10 replies to this topic

[osamabanana]

Hi guys. My system currently consists of a

NAD c316BEE amplifier
Wharfedale diamond 9.1 speakers
Sony cdp-c235
and computer audio fed straight from my laptop

I've noticed that even listening on this very old cd player the quality is far superior to that from the laptop. So my question is what would be a good upgrade for a poor student on a budget to improve my pc based audio?

[Batty]

It depends on your budget, USB DAC is the way to go with some way of reducing jitter. There are many on the market. I stream so don't use USB but I'm sure there will be a lot of responses soon.

[hochopeper]

Define budget? This obviously means different things to different people.

Perhaps something like the recently announced ODAC would be suitable? These should be available in the next month or so for ~$AU100 (maybe a touch more if you're not diy-inclined and buy with an enclosure) and meet the designers specification for being audibly transparent. I can see a few technical compromises made in the design that I would avoid personally but for the money its hard to find a comparable device.

[dammers31]

I bought one of these.
I found it helped (a bit!). Definitley worth the $60.

[bruce108]

You'll need to get the output from a USB port, then convert it to a signal acceptable to a DAC, then feed that to your amplifier

Read up about the various options for a one-box solution and your head will spin. There are well-known and reliable options, such as the Matrix range.

Edited by bruce108, 30 April 2012 - 04:05 PM.

[Batty]

I bought one of these.
I found it helped (a bit!). Definitley worth the $60.

I have one hooked up to my PC using optical.

[osamabanana]

Good point about the budget. When people on here have speakers worth more than I make a year a budget would be a good idea. To be honest as cheap as possible. Less than $100 would be great but if there are great options worth more than that then I want to hear about them.

Edited by osamabanana, 30 April 2012 - 05:34 PM.

[LogicprObe]

I've noticed that even listening on this very old cd player the quality is far superior to that from the laptop. So my question is what would be a good upgrade for a poor student on a budget to improve my pc based audio?

Firstly, what sort of files are you playing back from the laptop? (assuming the CD player is using wav, of course)

[osamabanana]

A mix of flac and mp3. Even on the computer (I think) I can hear the difference between them. I use media monkey for playback if that helps at all.

[LogicprObe]

For starters, you need to bypass the audio chip in the laptop.
The cheapest way is with this................. http://au.store.crea...ro/1-20055.aspx
Can be had for about $70.

This one is better http://au.store.crea...hd/1-19829.aspx
That one is about $115 but is far better.

Others will have suggestions for external DACS but you said you were on a budget.
What are you prepared to spend on this?

[osamabanana]

Ok well I assume a usb dac is the way to go. So the next question is what is a good budget dac.

I liked the look of that odac shown above. It mentions the output is 2v rms is this appropriate for my amp?