CY10N Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 Hello, I am interested in building an audio PC to connect to the following equipment: Powered bookshelf speakers: Acoustic Energy AE1 Active Subwoofers: B&W DB4S Preamp & DAC: Essence HDACC II-4K Subwoofer Equalizer: SVS AS-EQ1 Music: Locally stored in various lossless formats. I have no intention of using streaming services like Tidal. Many of the topics I am reading seem to focus on output over Toslink, USB to an external DAC or local decoding with analog output, no mention of output over HDMI. The Essence HDACC II-4K has the best sound (according to the manufacturer) over the HDMI input. I am leaning towards Audirvana as the player as I like the fact that it has a iOS app for remote control and it gets excellent reviews for audio quality. I see that a Windows version of the player is going to be released before the end of this month so I will test it on my Windows laptop and MacBook Air. I am also comfortable building a HDPLEX machine running Linux or a Nano (headless) Windows Server 2016. But I feel like the law of diminishing returns comes into play here given that I am outputting over HDMI. I like the aesthetics of the Mac Mini but I have read mixed reviews of its audio quality. However none of these mention outputting over HDMI. I would appreciate any advice you can give. Thanks Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davewantsmoore Posted June 25, 2018 Share Posted June 25, 2018 A quick look at your device (nice!) indicates that it shouldn't care too much about the incoming signal quality on HDMI audio..... I'd start cheap and work up. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CY10N Posted June 26, 2018 Author Share Posted June 26, 2018 Thanks Dave, I'll start testing Audirvana on my existing computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mloutfie Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 (edited) Issue with HDMI in PC is to make sure that no decoding happens in PC which from what I know it's hard to fully switch off. since it will be handled in the graphics card Audio driver. You might need to test the manufacturer claim on whether HDMI is the best while using PC compared to USB. Edited June 27, 2018 by mloutfie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoopy8 Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 A Win PC may do processing depending on audio driver used. Recommend using ASIO which bypass this: http://www.asio4all.org Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CY10N Posted June 27, 2018 Author Share Posted June 27, 2018 Thanks, I installed Audirvana Windows Beta last night. Am I correct in assuming that will bypass the drivers removing the need for ASIO? I have connected the preamp to both the HDMI and USB inputs for testing. Audirvana hasn’t picked up that the USB input can decode DSD but that might be a beta bug. Need to get some 192/24 files to test with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satanica Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 56 minutes ago, Snoopy8 said: A Win PC may do processing depending on audio driver used. Recommend using ASIO which bypass this: http://www.asio4all.org This is not a real ASIO driver, it's a WDM wrapper. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoopy8 Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 22 minutes ago, Satanica said: This is not a real ASIO driver, it's a WDM wrapper. Where is the real ASIO driver? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davewantsmoore Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 28 minutes ago, Snoopy8 said: Where is the real ASIO driver? It's unlikely your manufacturer provides one ..... WASAPI does what you want. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCD Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 And that DAC looks like one of these DCT-21 - HD Audio Center www.cypconverters.com.au/audio-and-video-format-converters/dct-21.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenwstr Posted August 9, 2018 Share Posted August 9, 2018 Hi, I have an original HDACC, not the 4k version. I think that Bob's claim regarding superior audio quality over HDMI centres around the ability to intercept HRA from it. That is, if the source happens to have better than 44kHz audio, the HDACC can read all that input. I can confirm that when playing BD discs over HDMI pass through, the HDACC does indeed report input exceeding 44kHz. IMO, the sound of these few discs is excellent. The original HDACC does not support 5.1, it only intercepts FR & FL channels from 5.1 sources. It is important to select PCM stereo from the disc menu. I don't know about the 4k version. The original HDACC only has one HDMI input whereas the 4k version has 4 of them. The original has both an analogue RCA in and out which I use to connect the DAC within the tape dubbing loop of a Yamaha A700 amp. The reason for this is to provide remote volume control for both analogue as well as digital sources. This is required for the family to use the HiFi at all. I think the 4k version does not have this facility. Directly testing the 44kHz audio quality of the HDACC against an older AMC CD8A, I have to say it's very close. This 90s CD player is IMO very exceptional though. I can only pick a difference by doing AB tests while the track plays and I would give the not to the CD player over the HDACC but it is hard to pick. The HDACC comes with a switchmode plugpack PSU, that does not have an earth pin so no grounding out anomalies via filter caps. This manufacturer choice leaves me rather bewildered. I did query this with Bob and he assures me it would be a big mistake to use a different PSU with it. Sorry but I just don't know what to make of that...... I know of no instance where improved PSU technology does not result in improved audio performance. All in all though I can not identify any problems with the sound. Sometimes the HDACC seems to go into sleep mode and nothing but a reboot will wake it up again. Seems par for the course for digital components to have communication issues. Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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