PC to 990 sound...YUCK!!

Got my new Dell laptop a few months back and finally got all my CD's ripped to it the other day. (The XP Media Edition is a pretty cool user interface, especially when hooked to my Hitachi 58") I have the PC connected to the 990 via the USB port.
I am not real impressed with the sound quality, and especially the bzzz that comes from the speakers when the music playing is stopped.

Anyone have any recommendations on the bzzz or even getting better sound?

I came across an external "M-Audio Transit High resolution Mobile Audio Upgrade" unit at JR.com. Looks like it may offer a sound upgrade but not sure about the bzzzz.

Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks
Dan

Well if money is not necessarily an object, the following announcement about a product that I found posted on the BBC news may exceed your requirements.

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_transporter.html

By the way, this device highlights a potential issue for the 990, the lack of balanced inputs.

Sniper

Have you tried connecting the laptop to the 990 via an RCA "Y" from the headphone jack of the laptop or does the laptop have stereo analog jacks out? The problem sounds like it may be the USB connection.

Out of curiosity, were the files transfered to your computer as WAV files or something else. I used to have decent luck with wave files, but Yahoo's launchcast always sounded like crap. This was due to the compression and format Launchcast uses, not suprising as I could hear the tin sounding highs and compression through my computer speakers as well.

I think mzpro5 may have touched on the issue - try some WAV files or CD's in the drive to see if that makes a difference. I've used the USB port just briefly with my wife's laptop and not noticed any buzzing. Oh, and if you want a media player but don't want to spring for Slim Device's $2,000 Transporter, there's also the $300 Squeezebox and Roku's $200 SoundBridge.

When you had the laptop connected did you also have the charger plugged into the laptop? The buzz could be coming from the battery charger.

Thanks guys. No, I havent tried the headphone out jack yet. I am more concerned with the crappy sound quality than the bzzz. The buzz can't be heard when playing music, just when it's stopped.

I just ripped my CD's in the Windows lossless format, I beleive they were WMA files.

I did consider a sqeezebox but since my laptop is only a few ft away and I have the media center edition on it, the squeezbox offered no real advantage for the money (that I could see anyway)

The lap was plugged into the A/C outlet. I will try it unplugged and the headphone jack.

Does anyone know anything about the external M-Audio Card or the Xitel Pro Audio sound cards?
They claim to increase sound quality from PC to Home Stereo.

Thanks
Dan

OK, I got a chance to try a few things this weekend, headphone to RCA, unplugged the PC, and played a CD in the drive. Good news is the buzz is gone but the bad news is, the audio quality is still poor. I did rip all of my CD's in the WMA losless format so I am pretty sure that is not the issue.

I am still wondering if anyone thinks an upgraded external PC sound card with digital outputs (like the ones I mentioned before) would yeild any better quality sound?

Thanks
Dan

Hi all,

Sniper
I'm not sure about those sound cards you mentioned but...
from personal experience...I've noticed a major improvement in sound quality from my PC when I finally made the move to SPDIF..and made sure all processing from the different software was turned off...
Not to mention...the source plays the biggest part...
Have you tried converting your music files to AAC or mp4 ?
Notwithstanding..file formats
I've also noticed that for music files(mp3,mp4 wma)...
most sound cards sound the same...
and most of the salesmen selling them don't know what they're selling you...
do you're own homework
and if you purchase one make sure you CAN return it if it doesn't fill the NEED

EVEN with the best sound card I tried...
I admit the quality was not on par with a CD player..
BUT If like me you enjoy your pc's ease of operation...super long playlists...and if you got the drive space...the sheer quantity of music you can store is mind boggling...
and for most listening situations it delivers the goods...

Don't give up...it can be done...

Thanks for the info. No I haven't tried converting the file to AAC or mp4. Not sure how to do that anyway as I am not very knowledgeable with PC's.
I do love the ease of using my PC as a music server, especially with the window media center edition.

Looks like I will just give one of those cards a try and hopefully get better results.

Thanks

This might seem a little off-topic but....regarding a music server: I don't really have one per-se, but my ALESIS HD24 RECORDER does a great job. I originally bought it for multi-channel archiving and some live recording. I soon found that because of its tremendous capacity it makes a great source for playing back music....and there is no change of format. I simply copy the music (CD or whatever) to the hard drive (either one of the removable drives in their caddies). Playing back stereo there was somewhere around 104 or so hours on a cheap IDE 200 Gb drive. holds 2 drives, both of which are removable. SO you can set things up however you want. You can group selections into "projects" or whatever. The HD24 records at 44.1 or 44 kHz. Also comes as HD24XR, doing 88.2 and 96 kHz.

Wow ! nfaguys,
With your windmill and all...you got some really nice toys...
I love reading about them...
that Alesis definitely puts the Cambridge Audio AZUR 640 H music server I was considering to shame...
I opted for better components in my pc instead,(optical drives, inputs and outputs, ,cpu, software, etc. )
therefore handling all audio and video formats...
with some compromise on quality...
not an inexpensive compromise mind you
( could have bought a Stewart screen instead of a Draper with the money saved)
but HEY!
there's no gain without loss...
music, games, off-air HDTV receiver & movies in one box...

Makes a very versatile addition to any system...

Well, I flipped a coin and went with the M-Audio Transit Upgrade sound card. I got it in the mail today so this week I will have time to mess around with it.

Hope it works out. I'll let you guys know in a few days.

Dan

Sniper do you have an Xbox360? By far this would be the cheapest and easy way to listen to music and watch content. The 360 will hook up to the outlaw via optical and then the 360 interface will allow you to connect directly to your media center laptop/pc on the network. I do this with my current setup and when the final piece of my outlaw get here today I plan to do the same. For the money you get a media server, game machine, and a dvd player (not a great one). Just a thought.

Laventura arote:

that Alesis definitely puts the Cambridge Audio AZUR 640 H music server I was considering to shame...

I wouldn't necessarily say that the ALESIS HD24Xr puts the AZUR to shame. These are different animals with different purposes. Some day I may want to have a music server for whole-house audio in addition to my "babies" in the rack for archiving and mass storage.