drlung

to speakers. If my music is stored on an external hd, and my player is on my pc,(whatever player iTunes, MM, foobar) does the music come from the external hd back into the computer and then out to the dac? It almost has to since there is no direct connection from my external hd to my dac. But should there be? Would I want to directly connect my external hd to the dac? I could try it, but i am just confused and can't find a simple outline of the digital path from external hd, pc to dac. thanks

The version of windows you are using, is the best sounding player for the pc. It is otherwise not simple to use , but if your are interested in sq above all then foobar2000 is very hard to beat.

Data a pain, but sound more important. New iTunes with windows media option in quick time sounds much better than before, but I need to try j river on my windows 7 64 laptop. On my xp machine at work media monkey beats the hell out of iTunes.

With powered speakers as there are few places that have them available for audition. Personally I have had experience with 3 pairs of powered speakers and it depends on how much you want to spend. My office uses nht moo's with their sub. It's is very good. My desk at home has dynaudio m 15 with a velodyne sub. Somewhat better. I also have a par of audio engine 2s with their sub which for the money is good but can't touch the dynaudio. Both of the desktop systems use benchmark Dacs and Dell Pc. However when I send my iTunes through an audio engine wireless to my Conrad Johnson pre amp and then to my ayre amp through my Thiel 2.4 speakers, wowee, it's an unbelievable difference So that's my opinion.