Input sources/DAC for 2 channel music - PC or other?

[TEK]

From my point of view my current "preamp" is my av8801. I feed into it by using hdmi from my computer and it delivers the signals by balanced output connectors to the power amp.
When it comes to HDMI vs coax my experience so far is that hdmi is a dream when it comes to handle all kind of different formats effortless and without trouble.
I also have a Zonar essence ST card with digital output in the same computer case. For stereo output the digital out works fine, but if I try to pass other stuff (like 5.1 sound from dvd/blue-ray conserts it's a lot of trouble - from unsupported formats to extremly distorted sound).
So for "all round use", both audio and theater hdmi out to the av8801 is the preferred choise. Marantz also suggest hdmi over all other formats for high quality.

What I'm thinking about is how I shall proceed for the next level of quality - only focusing on the stereo side of thing.
My starting point is, and will continue to be, some digital source:
- my own collection
- tidal (my absolutly preferred and most used source)
- linn (downloaded, high-rez, this is usually very nice but not very mutch material and quite expencive - really looking forward to a streaming service that will deliver master studio quality)

The starting point is a PC. Will a PC deliver clean digital signals out? Are there ways that should be preferred?
From the PC into a DAC. Here I'm looking for a DAC that will beat the AV8801 at a resonable cost. Preferrable a DIY solution because that is just cool - and I think that it can be made very easy with just a single input source.
And then a preamp. And either pass-trough the AV 8801, or add extra inputs and relays to the amp so that I can be sure that the amp received a pure signal from the dac when I really want to enjoy high quality music.
With the NC500 I'm actually no longer sure if extra sub's are wanted for music. It's impressive how mutch attac and depth the nc500 adds to the Ardents compared to my 350w thule.
I see that Handling the sub's in a stereo setup in a good way might be a challenge.

Sorry - this was alot of rambling - not sure how much useful stuff that comes out of it...

I'm obvious on my way to somewhere, but I must admit that I currently have little knowledge about where that is...

[JonMarsh]

From my point of view my current "preamp" is my av8801. I feed into it by using hdmi from my computer and it delivers the signals by balanced output connectors to the power amp.
When it comes to HDMI vs coax my experience so far is that hdmi is a dream when it comes to handle all kind of different formats effortless and without trouble.
I also have a Zonar essence ST card with digital output in the same computer case. For stereo output the digital out works fine, but if I try to pass other stuff (like 5.1 sound from dvd/blue-ray conserts it's a lot of trouble - from unsupported formats to extremly distorted sound).
So for "all round use", both audio and theater hdmi out to the av8801 is the preferred choise. Marantz also suggest hdmi over all other formats for high quality.

What I'm thinking about is how I shall proceed for the next level of quality - only focusing on the stereo side of thing.
My starting point is, and will continue to be, some digital source:
- my own collection
- tidal (my absolutly preferred and most used source)
- linn (downloaded, high-rez, this is usually very nice but not very mutch material and quite expencive - really looking forward to a streaming service that will deliver master studio quality)

The starting point is a PC. Will a PC deliver clean digital signals out? Are there ways that should be preferred?
From the PC into a DAC. Here I'm looking for a DAC that will beat the AV8801 at a resonable cost. Preferrable a DIY solution because that is just cool - and I think that it can be made very easy with just a single input source.
And then a preamp. And either pass-trough the AV 8801, or add extra inputs and relays to the amp so that I can be sure that the amp received a pure signal from the dac when I really want to enjoy high quality music.
With the NC500 I'm actually no longer sure if extra sub's are wanted for music. It's impressive how mutch attac and depth the nc500 adds to the Ardents compared to my 350w thule.
I see that Handling the sub's in a stereo setup in a good way might be a challenge.

Sorry - this was alot of rambling - not sure how much useful stuff that comes out of it...

I'm obvious on my way to somewhere, but I must admit that I currently have little knowledge about where that is...

Hey TEK,

Rambling is good, but what might be even better is starting a thread with the same stuff but on that topic- and we could each chime in with our experience and perspective on YOUR topic and desires.

In several cases, regarding your desires and tentative plans, I could say, "Been there, Done that, Moved On". That doesn't mean it might not be valid for you, but for example, I would suggest researching streamers over a PC based solution. I've done the latter, and currently prefer the former. Mind you, I don't have "tons" of experience there, just stuff I've bought and tried, and that my colleague in Munich has bought and tried, but it's enough that I'd say using a general purpose PC, even trying to tune the software stack and hardware just for music, may not get you ever to the same place as a dedicated unit by someone like Aurender, AURALiC, or NAD, just to name a few. Spending some time on the Computer Audiophile site might give you a headache, but it will also give you perspective on both types of solutions. I've had several builds of PC and Mac for music, but much prefer what the NAD M50 or the AURALiC Aires does. If I really had the bucks, I'd go with an Aurender.

There are many other companies with similar solutions- I'm not in a position to say which is best, just that after researching a while, I've tried a couple that I'm quite happy with for the most part. Both have had teething pains with regard to the evolution of the software, but are fairly mature products now. Take a look at them to start with, and see if there's anything about them that appeals to you.

[dar47]

Tek

I won't plug this up but just point a couple of thing out. For 2 channel yes you need to get your music to a stand alone dac and this will be better then your pre-pro unless you are happy with the sound. 3 ways of course, from a computer, stand alone server like Jon's NAD or a streamer / renderer like me. I think you can mess all you want with a computer but it's still a step behind in my experience and you will be constantly fiddling with it. Some do the dedicated sound PC or notebook tweeked but the thing is still a hostile environment for good sound.

The streamer / renderer, (mine the Moon Mind 180) requests the Bits from a computer or NAS and creates the (Flac, Wave,etc file) and then sends it's to the dac negating anything the computer can do to make it noisy. Unless you buy this noisy ethernet thing making Bits noisy, I don't. I never felt a computer beat a transport / CD player but the Moon does and I'm sure the Aurender does too. It's a clean interface too my music is upstairs in the study and on all day anyways so it has the network software that just sends the Bits to the Moon and I use a Ipad mini to serve it up or play from Tidal all over ethernet. The ipad to Mind 180 is Wifi just to select the music and the Mind requests the Bits from the PC over ethernet, it's slick. If you use a NAS it can be anywhere. The Moon was optimized for an AES cable to your dac which helps with a high quality connection from the device creating the file(Flac, Wave, etc).

Other great option but not cheap is Jon's NAD, just feed it cd's to store or files and it servers it up itself with it's own remote. It does have spinning drives but I bet it's filtered better then any computer.

Jon, I wonder if that new toy could measure the chain from say your NAD to dac or computer to dac to see this noise?

[benthe8track]

That Auralic pre looks nice at $2100 US just not much function with no bypass. It will be great to see how the Cambridge comes out with it' great functional features. I look at Parasound P5 but they got into some tiff with CSA and are avoiding Canada now with no warranty. The Moon NEO 350P has everything but their prices are so high and they can't keep up with grabbing from the far East market. They like the case I guess and Moon is not cutting Canadian customers much of a break. Ben got the Bryston BP26 with the power supply and it has a nice MM Phono for his TT. It's not balanced though. Your new toy is helping with the shopping though and it may help me narrow things, haha.

The BP26 is balanced! That Cambridge was at the top of my list before I got the deal on the Bryston.

I use a PC as my digital source, it just does such a better job at more things than the streamers I've seen. I can watch netflix, run spotify, throw movies or show on via Kodi. Plus it's cheap, the HTPC is made of old parts from various CAD/gaming PC iterations. It may not be the absolute be all of fidelity but I can't tell the difference. Most things that go through the M51 sound pretty damn good to my ears.

[JonMarsh]

That's really the point, to be happy with the solution you pick based on what YOUR needs overall are, not what three other guys may be... :W

[TEK]

I'm looking to make my effort where it make a difference sound-wise, but I also want to keep the system user friendly.

I'm 100% percent sure that speakers can make a huge difference, in my mind they are the absolute most important factor in a system.
I also believe that power amps are very important. Having something that is able to control the speakers in a good way, and that is able to amplify the signals without loosing information or adding disturbion.
Cables - not so much (as long as you have enough thickness and not something very strange)
I'm also a huge believer in balanced chains - as that is a good way to avoid noise in the system - and it does not matter how good everything is if there is a bunch of noise and disturbance.
When it comes to DAC's I'm also a beliver - transforming digital sources to analog signals that can be amplifyed to drive a speaker. A lot of stuff going on there, power signatures, disturbion and so on. Quite sure that can be done good or bad. Here I assume clocking comes in. When transferring the digital signals to analog signals, what comes out of that process have to have the right timing for everything to line up in a good way and produce a great result.

But this is also where I think the responsible to do that is. In my mind a good dac should be able to buffer/pre-read some milliseconds from the source and then ensure that it is transformed in a timed manner.
Digital sources, as a NAS disk, or a PC (when delivering digital out) should not make a very big deal. Digital signals are digital signals. If you have a bad connection you may loose signals. That again might cause the system to try to compensate by rereading the signals until they are right.
In a audio signal that is stream over a local network that should normally not be a problem - and if it is a problem it should present itself as stop in playback or quite audible noise (like reading a bad cd), not like something that should affect the sound in general in any way.

However, for doing the DAC task - I do agree that a PC might be a hostile environment.
A good PC is a very user friendly source - both for data on a NAS/Server and for network sources, like tidal, netflix and so on.

So from my point of view I think that it should be able to use a PC as a digital source, let the PC feed digital signals into an external DAC, from the DAC into a pre-amp and then into the power amp...

If you are getting a digital signal out from the PC to the DAC - I do believe that the end quality should be limited by the rest of the chain - meaning that I think that it would not be possible to improve the quality of the source any further (except of course by adding higher resolution sources and so on).
The source is a digital signal at a given resolution. If you get that passed 100% correctly over to the DAC there should not be anything more to improve. Unless you have "something" that adds distortion to that signal.
But you must get the signal unaltered to the DAC - so the PC must not touch the signal - and that might be a little challenging.

Or are there something wrong with my thinking here? Is there something in the digital signal passed from a source (PC) to a DAC that is expected to affect the sound?