Hi.
I hate reddit and ended up on this forum on a few occasions in past when I was looking some stuff up, so I figured this might be a good place to ask.
There are some problems though:
1) I am an anti-audiophile, or in other words you could say I don't care. I don't care about standards, decibels, how many hertz something has or whatever, I don't know what impedance is etc. I am simply someone who wants good setup for listening to music and playing games on the PC.
2) I don't know what I want. I think I have an idea what I might be looking for, but I don't know shit, so I'm hoping to get some answers.
3) I can't tell ANY difference between 128kbit mp3 and a FLAC. I seriously can't. I am not sure if I tried with my current speakers, but I think I did. I could hear a ton of difference when I upgraded from previous small speakers (Canton Chrono 502-something I think) to what I have now though, and I believe the speakers make up for 90% of all the sound quality (assuming properly powerful amp).
Anyway, this is my setup:
- A regular PC which had Sound Blaster X AE-5 sound card in it for several years until last week when I was experimenting with stuff and tried the onboard audio, realizing they sounded absolutely identical to me, so I removed the card to make room in the case.
- an integrated amp connected via RCA cable
- stereo speakers
It's that simple, there is nothing more to it and never will be. I don't use any other inputs and I don't use headphones. That might hypothetically make any upgrades less expensive if whatever I want exists I guess.
Both the amp and the speakers are local products and thus you most likely can't assess their quality in any way, however I can put the specs here as a reference:
The amp is no longer being manufactured so best I could was google up a post on some forums with specs taken out of the now defunct website. It's in slovak but you can probably make something out of it.
The speakers: http://www.vmaudio.cz/clanky_pokracovani/vma_3.php#produkt
(this is in czech for a change, but the parameters are most likely self-explanatory)
This setup works perfectly fine for me, with the exception of one annoyance: noise. Two kinds of, actually:
1) Once in a while there is some kind of random electrical interference in the grid and it's making the speakers hum rather loudly and annoyingly. We had all the wiring in the house (including all the breaker boxes and basically the entire installation) redone from scratch last year and it didn't go away, so I think it's coming from the outside. An UPS has no effect on it btw.
2) When I ramp the amp volume up to ridiculous levels (not playing anything of course, that would make the windows break), there is pretty loud constant noise. As a bonus, when I move the mouse, I can hear high-pitched noise. Again, this 2nd point is not a real pronlem, because it's completely inaudible during normal volume levels, but the fact it's there is annoying me out of general principle and I want to (try to) make it go away. As a side note, when I connected this thing between the PC and the amp, the noise disappeared, but I have no idea if it has any effect on sound quality, and it didn't really fix the root cause in my eyes, so I didn't keep it.
The first problem is likely not something I can do anything about, and I gave up trying to troubleshoot the other one, because the noise is exactly the same with the standalone Sound Blaster card as with the onboard chip, and changing various components like PSU (I only use quality ones, Seasonic units rated gold and above), motherboard etc. made no difference at all, and bypassing the UPS didn't change anything either. I am really thinking this is normal, and every PC is generating this kind of noise.
The only hightly theoretical solution I could think of was buying Schiit's Bifrost 2 with their claimed perfectly shielded Venison USB.
Do you think it could work?
The other possibility is replacing the entire amp with one that has toslink input, but that is probably even more expensive than the Bifrost, plus upon a quick google search it seems that integrated amps are _relatively_ uncommon (in the higher end audio ecosystem), and one with such power rating that could feed my speakers well either doesn't exist or would cost me a kidney or 3. The manufacturer says the absolute minimum is an amp that does 150W@4 ohms (whatever that means, physics, ugh, stay away from me...), ideally 200W.
I also heard something about balanced cables, but I have no idea if that really fixes intereferences. I'd need a different amp for that anyway.
I am open to ideas, but please speak idiot to me (and keep in mind I am a regular user who strongly believes a regular copper wire of reasonable thickness is just as good speaker connection as a /directional!!/ silver cable for $2000/metre)
I hate reddit and ended up on this forum on a few occasions in past when I was looking some stuff up, so I figured this might be a good place to ask.
There are some problems though:
1) I am an anti-audiophile, or in other words you could say I don't care. I don't care about standards, decibels, how many hertz something has or whatever, I don't know what impedance is etc. I am simply someone who wants good setup for listening to music and playing games on the PC.
2) I don't know what I want. I think I have an idea what I might be looking for, but I don't know shit, so I'm hoping to get some answers.
3) I can't tell ANY difference between 128kbit mp3 and a FLAC. I seriously can't. I am not sure if I tried with my current speakers, but I think I did. I could hear a ton of difference when I upgraded from previous small speakers (Canton Chrono 502-something I think) to what I have now though, and I believe the speakers make up for 90% of all the sound quality (assuming properly powerful amp).
Anyway, this is my setup:
- A regular PC which had Sound Blaster X AE-5 sound card in it for several years until last week when I was experimenting with stuff and tried the onboard audio, realizing they sounded absolutely identical to me, so I removed the card to make room in the case.
- an integrated amp connected via RCA cable
- stereo speakers
It's that simple, there is nothing more to it and never will be. I don't use any other inputs and I don't use headphones. That might hypothetically make any upgrades less expensive if whatever I want exists I guess.
Both the amp and the speakers are local products and thus you most likely can't assess their quality in any way, however I can put the specs here as a reference:
Výkon 2x110W RMS 8ohm,THD < 0.006%, 20Hz-20kHz
2x170W RMS 4ohm,THD < 0.008%, 20Hz-20kHz
Skreslenie THD+N
(BW 80kHz) max. 0.006 / 110W / 8 ohm (20Hz –20kHz)
typ.0.001% / 1kHz , 0.004% / 10kHz
max. 0.008% /170W / 4ohm (20Hz – 20kHz)
typ. 0.002% /1kHz , 0.005% /10kHz
Kmitoč. rozsah 20Hz-20kHz +0 dB –0,1dB
5Hz-120kHz +0-3dB
Skreslenie IMD max. 0.001% pre 100W/8ohm (60 Hz/4 –20kHz, 4:1)
Rýchlosť prebehu SR 50V / us /8ohm
Presluchy do 1kHz > -100 dB, 10kHz -85dB, 20kHz -80dB
Damping faktor 500 / 1kHz / 8ohm
Odstup S/N -105 dB /20Hz-20kHz/ ref. P nom.
DC offset typ.<5mV
Súbeh regulácie < 0.05 dB v rozsahu 0 až –90dB
Ochrany oneskorené pripojenie výstupov , odpojenie výstupov
pri poruche ,skrat , tepelná , soft štart
Vstupy 5 x Line , 0,6V pre P nom
Výstupy 1 x Tape Out
1 x PreAmp Out , regulovaný
Konektory signálové vstupy a výstupy – RCA
výstupy pre repro 2x svorky pre každý kanál
Rozmery 443 x 88 x 370 mm, hmotnosť cca 14 kg
Napätie Un 230 V ~ ,50 –60 Hz
2x170W RMS 4ohm,THD < 0.008%, 20Hz-20kHz
Skreslenie THD+N
(BW 80kHz) max. 0.006 / 110W / 8 ohm (20Hz –20kHz)
typ.0.001% / 1kHz , 0.004% / 10kHz
max. 0.008% /170W / 4ohm (20Hz – 20kHz)
typ. 0.002% /1kHz , 0.005% /10kHz
Kmitoč. rozsah 20Hz-20kHz +0 dB –0,1dB
5Hz-120kHz +0-3dB
Skreslenie IMD max. 0.001% pre 100W/8ohm (60 Hz/4 –20kHz, 4:1)
Rýchlosť prebehu SR 50V / us /8ohm
Presluchy do 1kHz > -100 dB, 10kHz -85dB, 20kHz -80dB
Damping faktor 500 / 1kHz / 8ohm
Odstup S/N -105 dB /20Hz-20kHz/ ref. P nom.
DC offset typ.<5mV
Súbeh regulácie < 0.05 dB v rozsahu 0 až –90dB
Ochrany oneskorené pripojenie výstupov , odpojenie výstupov
pri poruche ,skrat , tepelná , soft štart
Vstupy 5 x Line , 0,6V pre P nom
Výstupy 1 x Tape Out
1 x PreAmp Out , regulovaný
Konektory signálové vstupy a výstupy – RCA
výstupy pre repro 2x svorky pre každý kanál
Rozmery 443 x 88 x 370 mm, hmotnosť cca 14 kg
Napätie Un 230 V ~ ,50 –60 Hz
The speakers: http://www.vmaudio.cz/clanky_pokracovani/vma_3.php#produkt
(this is in czech for a change, but the parameters are most likely self-explanatory)
This setup works perfectly fine for me, with the exception of one annoyance: noise. Two kinds of, actually:
1) Once in a while there is some kind of random electrical interference in the grid and it's making the speakers hum rather loudly and annoyingly. We had all the wiring in the house (including all the breaker boxes and basically the entire installation) redone from scratch last year and it didn't go away, so I think it's coming from the outside. An UPS has no effect on it btw.
2) When I ramp the amp volume up to ridiculous levels (not playing anything of course, that would make the windows break), there is pretty loud constant noise. As a bonus, when I move the mouse, I can hear high-pitched noise. Again, this 2nd point is not a real pronlem, because it's completely inaudible during normal volume levels, but the fact it's there is annoying me out of general principle and I want to (try to) make it go away. As a side note, when I connected this thing between the PC and the amp, the noise disappeared, but I have no idea if it has any effect on sound quality, and it didn't really fix the root cause in my eyes, so I didn't keep it.
The first problem is likely not something I can do anything about, and I gave up trying to troubleshoot the other one, because the noise is exactly the same with the standalone Sound Blaster card as with the onboard chip, and changing various components like PSU (I only use quality ones, Seasonic units rated gold and above), motherboard etc. made no difference at all, and bypassing the UPS didn't change anything either. I am really thinking this is normal, and every PC is generating this kind of noise.
The only hightly theoretical solution I could think of was buying Schiit's Bifrost 2 with their claimed perfectly shielded Venison USB.
Do you think it could work?
The other possibility is replacing the entire amp with one that has toslink input, but that is probably even more expensive than the Bifrost, plus upon a quick google search it seems that integrated amps are _relatively_ uncommon (in the higher end audio ecosystem), and one with such power rating that could feed my speakers well either doesn't exist or would cost me a kidney or 3. The manufacturer says the absolute minimum is an amp that does 150W@4 ohms (whatever that means, physics, ugh, stay away from me...), ideally 200W.
I also heard something about balanced cables, but I have no idea if that really fixes intereferences. I'd need a different amp for that anyway.
I am open to ideas, but please speak idiot to me (and keep in mind I am a regular user who strongly believes a regular copper wire of reasonable thickness is just as good speaker connection as a /directional!!/ silver cable for $2000/metre)
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