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Suitability of Laptop into External DAC for Streaming/Playing FLACS?

Blake Klondike

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I was just in a hifi shop today and the manager was trying to sell me on a dedicated music server. He indicated that a computer is a very noisy way to listen to digital files. I imagine this has been covered here but is this true? Are there objectively better ways to stream/play FLACS than using a laptop as the source? Thanks as always for any thoughts!
 

amirm

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Definitely not true. All the fantastic measurements you see are on a standard PC running the CPU intensive Audio Precision analyzer with zero effect on any well performing DAC. So don't hesitate to use a PC/laptop.

Streamers or dedicated appliances are good in the way they don't need the maintenance of a normal computer. Some like small streamers have the advantage of cost, size and heat. But fidelity is not different than a computer.
 

Blumlein 88

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I don't think so. There are some devices that are sensitive to computer noise getting thru the USB and causing various issues with the DAC. But they are broken designs. Schitt made a few of those. There may be others. Most DACs are not effected by the source over asyncrhonous USB connections. Amir has measured quite a few USB cleaners. Most worsened the result due to power supply coupling very slightly. I don't recall any of them improving the result except with Schitt DACs.

So the overwhelming odds are nothing will sound better than your laptop over USB. In some edge cases if there is a difference it is extremely small or you are using a broken DAC design.
 

maxxevv

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Only if your DAC cannot cope with the USB noise at the input.

The newer, better implemented USB interfaces are perfectly alright with USB inputs. So, there really isn't an issue with PC noise as long as the DAC has a properly implemented USB interface.

If you want something that's relatively "cleaner", get a cheap windows based tablet then. Those run off battery, so at worst, noise will be minimal.
 
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