looks like a half decent mini hifi with some decent headphones is around £300ish

my question is really can I make my computer sound as good as the Denon compact above (for example) for less money?

HIJACK!

I’m about to archive my vinyl onto my HD…is the soundcard that came with my cheap Dell desktop gonna make it a waste of time..if so what can I get that’s reasonable?

All for playing lossless through itunes, airport express and proper hifi DAC.

It is in a Hush ATX computer which is a German thing in a case with heatsinks all down the side:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article151-page1.html

I am about to put an SSD drive in it to elimitate the only slight noise you can hear – the hard drive spinning. There is no fan on the video card.

The power supply is a low power affair – 240W I think and probably switching.

I can’t notice any noise, the only problem is that the dynamic range on the card is too much for my little LS3/5as to do justice to – it would be better if I ran them with the band-limiting AB-1 but I use expensive external crossovers which would be compromised by the AB-1s.

I am using a Tact pre-amp but will soon go back to my Music First preamp which is a transformer based passive pre-amp which ‘sounds’ superb and has an effect of making things sound better – for instance I remember being very excited by a new Jose James track that was coming from the DAB radio and would have sounded flat on the Tact. It makes the MF/Quad 909 monos sound like a very good tube amp in terms of smoothness, but without any humming from the power supply or tubes that need replacing 🙂

pick up decent power amp off ebay (Quad 306/606 II/707 if you’re lucky, or maybe something nad or rotel)

8)

why would that be then – Mr Woppit?

Briefly, CDs are digital. The way you convert the digital to analogue is important, there’s a massive market for DACs (Digital Analogue Converters). Decent sound cards will have better DACs than onboard sound. Really good CD players have really good DACs.
Edit: Whoa, Refresh fail!

looks like a half decent mini hifi with some decent headphones is around £300ish

my question is really can I make my computer sound as good as the Denon compact above (for example) for less money?

Do you want to improve ALL the audio of your laptop, or just music? ie, is ripping music to hard disk and using a network player an option?

timc – Member
as a rule of thumb for your average joe, he’s not far off really…

Disagree with that. Talking of bit rate without specifying encoder is like judging a bike based solely on its head angle without considering any other details.

Like I said, 320kbit in Apple’s mp3 encoder = poo, 320kbit in LAME = overkill

my question is really can I make my computer sound as good as the Denon compact above (for example) for less money?

my suggestion will sound an awful lot better than the denon with good sources.

However there is another side to the equation – a hi-res system can make listening to low quality sources less pleasurable, so according to how you are going to use it the Denon might make more sense.

That is why I suggest the NAD amps earlier – the 3020 had a uncanny ability to make everything sound ‘good’ – not some things excellent and others rubbish.

You can get good results out of the Denon – although if you are feeding it from the laptop you will still want something like the Echo card to feed it from – the internal sound system of your laptop is not likely to be very good and is also likely to be very noisy (the echo in contrast is in the same laptop but is very quiet).

is the soundcard that came with my cheap Dell desktop gonna make it a waste of time..if so what can I get that’s reasonable

yes – try something m-audio or echo – even some of the latest creative stuff is quite decent.

Really good CD players have really good DACs

but some of the much cheaper pro stuff also has this same dac quality – for example the Benchmark dac 1 or Lavry DA10 which are both around the £1k mark

(my recommendations are old now – I haven’t kept up 🙁 )

Lavry DA10 which are both around the £1k mark

I’m using a DA11 at the moment, I guess you can’t call it cheap, but compared to what Linn / Naim offer, it’s a total bargin. Local Naim dealer who sold both DA10’s and Naim thought it outperformed a CDS555 (I think they are mega money 10K?)…plus you don’t need a preamp…and it includes a headphone output.

Most importantly, you can’t attach any additional ‘upgrade’ power supplies…it’s a proper product 😀

I’m using a DA11 at the moment

told you I was out of date !

I was thinking of getting one when I get rid of my Tact 2.2xp and upgrade my MF pre-amp to remote control.

are you pleased iwth it, what else did you try or did you just go on recommendations.

Turner Guy, tell me more about this Laptop soundcard.

I’ve got a full Audiolab set up with B&W speakers but my 8000DAX is on its last legs and puts digital static through the speakers when I’m listening to CD’s so I’ve been using the DAC in my Yamaha surround amp instead.

I’ve been looking for a digital media solution for a while but don’t want to lose sound quality

stop it all of you, you’re making a sound engineer laugh 🙂

I will +1 BigJim and his M-Audio 2496 Audiophile, **** awesome little card. I use one hooked upto a Yamaha O2R96v2 with some Genelec 1031’s.

I’m way more awesome than you lot 🙂

retro83 – Member

Disagree with that. Talking of bit rate without specifying encoder is like judging a bike based solely on its head angle without considering any other details.

Like I said, 320kbit in Apple’s mp3 encoder = poo, 320kbit in LAME = overkill

Average Joe doesnt know what your talking about & thats why they work to that rule… simple though isnt it, you can do better that 320, but for most 320 is sufficent

the echo indigo is something like £120 and comes in a few flavours – the IOx has an input for recording and also has a volumne controlled output. The headphone output is very high quality though.

The cards are now Expresscard – if you want the older cardbus you will have to buy 2nd hand from ebay for £50-60 – but the echo site has the current drivers.

Whether it is better than the Audiolab I couldn’t tell you, but I had a demo with an expensive Cyrus DAC and it equalled that, plus it was better than my previous CD setup and an m-audio firewire 410.

There is a DJ version on ebay at the moment I am watching that comes with an express card adapter.

If you are in near Horsell in Surrey I can demo one – although I can’t lend this one as the connector got a little damaged and I don’t want to remove it from my lappy as I might have to glue the bent bit down again!

My other one is on a lappy in Cardiff.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr04/articles/echoindigo.htm

are you pleased iwth it, what else did you try or did you just go on recommendations.

I tried a Benchmark DAC-1 and the DA-11….prefered the Lavry (just). I don’t use a preamp, just straight into some active monitors (it has a remote control for volume).

Pleased with it? I think it was the final nail in the coffin for ‘hifi’ products. I’m ashamed of how much time and money I wasted on the british hifi industry.

If you are in near Horsell in Surrey I can demo one – although I can’t lend this one as the connector got a little damaged and I don’t want to remove it from my lappy as I might have to glue the bent bit down again!

In Glasgow but thanks for the offer!

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precisely – spot on.