Computer Audio

[StephenWVU]

Hello all!

So I was playing around with the receiver we use for home theater and plugged my laptop into the hdmi in port and played music directly from the laptop, a dell studio 1558.  I know the sound from the stereo receiver isn't going to be as nice as separates but it is what I have for now and probably will for quite some time.     Back on topic, how does streaming music directly from the laptop to a receiver via HDMI compare to playing a CD on a decent to high end CD player?  Are there any programs that will stream back the music better than itunes?

Thanks,
Stephen

[bmwr75]

Didn't know these new-fangled PCs had HDMI connections.   

You are sending a digital signal to your receiver, which is as good as you can get out of your PC.  Many people trash talk about iTunes, but I've used it for years streaming music wirelessly through my whole house and it sounds fine to me.  To get the most from iTunes you need to have the volume set to maximum in Itunes, the EQ off and your music ripped to Itunes as WAV or Apple Lossless files.

[OldiesButGoodies]

Scotty:

How about using Songbird instead to play 96/24 files from places like HD Tracks? I wonder if that would work over HDMI.  Steve - maybe you can give it a try,  download songbird and get the free album from HDtracks.com and see if the receiver with play the 96/24 tunes.  This assumes the receiver you have can handle 96khz/24-bit streams,  but it should if it is fairly recent, I think.  If you get it to work let us know if it sounds any better than CDs to you. 

OBG

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

how does streaming music directly from the laptop to a receiver via HDMI compare to playing a CD on a decent to high end CD player?  Are there any programs that will stream back the music better than itunes?

To the first question, that depends on the quality of the D/A converter in your receiver vs the one in the CD player.   You may be slightly less prone to jitter playing from a hard drive vs an optical disc, but I personally doubt that the difference would be audible.

As far as programs go, I don't think that one program directs a digital stream any differently than any other (except for some playing gapless and others not).   I say use what you like.   I like Foobar myself.

I don't send a digital stream from my computer.   I have an E-Mu 1212 soundcard and it sounds better than any of my CD players (even the Oppo).

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

I know the sound from the stereo receiver isn't going to be as nice as separates

FWIW, I think this depends entirely on the components in question.   I try to avoid these types of blanket statements.

[StephenWVU]

Thanks for the feedback guys!  The D/A Converter is 24bit / 192kHz.  I am about to download songbird and some HD tracks.  I don''t have a good CD player to really compare but I will tell you if I am impressed.    You are right, I shouldn't knock receivers; I have just heard separates are better. 

[bmwr75]

@OBG - iTunes Achilles heel is not being able to stream Hi-Rez files.

JRiver Media Center is supposed to be one of the best PC softwares for misic.  There are free 30 day trails availble, but it costs $50 to purchase.  The Absolute Sound just did a 5 part series on digital music management and playback.  JRiver was highly rated, IIRC.

http://www.jriver.com/index.html

Scotty:

How about using Songbird instead to play 96/24 files from places like HD Tracks? I wonder if that would work over HDMI.  Steve - maybe you can give it a try,  download songbird and get the free album from HDtracks.com and see if the receiver with play the 96/24 tunes.  This assumes the receiver you have can handle 96khz/24-bit streams,  but it should if it is fairly recent, I think.  If you get it to work let us know if it sounds any better than CDs to you. 

OBG

[StephenWVU]

Downloading that now.  One of the main reasons I am doing this is to see if I really want to buy a CD player. 

[bmwr75]

Downloading that now.  One of the main reasons I am doing this is to see if I really want to buy a CD player. 

I need to do that too!

[StephenWVU]

The free songs from the HD Tracks sound pretty darn great.  I was wondering if they were that much better quality or if it was just the fact that they are good recordings.  Then, I played some Florence and the Machine.  Great recording but the sound quality was not quite as nice I must say.  If anyone has a receiver with HDMI and a laptop with HDMI I recommend playing with this, especially if they have a good CD player to compare.   

[OldiesButGoodies]

I have listened on and off to the free HDTrack recordings and they sound great,  but just not great enough to warrant paying the prices they ask for other hi-res recordings.  I am not sure I have heard the 96/24 version of these recording yet though.  I am using the Sunfire TGP1 DACs and I suspect they cannot handle the high res stuff.  Still they sound good. And it may be that the recordings are way better.   The bigger problem for me is that Spotify sounds pretty darn good too.  And for $4.99/mth I can listen to any of 14 million songs.

Note that iTunes does not do high res,  as Scott pointed out.

My true high res listening is limited to the few SACDs I score at flea markets.

BTW - for years I thought expensive CD players were a wate of money.  Then I bought Falcon's modded Phillips CD-80.  I have no idea what black magic Phillips used but this thing makes CDs sound better. 

OBG

[bmwr75]

My experience is the DAC makes the biggest difference, be it internal to a CD player or external.

I have both the 16/44 and 24/96 versions of a few CDs that are well recorded.  The difference between them is not easily noticeable to me.  However my DAC converts 16/44.1 to 24/96, so am not sure how much that plays into the equation.

An easily noticeable change in my family room system was rotating these speakers in:

[schwarcw]

Hi Scott!

What are those speakers?

[bmwr75]

Tyler Acoustics PD-10s