Computer Audio Guys List Your Rig!

AsSiMiLaTeD

I'm curious what you other computer audio guys are using in your computer audio rigs. I figured it would be neat to get a list of rigs going: What platform are you on (Win/Mac/Other), what software are you running, and what's your audio gear?

I'll start

iMac OSX Lion
iTunes w/Amarra HiFi (runs on top of iTunes, replaces iTunes with much better sound engine)
Musical Fidelity V-Link
Peachtree Dac-IT
Schiit Calhalla tube amp feeding Sennheiser HD600 headphones
Woo Audio WA6 tube amp feeing Sennheiser HD700
Swan M200MkIII Speakers

I also own Pure Music, Decibel, Audirvana, and BitPerfect as alternatives to Amarra, but prefer Amarra over all of them. There rumor of JRiver coming to Mac as well...

coolsax

for my main system I just run a Squeezebox Touch analog into a Music Hall A15.2 integrated into Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1s

for my head rig I just my windows laptop using Media Monkey into an HRT MS II into a Fiio E9 amp into Sennheiser HD 650s.

All music is on a Qnap NAS.

BlueFox

iPod 120GB Classic - Apple Lossless files,
Wadia 171 iTransport
CIAudio VDC-9 PS upgrade
Pangea 14SE power cord
MIT Magnum digital cable
Bryston BDA-1 DAC.

Cambridge-Audio 840E pre-amp
Cambridge-Audio 840W amp, two in mono mode
Sony XA-5400ES SACD
Aerial Acoustics 7T speakers
Shunyata Triton power conditioner
Shunyata Anaconda Ztron 8' speaker cables
2 Shunyata Python CX power cords (for amps)
3 Shunyata Cobra Ztron power cords (SACD, DAC, pre)
1 Shunyata Python Ztron power cord for power condtioner
Shunyata Z-71 wall duplex
MIT S 1.3 XLR interconnects
2 Mapleshade 4" maple speaker plinths with brass carpet piercing footers
Mapleshade Micropoint brass footers under all electronics

heiney9

This is my secondary office/computer room rig.

Dell Inspiron 580
Intel R-core i5/2.80Ghz
8GB RAM 64 bit Windows 7

USB only audio, no digital out.

DAC's I swap in and out
Keces DA-151 MkI (soon to have upgraded Clarity Cap output coupling caps) USB only
Audio GD NFB-3

Rotate one of these 4 tube integrated amps.
1) HCT HMS-100 (Dared MP5 clone) 15wpc tube hybrid. ECC85 driver tubes and mOsFet chipamp output and a cool Magic Eye tube.
2) Norh SE-9; 9wpc single ended EL34 power tubes w/12AX7 driver tubes and 5AR4 rectification.
3) Dared VP-16; 16wpc push/push 6V6 power tubes and 6SL7 driver tubes
4) Dared i-30 (Spirit in the sky) 30wpc push/pull 6L6GC power tubes; 12AU7 phase splitter and 12AX7 driver tubes.
about 60-70+ tubes to roll between them all, at all positions.

Cables:
speaker - Homemade double twisted run per channel Carare Star Quad 4S6 w/nanners on all ends
interconnect - MIT Terminator 2 ribbed gray boxes and gray techflex
USB - Media Bridge Gold series
power cable 1 - VR3 special (Trey homemade)
power cable 2 - Audio GD

Speakers rotate 1 of 3 pairs
1) Polk Audio 5B's w/RD0194-1's, modded w/ Clarity Caps-high pass, Solen's low pass, Mills, fuse delete, Mortite and Larry's driver and tweeter rings
2) Polk Audio RT25i's soon to be Clarity Cap modified
3) Polk Audio RTi38's soon to be in the FM as I don't need 3 pairs of speakers.

I use Media Monkey with the ASIO4ALL plugin for USB playback. DbPoweramp to rip and tag my files to FLAC.

I think that covers it

H9

AsSiMiLaTeD

Anyone on the PC side using or tried JRiver?

audiocr381ve

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Anyone on the PC side using or tried JRiver?

Yep, it's great in that you can mess with DSP and dial in your room.

I have to brag a little bit about my comp first.

27" iMac 16GB Ram w/ the 2GB graphics card (LOVE this machine)
into my Keces DA-151 mkii
into my DIY Pass B1 Buffer
into my Parasound HCA-750a
into my Polk SDA-2BTL's

SUCH good sound :cheesygrin:

vcwatkins

Computer:
HP Model #POS - Windows
MediaMonkey Gold v4 (WASAPI bitperfect)
Rip to FLAC with either MM4 or dbPowerAmp
USB out (Wireworld UV)

DACs: HRT MusicStreamer 2 or Audio-gd NFB-12.1

Pre: Dared SL2000a, Brimar, Telefunken 5965<> or ECC801 or Mullard 6201, splits to:

Amp-Speaker Combos:

Pass Labs Aleph 30
Polk CRS+ (dynamat & armacell only)
Brilliant detail, lovely sweet tone, effortlessly dynamic, amazing soundstage. Love this amp! Can roast marshmallows though.

HCT HMS-100 (Dared MP5 clone) 15wpc tube hybrid, 60's RCA ECC85
Hartley H200's (early 80's, 10"-2.5"-1")
The NOS Siemens-made tubes I got from H9 are an excellent fit and took their time breaking in. They were sounding wonderful, I thought, at ~25hrs, but continued to improve up to ~96 hours. This combo is made in heaven. Mesmerizing, airy quality that envelopes and seems dead-on true to the source. It won't let you ignore it - I get nothing done when this thing is on. Better sub-40Hz and much better very HF (than the Polks) that adds to the airiness and realism without becoming tiresome. I haven't tried many other speakers here: HCT (nothing great), Mission 761 and 771 (harsh & unusually poor imaging). I plan to work on 5b's that are currently in storage, but I can't see anything supplanting the Hartley's. I also really like the sound of this headphone amp (usually Grado 80's) for late night.

Just bought a used Music Hall 2.2le TT and shopping USB preamps (likely Parasound zPhono USB) to rip vinyl at this station this summer.

Craig

doctorcilantro

J. River MC17 with 64bit Native Convolution based on Audiolense (pending arrival of MP1r mic kit)

NAS - Synology 411j 12TB Raid 5 = 8TB

File Types - Mainly FLAC, some native DSD (for adding Mytek or SOtM down road)

System1:

PC - OrigenAE M10 with Zotac ION dual-ocre ATOM, SSD, mostly passive cooling
DAC - Peachtree DACiT
Amp - Miniwatt N3 (China)
Speakers - Audioengine A2

System 2:

PC - CoolerMaster SilverStone Fortress FT03 Mini-Tower, Quad-Core i7 at 4gHz (latency is so low on this one during playback using WASAPI Event Mode), 16GB RAM, memory playback, SoTM PCI USB card with 5v OFF after handshake with DAC
DAC - Antelope Gold w/ Voltikus (Virtue Audio USB cable)
Amp - Decware EL34.1 ("Rachel")
Speakers - Hoyt Bedford Type 1.5

falconcry72

- PC (Vista 64bit, 8GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Quad)

- Foobar 2000 media player (configured in ASIO)

- USB out (Wireworld UV)

- Audio DG Digital Interface

- Custom silver digital cable by pepster

- Audio GD NFB-7 DAC

- Signal Cable Analog 2 XLR's

- Audio Research LS-15 tubed preamp

- Signal Cable Analog 2 XLR's

- BAT VK-500 power amp:twisted:

- MIT Shotgun S3 speaker cables

- Usher Dancer Mini 2's or Magnepan 1.6's

11tsteve

AMD FX-6100 @ 4.55 ghz, XSPC liquid ... Win 7
crossfired 6970
Corsair 120 G ssd
HT Omega
Tributaries Series 5 optical
Matrix Mini DAC (which i would like to replace with a Keces)
Acurus RL-11
Parasound HCA 1200 II
Polk RTA-11T (updated Xovers, RDO-194, rewired, damped drivers, Armacell gaskets, spiked)

music is in AIFF format on a 1TB WD cloud drive.

i have tried Media Monkey and Foobar and haven't decided. my drives are due for a reformat, so i'll figure this out then.

currently in search of new cabling as most of mine is cheap crap....

CCNJ

Computer: iMac running OSX Lion
Player: iTunes
Music: ripped to flac and apple lossless
Connection: belkin gold USB into Musical Fidelity VLINK
DAC: Rega
Speakers: Harbeth P3ESR sitting on Primaccoustic Isolation pads
Integrated Amp: LFD LE IV
Connectors: Audioquest Type 4 and Audioquest King Cobra interconnects

txcoastal1

Computer-Windows 7-64bit, I5
Music-J. River MC17 ripped Flac/WASAPI
DAC-W4S-2 connected to PC via USB Cardas Clear cable
Pre-Melody Valve 101 Pure black
Amp-Pass XA-30.5
Speakers-Usher MD2

I like the J River MC17,
but I get slight noise from the PC, even mouse movement causes a slight static...would like to fix this.

DoctorC does your SoTM PCI USB possibly fix this
or you mac users or others experiencing any of these effects?

System is dead quiet using Sonos or CD player

Thanks

Jason_k

Computer:
Windows 7
MediaMonkey

DAC: W4S DAC2

Pre: Dared SL2000;Telefunken 5965; Brimar on order

Cables: Signal Cable

Amp: Rotel RB-991

Speakers: Polk LSI 15. Dual JL's sub's soon.

steveinaz

Asus Laptop
Motorola cable modem (asus hardwired to modem)
Squeezebox Touch w/Channel Island power supply--->Benchmark DAC
External USB HDD
LMS/EAC, and Mediamonkey
*.flac codec

rtart

Anybody using Windows Home Server as a Tank?

I've used V1 for a couple of years on an old P4 machine. I have a separate dedicated PC that's used only for music and is wired into my Russound whole house audio system. (4 sources, 12 zones.) I use Win Media Player (V 11 I think) and Streamzap for IR remote control. The Russound system will accept IR remote commands through each keypad in each room and send them to the source device. IR commands are pretty basic - Play, stop, FF, RW, etc. Audio comes out via a Behringer DAC. I sometimes use Remote Desktop Connection and a small netbook on the wireless side of my home network to more completely control the tunes from anywhere in the house.

I'm not a huge fan of WMP, but have tried iTunes and don't like the restrictions on files and the complexity. BTW, I have 16GB in HDD capacity and well over 260,000 songs, most losslessly ripped. The scale of the files gives WMP problems some times, I think.

AsSiMiLaTeD

CCNJ wrote: »

Computer: iMac running OSX Lion
Player: iTunes
Music: ripped to flac and apple lossless
Connection: belkin gold USB into Musical Fidelity VLINK
DAC: Rega
Speakers: Harbeth P3ESR sitting on Primaccoustic Isolation pads
Integrated Amp: LFD LE IV
Connectors: Audioquest Type 4 and Audioquest King Cobra interconnects

Are you not running anything on top of iTunes? If not I'd highly suggest you look into doing so, even the $10 BitPerfect is a significant improvement over the iTunes sound and handles sample rate conversion as well, which iTunes does not (you have to do it manually in the audio midi setup). I'd take a look at the few programs I mentioned in the OP and see if any of those interests you, you really are missing out on the best possible sound using iTunes playback engine.

nwohlford

Home office -
Mac Mini (still playing with the best way to get audio out)
Denon DVD-5000 (primarily used as DAC)
M&K BMC Mini
Aragon Soundstage
Proceed AMP2 -> LSi9 or NAD 2400 -> SDA CRS+
Micropro 2000

Work office -
Dell Optiplex 760 (decommissioned work computer)
Sonos ZP 90 (also a Pure i-20 for iPhone listening)
Benchmark DAC1
Denon AH-D2000
for low level listening without headphones I have a Cambridge Soundworks BaseCube 821 with Blackstone TL3s

Music in both systems is primarily ALAC.

renowilliams

PC- Intel 2600K custom build on Asus Maximus Extream-Z motherboard,Corsair Obsidean 800d case,4 TB of storage.
Audio: HDMI out to 54" Panny and optical to my Athem Pre, referberd Carver TFM-35 and SDA 1B's.
Media Monkey and dbpoweramp. I also use media player classic for video.

codyc1ark

Nice thread, now lets see some photos of these rigs!!

brianle

Getway slim desktop squeezebox server -> Squeezebox Touch -> Eastern Electric DAC -> Unison s6 SE tube integrated amp -> Usher Dancer Mini 2

renowilliams

Heres a pic of mine.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/renowilliams/7148444943/in/photostream

LuSh

Laptop - 500GB hard-drive. CD's ripped in AIFF (2TB backup HD)
Squeezebox Touch running Squeeze Pad (Best iPad app ever)
iPad 2 for control

SimAudio Moon 300D Dac
SimAudio Moon I-5 Integrated Amp
Dynaudio 52SE Speakers

I still purchase 3-4 CD's a month from Amazon and then rip to my laptop. Spend most of my time on music websites such as Pitchfork and Stereogum looking for new tunes...

dkg999

Dell XPS Desktop with i7
QNAP TS-459 Pro II NAS with Samsung Spinpoint drives, RAID5 Configuration

Computer PC system
NuForce iDAC2
Cambridge Audio 550A Integrated
Polk Blackstone TL-3 speakers
Polk MicroPro 2000 sub

I use DBPoweramp and MediaMonkey to rip, store and manage my digital archive

Music Distribution to 2 ch and HT systems
Logitech SqueezeBox Touch (3 of them) and a SqueezeBox Boom for distribution
Music Hall 25.3 and PS Audio DLIII DAC's

I prefer Cabo Wabo or Blue Moon or Abita as further enhancement to any of these systems.

thsmith

Mac mini 2.3GHz dual-core i5 8g RAM 1.5 TB HDD Music Server Amarra Mini (memory play) - USB - W4S DAC 2

11tsteve

my AMD rig... soon to be an Ivy bridge... and the 6970s are going up for sale. but its what it is right now.

Drenis

Dude, that watercooling setup is way overkill. Nice rig.

Face

Bedroom rig:

Custom PC(Win 7x64, i7, water cooled, etc...)
J. River
W4S mINT Asynch USB DAC/Pre/Head and Power Amp
Hifiman HE-6 (Open Headphones)
AKG K550 (Closed Headphones)
Tannoy Revolution DC4 Speakers

I'll post my other computer rigs later.

11tsteve

Drenis wrote: »

Dude, that watercooling setup is way overkill. Nice rig.

bulldozer is a hot chip at 4.55, and i was doing some team benching. got her up to 5.3+ ghz under chilled water, benchable.

Face

11tsteve wrote: »

bulldozer is a hot chip at 4.55, and i was doing some team benching. got her up to 5.3+ ghz under chilled water, benchable.

Impressive! Tempted to see what I can get a i7 2600K(3.4) up to with a Corsair H100. Without any OC'ing yet, temps barely move at all, even during gaming.

11tsteve

Face wrote: »

Impressive! Tempted to see what I can get a i7 2600K(3.4) up to with a Corsair H100. Without any OC'ing yet, temps barely move at all, even during gaming.

a lot of folks on the overclocking forum i frequent will even say air is good enough for the 2600k as temps do not really rise too badly since it is a fairly low voltage chip. hopefully you have one of those -one-in-a-million cpus.
i personally think going the extra mile with cooling is just insurance. but i have also spent hours just trying to get 25 mhz more...:cheesygrin:

i have not had an intel rig since P-4 days, and i am kind of anxious to give it a whirl.... if i could just stop buying amplifiers, cables, wire, caps...... sigh.

Face

11tsteve wrote: »

i have not had an intel rig since P-4 days, and i am kind of anxious to give it a whirl.... if i could just stop buying amplifiers, cables, wire, caps...... sigh.

Opposite here, nothing but AMD for a while but switched over to Intel when the first i7's came out. And I definitely hear you on the rest.