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mp3 player or PC to stereo?

Y

yoryocor

n00b
Joined
Feb 8, 2014
Messages
7
Hi,
I am not terribly savvy with all this, so bear with me.

I am going to buy a pretty nice set of home stereo speakers and a receiver/amplifier, and as I have no cds anymore, will be using mp3s only for music. My mp3 player only has headphone out.

Would I get better sound quality by playing mp3s through a computer vs directly from the mp3 player to the stereo?

I don't have the PC yet, but my aim was for a mini itx rig.
From what I see, the only audio out in mini mobos is just headphone jack.

Is there a board with high quality output, digital or something?

I could also buy a player that can handle flacs, and of course the PC could play them, so if that changes the equation... ;)

Do atx boards have better audio out options?

Thanks for any advice!
 
A good USB DAC or spdif out would be best,followed by an add on sound card. Built in mono sound is usually not as good. DACs in mp3 players are usually poor, but MP3s are usually poor quality as well.
 
What sort of inputs do you have on your receiver?

If it's a newer receiver, you really should try to use a digital connection from your computer. Almost all new receivers do their processing digitally, so even if you input an analog signal, it will get reconverted into digital anyway. Digital into the receiver would mean it will only be converted into analog once, instead of potentially multiple times if you had an analog link from your computer.

But if you really have to use an analog connection from your computer, you really want to use a "Line Out" rather than an amplified output. A "Line Out" isn't meant to drive headphones, etc directly but has it's output at exactly the correct level to be fed into another component. Feeding an amplified output into your stereo will likely sound worse and there is lots of potential for mismatched levels.

If you don't have the ability to add an internal soundcard to your computer that has digital output and/or a high-quality Line-out, there are quite a few external USB Soundcards that might fit your needs. There are certainly motherboards with integrated digital output also but it's unfortunately not as common as it should be.
 
Thanks for the replies.
I haven't chosen a receiver yet, but was just eyeing the yamaha rx v375, which can play mp3 via a built in usb port, even bypassing the digital to analog converter - what you explained just helped me understand what that was about. ;)
It has a slew of inputs, including optical and coaxial digital and hdmi.
I guess even leaving mp3 action to the receiver, I still want the best output possible from PC to stereo. I will look into those options.
Does the external usb card mean digital?
Can audio go out via hdmi??
 
Yes, HDMI supports 8 channels of high res audio and is your best bet.

I would recommend a good piece of software like J river media center for managing your library and doing playback. It has a good 10' interface as well. I also really like XBMC for that purpose as well.
 
Just an ancient creative zen nano. I like it because i can swap the aaa batteries when traveling...no need usb or a plug to recharge.

Just realized all the mini itx mobos have optical digital audio out. Good! Totally missed that.
 
MP3s will waste some of the quality of a good hifi.
Get a good external DAC to get the best quality from whatever you play and start buying CDs or FLAC/uncompressed music.
Feed the DAC from your PC via USB/SPDIF/HDMI (depending on the DAC inputs) or a music player with SPDIF out.
If you use analogue out from a music player you are limited to the quality of the DAC in the player.
 
But doesn't the dac in my stereo receiver (the yamaha i like has one) take care of that?
 
The quality of the DACs in AV amps are not in the same league as those you can buy externally.
It depends how much you care, my advice is because I care a lot about my music sound quality.
If you care that it works and arent much bothered beyond that, then yes, stick with the DAC in the AV amp as there is no point spending money where it isnt needed.

Or if you have a decent soundcard (ie Creative Z, ZXR, Titanium HD) you can get a pretty good result from that by feeding analogue into the AV amp.
 
Nenu said:
The quality of the DACs in AV amps are not in the same league as those you can buy externally.
It depends how much you care, my advice is because I care a lot about my music sound quality.
If you care that it works and arent much bothered beyond that, then yes, stick with the DAC in the AV amp as there is no point spending money where it isnt needed.

Or if you have a decent soundcard (ie Creative Z, ZXR, Titanium HD) you can get a pretty good result from that by feeding analogue into the AV amp.
Click to expand...

I disagree, I think the PCM1792 127db SNR DAC in my receiver is at least as good as most stand-alone PC DACs, and certainly better than the ones listed in those Creative sound cards.
 
SNR does not define sound quality, it defines how quiet the background noise is from the DAC chip only.

We arent considering only stand alone PC DACs, there are a ton of other DACs that have other inputs that can also be used on a PC.
I use 2 that I havent found any AV amp can match.
 
Nenu said:
SNR does not define sound quality, it defines how quiet the background noise is from the DAC chip only.

We arent considering only stand alone PC DACs, there are a ton of other DACs that have other inputs that can also be used on a PC.
I use 2 that I havent found any AV amp can match.
Click to expand...

So you are talking about pre/pros? Because the technical term for a DAC is a digital-to-analog converter, which is just chip manufactured by companies like Ti, ESS, AKM, Wolfson. DIYers built small devices which are essentially pre/pros with off-the-shelf parts that have limited connectivity and no software licensing and chose to call them "DACs" as a form of hipster jargon. Most of these so-called "DACs" are garbage built by DIYers with very little knowledge, or are cheap designs from China. This has only recently changed as some big players from the A/V industry have started financing their own "DAC" designs due to the rise in their popularity.

If you are referring to commercial pre/pros I agree they can be much better than a typical AV receiver's preamp and processor sections.
 
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The op didnt demonstrate an aptitude for DIY, I wasnt going there.

He doesnt necessarily need to use a DAC with processor although that would be nice.
The PC can EQ and control volume without quality loss, even when using WASAPI exclusive mode.
There is an awesome hi-res VST EQ called Electri-Q and Foobar2000s volume control is hi-res also.
A straight forward quality commercial DAC will do him fine
 
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