Wireless for the Keyboard, Not the Computer?



I use a wireless router to access the internet on my Sony VAIO laptop which I can then move around the house. This Sony laptop usually lives on my desktop, where it is hooked up to an external video monitor, and has USB out to connect it to a desktop audio system which consists of Behringer amps, an EQ and ATC monitors.

My desk is also in my listening room with my main 2 channel system.

I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk - where I can work, surf the web, watch the news etc - AND listen to the ATCs which sound very good.

But sometimes I am really tempted to DISconnect the laptop, move across the room to the sofa, and connect the USB output directly to my main rig through an Audio Research DAC, in order to listen through the main speakers. In theory, this is easy to do, but in practice, it is a bit of a pain, and I miss the larger video monitor when working directly from the laptop.

This dilemma has me thinking.....

* What if all of my audio files were ripped and stored not to my Sony laptop, but to a larger desktop computer?
* Where the larger, desktop computer could be a) optimized for audio and b) hard wired to both the desktop and the main system's DACs at all times?
* This way, to move across the room and sit on the sofa while listening to my big rig, I could use a wireless KEYBOARD?
* And a VGA splitter box to hard wire a second, full size video monitor?


This way, it seems I could get rid of the laptop, but still move around the room by simply picking up the wireless keyboard? Use a bigger video monitor...and also improve the audio quality?

A smaller point, but I would also like to ditch the laptops as they are always breaking.

Advice on this or any other PC configurations greatly appreciated and thank you.

But please please please, dont say: "just get a Mac"?!



cwlondon
OK, I won't say just get a Mac. But I will say just get a Sonos or a Squeezebox.
that's exactly what I do. I have a wireless blue tooth mouse and keyboard, but hard wired the monitor with a 28 foot monitor extention cord over by my listening chair. It really makes it nice when you only want to hear a couple tracks off various cd's. You never have to move out of the sweet spot. Have fun, Frank
Hi5Harry

Dreaming up these configurations is not my strength, so I am glad to hear you thought it was a good idea, too. Yes, the "sweet spot" is a key issue, particularly with Magneplanars. Thank you!

Rdc2000

Ha - my disclaimer should have contained Mac, Airport Express, Sonos and/or Squeezebox.

If you have been around this forum for any time at all, you should know that audiophiles prefer the path of the greatest, most torturous resistance, even if the benefits are not discernible in blind tests.

Which is why I am leaning towards lossloss WAV files only, and hard wired DACs to the most audio capable PC only.
I should have looked at your system before commenting. Point taken.

Blind tests aside, having a desktop PC in a listening room (with all the challenges that come with them - not the least of which is fan noise) doesn't seem like the most elegant solution these days, even for those of us who like to torture ourselves!

You may want to at least check out Slim Devices Transporter (review up on sonicflare.com now) or Olive or the McIntosh MS750 thing the NY Times wrote about a week or two ago. (Put Another File in the Jukebox, Baby. Feb. 20 issue) For $6,000 I thought the author was seriously demented for choosing the MS750, but to each his own...

Network drives stored in another room can be be connected via ethernet to most of these servers and then physically connected to the dac. The sound from the best ones out there should, imho, rival anything coming from a pc and probably be a lot more user friendly.

And as you've probably been around here a while, you know that there have been plenty of threads "proving" other lossless formats (apple/flac) will sound as good WAV.

Either way, good hunting. That's a hell of a nice setup you've got there...
edit-
I just looked at the NYT article again. He recommended the Olive over the McIntosh. Not that the article will be of much help, he barely discusses sound. Ease of ripping seems to be the biggest factor for the author..