I am buying a laptop to use with a hifi eg iPlayer or YouTube through
line out to amp.

Would a low end 300 quid Dell give the same results as a more expensive
laptop or are there quality issues with the choice?

What would be a good choice of laptop dedicated to that use ie plugged
in most of the time to the hifi?

--
Mark Lewis, North Somerset

In article , Mark Lewis
wrote:
I am buying a laptop to use with a hifi eg iPlayer or YouTube through
line out to amp.

Would a low end 300 quid Dell give the same results as a more expensive
laptop or are there quality issues with the choice?

What would be a good choice of laptop dedicated to that use ie plugged
in most of the time to the hifi?

My experience is that it simply 'pot luck' when relying on internal sound
hardware. In fact *none* of the four 'IBM type' machines I've used in
recent years gave satisfactory results that way. I'd recommend:

A) using an external USB DAC. Preferrably one that does the new transfer
modes like asynch/isochronous.

B) Get one which has no fan, or rarely needs a fan to come on.

I'd also recommend using Linux, but that is more optional. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Mark Lewis wrote:
I am buying a laptop to use with a hifi eg iPlayer or YouTube through
line out to amp.

Would a low end 300 quid Dell give the same results as a more
expensive laptop or are there quality issues with the choice?

What would be a good choice of laptop dedicated to that use ie plugged
in most of the time to the hifi?

Hard to say Mark, although I'm sure some folks in the bizz could tell you.

Personally I use a c 2005 Acer as a 'jukebox' hooked up to the stereo as
it's powerful enough (1.8GHz Pentium M, single core) without being overkill
takes enough RAM (2GB) and SATA HDDs (cheaper than the older IDE) and has
built-in 'G' wireless.

It's quiet enough, I don't notice any hiss or anything and it cost
bugger-all, less than 50 squids. Oh, I have it sitting on one of those
'laptop coolers', just a big, slow fan that's powered from a USB port.
(Actually I use those on top of a couple of my amps too, with a USB wall
wart plugged into the back of amp, into the switched power outlet.)
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a
cozy little classification in the DSM."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)

"Mark Lewis" wrote in message
...

I am buying a laptop to use with a hifi eg iPlayer or YouTube through line
out to amp.

Would a low end 300 quid Dell give the same results as a more expensive
laptop or are there quality issues with the choice?

Could be.

AFAIK the audio interfaces almsot all contemporaneous laptops are based on
the same short list of chips which cost under $1 or so.

These chips have progressed over the years from being terrible to being good
enough.

What would be a good choice of laptop dedicated to that use ie plugged in
most of the time to the hifi?

See how the existing internal audio interface works with an open mind.

If that doesn't work out you have a long list of really pretty good USB
interfaces at reasonble prices starting with the Behringer UCA 202.

I know of no audible purpose served by worrying about USB transfer modes. If
the $300 devices featuring this technology has audible benefits, I'd like to
see a DBT illustrating that fact.

On Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:25:30 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Mark Lewis
wrote:
I am buying a laptop to use with a hifi eg iPlayer or YouTube through
line out to amp.

My experience is that it simply 'pot luck' when relying on internal sound
hardware.

Agreed. If the OP has followed any of my recent threads in
uk.tech.digital-tv about digitising my vinyls, most of which have been
cross-posted here ...

http://groups.google.com/group/uk.te...b0aea9e07ab46b
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.re...fb1fd692b2045#
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.te...529e059ddffd8#

.... it'll be realised just how hit and miss things can be. In the
end, I used a Dell Latitude 610 with a docking station to do the job,
and I now use it to play back the results from my NAS server, but it
wasn't plain sailing, by any means. The laptop has an internal sound
card, but I chose not to use it, I can't now remember exactly why.
Instead I tried a SB Live in the docking station PCI slot, and a USB
Terratec Aureon 5.1 MKII. The latter worked, but the former did not:

"""
Next came recording via the laptop.

Having had more success with the SB Live than the Terratec, I thought
I'd better stick with that. Although the docking station was really
bought so that I could connect the laptop instantly to my KVM and
office network upstairs, it has a single PCI slot, so I bad farewell
to convenience upstairs, I put one of the SBs in it, connected up to
the HiFi, and started recording. However, when I checked the
playback, there was a problem with distortion - some albums in
particular were ruined by it.

WTF? Why? And why some albums consistently so much more than others?
The card has been working perfectly well for years in a desktop PC
running Windows v5.0, why not in the docking station of a laptop
running v5.1? Thinking, however, that it might be something to do
with driver versions under XP rather than 2000, I checked for the
latest driver downloads, but those I've been using all along for 2000
are also the correct and latest for XP.

So I tried the Terratec. Success at last!

"Great!", I thought, "I don't need the docking station downstairs
anymore!". So I got the normal PSU for the laptop, and removed the
docking station. Big, big hum! Replaced the docking station. Back
to normal. Removed it again. Big, big hum! Replaced it again. Back
to normal.

I conclude that the DS has a decent PSU, while that supplied for the
laptop is crap.
"""

So, as Jim says, it's really difficult to predict how a
common-or-garden laptop will perform. It might be hopeless with the
standard in-line PSU, but fine when powered by a docking station PSU.
It might be hopeless with its internal soundcard or one in the PCI
slot of a docking station, but fine with a USB one.

In fact *none* of the four 'IBM type' machines I've used in
recent years gave satisfactory results that way.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

I'd recommend:
A) using an external USB DAC. Preferrably one that does the new transfer
modes like asynch/isochronous.

Can't comment on that, but another alternative might be one of the
dedicated AV/NAS offerings running something like a mini-DLNA server
for compatibility with modern digital equipment, but also having
analogue connections for compatibility with legacy analogue equipment.
I've seen a few on eBay.

B) Get one which has no fan, or rarely needs a fan to come on.

Yes, agreed. Both my laptop and my bedroom/office stereo have fans,
and it can very noticeable, particularly with the latter where it
happens on loud passages (I think the fan must be cooling heatsinks in
the power-amp stage), how much noise the fans can make.
--
================================================== =======
Please always reply to ng as the email in this post's
header does not exist. Or use a contact address at:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/JavaJive.html
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/Macfarlane.html

"Mark Lewis" wrote in message
...
I am buying a laptop to use with a hifi eg iPlayer or YouTube through line
out to amp.

Would a low end 300 quid Dell give the same results as a more expensive
laptop or are there quality issues with the choice?

What would be a good choice of laptop dedicated to that use ie plugged in
most of the time to the hifi?

One really slick cheap way to finesse this issue is to obtain a DLNA (or
competitive) compatible Blu-Ray player and control it over a wireless
network.

"~misfit~" = ****head TROLL


** You are a nothing but a ****ing nut case Kiwi sheep shagger.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............

Get off usenet.

On 05/04/2012 08:02, Mark Lewis wrote:
I am buying a laptop to use with a hifi eg iPlayer or YouTube through
line out to amp.

Would a low end 300 quid Dell give the same results as a more expensive
laptop or are there quality issues with the choice?


I've used a Samsung nettop (£180) to good effect, controlled via
itunes/ipod touch. I've tried it with/without an external DAC and can't
say I noticed a qualitative difference from memory.

What would be a good choice of laptop dedicated to that use ie plugged
in most of the time to the hifi?


As mentioned - fan. *Any* fan noise bothers me, and even the Samsung
made more noise than I thought it should. But then it had very low power
consumption.

Disk size is likely to become an issue at some point. you can always
chain USB drives or use a NAS device.

I use a Mac Mini now - but only because I have one. It's quiet,
efficient and effective - but overkill and expensive for audio serving
alone.

Rob

In article om, Rob
wrote:
On 05/04/2012 08:02, Mark Lewis wrote:

What would be a good choice of laptop dedicated to that use ie plugged
in most of the time to the hifi?


As mentioned - fan. *Any* fan noise bothers me, and even the Samsung
made more noise than I thought it should. But then it had very low power
consumption.

One of the aspects of the audio/computer 'biz' that irritates me is the way
almost no-one shows any concern form 'mechanical' noises from fans, hard
drives, etc. Sometimes you may be told something vague like a unit is
'fairly quiet'. Which gives you little idea if it is would be suitable
unless you only listen to music that is consistently damn-loud.


Disk size is likely to become an issue at some point. you can always
chain USB drives or use a NAS device.

I've bought and have been using a few different USB removable drives. As
with other areas it is hard to predict in advance what level of noise they
will make. In the main I've bought 'Verbatim' ones so far.

A 1TB one (USB powered) is almost totally silent. I can't hear it from 3
feet away or more. A 350GB one (USB powered) makes a noticable 'whooshing'
noise. A 1TB (mains powered USB3) one makes a spin up whine when switched
on. It then made a faint hum. This I fixed by sticking rubber feet on the
drive, and then standing it on a carpet tile under which there is a layer
of bubble-wrap. So in this case it was disc vibration getting the wooden
surface below to act as a sounding board.

Even nominally identical drives aren't always the same. I bought a second
example of the above mains-powered 1TB drive. It's mount/unmount behaviour
is different to the first, and it behaves differently in other ways. So
part of the problem is that in the 'PC biz' even buying the same model may
mean different items inside the box, behaving unlike another example of the
same model. That can mean different noise, or something else.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...

One of the aspects of the audio/computer 'biz' that irritates me is the
way
almost no-one shows any concern form 'mechanical' noises from fans, hard
drives, etc.

Please do a little reasearch on topics such as "Home Theatre PC" or HTPC.
The two general directions are systems that use so little power that they
are easy to cool, and fanless cooling systems.

There are reasonably capacious solid state disk drives that run as little as
$2/GB, running up to 240 GB or more. Standard SATA interface. No moving
parts, very little power use, no fans, no noise. Boot Windoze fast!