PC Jukebox with High End Quality?

[Bob Roberts]

I am attempting to get the best possible sound quality using a PC as a
CD jukebox. I wonder if I am on the right track, or if I am missing
an alternate route that would be much better.

I am using MusicMatch jukebox software on an IBM PC laptop. I stick
the CD in the drawer and use MusicMatch to capture the CD using WAV
files (chosen over MP3 due to their non-compressed format). Question
#1: is this going through an a/d d/a conversion, or is it pretty much
a copy of the actual CD data on my hard drive?

Ok, once the music is loaded, I play it back using MusicMatch. I use
an M-Audio Audiophile USB device. This device has a USB connection
to the laptop. It has audio out RCA jacks, which I have plugged into
my preamp. Second question: is digital data being sent to the M-Audio
Audiophile over the USB connection, or is it analog?

Finally, the m-audio audiophile has an SPDIF output. Question 3:
would it make sense for me to connect this to a nice quality DAC? I
assume this would be smart depending on the answers to my previous
questions. In other words, if I am getting the exact digital data
from the CD, to my hard drive, and then out via USB to the Audiophile,
then it would seem as though I would have nice quality data to send to
the DAC, and it would be similar (as similar as I can hope for) to
running a CD player as a transport into the DAC.

Am I all wet or am I on the right track!? I am very open to
alternatives, even to include replacing the software, the laptop or
the M-Audio Audiophile with something else.

Thanks in advance!

[Gav]

(Bob Roberts) wrote in message >...
> I am attempting to get the best possible sound quality using a PC as a
> CD jukebox. I wonder if I am on the right track, or if I am missing
> an alternate route that would be much better.
>
> I am using MusicMatch jukebox software on an IBM PC laptop. I stick
> the CD in the drawer and use MusicMatch to capture the CD using WAV
> files (chosen over MP3 due to their non-compressed format). Question
> #1: is this going through an a/d d/a conversion, or is it pretty much
> a copy of the actual CD data on my hard drive?

Ripping to a standard .wav file entails making a direct,
uncompressed copy of the digital audio data on the CD.

Note that not all drives are good at doing rips (the process is
called Digital Audio Extraction and is a bit more complex than just
reading computer data off of a regular CDROM disc) so it is possible
that some data could be corrupted if your drive isn't up to it. If
you aren't sure about the integrity of rips from your particular
drive, get something like Exact Audio Copy which is a freeware program
which does very accurate rips even on drives that have problems with
DAE. Also of course the copy protection schemes on many new CDs will
prevent you from ripping or even playing the CD on a computer drive.

> Ok, once the music is loaded, I play it back using MusicMatch. I use
> an M-Audio Audiophile USB device. This device has a USB connection
> to the laptop. It has audio out RCA jacks, which I have plugged into
> my preamp. Second question: is digital data being sent to the M-Audio
> Audiophile over the USB connection, or is it analog?

All data sent over USB is digital.

> Finally, the m-audio audiophile has an SPDIF output. Question 3:
> would it make sense for me to connect this to a nice quality DAC? I
> assume this would be smart depending on the answers to my previous
> questions. In other words, if I am getting the exact digital data
> from the CD, to my hard drive, and then out via USB to the Audiophile,
> then it would seem as though I would have nice quality data to send to
> the DAC, and it would be similar (as similar as I can hope for) to
> running a CD player as a transport into the DAC.

If you have an high quality DAC it would make sense to use that.
The data coming from the PC is a digital copy of the original CD so it
should sound just as good as if you had a CD reader plugged into the
DAC. Actually, if you are in the camp that says small amounts of
jitter are audible then I'd imagine that the computer/m-audio would
produce a signal with lower levels of jitter than a typical CD player.

> Am I all wet or am I on the right track!? I am very open to
> alternatives, even to include replacing the software, the laptop or
> the M-Audio Audiophile with something else.

Sounds like you have a nice setup. There's no need to buy anything
extra.

Gav