Computer Audio

Hi There,

I am thinking of building a PC to stream FLAC from my Qnap NAS and also ripped DVD's. I don't know what I need spec wise. I did speak with a guy from here about it a few weeks ago, but for the life of me can't remember his name.

If anyone could give me a few pointers that would be much appreciated. I'm thinking of running it into a Beresford Caiman, but would need a suitable power amp as well.

I would be using Windows 7 (probably), but what other software would I need.

Thanks.

 

Give Keith at Purite Audio a shout. Also, i've just upgraded to windows 7 and itunes will not install. Seem like there's loads of folks having this problem.......

 

Youm ight have a look at the 'computer audiophile' forum, there are some specs there for different machines.
keith.

 

It's worth bearing in mind that your Qnap is capable of running media server software, (iTunes, Twonky, Squeezebox Server), so with a suitable device at the other end you don't actually need a PC at all.

The new Squeezebox Touch will stream 24/96 and retails at around the £250 mark. Also the Linn DS Sneaky (£850) and Logitech Transporter (£1200) are well regarded if they suit your budget.

Your Beresford appears to be limited to coax and optical inputs so getting a signal out of a computer will involve some sort of usb/firewire conversion unless you go for something like the Mac Mini with its combined optical/headphone connector. By the time you've assembled a PC and bought a suitable convertor you will have exceeded the cost of a SB Touch and will be well on the way to the cost of a Sneaky.

Take a look at the Ripcaster website for some details on what can be done using a NAS device - it's a very informative site and they deal with/sell all the readily available network players.

(Just in case - I bought my Transporter from Ripcaster, being a customer is my only involvement with them).

 

I would go for a mac mini,£599 bit perfect and completely fuss free, transporters aren't bad but to get a really good sound you will need to buy a seperate dac.
There are many solutions, perhaps try to listen to as many as possible, whereabouts are you?
Keith.

 

£200 will get you a tiny acer netbook thang that will do all you require. SPdif out to a DAC (Beresford) and then to an amp.

Ripped DVDs will playback fine - even scaled upto 1080p from that. I think the chipset will even do H264 acceleration so you can watch 1080p HD.

 

Windows 7 MCE will playback the ripped DVDs with a fantastic plugin called My Movies. Been using it for years.

Music playback - using something like Foobar or Winamp.

OR

Instead of all that, just buy WD TV Live (£100). Plays everything and no one has had a bad word to say about it.

 

iTunes seems OK on 64-bit Windows 7 here (ignored the warning that showed up during the upgrade from Vista about needing to deauthorise), but running iTunes isn't a high priority for me.

As to the original poster's query - the technical requirements to get a PC putting out audio are really not very high. Unless - I suppose - you want it to be doing heaps more things at the same time. I have a Toshiba netbook running XP and Foobar2000 - sits between some network storage and a DacMagic. The only tweaky thing is the Asio4All addon. Only trouble with netbooks is that the nitwits writing reviews of the early machines in PC comics decided that the samm keyboards on small machines were small, and so these things have been adding inches to pick up points in reviews.

 

I would if at all possible dedicate a machine just to audio, and strip everything else out , running it from battey is much quieter.
Keith.

 

Thanks guys for all the advice. I take one of the posters points about Linn's DS's, but actually I've had to sell everything I had, including a Linn Akurate DS, which is for sale by the way!! I'm absolutely gutted, it's the best piece of kit I've ever owned.

So I'm trying to get as near to that without spending anywhere near as much. I appreciate that you get what you pay for, but I need the cash unfortunately. Wife, Mortgage, 2 young children.... hi-fi is a way down that list of priorities I'm afraid.

So I had in mind a PC for audio and maybe video streaming, a Caiman (Beresford), a power amp and a pair of IPL DIY transmission lines. I thought I could do this relatively cheaply and still end up with something decent sounding.

Am I way off the mark, or does this seem reasonable to you guys? Please advise if you can.... I'm a broken man! :cry:

 

Looking at options in this area myself. I was planning to use a PC running Foobar, take the USB output, and build a USB/SPDIF converter (something like the HagUSB) into my DAC. Is the suggestion to use the optical out from a Mac Mini? Is that likely to sound as good or better?

 

I've listened to a DS Ak, so understand why you're gutted about losing it.

The closest I've heard to that (IMO) would be a Squeezebox with a good DAC.
As it happens, the new SB Touch is launched shortly and sounds like it'll be a killer product. It mixes all the good bits of the SB3 with a supposedly improved SPDIF output and the ability to read directly from a USB external hard drive and even act as a server itself. ie. NO additional PC required. The proposed price is £260. Add a £50 USB drive and you're sorted for the digital source.

For a DAC, well there's a shed load of options. I've ended up using an AV processor as DAC, mainly because I wanted to amalgamate my music and AV system. One thing I found along the way is that legacy AV processors suffer enourmous depreciation (probably worse than virtually any other AV product I've come across), meaning that they're relatively cheap. More usefully, some of them sound damn good. Having compared my old Thule processor against a DS Ak, I'm not going to claim that either that or my Meridian 568.2 would be better than a DS Ak, but it's a lot closer than pretty much anything else I've come across.

 

Hamilton I would take the firewire out.
Keith.

 

There are some very interesting thoughts there, thank you. The SB touch sounds good, but I have a Qnap NAS drive with all my music stored in FLAC. Could I use the SB Touch with that?

Cheers

 

You could use the Touch with that, but you could be even simpler/cheaper: as previously pointed out you can run Squeezebox server s/w directly on the QNAP - see http://www.qnap.com/pro_application.asp?ap_id=71 for example. This appears to run a 3rd party app called SSOTS. I used to happily use a similar app SSODS on a Synology NAS. If you get that installed and it seems to run OK, perhaps testing with s/w that emulates a Squeezebox player, called Softsqueeze, then you could decide which hardware device finally to get, ranging from a used Squeezebox 3 upwards.

 

Im using a classic sb3 mf x dac v3 with windows 7 and its great
with wifi

 

I couldve sworn the OP said he wanted to play ripped DVDs. Many of the solutions mentioned here won't do that.

 

I did mention that in the OP, but music is the main priority. I have a few DVD's ripped to my NAS, but I'm really having second thoughts about selling my Akurate DS. I'll never be able to afford another one, so once it's gone.... that's it! The finality of it is making me have a rethink.

Now... how to get 3 grand?

 

Quite simply build you own PC and plug it into the TV, here are some examles of prices of suitable kit for a Blue ray DVD CD all round use PC.

Akasa Genesis AK-5004 Midi Tower Case - Black £16.99

Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply £39.99

LG CH08LS10 8x Blu-Ray Reader/16x DVD±RW - Black (OEM) £79.99

Asus M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £67.99

AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £45.99

2GB (2x1GB) SuperTalent DDR3 PC3-8500 £37.58

Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM £72.99

Keysonic Wireless Keyboard/Touchpad ACK-540RF £32.99

Windows 7 £79.99

If you are only interested in Stereo get a suitable Dac, or plug it into an AV set up?

 

Thanks for that.

Cheers