Hello All
I am new to this site and was wondering if someone can give me some advise.
I am about to build a new PC (or should I say have one built for me), and wanted to know which Soundcard and CD RW I should buy.
I want to use my PC for burning Audio CD's in WAV format and MP3 format, also I want to play my MP3's through my LINN stereo system, which leads me to another question, does anyone know of a way of sending the information to my stereo without wires as PC and stereo are at opposite ends of the house.
Thanks for any help
Flumpet

I would always go for good old Plextor CD-RWs.
they are realy relieable and well-featured. I owed two so far (12/10/32A & 40/12/40A), never had any problems ever. If you have some spare money and want to use the special features (giga-rec...) go and buy the premium 52x drive.

edit: spelling

As to the CDRW-drive options: there are plenty good ones lately. Not only Plextors. You can find detailed and high quality threads on this topic here, and at the digital-inn hosted EAC forum. They'll tell you much more than I can type in 5 minutes.
Ofcourse, I can tell you what I did after reading up on those. I bought a LiteOn LTR-24486S, where the 6 in the type number is crucial. It isn't a fast drive, but read error detection is quite precise.

Wireless connection to a Linn setup: if you want Linn-quality of sound, there's only one way to go. You'll need a second PC (not necessarily fast nor recent) equipped with a good soundcard and Wireless LAN, which you put near your system.

Good soundcards: at www.digit-life.com you'll find recent reviews of the Terratec Aureon Space, M-Audio Revolution 7.1 and Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1. I think these are all up to the task. If you want higher quality connectors (rather than 3.5mm jack plugs), the Terratec EWX 2496 and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 come to mind. Do note that these are stereo only models.

If you search around a little you can find media hubs that use WiFi (802.11x wireles networking standard) to pull media files from a PC wirelessly and output them to a stereo using either analog or SPDIF outputs. HP makes one, I think Gateway has a new DVD player that does this too, there is one from Motorola, and a few others. These devices use a TV for the user interface to remotely access files and playlists. I think the ones out now only support MP3, WAV and WMA, so you may be limited in available formats.

I have also read that you can use a Slimp3 with a wireless WiFi bridge to connect to a PC wirelessly - but Slimp3 only has analog outputs right now.

Do let us know if you try any of them.

It's a most interesting tip, Digitalman. I found the one that HP makes:
http://hpshopping.speedera.net/www.shoppin...eet/db225a.html

So far I'd say it is a promising concept. Seeing the specs however I wouldn't buy such a box now. It offers too little flexibility (no digital outs, no wav support, Windows only, etc) and I suspect it isn't what I meant by "Linn quality" either: "frequency response @-3dB" in the specs. Perhaps in a few months someone will offer a better version?

As someone mentioned, there are a few media players on the market. The cheapest I have
seen is the now out of production Rio Reciever whch I just got from Ubid.com (around $60 plus shipping) It is a diskless (ie mechanically silent) Linux box with an ARM processor.
It has ethernet and some phone wire based networking, so you would either get a wireless
adapter for the ethernet, or the phone wire adapter for your serving computer.

The default software plays mp3, and shoutcast. There is another version which does mp3, Vorbis and I think FLAC.

Correct. The Rio Receiver is a neat little box. For more info see this forum:

http://rioreceiver.comms.net/php/ubbthreads.php

Also, the slimp3 is very hackable and there are several transcoder modules (including FLAC) for it.

Josh

Patsoe,
Yes, agree about the questionable analog conversion vs. Linn quality.

The Motorola unit:

Motorola Simplifi

I think you can connect the Turtle Beach Audiotron to a WiFi bridge if you are pretty savvy with networking - and it has a SPDIF digital output.

PC Magazine Review of several units:

Audio Hubs

Some cool units - would love to hear if any HA members have experience with these.

Thanks for all your help, I have plenty of playing around to do now.
With respect to soundcards, when do you notice the benefit from bargain cards to quality cards.

Do you mean at which pricepoint, or with which music?

Pricepoint: somewhere upwards of 80euro.
Music: too difficult a question for me...

Music: probably no difference, except if you've used a bad card - Live, AC97, ESS...
Pricepoint: >~55€ (250 zł - TerraTec Aureon 5.1 Sky costs that much around here)

I'd say with really good quality reproduction equipment (a LINN system in this case), you might be able to notice the difference between a 24bit-out card (M-Audio Revolution, Terratec Aureon Sky or Space, etc.) and a less expensive model, assuming you use a media player that supports the additional features (foobar2k, MAD decoder) and you use analog-out.
I would personally purchase a Lite-On optical drive, and use the money saved over plextor to pick up a better sound card like the aforementioned Aureon Sky.