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Topic: How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo? (Read 4477 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is the proper forum for this question and my apologies if it should have been posted elsewhere.

My equipment is as follows:
Preamp Cambridge Audio 840E
Amp: NAD 218 THX
Speakers: Klipsch Chorus
Tuner: NAD 426
USB sound card: Steinberg UR22
HP laptop with Windows 7

I have my CD collection converted to FLAC and these are stored in my laptop. When I want to hear anything I use VLC Media player software in the laptop and use the USB sound card outputs into the preamp. I use the volume control in the laptop, the output control in the sound card and the volume control on the Preamp to adjust the sound. I'm not sure this is the best way to do this. I'm not sure how to best adjust the different settings but have the computer volume and the USB card volume set at about 50% and adjust the room listening level with the preamp.

There are a couple of things concerning me:

- I want to bypass anything in the laptop as regards its sound card and want the Steinberg USB to do all of the DAC. When I see an adjustable volume level in the computer, I'm concerned it is using some part of the computers audio system which is surely not going to be stellar. Is the computer's hardware part of the output the way I'm using it? If so, what do I need to do to eliminate the computer from coloring the music?

- I don't want my settings to create any avoidable distortion; is my having the computer volume and USB card volume settings set at 50% the right way to go or should I have them set differently?

- Is the VLC Media Player an excellent choice for the player software or is there something more convenient or acoustically better I should look into?

Thanks.

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #1 –
Quote from: KA1J on
- I want to bypass anything in the laptop as regards its sound card and want the Steinberg USB to do all of the DAC. When I see an adjustable volume level in the computer, I'm concerned it is using some part of the computers audio system which is surely not going to be stellar.


If the wire is plugged into your external DAC, then you are using the external DAC and only the external DAC.  You don't have to do anything beyond not pluging into the built in audio to avoid using it.

Quote from: KA1J on
- I don't want my settings to create any avoidable distortion; is my having the computer volume and USB card volume settings set at 50% the right way to go or should I have them set differently?


Most likely it doesn't really matter, but that sounds reasonable.

Quote from: KA1J on
- Is the VLC Media Player an excellent choice for the player software or is there something more convenient or acoustically better I should look into?


I prefer dedicated music software generally.  VLC is pretty barebones. 

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #2 –
I think you might be interested in WASAPI "Exclusive Mode". Pretty much allows you to skip a lot of the software layers and preserve a bit-by-bit of the audio, from the app to the DAC. You'll find a better explanation on the links below.

I know plugins for Winamp, and Foobar that are capable of this, but haven't searched for VLC:
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_wasapi
http://maiko.elementfx.com/

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #3 –
You  might try drivers like WASAPI and as it is Steinberg ASIO.
Both bypass the Win mixer.
You need a media player supporting these protocols.
I do think MusicBee a very elegant piece of free ware.
My personal favorite is JRiver.

Volume control.
This is something you can easily try: set the analog volume control to max and use the digital to control the volume and the reverse.
In practice I have the digital volume to 100% and use the analog of my DAC.


You can find tons of treads on audio forum about optimization of the PC.
Killing all kind of processes is the standard.
This is something you can easily try as well.
Open the task manger and start killing processes.
My experience is that this won’t do anything at all sound quality wise
TheWellTemperedComputer.com

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #4 –
I'd recommend setting all your digital volume controls to maximum and controlling the volume solely with the preamp. The Cambridge has remote volume control, so there's no loss of convenience there.

And while the VLC player is great for video because it'll play just about anything, a music-oriented player would be a better option and would allow you to try the WASAPI or ASIO options.  The library options - organisation, tagging, playlisting etc. - will also be far superior to VLC.

Foobar2000 is popular on here (and with me too), and can be set up to be as simple or as clever as you like.

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #5 –
> setting all your digital volume controls to maximum

Except the one in VLC. Setting that to max (i.e. beyond 100%) will artificially boost the sound and is very likely to cause clipping distortion.

Other than that, I keep the computer controls at max as well.

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #6 –
VLC is not an optimal music player. It's really geared to play video and audio is an afterthought. A perfect example is it still doesn't support gapless playback, and as best I can tell likely never will.This has nothing to do with the audio quality as that is fine.

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #7 –
Don't use VLC for listening to music. On some systems it audibly changes the pitch of the music, dynamically, seemly at random.

There are any number of decent audio players out there. Foobark2k is always suggested here, but there are dozens that will sound equally good, with various useful features or none at all.

Cheers,
David.

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #8 –
1) Are you not supposed to have the digital volume maxed at 100% to optimize the SNR/dynamic range?

2) The last time I tried WASAPI in foobar2000 it caused audible problems instead of preventing them so I would avoid it like a plague.

3) You might want to check the "disable all enhancements" option in windows if that is not the default as well as make sure that the bit depth and sample rate are accurate in windows but that is probably all you need to do.

4) I have had USB ports cause problems e.g. one has audible problems but the other is perfect 100% of the time so be careful with that.

FLAC -> JDS Labs ODAC/O2 -> Sennheiser HD 650 (equalized)

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Satellite_6 on
1) Are you not supposed to have the digital volume maxed at 100% to optimize the SNR/dynamic range?


Pre-Vista (or Win7?), there was some truth to that, but nowadays the volume control is implemented with a 32 bit range, so there's no audible  loss of dynamic range.

How to maximize flac through my laptop as a source for my stereo?

Reply #10 –
I've been disappointed with VLC lately, as far as stability and crashing goes -  I only use it for video,  I'm not even sure that it has playlist or music library support, which would reduce you to browsing folders to find your tunes.
For my video library where I spend anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours on each video, that's acceptable,  but not for my music where I need to sometimes change tracks every couple minutes.