Best sounding PC for adudio may vary


Hi I have owned many many different PC,s . From Desk tops to laptops but I have found that HP lap tops the new I5 quad core and 6 gig ram 640 gig hard is my newest toy but it is by far the best on my stereo. It has a much more laid back sound than my Compaq or my old Dell. The Compaq I found very forward with lots of mid bloom that could sound great on another rig but this HP is my boat. The Dell....Well honestly the Dell both laptops and desk top both just were boring and just never made think " this is the best it can be" I knew it was lacking and no one had to tell me that dell isnt what you want for audio. But some swear by it so more power to them. It may intergrate perfectly with there rig. I want to know what you guys Think? Tell sound differences you have noticed between different computers and by the way if you cant tell the difference in the sound between computers ....well...Thanks anyway?
jayb77
Attempt to re-post the link to Robert Harley's experience at Rockport Technologies:
http://www.avguide.com/blog/the-best-stereo-system-ive-ever-heard
Robert Harley?

6-7K for just the server. I am not very sure how that relates to this thread.
The best thing that has happened to my system lately was the death of my cheap audio computer's mother board. $75 later I had the same CPU and software, but a much improved sound (via USB to DAC). In addition, it runs so much cooler that the fans, which had been audible across the room, now barely come on.
It would be great to have a real production PC sonics shootout. The PCs would have to be capable of working as regular PCs not just servers.
The easiest way to get beyond this sound varibility and generally poor SQ of PC is to go with Mac. Then Use Amarra, Pure Music or Ayrewave for playback. These all have slight sound differences, but they are all excellent.

A Mac Mini is an excellent choice, and if you want to tweak it out, just buy a Mach2 from mach2music.com. They have already done the foot work to do all the right things IME. I dont sell these, but I used one of their Minis at RMAF and my system got best of show from TAS. It was not because of the Mach2, but it did make a noticable improvement.

Also, dont even think about ripping with iTunes or using iTunes on a PC. Dreadful IMO. Use dbpoweramp and Accurate rip on PC and XLD on Mac:

http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html

Steve N.
Empirical Audio