Your current computer audio setup? (feel free to post pics)

[wilky61]

Hi guys,

Maybe I'm a little bit late checkin' out the scene, but I see we have a brand spanking new audio board on the forums... Nice! In the interest of sparking later discussions, I am curious to survey the posters in the community here to see what kinds of setups we each have, how we each listen to music, and so forth...

I have a fairly new HP laptop that I purchased with a vague sort of idea in mind to turn it into a music computer, and in hindsight I realize that laptops probably don't make the best music computers due to their limited audio output options (e.g., my laptop only has USB... anybody else's have anything more exotic?)

Given my current situation/budget, I figured my best option was to go the headphone route rather than the desktop/surround speaker route. My current rig is in my signature, and this playback is way more detailed than I had ever experienced before (in fact, it makes listening to music in my car a bummer, haha). I'm just using interconnects from Monoprice.

I did a lot of fooling around with different Windows settings and music players (e.g., tried Foobar2000, settled on MusicBee) in order to send the unaltered bitstream directly to my (asynchronous) USB DAC at 24 bit/96 kHz via Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI). Some of my FLAC files are 24/96; most of them are like 16/44.1. I need to convert more of my music over to FLAC and delete my old MP3s, though...

Anyway, here's a photo of my first foray into the world of high quality audio... I don't use the desktop speakers atm, and the photo is slightly outdated because I have since switched music players, but you get the gist.

[wilky61]

Soooo.... are pentatonic and I the only ones on the board with FLAC collections and computer audio setups? :/

[prerich]

Ok I'll chime in - my system is old but still serves me well. I listen to it through my main HT system. It's PC based and constist of the following:

Quad Core Extreme processor, 8 GB of ram, 1 TB HDD, 4 TB NAS for a total of 5 TB of hdd space, Windows7 64 bit, NVidia GT430 (outputs to my Onkyo receiver via HDMI). I'm using JRiver as my media center, provides me wiith gapless and bitperfect audio (WASAPI event mode). Audio is set to output at 24bit/192khz. I have this PC mounted in my Winsted rack.

My music files are ripped to .ape and .dsd files. I play my physical BD's directly from JRiver bitstreamed. I'm very satisfied with the results
The Absolute Sound put out an interesting article on Computer based audio a few months ago (gave recommendations for players, burners, converters ect - a very good read).

[wilky61]

Originally Posted by prerich

The Absolute Sound put out an interesting article on Computer based audio a few months ago (gave recommendations for players, burners, converters ect - a very good read).

Is this the article of which you speak?

http://www.avguide.com/review/comput...tas-217?page=1

Seeing the sight of those AudioQuest cables has be a bit skeptical... or at least, given my current "budget" setup I am skeptical. Is this website affiliated with AQ in any way? I perused through the article you linked (hah, wish I had seen this article two months ago ), and they seem to plug AudioQuest in a couple places.

[prerich]

No-that's not the one. The article I had in mind was mainly about software playback, burning and ripping. I have the magazine (they gave it away free at Axpona this year). Oh and why I recommended MediaMonkey - due to it's features and the ripping format (I love .ape files). Now for something that will rip iTunes to shreds - JRiver (I think it was based on MediaMonkey). It rips extremely fast and it's very faithful.

[singhcr]

Most of my music is analog, but I have a ASUS Xonar Essence ST with a set of Audio Technica ATH-AD700 open back phones. They are very light-weight and comfortable and are incredibly detailed in the mid and high end range. They aren't bass machines but don't sound tinny. They are a steal at just over $100 on Amazon.

I have a lot of 44/16 FLAC files that I play back with foobar2000 through the ASIO plugin, as well as some 48/24 and some of my own 192/24 vinyl rips.

[jlafrenz]

Originally Posted by wilky61

Soooo.... are pentatonic and I the only ones on the board with FLAC collections and computer audio setups? :/

All my setups are PC based (except bedroom) and use FLAC. I recently picked up a tablet and use the Foobar2000 app to control each of them. Pictures can be seen in my gallery.

[prerich]

Originally Posted by wilky61

Hi guys,

Maybe I'm a little bit late checkin' out the scene, but I see we have a brand spanking new audio board on the forums... Nice! In the interest of sparking later discussions, I am curious to survey the posters in the community here to see what kinds of setups we each have, how we each listen to music, and so forth...

I have a fairly new HP laptop that I purchased with a vague sort of idea in mind to turn it into a music computer, and in hindsight I realize that laptops probably don't make the best music computers due to their limited audio output options (e.g., my laptop only has USB... anybody else's have anything more exotic?)

Given my current situation/budget, I figured my best option was to go the headphone route rather than the desktop/surround speaker route. My current rig is in my signature, and this playback is way more detailed than I had ever experienced before (in fact, it makes listening to music in my car a bummer, haha). I'm just using interconnects from Monoprice.

I did a lot of fooling around with different Windows settings and music players (e.g., tried Foobar2000, settled on MusicBee) in order to send the unaltered bitstream directly to my USB DAC at 24 bit/96 kHz via Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI). Some of my FLAC files are 24/96; most of them are like 16/44.1. I need to convert more of my music over to FLAC and delete my old MP3s, though...

Anyway, here's a photo of my first foray into the world of high quality audio... I don't use the desktop speakers atm, and the photo is slightly outdated because I have since switched music players, but you get the gist.

Have you tried any of the others players out there (I see you are using free ones)? MediaMonkey is pretty good and if you dont need a graphic interface - CPlay is very nice (very high sound quality). For players that you must purchase - I'm still a JRiver advocate - best $50 I've spent.

[pentatonic]

Right now my main audio pc is dead (waiting on the part) so I'm using my server. My old E6600 4Gb ram, 2x1.5 Tb of music, 2 Tb for videos. Using my old E-Mu 0404 pci for sound.

When I get my main pc running I will retry the E-Mu in it (didn't want to install before but maybe a fresh install will fix that) If it still doesn't work I will do like I used too. MediaMonkey WASAPI 96/24 s/pdif out to my E-mu (in my server) and from there back in hi res analog. Works for me for now

[wilky61]

Originally Posted by prerich

Have you tried any of the others players out there (I see you are using free ones)? MediaMonkey is pretty good and if you dont need a graphic interface - CPlay is very nice (very high sound quality). For players that you must purchase - I'm still a JRiver advocate - best $50 I've spent.

You know, like ten different of my friends have tried to convert me to MediaMonkey. There must be something to this piece of software. What is it about MM that you like so much?

I am a little wary to try to experiment beyond MusicBee because I really like it a lot so far. Foobar was great and all, but the reason why I stopped using it was because of the incompatibility of its WASAPI plugin with my USB DAC (it was producing this "clicking" sound throughout playback). MusicBee's WASAPI works without a hitch, and I've found this really nice EQ setting that seems to bring the bass out in my headphones (which are kinda bass-light).

MusicBee has this really nice interface (better than Foobar's) that is obviously inspired by iTunes, except that MusicBee doesn't seem to hog nearly the resources that iTunes always did. I also like that MusicBee pops up this little notification box in the bottom-right corner of my screen every time it switches to a new track. The one thing I don't like about MusicBee is that some of my FLACs apparently don't have tag metadata (this is particularly ones of live shows that I have downloaded from archive.org, and I have quite a few...). So I have this massive pile of tracks with no artist, no song title at the top of my library that eventually I will have to go through...

MusicBee has a couple other features (that I believe it shares with MediaMonkey) with which I've tinkered a bit (e.g., MusicBee's auto-tagger doesn't help me with my archive.org live tracks). MusicBee can also automatically reconfigure your Music folder's file system based on tag data, it offers ReplayGain, built-in Last.FM support, built-in MiniLyrics support, support of Winamp plugins, playlists and smart-playlists that work just like iTunes', and so forth.

I get the impression that it's probably a pretty similar piece of software to MM from the one or two times I've seen MM on friends' computers?

[SlaughterX]

AMD Radeon 6850 connected to a Denon 3312 AVR via HDMI, Boston Acoustic VS 260 x2 (fronts), VS 325c (center), VS 210 (subwoofer), and a pair of HS 100 (rear).

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by SlaughterX

AMD Radeon 6850 connected to a Denon 3312 AVR via HDMI, Boston Acoustic VS 260 x2 (fronts), VS 325c (center), VS 210 (subwoofer), and a pair of HS 100 (rear).

Wow. Is that in your ht room or pc room?

[SlaughterX]

Bedroom.

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by SlaughterX

Bedroom.

Nice

[Canada]

My setups nice, my laptop is on my home theater center speaker. The audio is coming out of my headphone jack then splits to left and right RCA cable to my Pioneer receiver, speakers B&W 683.

[Canada]

Originally Posted by SlaughterX

AMD Radeon 6850 connected to a Denon 3312 AVR via HDMI, Boston Acoustic VS 260 x2 (fronts), VS 325c (center), VS 210 (subwoofer), and a pair of HS 100 (rear).

Boston acoustics nice my parents have a pair of 25 year old A 100's they sound great

[Uriahheep]

Laptop>JRiver 17 > Musiland Monitor 2> Nad 3020B> AR18LS speakers

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by Uriahheep

Laptop>JRiver 17 > Musiland Monitor 2> Nad 3020B> AR18LS speakers

Vintage audio fan I see Had a friend who had the same receiver and remember it being very nice.

[i007spectre]

Logitech X-530 on my desktop. My laptop I sometimes run through my home theater receiver.

[lucv13]

I have a pretty basic set up as you can see in the schematic by Brettallica



The breakdown

61" Samsung HL-T6189S
Anthem MRX 300
Sony BDP-CX960 400 Disc blu-ray Changer
Sony 160gb PS3
Ultralink PGX-500 Power Center
Speakers Front and Center - PSB Synchrony 2B L & R Synchrony 2C Center
Surrounds Paradigm ADP 350

Only using one Rotels in the system and downgraded to 5.1 since I purchased my Condo, just don't have the room for 7.1

The HTPC on the left side of the picture is HDMI out from the Mobo to the Anthem negating the need for a separate soundcard, I am considering adding a DAC to the mix

Case - Nmedia HTPC-8000
Mobo - Asus P8H67-M PRO/CSM
CPU - Intel Core™ i5-2320
Ram - Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB DDR3-1600MHz
PSU - Corsair 620w modular PSU
OS Drive - CrucialM4 64gb SSD
Western Digital Green 2tb
Western Digital Green 1tb
Samsung 400 gb drive
Windows 7 Home Premium

HTPC now using XBMC - while I loved WMC and have used it since inception XBMC is so much more user friendly...