has anyone actaully read and pondered over exactly what the first para of "Art of building computer..."
actaully means
generally ive seen that after reading these articles members tend to have a notion that building a Music PC (with a good SC as suggested in the articles) will tend to better a standalone CDP
this however is not exactly true
though ive built a music PC myself i know a good cdp (less than 35k!)does sound better than just a music PC with even a 200$ soundcard
(i built mine only for convinience of changing songs,albums etc- and i think thats its advantage only)
now heres the proof (never mind my own listening reviews)
have you noticed the first para of the article
here it is
"This paper targets CD transports
with a view to dramatically reduce its cost whilst improve its performance. By using a
good quality PC costing ~$1,500 (including a good sound card), one can exceed
performances of traditional transports in excess of $20,000. This is achieved by
careful implementation of each PC component and the use of open source freeware
such as Foobar2000 and EAC."
note it uses the word "transport" and not
source
first of ,i dont know who the hell would spend 20000$ for just a transport
i have a few high flying audio nut friends and even they would not do such stupidness!
basically the article is saying the building the musci pc andf ollowing all the optimisations will just give you the best transport .
it doesnt mean its the best SOURCE!
for after the transport , is the dac
which conviniently they forget to mention uptill pg 26 of the manual
this means you spend money onbuilding the musicPC with a good 150-200$ SC and still you dont have a good source(as many wrongly believ)
you still require a good dac
now
good DAC's are generally 500$ and above!
well if youre gonna spend 400$ (20k-25k inr with SC) on a music PC and 500$ on a dac (1000$-1200$!and above total)
i would easily get a CDP with decent SQ in less!
hence before being carried away by such articles please understand what the 1st para means!
the way i see it
there are two kinds of listeners
the first kind are old school who prefer listening to the entire album.They generally pick their albums carefully and like the artists interpretation of music too
I feel such guys are better off getting a standalone CDP.
even a dvdp would do provided its decent and they plan to buy a DAC
even a mid fi one (CDP or dac)would be better than just a music PC with even good Scards
the other kind are the gen next fellows, or people who tend to change tracks,albums artists often
for these the Music PC makes for sense purely for convinience
A dac would be reqd here for best performance.
Music PC and dac options generally require a lot of fiddling and trail errors
since a synergy is reqd betwen the dacs,PC and amps
ive seen many ppl of this kind changing dacs ever so often.(they are never content!
)
now if you have an unsed old PC lying around then well thats an exception
but if you fall in the first category, going out and buying a music PC ...is umm well not very smart
decide where you fall.
Dont be carried away by either the music PC or standalone CDP fanclubs
A wrong decsion will haunt you
when you hit mid fi
you will see that a differnce in source is more prominent than a diff in amp
Your focus should be a source more than an amp