Advantages of Music PC or HTPC over Laptops

[shibashis]

In fact, in many cases, it can be plug'n'play. Plug in the DAC, play the music

Say, I want things to be simple in my life. In another words I want to repeat your words, I want music listening to be 'plug-n-play' when I am tired and I want music to provide me if not with refreshment but with solace and heart and optimism and assurance. Don' we all want that?
If we do not and wish that and forever keep on tinkering with the setup vexing ourselves after a goal which has no absolute end whatsoever and will forever remain relative, to the contrary of all possible endeavors and equipment....the joy of it all is lost. To me at least.

That is not to say I do not wish to carefully and lovingly experiment to improve on the existing....I only wish things were simpler.....this is coming from an unequivocal newbie....please do not take offense, that is never the intention.

 

[ranjeetrain]

A lot of discussion has taken place here since my last post. I can't catch up with all but will address some of the points.

The above are in justification of why use a custom made desktop for music playback. Of course there are equally compelling reasons for why use a laptop for music playback.

Are there? Let me go outside the field of audio on this: In my humble () opinion there is no compelling reason to use a laptop for any computing task unless portability is a requirement. Portability is what they were made for, and what their designs are compromised for.

Somehow, people prefer the look: that's all. With the hifi-looking cases available now, that is no argument for a laptop as a dedicated sound box.

"Are there?"

Sure there are. Here is a quote from something you said here.

"It can be made small,
it can be made silent,
it can be made with much lower power than general machine,
it can be put in a neat case
it can be operated from a smart phone"

If you think hard, all of that, yes all of that, describes a laptop. There are surely more reasons but let me save some typing efforts :lol:

This gain in performance is usually very small. But in a very revealing system the differences can be heard easily. A well put together desktop system (the key phrase is "Well put together") will usually have lower latency compared to laptop. And for many people even if there is a 0.5% of improvement it might be worth the trouble and investment.

Performance is really not an issue. As mentioned, I wish I had my old Pentium box still, because it was the most trouble/hassle free of the four or five machines I have used for audio. I usually fix my 3.2GHz CPU to 2.1GHz for music listening. I should experiment with 0.8GHz. I think this may suit if I am not using DSP such as EQ, but might not when I do.

Latency is never a problem. I don't think anybody will believe this! But why should it be? It is the music-making people who have good reason to strive for lower latency, not the music listening people. (I'll post a bit more about this later... but I have to go out now)

"Performance is really not an issue. " ... ... ... "Latency is never a problem."

Hmmm, I see. So this discussion is over, we can all go home and listen to music

Well, all I can say is -- wait till you hear a good system with a digital front-end.

... Of course there are equally compelling reasons for why use a laptop for music playback.

Are there? Let me go outside the field of audio on this: In my humble () opinion there is no compelling reason to use a laptop for any computing task unless portability is a requirement. Portability is what they were made for, and what their designs are compromised for.

Thad, I can think of one reason: A screen comes free

Frankly, I hate laptops too, and avoid them like the plague (in the context of personal purchases, that is). The one laptop I keep is an el cheapo one that I can't but avoid using while travelling. In nearly all cases, they can't be DIY repaired (except for HDD and RAM), they ALWAYS have optical drives that fail at the drop of a hat, and they are generally far more expensive to repair. We can build a desktop to our exact needs, open it up as often as we want and change nearly any part that isn't soldered down to our heart's content! In my experience, desktops are also generally far less prone to repair-needing faults: Probably has to do with the miniaturization and the constant heat in the laptops.

Oh no! You need to think a bit deeper than that There are a lot of reasons why a laptop?

A laptop is great for data-security. May be for you it isn't important, for corporates it is the top priority item.

A laptop enhances productivity. Once again, may be for you it isn't important, for corporates it is a very very high priority item.

Due to licensing related consideration, a laptop is a much better proposition for corporates to stay up-to-date on technology.

So a laptop is certainly not all about portability and free screen. Such an observation would have been valid 15 years ago, but surely not any more.

 

[ranjeetrain]

Imagine that, perhaps encouraged by single-malt, the audiophile session develops into a karaoke session! We need a sound card for this, but as it is imaginary, an imaginary sound card will do (and it has the advantage of being 100% free of jitter, noise, etc ).

Our vocally-inclined audiophiles play the karaoke track, through their sound card (J1), and listen to the music from the speakers. They then sing into the microphone, and their voices enter the PC through the sound card (J2), and are passed out again through the sound card (J3) to be played by the speakers.

All of these journeys, J1, J2, J3, is a journey through electronics and software processing that takes an amount of time, and the result is that

--- the orginal backing track

--- the voice in the head of the singer

--- the voice heard from the speakers

are not in perfect sync. This, in the context of audio (rather than several other ways in computing that the word is used) is Latency.

In the world of single-malt-fuelled karaoke, it probably goes unnoticed, but in the world of the recording studio it can matter very much indeed.

Latency can be measured (with a sound card, ie DAC/ADC by feeding the output into the input: there are utilities to do this.

Forget the karaoke. When listening to music, only J1 is there and, so long as it is consistent, and does not make the controls feel laggy, it absolutely does not matter how long it takes. Microseconds or minutes: the sound will still be the same. Forget latency.

Nope. That's NOT a correct description of latency. You may want to look the term up. Latency is a more generic and more wide spread issue than you understand it to be. I can type all about latency here, but what's the use, this term has been described umpteenth time all over the web already. So I'll be lazy and save my typing effort

Your conclusion about latency is incorrect as well. May be you can't hear the difference between two systems whose latency is within 10-20% range of each other. But beyond the line of auditory sensor's sensitivity of an individual, it is not hard to hear the effects of latency in a well resolving system when the range is not close.

Does brand make any difference ? How about using the much cheaper Biostar A68I-350 motherboard which has pcie slot (for mounting a GPU) and can be used for both music pc and HTPC?

The similar version from Gigabyte costs hefty

I am not going to answer that question directly, but I will suggest you an experiment that will let you decide for yourself.

Buy two boards, one from Biostar or any other cheap board. One a Intel board. The specifications of the board should be same. Now assemble two systems keeping rest of the components same. Load your favorite OS and measure the latency. You will get your answer.

I understand it may not be feasible for most individuals to do such experiments. I have, and I have found, genuine Intel boards have much better long term performance compared to a cheap+low-quality board even if the specification is the same. So the answer to your question would be: The brand does not directly and automatically translate into better performance. But usually branded boards have better performance.

 

[haisaikat]

Thanks Ranjeet. due to some needs at home, I had to dismantle the HTPC and put its components in a desktop for internet etc. So I am back on looking for the right components for HTPC. Earlier my HTPC had dual purpose. With dual boot option configured, windows 7 used for XBMC video and Windows 8 used for foobar.

I got that dual boot since earlier with presence of multiple audio and video output devices, sometimes Windows was confusing what the default audio device would be unless I connect a mouse and select it myself (foobar mode on Windows 7).

So with two separate boots I had each of the boots disable permanently the audio / video devices not required.

Coming back to the topic of this thread, I am now thinking if it would be worth to have separate PC for music and completely separate PC for HTPC (I have ATI Raedon HD6670 GPU to fit) or if I spend more on components can I still keep both the purposes packed within same box.

 

[manniraj]

I will take the liberty to give my view. I would suggest that for the video playback a good configuration with Win7 + XBMC or Openelec with a dedicated HTPC is the way to go and for music only, a cubox/Pi/BBB is the most VFM option with lots of benefits and small foot prints and can also be made headless and tuck it behind a amp/DAC. In fact you can also insert the Pi inside an existing box like a DAC if enough room is available to breath

Thanks

Thanks Ranjeet. due to some needs at home, I had to dismantle the HTPC and put its components in a desktop for internet etc. So I am back on looking for the right components for HTPC. Earlier my HTPC had dual purpose. With dual boot option configured, windows 7 used for XBMC video and Windows 8 used for foobar.

I got that dual boot since earlier with presence of multiple audio and video output devices, sometimes Windows was confusing what the default audio device would be unless I connect a mouse and select it myself (foobar mode on Windows 7).

So with two separate boots I had each of the boots disable permanently the audio / video devices not required.

Coming back to the topic of this thread, I am now thinking if it would be worth to have separate PC for music and completely separate PC for HTPC (I have ATI Raedon HD6670 GPU to fit) or if I spend more on components can I still keep both the purposes packed within same box.

 

[Shivam]

One of the best options that I have heard was using an inexpensive netbook running a linux bare minimum o.s. with a music player in GUI mode. The storage was on a NAS and the output was to a USB DAC. Unfortunately, my disinterest in computer based playback is one of the reasons that I don't have the exact details of the laptop.

 

[panditji]

How is this for convenience, price and looks??

Lenovo Essential C255 18.5" All-in-One Desktop Black

 

[Shivam]

How is this for convenience, price and looks??

Lenovo Essential C255 18.5" All-in-One Desktop Black

This should be fine, coupled with pointers from here - http://jplay.eu/forum/computer-audio/windows-8-optimization-script/

 

[dheerajin]

How is this for convenience, price and looks??

Lenovo Essential C255 18.5" All-in-One Desktop Black

Panditjee,

Yes good pointer but Why not Atom based netbooks?

 

[haisaikat]

a cubox/Pi/BBB is the most VFM option with lots of benefits and small foot prints and can also be made headless and tuck it behind a amp/DAC. In fact you can also insert the Pi inside an existing box like a DAC if enough room is available to breath

Thanks

I had seen this thread where people are saying although they have hooked to ODAC (what I have and want to retain), yet, to come to that point they had to do a lot of playing around (even I saw the word "compile" somewhere). Someway these platforms gives me the feeling that I would need to spend 2 months learning linus and to get the system to work for my setup yet the setup may not be perfectly hasstle free for future operations. Sorry its again my prejudice about running away from the scene wherever there is the word "Linux" appearing.

New Guy - Cubox -i4 Streamer

 

[panditji]

I am in favour of netbooks only.....they are small and come with reasonable specs...
However this all in one is better looking to put on a rack and has similar specs at similar price with a larger screen....just another option...

I have decided to go on either a good looking all in one or a Pentium based netbook to be able to control from an android tablet....Again as everyone recommend, it will have just Windows 7 or 8 (if already installed) with the music software ...for just one software to run, the all in ones or netbooks will be more than sufficient...

 

[manniraj]

I had seen this thread where people are saying although they have hooked to ODAC (what I have and want to retain), yet, to come to that point they had to do a lot of playing around (even I saw the word "compile" somewhere). Someway these platforms gives me the feeling that I would need to spend 2 months learning linus and to get the system to work for my setup yet the setup may not be perfectly hasstle free for future operations. Sorry its again my prejudice about running away from the scene wherever there is the word "Linux" appearing.

New Guy - Cubox -i4 Streamer

No absolutely not, I just spend 30 min in downloading the Openelec and using a SD card image writer (available in a free version) wrote the image and inserting the card in the Pi and power on. That's it you do need to do anything apart from this for the OS. On loading the Openelec just make some initial settings that you normally do on the XBMC player with an additional setting to pick your external DAC as the default sound device. Thats it map your music files and you are good to go. In fact I even ran the Pi using the TV usb port and it being CEC HDMI compatible does allows the TV remote to act as a remote to the Pi as well. I think you having done a DIY Flexraid based (more complex NAS ) solution the Pi setup would be nothing but

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Say, I want things to be simple in my life. In another words I want to repeat your words, I want music listening to be 'plug-n-play' ... ... ...
That is not to say I do not wish to carefully and lovingly experiment to improve on the existing....

I think that the answer is to start with what we have, which is probably not at all bad. As in all things audio, we can always work up from there.

Some of the complexities and problems in PC audio are genuine, others are are invented to give people who want to fuss over things something to fuss over. As in all things audio. I'm not knocking anybody's hobby: I do my fussing too.

Ranjeet, nothing to fight about here, there are some things that I diasagree with you about, but others I may have not made clear.

Nope. That's NOT a correct description of latency. You may want to look the term up. Latency is a more generic and more wide spread issue than you understand it to be. I can type all about latency here, but what's the use, this term has been described umpteenth time all over the web already. So I'll be lazy and save my typing effort

Whilst I never intended a technical, or even precise, definition, my explanation of latency as per sound card etc specifications and measurements is broadly correct. That is what people are talking about. I was not using the term "generically" but specifically. There are several other uses of the word in computing, some of which I have suffered and spoken of.

Wikipedia puts it in far fewer words

Latency [audio] refers to a short period of delay (usually measured in milliseconds) between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system. Potential contributors to latency in an audio system include analog-to-digital conversion, buffering, digital signal processing, transmission time, digital-to-analog conversion and the speed of sound in air.

But I wanted to make an analogy that I hope is more graphic

So we would have to be clear about defining our terms to be talking about the same thing.

So the answer to your question would be: The brand does not directly and automatically translate into better performance. But usually branded boards have better performance.

Absolutely with you here . My dreadful DPC Latency experience was with a Gigabyte/AMD board. I now have another Gigabyte/AMD combination which does not have the same problem.

Performance is really not an issue. " ... ... ... "Latency is never a problem."

Hmmm, I see. So this discussion is over, we can all go home and listen to music

Again, maybe I was not clear. If we are talking about audio performance, then, of course: that's what we want, and that's what we are talking about. All digital/PC systems are not equal.

I was talking about hardware performance, as the computer buyer might see it: power of CPU, speed of hard disks, etc. There is not only no point in buying a powerful machine for audio, it may work against us. This is mostly accepted.

What you say about laptops is true. Personally, I do not favour them for reasons that I and others have mentioned, except for portability.
offtopic...

A laptop is great for data-security.

How? People take them off-site and loose them. Plague of everything from national intelligence organisations to medical records, let alone ordinary commercial data.

A laptop enhances productivity.

How? Because people get to take them home? I never approved of taking work home anyway.
I am somewhat aware of corporate concerns, as I used to have them. These days, though, I can say that I just very glad I don't any longer hyeah:

Acknowledged: I think you work in this field, and are, by over a decade, more up-to-date in all aspects technical and managerial. Where the latter is concerned, though, probably not much changes as time passes!

 

[omishra]

I always felt life is easy with my MacBook Air. It's WiFi and Bluetooth are turned off. It takes small time to turn on and get ready. Similar time for shutting down. Small time to charge - means <1hr. I can use it for 3-4 hrs in single charge. No power supply and noise issue.

So just connect external storage disk and the USB cable hanging from DAC to it, ready to go. Sound quality wise I have desktop with Asus Xonar ST. But never felt that I am missing anything using laptop.

 

[haisaikat]

This is going offtopic but

How? People take them off-site and loose them. Plague of everything from national intelligence organisations to medical records, let alone ordinary commercial data.

I think we are talking of encryption techniques like Bitlocker, but that applies even for desktops too, although they may not completely hack proof.

A laptop enhances productivity.

At least in my opinion other than typing something (email, etc) from the comfort of lying down on bed or half lying down, a desktop adds more to productivity as in "yielding more work in same amount of time"

Coming back to topic,

No absolutely not, I just spend 30 min in downloading the Openelec and using a SD card image writer (available in a free version) wrote the image and inserting the card in the Pi and power on. That's it you do need to do anything apart from this for the OS. On loading the Openelec just make some initial settings that you normally do on the XBMC player with an additional setting to pick your external DAC as the default sound device. Thats it map your music files and you are good to go. In fact I even ran the Pi using the TV usb port and it being CEC HDMI compatible does allows the TV remote to act as a remote to the Pi as well. I think you having done a DIY Flexraid based (more complex NAS ) solution the Pi setup would be nothing but

Manni, thanks for providing the courage, I do also have a RPi configured with Raspbmc and Raspbian. If that is what is needed, I can do but my point is will RPi with linux be better than a dedicated x64 AMD / Intel PC with similar OS?

Yes I know, it is difficult to give a straight answer but in case anybody has had any previous experience of dealing with both.

 

[square_wave]

From my experience, it depends on what you mean by a music pc.

- If this is going to be a PC which stores music and is expected to output analogue out or digital via a sound card, then a lot of careful choices need to be made. The approach will be very different than a multimedia pc. This is a specialized domain. Many high end network players are such PCs only but engineered to work well. Choices of components, routing of wires, power supply design, chassis design, isolationit is a myriad of engineering choices that needs experience and is a very specialized domain.

- On the other hand, if music is coming out of the usb and fed into a dac any decent silent pc with decent power supply should work well as long as the usb dac is implemented well.

 

[venkatcr]

Venkat, Nice explanation:clapping:.

Can you share what configuration you are using in your current music PC? pls. regds, shafic

• Intel i5 processor
• Gigabyte Motherboard (high end)
• 8 GB RAM
• 8 TB hard disk
• Windows 7
• Foobar
• ASIO

I am thinking of adding Jplay.

Cheers

 

[ranjeetrain]

I am now thinking if it would be worth to have separate PC for music and completely separate PC for HTPC (I have ATI Raedon HD6670 GPU to fit) or if I spend more on components can I still keep both the purposes packed within same box.

I strongly recommend everyone except people with a million rupee plus setups to go for a low powered laptop built around previous generations of CPU. I'd say keep your workhorse PC, HTPC separate from your music PC.

For setups up to rupees 1.0-1.5 lacs even a system around a SOC based music PC is enough.

In any case, a separate PC will be useful in many ways.

How is this for convenience, price and looks??

Lenovo Essential C255 18.5" All-in-One Desktop Black

I think it's a decent value buy. You get a good-looking computer for not too much money. Form + function. It will be a good buy.

An Intel Atom based laptop is a great way. That would be a trade-off. Here for around 26k you get a PC that can double up as a HTPC as well as a music PC. An Intel Atom based laptop is not of much use beyond travel, music PC etc.

The decision to be taken here is - do you want to buy an Intel Atom based limited use laptop (around 18-22k) or a 26k full scale computer that will be multi-functional.

 

[shibashis]

I always felt life is easy with my MacBook Air. It's WiFi and Bluetooth are turned off. It takes small time to turn on and get ready. Similar time for shutting down. Small time to charge - means <1hr. I can use it for 3-4 hrs in single charge. No power supply and noise issue.

So just connect external storage disk and the USB cable hanging from DAC to it, ready to go. Sound quality wise I have desktop with Asus Xonar ST. But never felt that I am missing anything using laptop.

Plug-n-play...my ears are not yet ready (more importantly my equipment are not up to the mark) to discern if I am missing considerable amount of detail from such a setup and so this is precisely what I prefer and how I use it.

 

[omishra]

Plug-n-play...my ears are not yet ready (more importantly my equipment are not up to the mark) to discern if I am missing considerable amount of detail from such a setup and so this is precisely what I prefer and how I use it.

I don't think so, either fellows who consider my system is neutral. I am not having golden ears, neither good room setup. But my system is revealing differences in IC also. But simplicity and miniature computer does not mean less in quality or performance. Technology changes every moment, we should accept it.