Years ago (~35y), I spent a lot of money to get a really good sound system to play my CDs. It was fully transistorized. The loud speakers are big, with woofer, mid-range and tweeter, and are driven by a really heavy power amplifier box. Because of the solid-state internals, it has worked without interruption or servicing of any kind.
It still works entirely to my satisfaction except for one issue: I have trouble with the physical handling and storage of the CDs. When several CDs get separated from their jewel-cases, it is tedious to get them back in the correct case and the case back in the correct place on the storage shelf. A decade or more ago, I was toying with the idea of getting a robotic mechanical CD handler/player, but decided to wait a while for the price to go down. Instead, they seem to have disappeared from the market. And the whole napster thing happened. And the iPod with music delivered via ear-buds... Now, it is quite feasible to store my entire CD collection on hard disk, even without compression, and all computers have audio output. But what is the audio quality of the analog sound signal? I went to the local Best Buy store on Saturday to ask questions. The clerk, who was quite self assured, told me that it is easy to connect one's computer to one's home sound system, and showed me a short cable that they have for sale that has a triaxial plug on one end and two RCA jacks on the other and assured me that this was what he used at home and that this was all that I needed. This is very reassuring, if I can believe it, but ... Is it true? He was oblivious to my concern that the analog audio signal is generated in the computer box and that it is analog audio that travels over the special cable, and if *my* computer has an inferior sound-card or sound-chip-set, then maybe I would not have as good sound as he has. So I ask here - Is the analog audio signal at the output socket of *all* consumer-grade computers equally good? If it is not, how can I avoid wasting time and money on a computer with inferior sound? Are there other technical issues with the quality of 'ripped' music from CDs? What are they? As I write this, I am wondering how the analog music is actually encoded on the CD. Is is purely digital, or are there analog timing variations in the optical marks? I don't want to just hook it up and listen, because the cable run from where I have computers to where I have my hi-fi is ~100ft and that distance precludes listening to different CD copies on HD in quick succession. And maybe it really is a good way to go, but my test indicates it is bad because I make mistakes in my test setup. ... Please, help with this perplexity. -- Paul E Condon [email protected] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
