Hi Michel,
I use to have that same idea... I moved all my cd's into Media Center and planned using the digi outs to an external DAC and figured it would sound just the same or better seeing that it's reading from a Hard Drive. Unfortunately this is not the case. Try a cheap DVD or CD player and run it to your DAC and have a listen. Actually, burn a CD from some of the files you are playing off your HTPC so you know that it can't be any better. The CD player sounds much better. I hear that the Windows KMixer has a lot to do with this, but I've used ASIO drivers and Kernal streaming drivers that are supposed to bypass this mixer and they sounded better, but not as good as any CD player transport. I can only tell on a good system though, but on that system it is obvious. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks!
Ben
I use to have that same idea... I moved all my cd's into Media Center and planned using the digi outs to an external DAC and figured it would sound just the same or better seeing that it's reading from a Hard Drive. Unfortunately this is not the case. Try a cheap DVD or CD player and run it to your DAC and have a listen. Actually, burn a CD from some of the files you are playing off your HTPC so you know that it can't be any better. The CD player sounds much better. I hear that the Windows KMixer has a lot to do with this, but I've used ASIO drivers and Kernal streaming drivers that are supposed to bypass this mixer and they sounded better, but not as good as any CD player transport. I can only tell on a good system though, but on that system it is obvious. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks!
Ben