it in a RAID 1, especially if you're going to take the hard work of ripping many cd's. 90 usd will save many hours of work if the HDD fails at some point in the future

 

Great point. 24/192 is just something I'm interested in more than I need it. The only files I have at that rate are downloaded samples, and I don't own any dvd-a music.

 

Realtek cards also do a lot of behind your back sample rate conversions. Also common with Creative cards. Some DAC systems also do it. I prefer audio played at native rate rather than re-converted.

 

I'm just trying to figure how to confirm what is really happening. If I play a 192khz file and I select 192 in the realtek option menu I get no sound. When I select ANY other sample rate, I get music.

 

Meh. RAID 1 is not a backup solution, it's a method for reducing downtime. Just back up your files once a week or so onto an external and you should be fine.

 

Why not see if you can get a different DAC on loan which supports the higher sample rates and see if your Realtek motherboard audio still plays? That way, you can eliminate the card. Also, make sure your drivers are current.

 

Maybe it's a kmixer issue? Either that or the Realtek drivers are buggy as usual. If you're concerned about things being bit-perfect or not you'd be best off with some card that supports ASIO.

It would be much quicker and easier to transfer files over a LAN. If you don't have a router that you can connect both PCs to, you can connect the two PCs directly using a crossover cable.

 

Wiki:

RAID 0

RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across multiple disks in a way that gives improved speed at any given instant. If one disk fails, however, all of the data on the array will be lost, as there is neither parity nor mirroring. In this regard, RAID 0 is somewhat of a misnomer, in that RAID 0 is non-redundant. A RAID 0 array requires a minimum of two drives. A RAID 0 configuration can be applied to a single drive provided that the RAID controller is hardware and not software (i.e. OS-based arrays) and allows for such configuration. This allows a single drive to be added to a controller already containing another RAID configuration when the user does not wish to add the additional drive to the existing array. In this case, the controller would be set up as RAID only (as opposed to SCSI only (no RAID)), which requires that each individual drive be a part of some sort of RAID array

RAID 1

RAID 1 mirrors the contents of the disks, making a form of 1:1 ratio realtime backup. The contents of each disk in the array are identical to that of every other disk in the array. A RAID 1 array requires a minimum of two drives.