Just looking for a pure, clean signal

**MK17** · 12-23-2008, 03:48 PM

I've been doing a lot of researching with car-puters recently. I was very excited to see I could get Win-amp to easily play FLAC, but my biggest concern was that the computer would be unable to provide the best quality or the proper processing. After much research I have decided I will either use the Audison Bit One, Zapco DC Ref Amps, or something for all my processing needs. Now my biggest concern is getting the best audio signal from the computer. I will only need 2 channels of clean signal. Could an on-board card really provide this or should I step up to an external board?

Thanks for the help in advance

And one more side question, would you think it would be hard to control the Zapco program from an 8" TS monitor?

**volum3rider** · 01-08-2009, 11:00 AM

You can do digital coxial or digital optical out depending on if you have the outputs and what can be input into the processors. If not you can buy a cheap soundcard that has digital out.

**MK17** · 01-08-2009, 04:23 PM

After posting this that is what I have started looking into. I found out that there are a couple of ways I could get a great audio signal to processors that accept coaxil or optical inputs. Possible options were a mother board with Optical out built in, a PCI Sound card or a USB/Firewire soundcard.

The MSI board was going to be too much for me. The board has an optical out and VGA, but was also going to require something like an Opus 320W to power it all I knew a guy that could get me a pretty stellar price with dual 2.1GHz processors and that alone was about the cost of the entire car pc I was looking for. This option was too pricey for me but could be a great start for someone looking to make an extremely fast and great sound carputer

A PCI seemed most logical but getting one to fit and look good in a Mini ATX case would be tough. I looked at some M-audio boards but decided integrating it into the case wasn't worth the trouble.

Guess this is really answering my own question but I wanted to put the information out there for others as well

This brought me the USB/Firewire option. Looking again at M-Audio i found the Fast Track Pro. It has coaxil and RCA outputs, which I will get good use out of with my current amplifiers. It also has an amped headphone output which will work out great for all those times I'm without audio because I'm changing something.

or for road trips when the passenger is asleep.

**volum3rider** · 01-08-2009, 05:42 PM

I have researched pretty heavily itnto finding a good cheap mini itx board that has optical out. The only one I found was made by VIA and is pretty expensive considering that boards these days are cheap. I'll find the link to it later.

**Machinehead** · 01-08-2009, 05:46 PM

Originally Posted by MK17

This brought me the USB/Firewire option. Looking again at M-Audio i found the Fast Track Pro. It has coaxil and RCA outputs, which I will get good use out of with my current amplifiers. It also has an amped headphone output which will work out great for all those times I'm without audio because I'm changing something.

or for road trips when the passenger is asleep.

I have a M-Audio Firewire 410, I highly recommend it or one of it's USB counterparts. Excellent sound quality, as well as the ability to use ASIO plugins to do processing.

**volum3rider** · 01-09-2009, 08:22 AM

Board that I am talking about is the VIA EX15000 series boards. They have the newer C7 processor and built in optical digital outputs on the back panel. Kind of expensive though.

Link here http://via.com.tw/en/products/mainbo...erboard_id=450