I was thinking of using a PC to feed mp3s into my whole house aduio system. I was wondering if the quality from a PC with an average sound card would be decent. I have a midrange system and am not expecting unbelievable sound quality, but don't want hissing or crackling either.

Most sound cards (except the more expensive) seem to only have stereo mini plugs rather than RCA jacks so I would need to use a ocnverter. Is there a problem with converting the jacks?

P.S. I already have a MP3 player hooked into my system, but want more sophisticated control. I want to use a PDA w/wi-fi to select songs,etc.

The encoding bit rate is more important thant the pc sound card. The sound card is really just sending the signal out tho the preamp/amp, not doing much else. If your MP3s are encoded to maximize disk space, they will sound like crap no matter what the delivery device is. Lossless encoding baby!!

I am not worried about the bitrate as my stand alone MP3 is already playing the same files the PC would play.

I don't want to get into a discussion about bitrates here, but my opinion is that most people's equipment and ears aren't good enough to notice the difference from a decently encoded mp3 (128MBPS or higher). I encode mine at 160KBPS. If you can tell the difference with your ears/epuipment, then knock yourself out and don't compress.

I've seen a large range of quality from sound cards. The issues seem to fall into the D/A converter stages, and amplifiers. Some of the on motherboard solutions (and no name sound cards) use very inexpensive D/A stages, and sound very poor when driven into good amps and speakers. Many integrated amps have excellent A/D conversion, allowing you to bypass most of the issues with inexpensive motherboard sound card solutions.

My home office uses a computer motherboard which happens to have both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs. I run this into my system... excellent sound quality. I refuse to buy the speaker / sub / amp setups most computer manufacturers or computer stores stock. They're generally of dubious quality for the $.

Another area I've seen issues is with the connection between PC and receiver. Some PC's have such a noisy environment, that a great deal of noise can be injected into the receiver over the shield of the digital coaxial connection. Look for a PC or sound card with a optical digital link. This totally bypasses any possibilty of ground based noise injection from the PC.

I've also used systems with Creative's sound card solutions. They tend to perform very well, and offer excellent performance at line levels. I'm not impressed by the performance of the amps in their solutions, but you're not going to use this, so not a concern. I know they just came out with a new line of cards, I bet you can find the last generation cards now at fire sale prices, and for mp3 playback, they will do a great job. (The new designs offer lots of improvement in the number of voices, midi support, etc... none of this means anything for your application, so save the $'s, and go ahead and buy the older generation cards.)

I think the bigger question is how do you plan to control the PC and playlists in the computer from the remote locations? Have you found something you feel does a good job? I'd like to hear what you plan to use.

Michael,
The difference between good so8nd cards and the ones that are included are the generally boils down to the quality of the audio DACs. As BCF said, the better cards also have digital ins and outs.

Better cards are compatible with 24 bit with 96 kHz or even 24 bit / 192 kHz resolution signals, and even DD, DTS, and DVD-A multi-channel signals for both input and output. These are really more for surround sound gamers and desktop audio workstation (DAW) use for people who record and mix music on PCs. For DAW applications, you want to keep the signal at the highest resolution possible before sending it off to mastering.

Red Book CD standard is 16 bit with 44.1 kHz resolution.

I believe that you can also get upsampling sound cards that take any 16/44.1 files and make a poor man's Meridian or dCS system... but you would need uncompressed files to start with to fullyt realize the benefits.

If you and your clients are satisfied with 160 kbps MP3 encoded media, then the difference between a 16 bit / 44.1 kHz DAC and a 24 bit / 192 kHz upsampling DAC will be lost on them.

Even DACs of that quality will not replace bits that have been deleted by the compression process.

Audio interpolation in the upsampling process is similar to scaling a low resolution video signal for use on a high resolution display. No matter how advanced the techology may be, the end result depends on the quality of the data it starts with.

I am listening to some 320 mbps music right now.
I have 200+GB of music on a FireWire drive plugged into my laptop. I use iTunes to serve the files, and the laptop came with a 24/96 DAC and an 1/8" stereo jack.

I have an 1/8" to 2x RCA adapter feeding some $20 interconect to the AUX input of my little NAD 7225PE stereo receiver. A pair of little bookshelf Boston Acoustics mini monitors on the shelf above my monitor supply the sound.

It's fine for me now, and with the real amp and decent speakers, it sounds better than the actual CDs would on most shelf systems.

This message was edited by 2nd rick on 10/28/05 16:24 ET.

The difference between MP3 bitrates is easily heard by anyone with a mid-fi rig or better. Garbage in garbage out. The only one I've heard that isn't to f***ed up is 320 kbps. If listening to crap is OK, then it is OK but why make believe it sounds "good". 300 gig hard drives are under $100 so what's the big deal about going lossless. Almost any PC with a SPDIF out can be connected to a surround receiver and an outboard DAC will keep the computers RF noise away from the analogue signal needed for your multiroom setup and improve on most sound card as well.

I was planning on using a wi-fi enabled PocktPC running NetRemote software. It allows you a fine level of control over the streaming. I haven't used it before, but the reviews seem good. You can browse, search, add music to the now playing, re-arrange the now playing, etc.

I hooked up headphones to the jack on the PC I was planning to use and the sound was horrible. A lot of noise. It seems like every time the hard drive spins, that creates interference. It is basically sounds like AM radio when you aren't getting a great signal. I have onboard sound on this PC. Do you think if I bought and threw in a decent quality sound card in this PC it would be better? I am concerned that maybe this PC (3 yrs old) just isn't up to doing what I want.

I agree going forward, that with the price of HDD, no reason not to go un-encoded or high bit-rate. That wasn't always the case and I have mp3s going back years when HDD was expensive.

I also think it has a lot to do with the type of music you are listening to as well as the equipment. I have whole house audio and in-wall and in-ceiling speakers. Those never match the sound quality of stand-alone speakers.

mp3 on a descent audio system sounds like ass. any compressed music sounds bad...pony up the bucks and go 1 to 1 ratio and that is the way to do it...

ipod and mp3 as a whole sacrifices sound quality for conveinience...that is something i am not willing to do at my house. i will let my customers do it but sign a waiver saying i am not responsible for damage to speakers,poor audio quaility etc that may happen do to using mp3 or compresed audio.

ed

michaeljc70,

Is this a PC assembled from parts, or a name brand system?

If it is from parts, look at the brand of the motherboard. Go to the motherboard manufacturers website, and look for a spdif output module. Many manufacturers offer this as an add on. If you have the manual that came with the motherboard, it will tell you in the section that covers the various headers on the board if a header for connecting the spdif is present on the motherboard you have. With this, everything you're sending from the PC is digital, so power supply, hdd noise won't be a problem. With spdif you can't even have noise induced on the ground to the amp/receiver, as the connection is optical!

If it is a name brand, take a look at the chipset. Is it a Creative Labs sound solution on the motherboard? If it is, then either it was poorly implemented, or you may have a compromized ground. Go through the normal steps to troubleshoot a ground loop... make sure all components are on the same circuit, all line cords designed for 3 prong plugs have ground intact, ground at the outlet is present.

If the sound solution is a generic one, if you get away from using any of the analog in the solution, you'll likely be fine. Try the digital coax or spdif output. If this is still a problem, try a sound card. Best Buy, Circuit City, wherever you can get a good quality Creative sound card inexpensively. Try it. If it doesn't do what you need, return it to the store!

Note that if you have to pay much for the Sound Card, it may be easier to just buy a stand alone music server.

In my opinion the issue in any of these solutions is not the quality of the audio, this is controlled by the devices chosen, and the rate at which the music is ripped. These variables are very controllable, and most of the solutions properly implemented will give good results. The real issue is the user interface! For whole house audio, how many locations do you need to control from? How many audio streams will you support? These are what really determine which solution you choose!

The PC motherboard does support an "optional" SPDIF output. I have to see if the connector is in the motherboard box (there is abunch of connectors in there).

If I do have the option (or buy the option) of optical, my whole house distribution amp does not support optical, only RCA jack analog inputs. How do you convert?

P.S. I have a Xantech ZPR-68 and PA1235 for the distribution.

This message was edited by michaeljc70 on 10/31/05 14:39 ET.

Thanks Shoe, I don't know why but this post really brightened up my day.

compression/equipment issues asside there are certainly some big differences in PC sound. There are some serious sound cards out there but for a budget setup with good sound I'd say you will need to go the suggested route of optical out to an outboard DA converter.

I wonder if maybe it wouldn't be easier to use a squeezebox? On paper it should sound decent and I'm betting there are some creative web enabled ways to control it.

Though the squeezebox has some nice features, including the ability to control it via a web browser, I still think the PC option gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of Remote control via a PDA. There are several products like NetRemote that allow you to control Windows Media, WinAMp, etc remotely.

I have looked at this option as well as several others, and the NetRemote option to me looks to be the sleekest control - cover art in color, nice search, queueing, etc. I think you are getting something that looks likes a $2000 Crestron system for a couple of hundred bucks. Obviously you need additional software to tie the rest of your system in beyond the mp3 player, but it is pretty inexpensive (like Girder which is $40).

Keep in mind you need a PC to use the Squeezebox anyway,

I guess there is cost/benefit to everything. I think you get minor increases in benefits though as the cost goes up exponentially when you get into high-end equipment.

Why just consider equipment and bitrate? Do you have acoustic ceiling and wall tiles? That makes a big difference in acoustics. I mean if you want to take it to its theoretical limts, some people have much more sensitive hearing to the highs and lows also.

I believe you when you say you can tell the difference between 320bps and 192bps on high end equipment. I also believe that 98% of people couldnt tell the difference between a 192bps mp3 and an uncompressed one on their own equipment.