Timbo;144035 Wrote: > > It seems that the output from your average soundcard is, er, not > exactly bit perfect. So my question is guys and gals - just how does > the SB3 manage to sound so good and how does it grab data from the PC > in a different way to a soundcard? > > Plus - is there a way of connecting your PC straight to your hi-fi (as > in a Media PC for example or just playing from say iTunes) but still > get that audiophile sound quality the SB3 manages - would be fascinated > to gain any insight and knowledge into this as it seems an obvious step > for someone who want to integrate their love of music with the > wonderful things technology and the internet can offer now :-) > > ..
The SB is a small computer with an ethernet card inside. It grabs data from your server just like any other computer gets data off a TCP/IP network - as data packets, with error checking etc. That means errors essentially never occur. Once the data has arrived it plays out in a normal fashion (essentially in the same way a CD player works after it's read some data from the CD and filled its buffer). PC soundcards are not designed with sound quality in mind, and often resample, among other sins (and can really sound awful sometimes). What you'll be able to do here depends on your card - does it have a digital out? If so, hook it up to an external DAC, and you should have pretty decent sound. If not you're stuck with the analogue outs: all you can do is connect that to an amp (probably with a Y RCA cable), and it will either sound acceptible to you or not. -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28409 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
