CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Non-Audio Stuff => The Geek Cave: Home Theatre, Computers, and More! => Topic started by: donunus on January 14, 2014, 04:33:16 AM
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What brands or maybe specific models are recommended if one wants to get a windows 8 laptop to be used mostly for audio? I am looking at maybe a lenovo thinkpad mostly for being known for its durability or a cheap Asus x202 because it may be all I will need... Any comments, suggestions?
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When you say "mostly," what else will it be used for? Does it need to be portable?
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The latest round of PC-in-a-tiny-box are very close to what is needed for Home Theater, let alone just audio.
If I were doing something for just audio, you just need it to have:
* CPU & RAM
* USB port for external hard drive for music (which can a USB-powered teeny notebook-size drive if you want portability)
* USB port for DAC
So, 90% of it is quality of the USB ports.
But if you want a laptop, this is probably the best deal out there (I buy all my laptops from this guy), note the details of the description:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T61-Core-2-Duo-2-1GHz-2GB-80GB-1680x1050-Win-7-Home-More-/251425403284?hash=item3a8a1f3194
I use a T61 into a USB DAC into a Schiit Vali into Mad Dog 3.2 for late night youtube. The headphone jack and its amp are also pretty good sounding for generic chip audio.
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I always get noise when using usb storage at the same time as a usb dac. Better to just get a higher capacity internal hd.
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I always get noise when using usb storage at the same time as a usb dac. Better to just get a higher capacity internal hd.
That may be the result of specifics in your setup, such as the specific USB ports, and your music player.
I use memory player in Jriver MC19, so it is playing from RAM. The external hard drive is connected to a USB 3.0 card, and the USB DAC is connected to the motherboard's USB 2.0 ports.
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I use memory player in JRiver as well, but I've still had interference from mice and other peripherals that all shared the usb card. If the external drive is on a separate card though (such as the 3.0 in your case), there should be no problem.
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Thinkpad owner here (X200S), all good with windows 8 and a 256Go SSD. FYI, out of 3 usb ports, 2 are sharing the same IRQ, and the 3rd one doesn't have enough juice to supply an external DAC properly. AFAIK that's quite good when compared to other brands, which might share more ports on the same IRQ and/or have poor power supply across the board.
If possible, try to get an independant PSU for your DAC, and possibly also your external HDD. This way you can have more choice with the laptop brand/model. However, if you absolutely need to be completely portable, do pay attention to the usb implementation.
What brands or maybe specific models are recommended if one wants to get a windows 8 laptop to be used mostly for audio? I am looking at maybe a lenovo thinkpad mostly for being known for its durability or a cheap Asus x202 because it may be all I will need... Any comments, suggestions?
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Another possibility with more recent laptops is eSATA. No issues with USB DACs there. A Core i3 based Thinkpad Edge with an eSATA port won't run you much more than $200 on eBay.
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Good question, I have been thinking about having some sort of dedicated music interface, probably a laptop, desktop, or music server. Laptop seems like the easiest way to go for portability. I know nothing about building computers, what are some things that you should look for?
I am thinking that reducing noise and secondary functions as much as possible is the goal here. SSD is one idea, are there any differences in USB ports for audio quality? Also, is it better to use battery power, is there another way to regulate the power supply, or does it even matter? I don't want to fret too much, I am just wondering how much of a difference these things will make. I can't help but feel listening to music while having my laptop connected to wifi and surfing the internet isn't really the best sound quality I am going to get.
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Good question, I have been thinking about having some sort of dedicated music interface, probably a laptop, desktop, or music server. Laptop seems like the easiest way to go for portability. I know nothing about building computers, what are some things that you should look for?
I am thinking that reducing noise and secondary functions as much as possible is the goal here. SSD is one idea, are there any differences in USB ports for audio quality? Also, is it better to use battery power, is there another way to regulate the power supply, or does it even matter? I don't want to fret too much, I am just wondering how much of a difference these things will make. I can't help but feel listening to music while having my laptop connected to wifi and surfing the internet isn't really the best sound quality I am going to get.
Unless you NEED it to be portable, I think you'll get much better results from a server as opposed to a laptop. The best bang for your buck is to do a "CAPS" style box - an integrated Atom board like the DN2800MT, fed with a LPS or battery, and a USB output card like the PPA, JCAT, or Adnaco. The SoTM seems to have compatibility problems with some DACs and I don't think it's as good as the others.
If you can spend a bit more, you can use a board with a traditional ATX socket as opposed to a DC-in jack, and something like Paul's Pico PSU. That will let you bypass the onboard DC-DC converters and should improve the performance quite a bit. The "extreme" option is a multi-rail linear with its own 3.3, 5, and 12V outputs. That's a serious amount of cash though.
Alternatively, you can just buy an Auraliti PK90USB and call it a day.
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There are some many options you can easily take a gamble.
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I have been using my laptop as part of my "mobile" listening rig to take with me to work, hence the desire for portability. I should just figure out a proper mobile solution, but finding something inexpensive that works with what I have AND can hold all my music is a real pain.
I might have to start a new thread about music servers or dedicated listening pc's so I don't clog up this one. I am one of those people who games on consoles because I can't be bothered to start in on another hobby that takes over your life with constant upgrades :) so the Auraliti looks interesting to me.
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If you want a mobile listening rig, then there are various companies that make audiophile iPods... plenty of info on head-fi about them.
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Yea I somewhat foolishly bought a CLAS-db so I could listen to music with my Iphone, not thinking at the time that I would have over 100gb of lossless music that would no longer fit on it. I liked the AK120, but my laptop with the CLAS sounds much better and I am not yet desperate enough to fork over $1100 for the AK unless it destroys what I currently have. I also thought the UI was a little sluggish. Anyway, that is why I wanted to make an audio specific laptop.
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I might have to start a new thread about music servers or dedicated listening pc's so I don't clog up this one. I am one of those people who games on consoles because I can't be bothered to start in on another hobby that takes over your life with constant upgrades :) so the Auraliti looks interesting to me.
Yeah it's basically pre-made CAPS type server running a headless version of Linux. Not VortexBox though. You're paying around $450 for everything if you exclude the USB card, which isn't too bad of a deal. You could make the same thing yourself for maybe $250, but of course here all of the work is done, and there's support if you need it. It doesn't have internal storage though, you'll need a USB hard drive. The only downside is that because it's not VortexBox, anything that uses an M2Tech asynchronous interface isn't going to work. XMOS or just about anything else that's Class 2 though should probably be fine.
Auraliti now has their own linear PS for $350.
(http://vaiopocket.up.n.seesaa.net/vaiopocket/image/pk90b.jpg%3Fd%3Da1)
(http://102.dtiblog.com/s/sankyohou/file/010-1.jpg)
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When you say "mostly," what else will it be used for? Does it need to be portable?
I would want it to be portable in case I want to take my music and hook it up to an outdoor PA system for a party :D
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If you want a mobile listening rig, then there are various companies that make audiophile iPods... plenty of info on head-fi about them.
Not an option for me because I don't want to be limited with ALAC, AAC, and MP3. Also, when rockboxed, the interface becomes too annoying and sound quality is limited to fewer dacs compared to a laptop. What else? hmm I would like to also be able to browse online while having a minimum of 500 gigabytes onboard. I don't think an ipod has even over 160gigs yet so thats that... :D
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When you say "mostly," what else will it be used for? Does it need to be portable?
I would want it to be portable in case I want to take my music and hook it up to an outdoor PA system for a party :D
Ah, so home hifi but also portable DJ... which is pretty much what I do. Really, any 'ol laptop should do the job.
I currently have a Lenovo Win7 machine with JRiver19 and keep all my music on the internal hd. When on the go I have an Echo2 USB that I use for DJ'ing (before that it was a NI Traktor 2).
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If you want a mobile listening rig, then there are various companies that make audiophile iPods... plenty of info on head-fi about them.
Not an option for me because I don't want to be limited with ALAC, AAC, and MP3. Also, when rockboxed, the interface becomes too annoying and sound quality is limited to fewer dacs compared to a laptop. What else? hmm I would like to also be able to browse online while having a minimum of 500 gigabytes onboard. I don't think an ipod has even over 160gigs yet so thats that... :D
Get one of those laptops with a touch screen then, Win 8 can be a serious pain without them imo.
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I personally think Windows 8/8.1 work just great with a KB/M, arguably just as well as touch. MS dropped the ball with help and tutorials, though, so you have to learn all the tips and tricks yourself (ex: right clicking the bottom left corner the the desktop screen gives some fantastic shortcuts that most are unaware of). Design paradigms are different and take some time to get used to, yes, but considering I use a wide variety of MS OSes (from 2000 and later) on a daily basis, I find it equally efficient and easy to use overall, if not more so. I'm also pretty enamored with Windows 8 considering how unified it is across most devices (save phones and Xbox) vs. other OSes on the market.
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I wanted a touch screen interface, but also wanted tablet style, so I bought an ultrabook in tablet form in the Acer W700.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Acer-Iconia-W700-tablet-set.jpg
It comes with a dock that expands the single USB 3.0 to 3 USB ports that works very well. It's larger than an iPad (at 11.6")and runs full Win 8 so JRiverMC19 works great in theater view with the touch interface. I also really like the IE app with the touch interface. There's not a lot of local storage so when I'm home I use Wifi to stream off my server PC. For meets and other places I bring my library along on a 2TB WD portable drive that is small and light. I keep this at finger tip length when I'm sitting in my chair so it's handy to switch songs or browse IE while watching a movie or reading a book. If I really get interested in something I can simply slide the tablet out of the dock and set it in my lap or carry it around the house.
It ran me about $600 but it's been one of my better buys in quite a while. Most tablets have maximum of 1 USB, which this does too, but adding the dock gives it 3 USB ports which is perfect for adding a DAC and a USB harddrive. This flexibility made it my choice and the build quality is very good. Consider a full Win 8 tablet like this. It will cost you, but it's worth it.
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You can find the original 64GB Surface Pros for $500 refurbished/used (check eBay, I got a refurb and it is amazing), or occasionally in stores for around $600. You can expand the drive space with a MicroSD card. I ran some simple loopback DAC measurements with the SB1240, and it came out looking fairly nice (IIRC, low noise floor like my desktop USB somehow provides but shared the cleaner response like from my laptop).
Also, the latest quad-core Atom CPUs are rather zippy, but they get great battery life and allow for slim form factors (no fans). You can find some good Windows 8 tablets at great prices with that hardware.
If these devices don't already have keyboard/mouse attachments, they almost all support bluetooth.
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The windows8 tablet pc is an interesting idea. Would their be any problems downloading various drivers or Jriver on a surface? The Acer Maxvla mentioned is intriguing as well. Is there any way to increase the hard drive size like you could in a regular laptop?
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There are a select few (I'm only aware of the Razer Edge, which is a chunky beast!) where you can at least semi-easily replace the HDD. You'd need a micro SSD, I believe. Some have MicroSD slots, and you can configure Windows in such a way that it lets you permanently expand the C: drive or create a new physical drive entirely. But, even if not then, you can still store media on it without issues. The Surface Pro is one of those where you do NOT want to try to open them, but they do have a fairly hidden MicroSD slot.
Other than that, if the tablet is running x86 architecture (Intel, AMD), it's Windows. So, no...no problems doing regular Windows things at all! I could hook up my USB->SPDIF converter with its weird drivers and DAC to my Surface Pro or, with the right cable, one of the Atom-based tablets with micro USB.
I have to admit, it's pretty damn awesome. Those refurb Surface Pros are a steal, and I'd recommend looking for a used type cover to go along with it. Some of the new Atom tablets are awesome as well. There's something to be said about how well the Surface Pro shows off the capabilities of Windows 8, though.
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HP EliteBook 840 G1. You can configure it to have an M.2 SSD plus a 2.5" 500GB HDD. It can also be setup to have a touchscreen and a backlit keyboard and the soundcard onboard is good enough to use by itself in a pinch... and the headphone port can get really loud. It's also super drop-durable and has a spill-proof keyboard. Replacing parts and swapping hard drives is very easy.
The only problem is that it's part of the HP Elite portfolio of business class products... read pricey.
Oh... HP has a huge divide between their retail junk and their commercial products. I'm quite satisfied with their commercial stuff.
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If you want a mobile listening rig, then there are various companies that make audiophile iPods... plenty of info on head-fi about them.
Not an option for me because I don't want to be limited with ALAC, AAC, and MP3. Also, when rockboxed, the interface becomes too annoying and sound quality is limited to fewer dacs compared to a laptop. What else? hmm I would like to also be able to browse online while having a minimum of 500 gigabytes onboard. I don't think an ipod has even over 160gigs yet so thats that... :D
Sorry, I was too vague, by "audiophile ipods", I simply meant "ipod sized music device". While there are plenty of Apple-verse devices, there are also plenty of other devices with the same form factor that use Android or Linux and thus are not limited to iTunes audio file formats.
But you are right that they are all limited in storage space. You do need a tablet or laptop to access USB and thus have TBs instead of GBs of music.
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Sort of an example of my setup. Have a lot of demo stuff I'm trying to burn in before the Austin meet in a couple days. Normally the tablet sits on the shelf with the X-Sabre and M-Stage HPA-1 on the next shelf and the APC power supply on the bottom rack. Cables a mess atm with so many devices in a small area. Normally the table sits back a bit not blocking the love seat. Pulled it out so I could connect/disconnect stuff easier.
(http://imageshack.com/a/img819/9601/blj6.jpg)
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Wow, that Acer tablet looks sweet. How's the build quality? Seeing Acer products die frequently in my college years has made me paranoid of Acer... This and those new Lenovo tablets with built-in stand looks intriguing.
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The tablet itself is very well built. All the connections are solid. The headphone jack sounds pretty decent with UERM, too. Perfectly listenable. I tried a Dell XPS18 and the sound from the headphone jack was... jacked. I've never heard worse.
The dock is all plastic so don't expect the world. It can creak softly if you push it, but it never really makes a sound for me. The tablet slides in and out without problem and it's very stable in all the positions it will do. The connections on the dock are solid as well. I particularly like sliding my USB HD between the dock and the stand part on the back. Makes a nice little cubby.
As a Fall 2012 product it's a bit aged so prices are very good on it right now. This one I have would have cost over $1000 when it was just released, but I got it for $600. It still has an Ivy Bridge not a Haswell, but it still gets great battery life and the performance difference between IB and Haswell is not that significant.
It also comes with a well made keyboard cover that works very well if you like to keep it in something like that most of the time. It's kind of hard to get in and out of the plastic retainer, though, so I don't use the cover even when I'm taking it places.
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The latest round of PC-in-a-tiny-box are very close to what is needed for Home Theater, let alone just audio.
If I were doing something for just audio, you just need it to have:
* CPU & RAM
* USB port for external hard drive for music (which can a USB-powered teeny notebook-size drive if you want portability)
* USB port for DAC
So, 90% of it is quality of the USB ports.
But if you want a laptop, this is probably the best deal out there (I buy all my laptops from this guy), note the details of the description:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T61-Core-2-Duo-2-1GHz-2GB-80GB-1680x1050-Win-7-Home-More-/251425403284?hash=item3a8a1f3194
I use a T61 into a USB DAC into a Schiit Vali into Mad Dog 3.2 for late night youtube. The headphone jack and its amp are also pretty good sounding for generic chip audio.
what is said here since most laptops and even notebooks have decent processing for simple uses.
for me since i use firewire/ieee for audio i always look for laptops with a decent 1394a or better IEEE with a texas instrument driver support integrated into the motherboard. if using just usb for dac use you have endless options. finding laptops with ieee that is not ''apple'' made is kinda a trivia for me when looking around.
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I bought an HP NC6400 (2Ghz cpu,1G RAM) for $45 and only use it for audio. I added a hard drive and a Linux OS. I am cool with it but I sorta miss using Foobar.
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Some interesting data we're getting from analysis of what the Wyrd does for digital audio:
1. Windows and Linux laptops send data in an entirely different way from Mac laptops--typically sending data on one out of every 8 packets (yes, we are not crazy--we have confirmed this on over a dozen systems, from XP to 8. Whether or not this matters in terms of SQ, well, hey...but it could help explain why Windows sounds different.
2. There's some pretty significant differences between the jitter on the received packets between various systems, ranging from rock-steady, to more than 10nS difference between the start time of the packets. Again, should not matter, but there you go.
3. There are VERY significant differences between the packet formatting on many Mac systems, dependent on whether or not the processor is busy, and the age of the system. Systems with bad formatting are more typically newer Macs. Again, shouldn't matter.
What we're using now for shows are the Lenovo Miix 8 tablet and the HP Stream 7 tablet, running as JRiver clients to a media server with all of the music in place. No significant differences can be found between local files and as a client in terms of USB packet formatting. The Stream 7 is an insanely cheap option, available for $99 on the Microsoft store--and as a "signature" product, also without bloatware/begware/bullshitware of any kind. Battery life is kinda ass though.
Dave and I have discussed a USB reformatting product, but this is pretty scary and complex, encompassing an embedded system such as Linux and some very low-level programming we'd prefer to avoid. But it would be an interesting product, to see if there are any differences between formatting.
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damn schiit, that post induces paranoia lol. so how does the wyrd factor into the 1 out of 8 bits thing? So in reality are we losing more music when using windows over mac for example?
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For situations where a W8 tablet doesn't have enough power on the USB port to run certain source components, would the Wyrd take care of that? I had the assumption it would but wanted to double check.
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damn schiit, that post induces paranoia lol. so how does the wyrd factor into the 1 out of 8 bits thing? So in reality are we losing more music when using windows over mac for example?
The data is transferred in packets which are made up of a lot of bits. Normally packets have footers which contain information for error correction so no data is lost. Zero length packets can be used to indicate a lot of things (like telling the host that data transfer is complete) and there are multiple ways for devices to exchange data via the usb standard. It could just be a case of different implementation.
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ok but doesn't that contribute to some lag? Or does all of this happen very comfortably within what the usb standard can do? I mean if it takes more data to transfer one whole song with a windows machine in the same amount of time as the mac since 7/8 that pass through are not part of the music,,, Is there a chance that it can miss some of that data if the throughput is not fast enough?
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Picking up a new laptop tomorrow finally. It's used but excellent condition. It's a hp8440p elitebook for 180. Has i5@2.53ghz,4gb ddr3, and decent 250gb of hdd. It has IEEE 1394 plug too which was the major sale to me too cause I was specifically looking for good laptop with firewire. It's definitely gonna be major upgrade from my old windows xp toshiba portege laptop tablet. Finally getting a pretty good laptop. I might start playing with cubase ane fl studio again haha.
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The first guy on cl screwed me over cause he told me his wife sold it to the neighbor. But luckily another I messaged as well locally had it ready for pick up at his shop but wanted 200 for it but that was fine for me cause specs this hp8440p has way better specs than what you still could get anywhere else if you were shopping at stores.
Has fresh install of Windows 7 pro 64-bit and worked perfect till I tried the headphone jack. Wasn't working..... thought this guy screwed me over too but looking online this is common issue with the software drivers. Found work around by uninstalling the current drivers and installing the 8740w drivers, restarted and works perfectly now. FireWire port works perfectly too.
The headphone jack wouldn't been big deal to me in the first place but when im out or my g/f is using my computer or playing the game(yea...she's a gamer.im not) I would like to listen to my headphones on it. Sound not that bad either so it's tolerable.
Well, happy with it. It's in great condition, made of tough aluminum, runs super cool and fast...well to me it is. Has enough ram and processing power if I ever dowload fl studio or cubase on in the near future. Work fine too for simple gaming like snes emulators and so forth if I ever feel like playing games.
Just glad to finally get a pretty good laptop and replace my ancient Toshiba.
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I have two 8440p (really nice machines), one is my daily workhorse for computing and the other is getting ready to press into service with Linux load and will replace my even older Lubuntu based 6930p that is my headphone system at the moment.
The 6930p sounds pretty good via USB and Wyrd, but not quite up to my Mac Mini main system. I never could get a Windows config that was stable and sounded great so my journey into Linux on the laptop.