Hello guys, my stereo broke down. Now i am thinking to replace the stuff with a neat multimedia pc. Are there any experiences about the audio quality of those systems? My current system is almost 4 years old so i am not sure if things have changed?
Umm, whats a DAC? I saw a small pc box at my friends house and he told me its a full PC thats even fast enough for games. And he replaces his complete sound and video stuff with that system. Thats why i am asking. Up to now i was using classic Hi-fi equipement in the living room and my good old PC from stone age Many motherboards have sound onboard but honestly my current PC is not that great having only 2 analog out ports. Browsing for motherboards with good audio i was not that successful yet. Only biostar hifi always pops up as the name is already a perfect match But i am not a specialist to know if its a good choice or not
I don't think there's many motherboard with good built in sound, they may exist, but nothing beats an external unit like this. Xonar Essence One - Sound Cards and Digital-to-Analog Converters - ASUS For me, the biggest enemy is the electrical noise from the PC, so having an external DAC should get rid of them.
Hi chai, thats a good point. Honestly i would prefer a system with less discrete extras at first. From browsing around i found a nice review about the Hifi A85W from biostar that also stated good audio quality. The website clearly focuses on the electric noise that you are mentioned. I understand that they are avoiding that by special components. That sounds quite interesting to me though. does anyone have experience with that?
I do not have good experience with onboard audio, so I've been using discreet sound card since the Sound Blaster Pro days. Currently, I'm using Asus Essense STX, while it has great audio quality and even have replacable op amps, and despite all the claims about noise filtering, I can still hear tons of noise when I increase the volume. If the noise is coming from the motherboard, and even a discrete card can't filter the noise, I have much reservation about the noise filter from an onboard sound.
Thanks for your thoughts. Honestly, the Xonar is quite too expensive for me, for just having a sound card. So i just get the board based on that test (techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/Hi-Fi_A85W/) and see how it goes. In worst case i will have to add an extra sound card later. But if the review is right the sound should be good and fine for my needs. At least, what i learned is, that a more expensive board will not automatic add up more audio quality at all...
