Finally bought a dedicated PC just for Audio!

Computer Audio Asylum

Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

Hey gang:
I was seriously looking at a HP media center, but then I stumbled on these Ciceron PCs. They have fanless power supplies and an oversized CPU heatsink and variable speed fan. They have really neat cases which are sleek with everything tucked away without the high-teck space-shuttle sort of appearance of the HP's. Thing looks like an audio component! I got a P4 HT 3.0GHz model, with 1G RAM for $800.
The neat part about these machines is that the mobo comes with onboard sound - the latest from Intel: their new high-definition audio spec using the C-Media CMI9880 chipset boasting 8 channels of 24-192 audio.
So I brought this attractive, quiet little box home and hooked it up to my tri-amp system and installed foobar2K, Asio4all, and AEDIO's Asio and FIR crossover plugins.
Using n=999 for taps and crossover points of 375Hz and 2750Hz (and the appropriate delays for the mid and tweet) I fired up Foobar and had a listen.
The first thing I noticed how FINITE everything seemed to be placed throughout the soundstage. Vocals have this amazing presence and are nicely pronounced right in the middle of the soundstage. Everything just 'physically' seemed to be in its place - and you could literally look around the soundstage watching precisely where sounds/vocals were coming from. The soundstage overall has great width and depth as well.
Background is very dark which seemed to give the sounds even more color and detail. Detail is there in leaps and bounds - nuances of guitar strings and cymbal work is VERY impressive. Slide quitar especially has this very silvery slidy-metallic "realness" about it.
All I wanted was a quiet PC and that is what I have. I am going to get into a better soundcard eventually, but for now I intend to listen for a few weeks and then switch back (suddenly) to my Behringer based tri-amp system.
I think the extremely transparent and detailed way this crazy box makes music has a lot to do with FIR based linear phase crossovers in the digital domain - and only one D/A conversion. One day I hope to use a soundcard with multiple spdif (or I2S) outs and run digital amps for an all digital system with NO D/A conversion at all!
I would 'like' to say right now that the Behringer has been beat (and I suspect this is the case) but I want to do some more listening first - and try and thwart the 'powers of suggestion' that I am always rambling about. As I said, in a week or two, I will revert back to other methods and see if anything is missed.
Back to the listening room.... :o)
Cheers,
Presto

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Topic - Finally bought a dedicated PC just for Audio! - Presto 01:09:41 04/02/06 (11)

Questions about this setup - andy_c 18:14:25 04/03/06 (5)

Re: Questions about this setup - Presto 21:05:48 04/03/06 (4)

Re: Questions about this setup - Dawnrazor 00:41:44 04/04/06 (3)

Re: Questions about this setup - Presto 11:23:48 04/05/06 (2)

Re: Questions about this setup - Dawnrazor 15:23:27 04/06/06 (1)

Problem is... - Presto 15:35:16 04/08/06 (0)

Re: Finally bought a dedicated PC just for Audio! - Frank25 08:42:04 04/03/06 (1)

New digital amps - Presto 11:08:23 04/03/06 (0)

Sorry! Right- it's a Cicero - here is the link too.. - Presto 23:05:42 04/02/06 (0)

You mean Cicero ??.n/t - Audio Pharaoh 18:15:21 04/02/06 (0)

Do you have a link for these? (NT) - Tuckers 14:01:27 04/02/06 (0)

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