Recommendation For A Decent Sound System.

[RimBlock 0]

Because I told them its for the bedroom, so they intro maller speakers as its not as spacious after putting floor stand type...

Ok, looking at the packages you mentioned I suspected something like that.

So 3K for bedroom 80% movies.

Tannoy HTS101, Boston Acoustics Soundware XS 5.1, B&W m1s might all be worth a look.

Thread here from AVForums asking more or less the same thing as you want.

Look at the Yamaha 667 or Onkyo 608 but try the Denon as well for the amp side of things.

Try to make sure you listen in a room roughly the same size as your bedroom else the sounds will change quite a bit. You are likely to get more bass and reflections the smaller you go so if something in the listening room seems a bit bass heavy, just be aware it may get worse when you take it home.

RB

[farkingnuts 0]

Ely found three systems for around 2k with all the speakers.

It may be possible to work out a deal to exclude the rears and centre and try to get them within your budget. People reported that shops in Adelphi were selling the Onkyo 608 for around S$680 IIRC so that would leave around S$820 for speakers. Check with some of the shops in Adelphi to find out what they also recommend. Another option is to ditch the sub and get a stereo amp and some very nice speakers. For your room size and considering you are streaming from the internet it may be a bit of overkill to go for a home cinema amp especially when you only want 2.1 speakers.

There is a Primare A20 MkII Integrated Amplifier on sale in xtremeplace for around S$800 here.

An Arcam Alpha5plus here for S$350. Review of the Alpha 5 can be found here. Spend the rest on some nice speakers and you should have a great sounding starter system.

Even got some B&W 685s going for S$550 here.

Call the shops and see what they suggest as they have access to many different systems and let us know.

RB

Arcam alpha 5 ???....................that's a mid 1990's model.................

can use for how long more ???

the Primare is much newer and far superior...................can last longer lah.

[Drexter 0]

Sorry, I mean the common combinations are regarded as being a good solid choice but you have looked outside of those choices and as are thinking 'outside of the box', i.e. you are having different thoughts about how you can reach your goals rather than following the common path. This is by no means a bad thing and can produce great rewards as long as you are careful.

Just wondering what made you choose those setups. Smaller speakers ?.

RB

What are the good solid choice?

[RimBlock 0]

What are the good solid choice?

All are pretty well liked. Choose any of them and you wont go far wrong. If you want to find the one best for what you like then you really need to go listen and decide for yourself.

RB

[RimBlock 0]

Arcam alpha 5 ???....................that's a mid 1990's model.................

can use for how long more ???

the Primare is much newer and far superior...................can last longer lah.

You might wish to invest in a new keyboard. Your '.' key seems to be sticking although is it good to see you managed to sort out your stuck [caps lock].

The Arcam Alpha 5+ is a great little entry level amp from the 90s and British designed and built. Like many great bits of older HiFi it was built to last and as anyone with any idea about the history of home HiFi will know, this equipment can go on for years and years if not abused. There is stacks of equipment from the 70s still happily supplying their owners with great sound. Only someone trapped in the "newer must = better" consumer trap would discount older HiFi.

The Primare is a better amp but can be a bit picky about pairing and costs over twice as much.

Better amp and ok speakers or ok amp and better speakers ?.

The smart money goes for better speakers, cheaper amp which can be upgraded later. Unfortunately we can see where your money would be spent FKN.

RB

[neubie 2]

You might wish to invest in a new keyboard. Your '.' key seems to be sticking although is it good to see you managed to sort out your stuck [caps lock].

The Arcam Alpha 5+ is a great little entry level amp from the 90s and British designed and built. Like many great bits of older HiFi it was built to last and as anyone with any idea about the history of home HiFi will know, this equipment can go on for years and years if not abused. There is stacks of equipment from the 70s still happily supplying their owners with great sound. Only someone trapped in the "newer must = better" consumer trap would discount older HiFi.

The Primare is a better amp but can be a bit picky about pairing and costs over twice as much.

Better amp and ok speakers or ok amp and better speakers ?.

The smart money goes for better speakers, cheaper amp which can be upgraded later. Unfortunately we can see where your money would be spent FKN.

RB

second that. the audiolab 8000a is still very good.

[RimBlock 0]

second that. the audiolab 8000a is still very good.

When looking for power amp options for the Yamaha 667 the Audiolab 8000p keeps popping up. Wouldn't mind the Audiolab 8000X7 but that is going for 1.2k second hand .

Still with (second hand);

Yamaha A1 (multi channel) - around S$700 (seen for S$550 locally a while ago)

Quad 405 (stereo) - around S$700 inc import. Not sure of local 2nd hand price.

Audiolab 8000p (stereo) - around S$600 locally.

Of course if I bought the Quad or Audiolab then I would need 2 to bi-amp. That is without the centre channel upgrade and the sub I need to buy.

RB

[RimBlock 0]

Some suggestions from AVForums on S$3k setups here.

RB

[mars73 0]

When looking for power amp options for the Yamaha 667 the Audiolab 8000p keeps popping up. Wouldn't mind the Audiolab 8000X7 but that is going for 1.2k second hand .

Still with (second hand);

Yamaha A1 (multi channel) - around S$700 (seen for S$550 locally a while ago)

Quad 405 (stereo) - around S$700 inc import. Not sure of local 2nd hand price.

Audiolab 8000p (stereo) - around S$600 locally.

Of course if I bought the Quad or Audiolab then I would need 2 to bi-amp. That is without the centre channel upgrade and the sub I need to buy.

RB

Did you consider emotiva power amps? Online reviews seems very positive generally.

I'm thinking of picking up a 2nd hand power amp if I get the 667 as well.

[RimBlock 0]

Did you consider emotiva power amps? Online reviews seems very positive generally.

I'm thinking of picking up a 2nd hand power amp if I get the 667 as well.

Not so much but never hurts to look.

The other one I missed from the list is the Behringer A500 which also comes highly recommended.

Update: Local supplier has no stock and lead time is around 2-3 months.

RB

Edited April 5, 2011 by RimBlock

[BlueFly 0]

Hi All!

Let me chime in pl.

I've been following this thread on-and-off, with some amusement. Amusement bcoz it reminded me of my own hi-fi journey some 20+ yrs ago. I first took hi-fi seriously when I ploughed my savings from NS to buy my first "high-end" set from Atlas Sound at Shenton Way - B&W speakers, Thoren t/t, Luxman amp, Teac CD player, all high-end brands in those days. Each evening, after home from camp, I really enjoyed the rich clear transcendent sound coming from the speakers!

Then digital music came into vogue in the eighties (at least for me). By then I was into "The Absolute Sound" - a monthly high-end magazine noted for excellent reviews of state-of-the-art hi-fi eqt and equally unbiased, un-influenced excellent commentaries. TAS was critical of so-called high-end eqt of-the-day and rarely endorsed any one brand or product. TAS thus became a hit with serious audiophiles. When TAS opined that finally - in the late 90s - digital music had come of age and rivaled analogue music (read: LP vinyl record) in musical fidelity and quality, I bit the bullet and splurged on what I thought was high-end eqt capable of reproducing music at its recorded best: Krell amp, Krell pre-amp, Thiel CS3.6 speakers, Theta DAC, etc. By then Sony had popularised portable music with its Walkman. Then the Internet was birthed here in the mid-90s. By the late 90s mp3's had become popular and widely available (read: downloads!) on the Net - sparked by Apple's ipods - and I began to listen to mp3's and ripped CDs more frequently.

About 10 years ago it suddenly dawned upon me how really good music sounded on my "low" end computer speakers!!! Especially digital music ripped using the uncompressed .flac format. I was startled! Maybe something was bad with my ears or brain? Or maybe I've aged? I mean, how could a lowly set of computer eqt rival my high-end that had cost 45k+? I was piqued, and decided to dig for more info about music reproduction. The Net made that easy, unlike the 80s and early 90s, when it was difficult (read: expensive and time-consuming) to research up-to-date info. Well, after all those reading, and analyzing my high-end eqt vs my low-end PC setup, I've my own theory (so pl read with a big pinch of salt, I don't know if I'm right). Now, my high-end is still covered in plastic wrap after I moved housed 3+ yrs ago. Maybe I 'm wrong, but I'm convinced my PC music set rivals my high-end eqt in musical reproduction within the parameters of a desktop environment. That qualification is important as I am at my desktop most of the time, and I listen to music while working.

Well, I think the most important variable in high end music-reproduction is the DAC, not the pre-amp, amplifier, speakers, cables, etc. The DAC converts data i.e. digital signal to analogue for reproduction via the chain (the pre-amp and amp to the speakers) and the fidelity (or faithfulness) of reproduction of the original analogue recording or digital data depends on the CPU processor frequency. I would attribute the DAC - in my opinion - to contribute a high 85-90% to musical fidelity with the rest of the chain 10-15%. I reached that conclusion after comparing my high-end eqt (Theta and Goldman DAC) to my low-end PC. I think the only "variable" that changed b/w the two was the CPU. I noticed some terrible-sounding CDs on my high-end set became actually "listenable" on my PC after Intel introduced the Pentium 4. On a hunch, I checked the specs of the Theta DAC, and sure enough, its embedded CPU was a Pentium 2 or 3 (can't recall now - have to recheck). I would not go into the rest of my "discovery" - that would be on my blog in future. But for now, if you accept that the higher the processor speed the better the quality and faithfulness of music reproduction, then you'll agree that your lowly desktop speakers (with the PC's Realtek, Creative DAC audio chip, etc) can match if not surpass your more costly external hi-fi eqt in musical reproduction and quality. I'm assuming of course your PCs are using the newer multi-core CPUs while your external hi-fi set probably are still using CPUs that are 1 or 2 generation behind.

Well, hard to believe me? I don't blame you, maybe something seriously is wrong with my hearing after all! Let's do an experiment. Why not try a "blind" listening test yourself? Better still, get your friend or sibling to do the A-B test, but don't tell them in advance what you want to do. Simply set both your PC set and the hi-fi set to the same config more-or-less (i.e. set the bass on the external hi-fi set to be about the same loudness level as your PC set), play the same CD on both (place CDs on your CD/DVD drive for the test, not mp3s), and ask them blind-folded which sounds better? Once you determine your PC set can match your external set, then the other variables come into play. That is, choose PC speakers for their musical quality as not all PC speakers are the same; same with the main board or sound card that is installed. I think Realtek audio chips are good enough, especially the recent ones, and I go for Logitech speakers. Which I find very good - I was floored when I listened to the 2.1 set! Cost me only $60-70!

Do the blind-fold test please, and tell me I am wrong, ok?

Then I'll know something is indeed seriously seriously wrong with my ears or brain!!

Edited April 5, 2011 by BlueFly

[RimBlock 0]

Then I'll know something is indeed seriously seriously wrong with my ears or brain!!

Your wrong, or old or both . You are also around my age .

But that is ok as I am confused as to how you define 'parameters of your desktop environment'.

I agree to an extent what you are saying about a DAC and its ability to transfer the digital representation of the music back to an analogue form used to modulate the speaker cones but I think, for me at least, one of the biggest impacts is the speakers ability to turn those analogue wave forms in to sound waves. Desktop speakers have limited frequency response compared to full on HiFi speakers.

The DAC will need to translate the 44.1kHz digital music signal back in to the audio waveform.

The processor in the DAC therefore needs to be able to handle a 1,411.2kb/s (176KB/s) stream and process it if running as a real-time converter.

Redbook CD Audio standard.

2 channels x 44,100 samples per second per channel × 16 bits per sample = 1,411,200 bit/s = 1,411.2 kbit/s.

This is why most computers can 'rip' and convert cds in a few seconds if their cd drives spin fast enough. 176KB/s is very slow by todays standards of computing.

I have some Creative speakers on my computer going through my Realtek onboard sound card. They are good... much better than standard cheap speakers you generally get with computers but I could not begin to compare them to my main HiFi speakers. The dynamic rage of the speakers on the computer are very small compared to the bigger better quality HiFi speakers. I also have a Logitech 5.1 setup and that also sounds very good for computer speakers but again, not a patch on the HiFi speakers I have.

To me the limiting factor here is the speakers and their ability to reproduce the frequency range stored in the data on the CD. Chopping of the top and bottom end will take away a lot of the harshness that may be exposed in a badly mastered CD and make it more listenable again. The curse of good HiFi being its ability to expose faults with the source material easier. The other influence will be the RF noise within the PC affecting the signal. A more expensive card should be better shielded and more accurate in its reproduction. The Asus Xoner range of soundcards are well spoken of.

I think a more accurate test would be to break out the Krell and hook the CD player to one input and the PC to the other. Rip the WAV from the CD and play both together switching between inputs. This should give a better idea if someone wants to know if a PC chipset or an off-board DAC is giving better results. Hey, pass the Krell to me and I will test it ;) .

The bigger point that I think Bluefly has made quite well even if it is a little hidden is that you don't need to spend masses of money on HiFi to get good results. For him, he is happy with some decent speakers on his computer which is where he listens most of the time. This is partly why I suggest setting a budget but also test one level below that budget to see if you need to spend all that money to get the sound you want.

Interesting read Bluefly. Thanks

RB

[BlueFly 0]

Hey, Rimblock, well said and thoughtful.

That said, however, I'm puzzled bcoz if you look at the specs for PC tweeters and so on, they are not far from the specs for high-end speakers. OK, maybe the difference in the highs by a few thousand Mhz and the same for the bass. Those with ability to listen more acutely may detect some difference, but by not much, I'm afraid, to call a discernible difference. Yes, the more you listen the more your ears become 'attuned' to the nuances. After years of listening to my hi-fi set, I thought my ears had become "used" to high end sound quality, and indeed I could hear differences in recording quality e.g. Teresa Teng Live CD, Carol Kidd audiophile recordings showed their paces in A-B tests. But what shocked me later was to hear my low end PC set giving musical quality I had not expected. ( don't let my spouse hear that). So if the specs don't point out much difference b/w components, where did the musicality come from? Was it the amp, pre-amp, or perhaps the carbon-fibre sound cables? I did A-B tests at high-end retail outlets and to be honest, I simply couldn't tell much difference between the various high ends. On some recordings I preferred Magneplanars, on others I preferred Thiels or Genesis (couldn't afford the latter actually!). I think mfr'ers (and advertisers) wld like consumers to think otherwise, likewise audio retailers. Visit any showroom and the staff will put you thro A-B listening tests and try to persuade you to hear the "differences". The only brand I had no hesitation on was Goldmund - their high end blew away the competition. For me at least. And most of my buddies who are into high end also shared my opinion, more or less. They couldn't hear the difference b/w one set vs another set in an apple-to-apple comparison.

That's why I pin-pointed the processing power of the cpu chip - the faster it can process the huge mass of audio data, the less "jitter" is introduced, the more accurate the signal reproduction, and by extension, the musical fidelity of the music wave form reproduced. BTW, have you noticed the higher the freq you use to rip yr music the larger the music file and the better the audio quality? And the larger the audio information the more processing power is required to translate the signal to send to the analog speakers. Many high-end eqt do not process signals (read: convert) at such high freq, maybe a limitation of the embedded cpu and the product life cycle?

It's not that I think my high end gear sounded like my low-end PC set but that my low-end PC sounded as good, enough to match my high end!!! Hahaha, seems I'm playing with words but I am not - it's something to do with perspective, with how the mind thinks and works. And it can be quite deceptive. And oh, allow me to correct you - CD drives are "slow" by comparison - it's the cpu speed and RAM memory buffer available that determine how 'fast' CD rips and conversion take place. Also, my point was that if the analog wave form is "defective" the analog speakers (no matter the pedigree) couldn't reproduce what was in the original wave form. That is, the speakers can only reproduce musical fidelity as good as the data presented in the converted wave form. The higher the processor speed the more "true" will be the converted wave form, hence my view that the DAC contributes a high portion of the original fidelity and hence, listening experience, while the rest of the audio chain merely add another few % to the quality and listening experience. That was why (in my humble opinion) I was surprised I began enjoying PC music after the pentium 4 generation, but not before that. I believe PC music will only get better as mfr'er start to focus on PC speakers. B&W came out with an $800-900+ pair of PC speakers last yr or two that wow'ed many reviewers - playing the usual marketing game - and I think others will follow.

But maybe you're right after all - it must be my ears or age. Thanks, enjoyed your piece really. Will now go clean my ears

Your wrong, or old or both . You are also around my age .

But that is ok as I am confused as to how you define 'parameters of your desktop environment'.

I agree to an extent what you are saying about a DAC and its ability to transfer the digital representation of the music back to an analogue form used to modulate the speaker cones but I think, for me at least, one of the biggest impacts is the speakers ability to turn those analogue wave forms in to sound waves. Desktop speakers have limited frequency response compared to full on HiFi speakers.

The DAC will need to translate the 44.1kHz digital music signal back in to the audio waveform.

The processor in the DAC therefore needs to be able to handle a 1,411.2kb/s (176KB/s) stream and process it if running as a real-time converter.

Redbook CD Audio standard.

This is why most computers can 'rip' and convert cds in a few seconds if their cd drives spin fast enough. 176KB/s is very slow by todays standards of computing.

I have some Creative speakers on my computer going through my Realtek onboard sound card. They are good... much better than standard cheap speakers you generally get with computers but I could not begin to compare them to my main HiFi speakers. The dynamic rage of the speakers on the computer are very small compared to the bigger better quality HiFi speakers. I also have a Logitech 5.1 setup and that also sounds very good for computer speakers but again, not a patch on the HiFi speakers I have.

To me the limiting factor here is the speakers and their ability to reproduce the frequency range stored in the data on the CD. Chopping of the top and bottom end will take away a lot of the harshness that may be exposed in a badly mastered CD and make it more listenable again. The curse of good HiFi being its ability to expose faults with the source material easier. The other influence will be the RF noise within the PC affecting the signal. A more expensive card should be better shielded and more accurate in its reproduction. The Asus Xoner range of soundcards are well spoken of.

I think a more accurate test would be to break out the Krell and hook the CD player to one input and the PC to the other. Rip the WAV from the CD and play both together switching between inputs. This should give a better idea if someone wants to know if a PC chipset or an off-board DAC is giving better results. Hey, pass the Krell to me and I will test it ;) .

The bigger point that I think Bluefly has made quite well even if it is a little hidden is that you don't need to spend masses of money on HiFi to get good results. For him, he is happy with some decent speakers on his computer which is where he listens most of the time. This is partly why I suggest setting a budget but also test one level below that budget to see if you need to spend all that money to get the sound you want.

Interesting read Bluefly. Thanks

RB

[RimBlock 0]

Ok, seem to be talking about a number of things here so will try to discuss each separately .

That said, however, I'm puzzled bcoz if you look at the specs for PC tweeters and so on, they are not far from the specs for high-end speakers. OK, maybe the difference in the highs by a few thousand Mhz and the same for the bass. Those with ability to listen more acutely may detect some difference, but by not much, I'm afraid, to call a discernible difference.

Sure but that is for the given output obtainable for the use. A PC speaker needs a very low output as you are generally sitting right next to it. My Creative speakers have 14Watts RMS, my Wharfedales have 100Watts RMS. Horses for courses. You would not use PC speakers to fill a normal living room with distortion free sound. Hooking up a reasonable HiFi to a PC and only sitting a foot from the speakers would also not be sounding very good as the volume you would drive the HiFi speakers at considering the distance from them will be very low.

Yes, the more you listen the more your ears become 'attuned' to the nuances. After years of listening to my hi-fi set, I thought my ears had become "used" to high end sound quality, and indeed I could hear differences in recording quality e.g. Teresa Teng Live CD, Carol Kidd audiophile recordings showed their paces in A-B tests. But what shocked me later was to hear my low end PC set giving musical quality I had not expected. ( don't let my spouse hear that).

But did you listen to the two systems side by side. HiFi and PC. PC sound has come on leaps and bounds and if you only listen to music a few feet from the speakers whilst sitting in front of the PC it would seem a little silly to spend masses of money on a big HiFi setup, just as if you watch TV shows via a TV tuner on a PC then why buy a 55" LED TV.

So if the specs don't point out much difference b/w components, where did the musicality come from?

This is probably more of an improvement in speaker and sound card design from how terrible it used to be before now catching up with HiFi.

Take some generic cheap PC speakers

Output: 0.8W/channel

Frequency Response: 60Hz to 20kHz

I used to have some of these Yamaha speakers which were very good at the time

Output: 5W/channel

Frequency Response: 90 Hz - 20 kHz

I now have the Creative T20 IIs

Output: 14w/channel

Frequency Response: 50Hz ~ 20kHz

Now, we can see the frequency response of recent speakers is better than that of older speakers (the cheap and Creative speakers are better) but does anyone really believe the US$9 cheap speakers would sound better than the Yamahas which sold for around US$100 at the time ?. The cheap speakers could only put out 0.8w and so to get the volume to a decent level you had to overdrive them resulting in distortion. THis would be especially true during peaks in music or movie soundtracks.

Was it the amp, pre-amp, or perhaps the carbon-fibre sound cables? I did A-B tests at high-end retail outlets and to be honest, I simply couldn't tell much difference between the various high ends. On some recordings I preferred Magneplanars, on others I preferred Thiels or Genesis (couldn't afford the latter actually!). I think mfr'ers (and advertisers) wld like consumers to think otherwise, likewise audio retailers. Visit any showroom and the staff will put you thro A-B listening tests and try to persuade you to hear the "differences". The only brand I had no hesitation on was Goldmund - their high end blew away the competition. For me at least. And most of my buddies who are into high end also shared my opinion, more or less. They couldn't hear the difference b/w one set vs another set in an apple-to-apple comparison.

Of course, HiFi is a great example of diminishing returns. The more money you pump in to it the less difference you will get from the previous level. $100 -> $1000 big improvement. S5,000 -> 10,000 not so big taking the speakers to be reasonably priced.

That's why I pin-pointed the processing power of the cpu chip - the faster it can process the huge mass of audio data, the less "jitter" is introduced, the more accurate the signal reproduction, and by extension, the musical fidelity of the music wave form reproduced.

Only up to a point. The error correction and conversion of the bitstream from the laser only needs to be able to correct and convert the signal at a rate needed for accurate playback. Now with jitter we are talking about the mistiming due to power fluctuations on the drives motor, fluctuations on the laser tracking motor and other small changes which knock out the timing of the digital signal. With most standard CD players, the clock used for the error correction and control of the drive is used for the master clock and is susceptible to these fluctuations. The CD players DAC usually does not realign these signals. More expensive players have the DAC as the master clock and so the player reduces / eliminates jitter by re-clocking the signal. Using an external DAC with a cheap player can do the same if the DAC is set as the master. From that we then move on to the DAC chipset and the firmware it runs. On external HiFi DACs you are usually constrained by the set firmware within the unit and the hardware. As time goes on you cannot easily change these (some may allow firmware updates but they will still be hardware limited). With a PC you can upgrade the software / firmware usually pretty easily to take in to account recent changes in technology. If needed you can easily change the sound card. The software ability via drivers do give the PC a big advantage but this could be added to a DAC which could be just a mini pc on a chip. Info on jitter here for those of a tech mind.

BTW, have you noticed the higher the freq you use to rip yr music the larger the music file and the better the audio quality? And the larger the audio information the more processing power is required to translate the signal to send to the analog speakers. Many high-end eqt do not process signals (read: convert) at such high freq, maybe a limitation of the embedded cpu and the product life cycle?

Again to a point. Up/Oversampling information here.

It's not that I think my high end gear sounded like my low-end PC set but that my low-end PC sounded as good, enough to match my high end!!! Hahaha, seems I'm playing with words but I am not - it's something to do with perspective, with how the mind thinks and works. And it can be quite deceptive.

Guess that depends on the environment. Now you suggested in the context of your PC desktop. I would be interested of how you setup your Krell equipment and listen to it at your PC desktop. If you are not then you are comparing apples to oranges.

[RimBlock 0]

And oh, allow me to correct you - CD drives are "slow" by comparison - it's the cpu speed and RAM memory buffer available that determine how 'fast' CD rips and conversion take place.

Not sure what you mean here. The speed at which the laser can read the data from the disc is the slowest part of the ripping process. The converting to another format process will be determined by the processor / memory etc of the machine doing the conversion. Only ripping a disk 'should' be slower than converting the files unless you have a slow machine and a complex encoding scheme. THis is assuming a clean defect free CD as the ripping will take much longer if the disc produces errors when using software like EAC which will prompt multiple re-reads to get enough data to correct the error.

Also, my point was that if the analog wave form is "defective" the analog speakers (no matter the pedigree) couldn't reproduce what was in the original wave form. That is, the speakers can only reproduce musical fidelity as good as the data presented in the converted wave form.

And a perfect waveform can only be produced accurately by a speaker that can attain those frequencies without distortion at the desired volume. Feed PC speakers a perfect signal and sit 4 meters away then try to listen to it at a level with a high enough SPL that you can feel the music. Now try the same with HiFi speakers. It is chicken and egg. You need good source and good speakers. The question now is which has the most impact. The answer is that both do depending on the situation. The DAC is no use without a reasonable transport to read the disc and this is no good without a prefect (within tolerances) disc.

The higher the processor speed the more "true" will be the converted wave form, hence my view that the DAC contributes a high portion of the original fidelity and hence, listening experience, while the rest of the audio chain merely add another few % to the quality and listening experience. That was why (in my humble opinion) I was surprised I began enjoying PC music after the pentium 4 generation, but not before that. I believe PC music will only get better as mfr'er start to focus on PC speakers.

But the processor is not the only thing that changed. Intel defined the HD Audio standard which Realtek and the like now use. There have been advances in DAC tecnology both for standalone DACs and for DACs inbuilt in to audio cards for PCs. CD drives have improved. The "true" waveform is only recorded at 44.1kHz (standard CD) and so anything that creates the waveform at that rate is producing the "true" representation of the music captured on the CD. Any other processing done is above and beyond the specification of CD audio and whether it improves the result is subjective.

B&W came out with an $800-900+ pair of PC speakers last yr or two that wow'ed many reviewers - playing the usual marketing game - and I think others will follow.

Yep they are meant to be very good but they are designed for limited range. Would have loved to have got them then saw the price tag . More than a low-mid priced PC. I think PC music will improve greatly but HiFi will still have its place. Just depends if you want to listen in front of a PC or in the living room.

One question.... have you tried your HiFi DAC with the digital out from your PC and connecting it to your PC speakers ? That may be interesting depending on how old the PC sound card is and how old the HiFi DAC is.

RB