Seeking Advice: Building A System Around Computer/FLAC Files

jesse.mumm -- Fri, 03/17/2006 - 19:56

I'm looking to build my first decent stereo system, but (and this may be sacrilege to audiophiles, I'm not sure) I want to build it around my computer. Meaning: I've ripped all my CDs, stored them on an external hard drive in FLAC format and I'd like to play these files over a decent pair of speakers rather than my computer speakers. I've poked around this site and bought a few issues of TAS - both are very cool and extremely helpful for building a system using a CD player (or, in my dreams, a record player and tube equipment). However, I'm having trouble finding advice/info on how to throw together a nice sounding computer-stereo system. Is it as simple as buying a decent integrated amp, some decent speakers and a squeezebox? Could I, for example, buy the suggested $3500 system listed in the 2005 TAS Recommended Budget Systems article and just swap out the Rotel CD player for a squeezebox or some other interface to link up my cpu-stereo (it's my understanding that simply wiring a computer directly to an amp results in poor sound quality)? I'm not even sure where to start. Any advice or info would be much appreciated. Edit: I'm aware of products like the Olive OPUS, but I *really* want to use the external drive I currently have my music on.

tmartin2 -- Thu, 03/23/2006 - 09:13

I think the integrated amp and speaker choice is pretty much the same as if you were using a CD player. That, of course, assumes that your speakers will be set up away from your computer. If you plan to place your speakers near your monitor, you will then be listening in what is called the "near field" and different speakers would be appropriate.

The other component to consider in this set up is your sound card or other device to do Digital to Analog conversion. That will potentially have a big impact on your sound quality.

Chris Martens -- Mon, 04/03/2006 - 16:20

Jesse,

Given your specific requirements, a vendor I would suggest checking out would be Empirical Audio (www.empiricalaudio.com), whose Web site features a specific section on Computer Audio.

Empirical offers a series of low-noise data extraction interfaces collectively called "Off Ramps" as well as a series of high-performance outboard DACs.

Interestingly, the Empirical folks passionately believe that properly configured computer-based audio sources can outperform traditional audio source components (i.e., CD players, etc.). Food for thought, no?

Best,

Chris Martens
Audio Editor, The Perfect Vision
Senior Writer, The Absolute Sound

Chris Martens
Editor, Avguide.com/Playback/The Perfect Vision

jesse.mumm -- Tue, 04/04/2006 - 23:57

Thanks to both of you guys for the help. It's appreciated.

Chris, that empiricalaudio.com site is perfect for what I'm interested in.

Thanks again!

Jesse

phoenix (not verified) -- Tue, 01/12/2010 - 17:22

Jesse, it can indeed be as easy as swaspping out a squeezebox for a cd player. I use the squeezebox with my $40k+ system and am quite happy with the results. Of course I take the digital output of SB to a Benchmark DAC-1, an extremely high quality DAC which reclocks the SPIDF signal from the SB to eliminate any jitter. It may take some fine tuning of your router, in my case, it took all of 15 minutes to set up, and the only interruptions I ever experienced happened when my laptop (on which I run the Squeezebox software, called Squeezecenter) went into sleep mode when it was unplugged from its charger. Once I got the settings on power management on my laptop dialed in, I found I had no interruptions whatsoever, I used a Belkin N+ router which costs about $100.

Since you have your files in flacf, the airport express is probably not a good optioin for you.

Alternatively you could buy a good sound card and go directly to your competer. You have more options on soundcards with regular desktop pc's. If you do that you will need to run a program like media monkey or foobar, both freeware available on the internet. If you do this you will not need an external DAC (the soundcard has a DAC on it) and you can run straight in to line in. You may need to do some work configuring the pc such as adding ASIO drivers because some PC's use a windows kernal mixer which degrades sound.
Also it means you will have a PC in your music room, or you will be shuttling back and forth to select playlists off your PC in some external room, and of coure, you will have to figure out what to do with the wires. Also since the pc is actually playing the music rather than transmitting a digital data stream, there is the challenge of controlling noice and interference generated by the PC which may well if not carefully managed degrade the output of your sound card.