 Vandaag is muziek speelde van een smartphone of computer met rippende cd's, streamende services en internetradio. In deze video gaan we kijken hoe te maximale voedselkwaliteit gebruiken van de computer als een speler, zorg of gebruiken van een computer in de schijf. Laten we beginnen met het maken dat deze video niet over gebouwen of opgewerken audio file computers is. Als dat jouw ding is, congratulations on a nice hobby, for that's what it is. But this video is aimed at people that have listening to music as a hobby and want to buy ready to use equipment aimed at that. Or equipment that is easily adapted for this purpose, like an off the shelf computer. Furthermore I won't cover all possibilities. It's all based on my own hands-on experience and thus limited by nature. Regardless whether you play music files you ripped yourself or bought online, play music from streaming services like Spotify, Google Music, Tidal, Kubus and the like, or listen to internet radio stations, you do need some kind of computer for playback. That can be a Windows or Apple computer, tablet or smartphone, but also a dedicated network music player in any form or shape for that in fact is a computer too. Just as cars have four wheels, an engine, gearbox and steering wheel. But some cars are clearly purpose built, like a Formula One car, bendy buses and those funny pickup trucks that ride on rail tracks. A general desktop computer can of course playback music easily. Depending on the way you connect it to your stereo, the sound quality will vary. If you take the analog stereo output on the computer, the sound quality will be limited. Whether that is a problem for you, I can't say. If you think it's fine, bless your countings, for you need not spend more money on other equipment. If not, count your blessings, for this is the route to audio nirvana. The reason for the limited sound quality of a computer lies in the amount of electronic noise inside the computer housing, caused by crystal clock oscillators that control the processor speeds, the cheap switchmelt power supplies, noise leaking between all kinds of circuits, varying voltages on the power rails and so on. The worst computer is perhaps the laptop since it needs to have powerful driver circuits for the LCD panels that generate a lot of electronic noise. It is a misunderstanding that a powerful computer is better for audio. In fact the best audio computer is one that has no more computational power than needed for the job, which in general is very little. An Intel Core i3 is already overkill. Of course there will be instances where a given Core i5 computer will produce better sound quality but that will usually not be due to the extra computational power. For the more power CPU and GPU have, the noisier they are. Another misunderstanding, coming from the computer aficionados, is that for audio playback SSDs are better than spinning disks. Speed is no issue with audio since the data throughput of a hard disk, even the slowest, is more than sufficient. Only if you have a large collection of music, the database indexing the music collection might speed up if you place it on an SSD, like what Rune advises you. SSDs are not only noisy around reading, they frequently do internal housekeeping by moving data around, the so called load balancing that also causes noise. A relatively simple solution to the internal electronic noise is to place a circuit that does the digital to analog conversion outside the computer. The digital to analog converter is also called a sound card or is abbreviated to DAC. Depending on the computer and the DAC used, there are several ways to connect a DAC. You can use a USB cable, a SPDIF RCA cable or an optical tostling cable. Of course only the connection type that is supported on both the computer en the DAC can be used. This setup does bring you to a higher level of sound quality. The maximum obtainable sound quality is limited by the amount of noise that leaks from the computer to the DAC over the cable. Since an optical cable can't transport electrical noise, this might seem the best option. Here the quality of the clock signal of the computer and the conversion from electrical signal to optical signal and back are the limiting factors. SPDIF is the electrical version of this signal and thus needs no conversion to optical. The influence of the clock signal is equal and now there is a chance that the electronic noise from the computer leaks into the DAC over the cable. The third option is USB. Here 5 volts is sent along with the audio data. This 5 volts is to power the input circuit on the receiving device, in this case the DAC. So the computer can find out what device is connected even when that device is switched off. This is part of the universal plug and play standard. And although it's very handy, it also introduces yet another part for the electronic noise to travel to the sensitive DAC. The real advantage of the current standard for sending audio over USB, USB audio class 2, is that it sends data to the receiving DAC on request by the DAC. USB audio class 2 usually uses USB 2 connection and supports sampling rates higher than 96 kHz. Today all operating systems support USB audio class 2. All the versions of Windows need a special driver. The clocking of the signal is done inside the DAC, which normally is more precise, which leads to a better sound quality. Still, it pays to compare the three possibilities for the sound quality depends also on how well the interfacing is designed. The problem with advising computers is that manufacturers bring out new models almost every few months. And even within a given model, there might be changes internally due to availability of components. If you want to know a bit more about this all, watch my video connecting your DAC number one, the interfaces. There are ways to improve the signal coming from the computer. For instance if your computer accepts PCI express cards, you can add a special USB card like the one from SOtM. It can be externally powered from the audiophile quality power supply. The card only takes the audio data from the computer and cleans it up. Since it is powered separately, you can decide what quality of power supply you use. The card will set you back 350 euros excluding the power supply. Another option is to use a small device that cleans up the USB signal to a certain degree, depending on the intentions and quality of the device. I have reviewed a number of these, see my playlist USB conditioners. There also are devices that clean up speed of signals, but I have no hands on experience with them. A few years ago, Network Bridges came to market. Also called Network Audio Adapters. Functually, it is a USB Audio Class 2 port connected over the network to the computer playing the music. Hardware-wise is it a small lightweight computer that is optimized for reproducing music over USB Audio Class 2 to a DAC. In its simplest format can be a Raspberry Pi small computer with a small sound card added and running software to make it a DLLA renderer, a Rune Endpoint or emulate a squeezebox. The sound card might output USB Audio Class 2, SPIDF and Optical or even Analog Audio. The quality varies from just sufficient to rather good. But then the price comes nearer to ready to use products. See my playlist on Network Bridges. The quality difference on a properly set-up stereo is rather big and keeps improving when spending more money. To what degree you will notice this depends of course on the quality of your stereo and your auditory demands. Since the processing is far less intensive and the devices are optimized for audio, it's just a cleaner signal that is sent to the DAC and that matters. Network Bridges need to be sent music data by a player program on the computer. That can be Logitech Media Server, a DLLA server like Minin Server, Rune or Apple's Airplay. Programs that can also use DLLA renders like Audivana, J River and others, can be used too. A simple but very efficient way to overcome the noisy computer is to use a network player. This looks like an audio device has no fan and thus can be placed near your stereo en is in essence a computer that is designed to keep the digital audio signal as clean as possible. To what degree it manages to do that depends on, as with Network Bridges, on the budget available. There are roughly two ways of working with network players. Those that depend on a server program on a computer, as with Network Bridges and those that just need access to a hard disk containing music. That can be a USB drive connected to the player or a shared volume on a computer or NAS. The players that depend on a server program running on a computer differ from Network Bridges that they normally offer a display and can communicate with a server program. So you can for instance select music on the player itself. Often the DLLA standard is used, like with products by Cambridge Audio, Denon, Lin, Moran's, Name, Yamaha en others. The second type of player has the server function built in so it accesses the hard disk or share and starts indexing all music files. When the index is finished you can access the music usually somewhat faster than with DLLA based systems. There's a limitation too. The number of tracks that can be indexed is limited by the amount of memory in the player. Today this kind of players can index 40.000 to 80.000 tracks, about 2.700 to 5.400 albums, which is more than most of us will ever need. Players I know that work like this are Auralic, Blue Sound and Sonos. Network players usually have the DAC built in en often also have digital outputs for those that want to upgrade to using an external DAC. There are also players, usually called digital transport, that do not have the DAC integrated and thus have no analog outputs. Like the Auralic Aries digital transports I recently reviewed. All examples up to now use the computer in some way, either as a server or share, unless you use a dash direct attached storage like a USB drive or a network attached storage, the NAS. These need to be switched on when you play music. There are also one box solutions for those that won't be bothered with the tech stuff. These devices can contain a CD drive for ripping, have internal storage for music, can often be controlled from the front using a remote control or using a tablet or smartphone. You can see it as a CD player with internal storage. You insert a CD into the drive and have the content copied to the internal hard disk. The metadata, what all album it is, what artist, what track names and so on, is added and this info is stored in an internal database. When it is ready, the CD is ejected and the next time you want to play that album you simply play it from the internal hard disk. Again, here there are versions with the DAC built-in but also digital out only versions exist. Some brands that offer these products are Aurender, Cocktail Audio and Melco. There are also versions that have no display and depend on a tablet or smartphone as user interface, like the Blue Sound Fold 2 and the Inuous Server players are reviewed. Although I described several types of players, there are always manufacturers that find new variants. This is great for shows that innovation is still driving this market. It also means that for you things are not always transparent. Therefore always ask the following questions. Where is the music stored? How is the music ripped from CD? Where is the music indexed? What is the maximum number of tracks that can be indexed? Do I need a computer or NAS or does it play standalone? Is the DAC built-in or do I need a separate DAC? Although it would be easier if the capacity of the self-indexing players was given in albums, the number of tracks on an album varies greatly. Many jazz albums have limited tracks as where some classical albums have large numbers of tracks. I have an album Canto Ostonato by Kees Wieringer and Polo de Haas that has 92 tracks on a single CD. The average number of tracks on an album in my almost 12.000 albums counting collection is 14.8. Since my collection contains any music style, 15 tracks per album is a safe number to calculate the index capacity of self-indexing players. This video is intended to help the average music lover make choices. I know there are all kinds of clever mods and tweaks on computers and other clever stuff. But I've seen many project code tits up since it needed more knowledge and skill than was present. In that case the rule is it's not what you know, but who you know. And I don't want to be known then since I simply lacked the time to do DIY support. If you are just a music lover with a busy job, go for the paved road and not a dirt track. I've been there, done it and it almost always ended in spending extra money on tweaks and mods so the total money spent came close or even exceeded a ready to use solution. But it did give me the pleasure and frustration of finding things out myself. If you are in the market for a computer audio, ask yourself the following questions prior to selecting a solution. Do I already have ripped my CDs to a computer? If not, do I like the convenience of automatic ripping? Would I prefer using streaming services like Spotify, Cobus or Tidal? Do I go for CD quality or better or do I accept mp3 quality? Do I mind placing my computer near my stereo? Am I handy with computers? What is my budget? Do I need a family friendly solution? Then watch my reviews. See the links in the comments below this video on YouTube. That should put you on the right track. Do not spend less money on a DAC or network player than the CD player had cost to you. Do not try computer audio starting with a cheap toy for that will never convince you. You might find a dealer that lets you try gear before you buy or is willing to take it back if the product doesn't please you. Many online shops nowadays offer this too. Give it some time and trust your ears. Or watch my videos how to listen part 1 and 2 first. This had been a very long video. Thank you for watching it till the end. I hope it gave you some more insight in the young and fast developing techniques of music reproduction using computer audio files. I've been using file-based audio as I call it over 15 years. Daardoor weet ik dat het in het begining niet goed was. Maar dat heeft gegeven. De file-based audio kan vandaag zo goed zijn als de beste cd-player en beyond. Ofte voor slechts minder geld ook, want optische drijven zijn extreem kostig als high-end audio de goal. Dat brengt ons naar het einde van deze video. Er zal nog een video niksvrijdag, zoals altijd, op 5 uur Centrale Europie en Tijm. Als je dat niet wilt missen, abonneer je op dit kanaal of volg mij op de social media, zodat je opnieuw informeert of nieuwe video's eruit. Als je deze video leuk vindt, geef het een thumbs-up. Veel bedankt voor alle dingen die deze kanaal financieel ondersteunen. Het blijft me indipendent en troostwerkelijk. Als je ook voelt, als je mijn werk ondersteunt, de linken zijn in de commentaren onder deze video op YouTube. Ik ben Hans Beekhuyzen. Bedankt voor het kijken en zie je in de volgende show of op theHBproject.com. En wat je doet, geniet van de muziek.