OT: Quality of files played via soundcard versa CD player

[dflachbart]

Hi,

this is a more general question which hasn't much to do with Sage itself, but related to using the computer as a media center:

How, in general, does the quality of music files (ripped from a CD as wav or lossless) played via a computer soundcard compare against the quality of a decent standalone CD player (well, I'm not talking about the audiophile $5000 machine, just some decent standard consumer electronics) ? I am not an expert in this field, but I would assume that the D/A conversion part plays a big role in that ? I am aware that this also greatly depends on how accurately the CD is ripped to the computer ...

Another (maybe stupid) related question: if i play back files from the computer via SPDIF connected to my receiver, the receiver has to function as the D/A converter, right ? Would this be a better quality than letting the soundcard do the conversion ?

So, in a nutshell, would I loose significant quality if I would dump my standalone CD player and just listen to ripped CDs via the computer ? I know that I should ultimately trust my ears, but I was just wondering if there are some technical aspects which would suggest the answer ...

Thanks for any input,
Dirk

[paulbeers]

If you are talking about output via SPDIF, then there really shouldn't be any difference because all it is doing is passing the digital signal, which should be what your CD player is doing (if connected by SPDIF also). Now if you are passing analog, that is a wholeeee other story! To be honest, I have all of mine ripped to 192 kbs or better Mp3 and I don't even notice the quality loss much. I just have an "old" (from 2000) Kenwood DTS/DD receiver with JBL speakers and a velodyne sub. I do notice at times with some of the more bassy songs and songs with a lot of high pitches, but I figured that the small loss in quality vs. the space savings was a trade off. Remember CD's can hold as much as 700 mb (and some more than that) so if you have 300 cd's like I do....you could be looking at approx 210 GB of storage (okay 205, but we all know that HD companies use 1000 rather than 1024). Just my .02 worth anyway. There are also a lot of other formats out there that do a better job at compressing music and not causing the losses that MP3 does, but Sage may not be able to play them.

Oh and one other thing, Sage's Mediacenter is not necessary that good. In fact I would put it at very subpar. If you have ever used Winamp lite....Well you get the idea (I am not even sure that it is as good as winamp lite when it comes to playing music actually). You may want to consider using xlobby or some other music player.

[Lucas]

If you are using SPDIF, the 'original' 44KHz sampling rate of CDs is converted to 48Khz. According to purists this is involves processing and thus loss of the original quality. CD Players output 44KHz.

From my experience this is theoretical at best since very few rip their CDs in lossless formats. I rip most at 192 with a few at 256 and a handfull at 320. There is some loss there so I don't worry over the 44-48Khz issue.

I can't hear the difference anyway.

[stanger89]

The answer is it all depends, you can go anywhere from crap to up there with the best audiophile equipment, depending on your soundcard mostly. Something like a (modest) M-Audio Revolution will match or best about anything in "consumer" realm, if you go to RME or Lynx it will meet or best almost anything out there. Stick with onboard or cheapo-Creative, and you're probably in $30 DVD player territory.

As for digitial output, again it depends, a Lynx TWO-B would have better analog output than your run of the mill consumer equipement, but a Chaintek AV-710 would probably work better as just a transport (digital output).

As for resampling, it's definitely real, and definitely noticeable. Most soundcards that do it, do it very poorly. The degridation might be overwhelmed by the artifacts inherent in MP3 though. With lossless encoding, on even good PC speakers (not to mention an HT system) it's definitely something worth eliminating. Especially when it can be done cheaply with something like the Chaintek.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by stanger89

As for digitial output, again it depends, a Lynx TWO-B would have better analog output than your run of the mill consumer equipement, but a Chaintek AV-710 would probably work better as just a transport (digital output).

Just so that I understand this correctly: you mean if you have a high-end soundcard like the Lynx its D/A conversion will beat standard audio receiver equipment, so it is better to use its analog outputs, whereas if you have a lower-end card it's better to use spdif and let the receiver do the conversion - right ?

Originally Posted by stanger89

As for resampling, it's definitely real, and definitely noticeable. Most soundcards that do it, do it very poorly. The degridation might be overwhelmed by the artifacts inherent in MP3 though. With lossless encoding, on even good PC speakers (not to mention an HT system) it's definitely something worth eliminating. Especially when it can be done cheaply with something like the Chaintek.

You mean the 44.1 -> 48 khz conversion Lucas mentioned, right ? Well, I am definetly going to encode lossless (WMA or FLAC), so this seems important... Is this a limitation of the SPDIF output itself, or are there (affordable) cards which can output 44.1 khz without conversion ?

I am currently using onboard audio, but wouldnt mind spending some extra money on a soundcard like the Revolution (can you recommend this one, or any others ?) ... The audio will be fed into an Onkyo TX-SR503 7.1 receiver, and I am still wondering if in this case analog or spdif would yield the better results ...

Thanks a lot,
Dirk

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Just so that I understand this correctly: you mean if you have a high-end soundcard like the Lynx its D/A conversion will beat standard audio receiver equipment, so it is better to use its analog outputs, whereas if you have a lower-end card it's better to use spdif and let the receiver do the conversion - right ?

Yes, that's a rough summary.

You mean the 44.1 -> 48 khz conversion Lucas mentioned, right ? Well, I am definetly going to encode lossless (WMA or FLAC), so this seems important... Is this a limitation of the SPDIF output itself, or are there (affordable) cards which can output 44.1 khz without conversion ?

Yup, and no it's not a limitation of S/PDIF, it's a limitation of many/most soundcards. The Chaintek AV-710 is very inexpensive and capable of 44.1k output without conversion.

I am currently using onboard audio, but wouldnt mind spending some extra money on a soundcard like the Revolution (can you recommend this one, or any others ?) ... The audio will be fed into an Onkyo TX-SR503 7.1 receiver, and I am still wondering if in this case analog or spdif would yield the better results ...

The Revo is overkill for digital out, while it works well, you end up paying a bit for the analog circuitry you won't be using. Odds are a cheap soundcard (like the Chaintek) via S/PDIF to your Onkyo will give you the best combo of simplicity, quality, and price.

[evilpenguin]

Check the sound card forums over at HTPCnews.com they have a lot of details on bitperfect playback.

[dflachbart]

Stanger89,

thanks for your explanations, they were very helpful.

Originally Posted by stanger89

The Revo is overkill for digital out, while it works well, you end up paying a bit for the analog circuitry you won't be using. Odds are a cheap soundcard (like the Chaintek) via S/PDIF to your Onkyo will give you the best combo of simplicity, quality, and price.

Only thing is that I won't only use it for ripped CD music playback, but also for the Sage audio, so I would indeed use the analog outputs (I can't output the sound of the TV recordings via SPDIF, correct ?) ... So I guess I probably have to look at a better card... I had a look at the Revolution, and one review stated that it doesn't have any digital onboard inputs (e.g. CD-in). Not sure if will ever need this on my HTPC, but I don't want to be restricted in case I will need in the future... Any other card in this price range you could recommend ?

Thanks again,
Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Check the sound card forums over at HTPCnews.com they have a lot of details on bitperfect playback.

Cool, thanks evilpenguin for the info !

Dirk

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Oh and one other thing, Sage's Mediacenter is not necessary that good. In fact I would put it at very subpar. If you have ever used Winamp lite....Well you get the idea (I am not even sure that it is as good as winamp lite when it comes to playing music actually). You may want to consider using xlobby or some other music player.

Very true, it's lacking even basic functionality, and I won't event start on how much frustration and aggrevation I went through with the Music Library in general and importing lossless formats in particular. I had a quick look at xlobby and it looks cool, but I am hesitant to use a separate player because of the missing integration. My HTPC is headless, and I dont want to spend money on Girder for switching between apps ... Are you using xlobby, and how did you integrate it with Sage ?

Dirk

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by flachbar

Stanger89,

thanks for your explanations, they were very helpful.



Only thing is that I won't only use it for ripped CD music playback, but also for the Sage audio, so I would indeed use the analog outputs (I can't output the sound of the TV recordings via SPDIF, correct ?)

Nope, I use the digital out of my Revo into my AVM-20 for everything. The only thing digital won't work for is multichannel, decoded audio (specifically games, WMV, etc). If those are a big deal you might want to look at the Dobly Digital Live or DTS Connect soundcards like the Bluegears Xplosion.

Note though that DD/DTS aren't included in the above, they can be sent over S/PDIF just fine from any old soundcard, Revo and Chaintek included.

I had a look at the Revolution, and one review stated that it doesn't have any digital onboard inputs (e.g. CD-in). Not sure if will ever need this on my HTPC, but I don't want to be restricted in case I will need in the future... Any other card in this price range you could recommend ?

Not that it matters (since it's overkill) but there's really nothing you need internal headers for on soundcards these days. Used to be CD drives had analog or digital wires that would run to the soundcard (not needed anymore), used to be TV cards had the same, but they don't need them anymore either.

If I were buying today, for S/PDIF output, I'd probably get the Chaintek.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Nope, I use the digital out of my Revo into my AVM-20 for everything. The only thing digital won't work for is multichannel, decoded audio (specifically games, WMV, etc). If those are a big deal you might want to look at the Dobly Digital Live or DTS Connect soundcards like the Bluegears Xplosion.

Note though that DD/DTS aren't included in the above, they can be sent over S/PDIF just fine from any old soundcard, Revo and Chaintek included.

Awesome, didn't know that ...

Originally Posted by stanger89

Not that it matters (since it's overkill) but there's really nothing you need internal headers for on soundcards these days. Used to be CD drives had analog or digital wires that would run to the soundcard (not needed anymore), used to be TV cards had the same, but they don't need them anymore either.

So if I were to play a CD in the CD-ROM with a music player software, I wouldn't need a digital CD-in to feed the audio through SPDIF to the receiver ? Sorry to be such a pain, but my knowledge is seriously lacking in this area ...

Dirk

[stanger89]

Nope, it's digitally extracted, just like if you were ripping it, it goes over the IDE bus. Basically no different from disc or from HDD.

[dflachbart]

Thanks for everything, no more questions ...

AV710 ordered ...


Dirk