JonnieBlaze

I am in the beginning stages of putting some decent sound in my car.

Currently I have a Memphis 5 channel amp that will power all my speakers. I have 4 Sundown audio 8" subs what will be mounted into the rear deck. I am currently discussing speaker options over on the SSA forums to decide what speakers my frontstage will consist of. My plans are to go 3-way active.

I started this quest with plans to get the H701 and a headunit to control it (haven't purchased either one yet). When I started looking for a headunit I couldnt find one that I really liked 100%. Then I remembered doing some research here on this site back a few years ago when I was into building computers. I realized that a computer was really the only way I'd get the functionality that I want. So now my plans are to incorporate a laptop into the build.

The laptop will more than likely be a Lenovo T61 with docking station. This brings me to my question. After reading many threads here and the audio wiki, I can not decide if the H701 would be the way to go or if I should get a soundcard and do all my processing with the laptop. I'm assuming there is no "this way is better than that" because I haven't found it yet and I've been reading for a couple days.

My first concern is that the laptop will not output untouched sound to the H701 for processing. I'm afraid the laptop will do its own processing then send it to the H701. That makes me think that I definitely need a high end sound card to output quality sound to the H701. But if that's the case, what is the use of the H701 if I can do all my processing on the laptop with an output equal to the quality the H701 would give me.

So I'm just looking for people's thoughts. I'm just stuck and not sure of which way to go.

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zyrus1

have you looked into bit perfect or kernal streaming.

durwood

I thought the H701 was pretty easy to use when I had it, plenty of features, but there were some quirks. Slight noise on rear channels even if using for midbass. "Zipper noise" when changing volume.

Why pay for an extra processing box though when the PC can possibly do the same job? This thought had always been in the back of my mind. It makes no sense to pay all that extra money and find somewhere to stash another box, at least that is my opinion. My wallet doesn't care for redundancy.

H701 is pretty easy to get it going and setup. The controller interface is pretty decent. Carpc processing is a little clunky to get going and setup in the beginning, but once you learn it, it's not so bad. Making adjustments on a small screen is not exactly user friendly, but how often do you need to make adjustments? The carpc as a processor is almost future proof. You can easily upgrade it, and there are always new plugins coming out. You can even venture into new playback methods besides typical dolby surround. The H701, zapco DSP, pioneer, JBL MS-8, H650 all can be mimiced in terms of features on a carpc processor (well maybe not logic7 yet but ambisonics and VBAP will pretty much put that to rest), but the carpc can walk all over them in terms of even going beyond the limitations of them-crossover settings, EQ, phase, etc...

Bit perfect and kernel streaming should get you an unaffected signal to the H701 (depending on if the soundcard doesn't force resampling to 48Khz).

Hope that helps you make a decision.

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JonnieBlaze

Well I went ahead and purchased the H701 with controller. I also purchased an Maudio Transit USB soundcard to get the sound to the H701 via optical connection. I'm currently running Vista on the laptop I'll be using.

That brings a question regarding bitperfect and Vista. I can't find a straight answer as to whether bitperfect is achievable in Vista. And also, if my USB soundcard is capable of bitperfect. Anyone have any insight to this?


I had this same question/concern, but when the opportunity to get a used H701 and controller came around I hadn't been able to answer that question so I jumped on the H701. But this way I can still use my headunit for the fm radio and if I end up not being happy with the computer, I'd still have good processing for whatever I put in the car. Seems more versatile to me...at least at the moment it does.

MP3Car.com