Can you get audiophile data stream out of PC Notebook?

[Timbo]

I have just upgraded to iTunes 7 - love the album art scrolling view, not only that but scrolling through my album covers on screen makes me realise just how many great albums I haven't listened to in ages (years even!).

So now I stop work and cease listening to my music on my crappy PC speakers and go into my living room and fire up SB3 and think - amazing sound...but am I really limited to that little display with the basic info on it! Why can't I see my album cover when it is playing, why can't I click and access info on the artist, sample their latest album maybe, see similar artists and have my horizons stretched...ahh...of course for that I need to go back to the PC and fire-up iTunes (or something similar of course)!

So I had a thought (which is where it usually goes all wrong!:-)- what about if I utilise my notebook, dislodge the Squeezebox from atop my hi-fi rack and connect the notebook via same network to my collection of music on my server (and hence out into the Internet) and then...to my hi-fi...but this is where it all starts to falls down or so I am given to believe.

It seems that the output from your average soundcard is, er, not exactly bit perfect. So my question is guys and gals - just how does the SB3 manage to sound so good and how does it grab data from the PC in a different way to a soundcard?

Plus - is there a way of connecting your PC straight to your hi-fi (as in a Media PC for example or just playing from say iTunes) but still get that audiophile sound quality the SB3 manages - would be fascinated to gain any insight and knowledge into this as it seems an obvious step for someone who want to integrate their love of music with the wonderful things technology and the internet can offer now :-)

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[opaqueice]

It seems that the output from your average soundcard is, er, not exactly bit perfect. So my question is guys and gals - just how does the SB3 manage to sound so good and how does it grab data from the PC in a different way to a soundcard?

Plus - is there a way of connecting your PC straight to your hi-fi (as in a Media PC for example or just playing from say iTunes) but still get that audiophile sound quality the SB3 manages - would be fascinated to gain any insight and knowledge into this as it seems an obvious step for someone who want to integrate their love of music with the wonderful things technology and the internet can offer now :-)

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The SB is a small computer with an ethernet card inside. It grabs data from your server just like any other computer gets data off a TCP/IP network - as data packets, with error checking etc. That means errors essentially never occur. Once the data has arrived it plays out in a normal fashion (essentially in the same way a CD player works after it's read some data from the CD and filled its buffer).

PC soundcards are not designed with sound quality in mind, and often resample, among other sins (and can really sound awful sometimes). What you'll be able to do here depends on your card - does it have a digital out? If so, hook it up to an external DAC, and you should have pretty decent sound. If not you're stuck with the analogue outs: all you can do is connect that to an amp (probably with a Y RCA cable), and it will either sound acceptible to you or not.

[CardinalFang]

PC soundcards are not designed with sound quality in mind, and often resample, among other sins (and can really sound awful sometimes).

Before I had my SB2 I was using a M-audio Audiophile 2496, mainly for recording LPs, but the sound out of that was pretty damn good, certainly worth the £50 it cost me. I switch to an SB2 in the end because the PowerMac it was in was way too noisy, but I was playing music via iTunes and through my system it was mighty fine.

[Timbo]

Did hear you can get an external sound card (from Russ Andrews) and plug it into the USB port - but again you are left with a sound card between you and the music I suppose..:-/

[CardinalFang]

Did hear you can get an external sound card (from Russ Andrews) and plug it into the USB port - but again you are left with a sound card between you and the music I suppose..:-/

The problem most people have with sound cards is the (electrically) noisy environment that they operate in, namely a PC. However, given the cost of most of them, it's not much of a risk to try out a card or USB device.I have heard of a couple of audiophile ones too - M-audio do one and a quick google of USB DAC threw up quite a few.

[tomsi42]

The problem most people have with sound cards is the (electrically) noisy environment that they operate in, namely a PC. However, given the cost of most of them, it's not much of a risk to try out a card or USB device.I have heard of a couple of audiophile ones too - M-audio do one and a quick google of USB DAC threw up quite a few.

The USB cards should (theoretically) be better as they are outside the (electronically) noisy box.

[radish]

If all you want is to display cover art etc, why not just use the notebook with the slimserver interface?

[tomsi42]

If all you want is to display cover art etc, why not just use the notebook with the slimserver interface?

When I read Timbo's post the first time, I thought the same. But I wasn't smrat enough to ask that question...

[vickibma]

So.. to simplify for the simple (me):

Does the sound card in the computer I'm using as my Slim Server effect the quality of the signal being sent to my powered speakers?

I have an SB Live! wave card that is about 5 yrs. old. It seems to have some kind of integrated video as well, so maybe I chose it for my children's game-playing.

And to keep things in perspective- I'm using the I-Tunes format with powered speakers, so uber-audiophile perfection isn't sought or even possible. I just want to optimize what I've got without entering the realm of improvements that can only be measured by instruments.

Thanks to anyone who can give me a reasonably simple answer!

[opaqueice]

So.. to simplify for the simple (me):

Does the sound card in the computer I'm using as my Slim Server effect the quality of the signal being sent to my powered speakers?

That depends on how you're sending the signal to the speakers.

If you're asking whether the sound card affects the quality of a signal coming out of a squeezebox, the answer is no - they have nothing to do with one another. You could remove your server's sound card and the SB would work perfectly. Think of the SB as an additional computer connected to the server over a network - why would it care about the sound card in the server?

If you're asking does the sound card affect the quality of the signal coming out of the sound card, the answer is yes...