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 I don't use the desktop speakers atm, and the photo is slightly outdated because I have since switched music players, but you get the gist.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).

[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?

[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.

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by 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.

Now that's gotta make huge files. What software do you use to record? I used Audition for the longest time when I use to cut tracks, would work so well with ASIO, no latency.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by pentatonic

Now that's gotta make huge files. What software do you use to record? I used Audition for the longest time when I use to cut tracks, would work so well with ASIO, no latency.

I used to use Audacity when I first started making rips but when I played them back on my loudspeakers or on my computer they didn't sound very good. I then discovered that Audacity only allows for 16-bit recording even though my sound card is capable of 24-bit recording.

I also now use Audition. A full album (~40 min) recorded at 192/24 stereo only takes up around 2GB which isn't too bad. I have a 1 TB drive so I have plenty of space and can also burn DVD-A discs or BD-A discs if I run out of room. For example, I was going to burn the entire Journey LP set to a single BD-R at 192/24 and give it to my friend as he doesn't have a record player but wants the high quality audio they offer.

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by singhcr

I used to use Audacity when I first started making rips but when I played them back on my loudspeakers or on my computer they didn't sound very good. I then discovered that Audacity only allows for 16-bit recording even though my sound card is capable of 24-bit recording.

I also now use Audition. A full album (~40 min) recorded at 192/24 stereo only takes up around 2GB which isn't too bad. I have a 1 TB drive so I have plenty of space and can also burn DVD-A discs or BD-A discs if I run out of room. For example, I was going to burn the entire Journey LP set to a single BD-R at 192/24 and give it to my friend as he doesn't have a record player but wants the high quality audio they offer.

If he doesn't take it I will

Any real world difference between 96/24 and 192/24?

[wilky61]

Do you guys have any recommendations concerning external hard drives and longevity? I've had a Western Digital 640gb for about the last three years that has served me well; I am thinking that I have no reason to change brands when I buy a bigger one, but I am always nervous about storing something as precious as my music files... I was reading some Amazon customer reviews about the Seagate drives having a tendency to make a loud clicking noise... that's never a good sign.

Also, how do you guys feel about segmenting your TBs among different external hard drives? For example, would you recommend buying two 1TB drives vs. one 2TB drive? Lastly, do the larger drives (3TB and up) have any stability issues?

[Johnny Vinyl]

My digital music is played strictly over my PC and I'm trying to create something that is muscially satisfying. This has taken me longer than what I had hoped for as I just don't have the financial resources to go all out, and I can live with that.

I have the Asus Xonar Essence STX soundcard and it has made a huge difference in performance.

I also use MediaMonkey Gold (lifetime) and I love it for its ability to rip and save in watever format I want, although .flac is what I use. I've tried JRM and I also like it, but I don't want to fork out another $50 for something that may or may not give me an advantage. MM does the job just fine.

With a little bit of luck I should have some decent active monitors shortly, which will take my enjoyment to another level.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by pentatonic

If he doesn't take it I will

Any real world difference between 96/24 and 192/24?

I haven't had a chance to use Audition yet for LP recording so I couldn't tell you, but I will let you know when I get around to it.

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by wilky61

Do you guys have any recommendations concerning external hard drives and longevity? I've had a Western Digital 640gb for about the last three years that has served me well; I am thinking that I have no reason to change brands when I buy a bigger one, but I am always nervous about storing something as precious as my music files... I was reading some Amazon customer reviews about the Seagate drives having a tendency to make a loud clicking noise... that's never a good sign.

Also, how do you guys feel about segmenting your TBs among different external hard drives? For example, would you recommend buying two 1TB drives vs. one 2TB drive? Lastly, do the larger drives (3TB and up) have any stability issues?

I have my music spread across 2 x 1.5 Tb. Obviously one is a backup drive. and one 2Tb for videos. To be honest I see no need in using other than a green drive. Less power needed and still way fast enough. I'm a big fan of WD if just because they always served me well and are often on sale. I have 4 drives in my server and it still is quieter than my main pc so noise isn't a problem.

Outside of redundancy, RAID is not needed speed wise, but please buddy, have a backup, hence why I would recommend 2 drives instead of 1.

[Johnny Vinyl]

I'm really, really toying with the idea of getting those KRK Rockit 6 Active Monitors.

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by Johnny Vinyl

I'm really, really toying with the idea of getting those KRK Rockit 6 Active Monitors.

If those are the ones you tried out and like, anything less and you might be disappointed I guess. If you can work it out, go for it buddy.

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by pentatonic

If those are the ones you tried out and like, anything less and you might be disappointed I guess. If you can work it out, go for it buddy.

I couldn't do it...just too much money at this stage of the game. But I did buy these:

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[prerich]

Originally Posted by Johnny Vinyl

I couldn't do it...just too much money at this stage of the game. But I did buy these:

Very nice Jonny, I'm actually a Behringer fan of sorts. They actually have a model with a ribbon tweeter as well http://www.mcmelectronics.com/produc...AID=1059724319