DiB

There are DVD-A head units out now but no SACD units.

I'm selling my old competition car now; 8000w rms daily driver. My new car I have now will be an SQL install inside a jetta with a carpc at the heart. I plan on competing for spl and sq which will be a fun and rewarding project. I have the alpine iva-d900 in my competition car and it has limitations so I'd much rather use a carpc. Lots of imformation at termpro's forums about car audio topics.

Slaughterhouse

wow...well that was fun reading 5 pages of incoherrent babble at 2 a.m.
WHich brings me to my question. I guess you could call me a audiophile freak.
I'm going into the carputer wave w/o a h/u and am wondering if i'll be able
to tell the difference in sound quality. Maybe not even me as much as a fellow "expert" with excellent ears. I'm goign to spend a good chunk of money on a sound card, maybe an Audigy2, but i just don't want to be dissapointed if i get it all installed and find the quality to be worse than my previous h/u, which is quite good btw. Should i be worried? and yes i read the post.

turbocad6

I have a high end install that runs an alpine multi source head unit right along side my pc, & I can actually a/b sample the same tracks side by side,& really the best answer is that the difference is so subtle that you will have no real problem being happy with pc audio. I listen to mp3s for hours on end & it is very enjoyable, although once in a while when I hear a certain track I'll imediately be reminded of the difference. if you played a track that i am familiar with I can usually be able to tell if it is an mp3 or a cd/dvd on my system, but the difference is so slight that i'd have a harder time telling most of times if it was material that i wasn't so familiar with.

while i do believe that the sound quality is superior with the alpine over the pc, I will also admit that's it's not by much a lot of the times & a lot of less critical listeners can't even discern any difference at all, or at least can't tell much difference & the universal answer from the masses is that they both sound awsome....

the pc runs through my alpine processor, from a soundblaster extigy, but i have run systems straight from the pc with similar results,but you WILL need at least a line driver(s) to feed your amps a clean strong input & this of course assumes that everything else that would plauge even a head unit install is in check, IE; no funky ground loops or rfi interference, etc...& everything else that would affect a conventional install still comes into play; speaker placement & effective frequeincy coverage... if your system sounds great to you before a pc transplant I'm sure it will still sound great to you after...

I just recently realized that there are a few compression techniques that are totally lossless in the transfer to the pc, unlike common mp3's & I am anxious to sample this as soon as I finish a few mods under progress....

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MY NEWEST INSTALL:modded infiniti fx with big screen - "If my typing sucks it's probably because I'm driving....................."

first windows carpc install........my liquid cooled LVDS screen :D

SoFlaLude

What, FLAC encoding? It's great. Reduces file sizes to between 40-60% of their original WAV size, lossless-y. APE is slightly better at compressing (less than 1% difference in filesizes though), however it uses more CPU cycles in decode phase (ie, APE files encode slightly faster than FLAC, but playing back require more CPU.) For me, FLAC is better, esp. since in the mobile environment depending on your config, CPU cycles aren't easy to come by... hard drive space is. Either one though will reverse and create the original WAV file, so if you want transcoding is very easy. For audiophiles (folks like me that drool at the sight of a Krell power amp and run like hell from Bose), FLAC is the only way to go.

And that troll who said there's no diff above 160kb MP3? Grab a new set of ears. Even after numerous punk/ska shows and 2 years in drum corps, I can still hear the diff between a 320kb MP3 and the original source.

Slaughterhouse

AHHAHAH yea i just spend quite a few months ripping out my stock BOSE system out of my caddy to put in a real system. thanks guys. I'm guessing i need a special program to decode in FLAC? I think i'm probably going to go ahead wiht only the carputer and if i must ill add a h/u later.

Cat Monkey

but when ye buy a high end system its there and it works sure but if you build a pc based system it will provide you with a new hobby give you insights into areas you might not have known existed and of course it is 100% upgradable.

no one with lots of money can come along and say that car systems cool how much would it cost for me to have that or somthing better and have a straight answer given. a carputer is yours! there are so many different combos of hardware/software that a setup can be quite unique. custum pc building is a tad weak given a monkey could be trained to do it but custom car building (even if its just custom in-car entertainment like car puter) is a whole world of fun. carputer is the least geeky geek passtime to date .there is less room for pretencious 'computer experts' and more for the hands on types that carputer geeks should all aspire to become amen

Cat Monkey

on sacd. sony is never gonna let there be a sacd rom drive they dont even let manufactures put full bandwidth digital outs on stand alone players its full BW analogue out and thats yer lot- fact of the matter is you are not allowed to have direct acces to whats on the disc cause they know as soon as ye do yer gonna archive it an spread it etc...

Slaughterhouse

OR!
everythiing else u do too, like the high end system.
Why stop at the only DIY project in your car being the carputer,
do something challening and install a high end system yourself.
MOst people that consider themselves an audiophiler do all the install themselves.

Cris

Not necesarily. Do you think a thenor could install a system?

Nic

wtf is a thenor?

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Cris

Tenor I mean, like Placido Domingo...

bigdaddy_23

I agree 100%. Look at all the other electronic industries they are head to the PC format just in a round about way. When I put my multimedia system in my car the entire setup (not including amps and speakers) was about $2000. I wish I knew then what I know now because that $2000 would have went on the parts for a carputer and I would have had money left over to really cool stuff like video cameras.

What head unit can burn mp3s or movies on a disc, none. Carputers are the ****, and they are the wave of the future. Also because it is a computer when it catches on the prices are going to have to stay competitive because anyone with a decent understanding of computers will be able to build their own. You can't do that with a Head Unit.

turbocad6

I never said head unit OR computer, I never said no computer, I like a computer in my car, I have a computer in my car......my computer can do anything your computer can. that's not the point........ I repeat, I LIKE CARPUTERS.................

I also like having a head unit as central command, I think it is necissary for a great install...... I have never had to drive without entertainment or navigation....... even when my pc had a problem & would sometimes reboot at random, I had functionality.... even if I remove my pc for an hour/day/week/whatever I still have full functionality. if I get a virus I still have full functionality..... to me the carputer by itself isn't reliable enough to count on 100%... maybe it's just me & my setup, but I'm willing to bet that at least most of us here have had at least one or two ocassions that your pc was sick/wounded or some other way plauged with some sort of problem, & when that happens & it is youre only source, you better have a back-up laptop ready to plug in.... I've seen several here do that....

__________________
MY NEWEST INSTALL:modded infiniti fx with big screen - "If my typing sucks it's probably because I'm driving....................."

first windows carpc install........my liquid cooled LVDS screen :D

RedGTiVR6

hahahah - this guy obviously hasn't spent much time in car audio has he?

lol

try sitting in some world class sound quality cars....you might just be blown away with what they can produce....that sound of someone tapping their foot from back in the recording room? the sound of someone dropping something light weight from way back on the back from of a symphony, someone taking a deep breath before they start in on another part of the vocals for a song....while the lead is still singing...yeah - you can hear all of that in a properly set-up car....believe me

sdashiki - don't you think you might have some more credibility if you learned how to type? because as it sits right now, all you are doing is flaming away, getting all worked up, and typing like you can't speak anything but ghetto engrish

Internet ghetto talk, YO!

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turbocad6

sdashiki is a funny kid, a little ignorant & not afraid to show it, he'll grow up someday & realize that he shouldn't just make up answers in his head for what he doesn't know....... were all victims off this to a certain extent, today you will realize that what you thought yeasterday was true, now isn't, & tommorrow you will learn more about what you think you know today......

I think I know alot, but I also know that there are many things I don't know, & I want to learn until the day I die, & I'm sure even that will teach me a lesson....

since I started this thread I learned a few things, & when i read my thoughts from jusy a few months ago I realize that some of my thoughts have changed..... I learned..... this thread & several others, along with other reserch has tought me that my initial impression of cd's being far superior to mp3s is only half true..... & that there are ways of storing music that will be lossless...... & while I still think for me I would rather have a head unit as central... I now realize that having the pc as an only source isn't a big limiting factor to sound quality, there are other reasons to not want a carputer as your only central comand, but sound quality is not as much of a limit as I originally considered it to be......

sdashiki will learn to, but he is funny to watch rant & insist his incorrect assumptions are fact, & that the facts are wrong..... he is amusing

__________________
MY NEWEST INSTALL:modded infiniti fx with big screen - "If my typing sucks it's probably because I'm driving....................."

first windows carpc install........my liquid cooled LVDS screen :D