Thread: can a carputer compete with a head unit for sound quality?

I believe Rat Shack sell them.

Originally Posted by JasonWW

I was wanting to try out my mobo's built in SPDIF just to make some comparisons to my sound card. Where exactly can you get those Toslink to RCA converters?
What would be a good one to get? Anyone know?

i just got one off ebay for like $8 or so. it's not really doing any converting...digital in..digital out. so you really can't screw that up. I am assuming that they all will work the same for our purposes.

No, the signal can be effected depending on the design and voltage, etc... I don't know much about them, but just because it's digital doesn't make it perfect.

Didn't see any at Rat Shack website, but a local computer store has some for $20. I'll try it out.

let us know what you find jason!

Originally Posted by Aetherion

As far as SQ goes, are horns better than the other Tweets on the market? From what I've heard, the Berylliums are head and shoulders above any other tweets. My other options would be the Focal TN52 or the DLS Iridium 1i, unless I bought a set of seas or peerless, which I have even less chance of being able to try before I buy. Actually, that's why I'm asking so many questions, because where I live, there is a snowflakes chance in hell that I will be able to listen to any of this gear before I fork out the cash... All this input greatly appreciated BTW

late answer

horns can be great for sound quality

the term sound quality is not any one thing really, it's more a combination of all the things that can affect the overall sound, & is summed up as sq

sq consists of staging, which has several aspects to it, like stage width, stage height & stage depth...

then theres imaging... of course theres tonal qualities & subtle ambiances, timbre & realizim, along with total spectrum coverage...

where the high end components you speak of come into play is that out of the box, they can acurately reproduce the signal fed to them, with excellent overall response & tonal balance... a horn will not be anywhere near components like this out of the box, BUT we all know, that no matter how acurate the speakers are, once there installed in a car the car comes into play & just screws it all up,... that's what equalization is really for... to try & remove the bad artifacts that the car adds basically

where horns come into play is, that out of the box, they have a HUGE advantage when it comes to staging & imaging.... to the point that, as long as there tuned properly with 1/3 octave eq, they pretty much GARRENTEE an awsome stage & imaging, which to me is a huge part of the battle in trying to get a car audio system to be of high quality...

horns have such an advantage in this area, while with most other drivers, it can take much playing to try & get an even close to this reaction for the staging & imaging... & many times can not acheive the same levels in a conventional install

to me, horns have an advantage to car audio, as much as audi had with there road races..many will say that the audi's had an unfair advantage with there 4wd system, I'd say that horns almost have an unfair advantage with there imaging & sound stage probabilities...

Originally Posted by JasonWW

No, the signal can be effected depending on the design and voltage, etc... I don't know much about them, but just because it's digital doesn't make it perfect.

Didn't see any at Rat Shack website, but a local computer store has some for $20. I'll try it out.

see...maybe you can explain this to me. it's digital so it's expecting a one or a zero. there is no gray area. as long the 1 or 0 is sent and read then how can the final outcome be affected? i bet the voltage and what not could be a factor on long runs and what not...but i would like to get your input on why you think that the quality of the converter would make a difference.

oh, and if you're anal like red is you can get a soundcard with optical out and not worry about the converter. but then you're using up your pci slot

turbo -

in your experiences, what are some negatives that you have encountered with horns?

Even if you were able to over come them?

Originally Posted by scott_fx

i bet the voltage and what not could be a factor on long runs and what not...but i would like to get your input on why you think that the quality of the converter would make a difference.

I'm interested to know how the voltage would come into play on an optical signal...something I've been meaning to research, just haven't gotten to it yet...lol

just to add to what trubo has already said. a major benefit of horns are their ability to play i wider frequencey range from a single source. if you look at a 3 way component setup you have a tweeter, a mid, and a bass/midbass driver. you have 3 speakers playing different parts of the same song from 3 differentl locations. so if you aren't careful or fortunate enough to place the speakers in optimal locations you could run into a lot of headaches. now a horn can play a wide range of frequency from a single point (taking the tweet/mid out of the combo and even playing down into the midbass driver's territory allowing you to cross over the midbass/bass driver lower)

Originally Posted by turbocad6

late answer

horns can be great for sound quality

the term sound quality is not any one thing really, it's more a combination of all the things that can affect the overall sound, & is summed up as sq

sq consists of staging, which has several aspects to it, like stage width, stage height & stage depth...

then theres imaging... of course theres tonal qualities & subtle ambiances, timbre & realizim, along with total spectrum coverage...

where the high end components you speak of come into play is that out of the box, they can acurately reproduce the signal fed to them, with excellent overall response & tonal balance... a horn will not be anywhere near components like this out of the box, BUT we all know, that no matter how acurate the speakers are, once there installed in a car the car comes into play & just screws it all up,... that's what equalization is really for... to try & remove the bad artifacts that the car adds basically

where horns come into play is, that out of the box, they have a HUGE advantage when it comes to staging & imaging.... to the point that, as long as there tuned properly with 1/3 octave eq, they pretty much GARRENTEE an awsome stage & imaging, which to me is a huge part of the battle in trying to get a car audio system to be of high quality...

horns have such an advantage in this area, while with most other drivers, it can take much playing to try & get an even close to this reaction for the staging & imaging... & many times can not acheive the same levels in a conventional install

to me, horns have an advantage to car audio, as much as audi had with there road races..many will say that the audi's had an unfair advantage with there 4wd system, I'd say that horns almost have an unfair advantage with there imaging & sound stage probabilities...