TTinGables

reading this letter that appeared in this month's Stereophile letters section. I found it interesting, and maybe some of you will too.


"I enjoyed reading John Atkinson's review of the Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe soundcard last September. I have recently spent a lot of time and money attempting to develop an "audiophile" stereo system for my car. I am using a PC with a special DC/DC converter power supply, along with WinAmp to serve up the digital data, and to provide digital EQ. I am currently using an Event Gina soundcard (the older one) for the DAC. I feed the Gina's line-level analog output into the auxiliary input of an Eclipse 7002 display/head unit. The Eclipse has a 5V low-impedance preamp-out; this signal goes to both a phoenix Gold ZX475ti amplifier (for mids/highs) and Phoenix Gold ZX600ti (for bass). The ZX475ti front channels go to Dynaudio 3" midrange/tweeters and the rear channels go to Dynaudio 7" mid/bass drivers. (The mid/tweeters are placed in kickpanels aimed at about a 45° angle and the 7" mid/bass units are in the doors.) I am using two Eclipse 10" aluminum subwoofers for bass powered from the ZX600ti. Both amps are connected to a 15-farad Phoenix Gold (alumipro) capacitor. My car system plays WAV files as well as MP3 files. I have voice recognition for calling up tunes to be played based on various criteria -I actually can just talk to my computer while I drive instead of pressing all kinds of buttons to get the tune I want. I also have a keyboard in my sun visor and an infrared remote (IR Man -connects to serial port). I feed an NTSC signal from the computer's videocard to the video input on the Eclipse. I have a WinAmp plug-in (giess) clUt displays cool graphics that correspond to the music. I am getting some pretty decent sound with this setup. The computer does not add any noticeable noise unless you crank up the preamp head unit really high; I can hear almost every little detail of the recording: feet moving, breathing before singing, lips cracking, etc. I am thinking of upgrading the sound-card to the CardDeluxe. Either that, or purchase a used Apogee DA-1000E for the DAC and use the S/PDIF output from the Event Gina. I hear that the Apogee DA-1000E-20 is a pretty nice DAC and runs off of 12V DC; however, it does not do 24/96. I would love to get some 24/96 music; eg, if I go with the CardDeluxe, I would like to compare 16/44.1 to 24/96. I just might be blown away by it. Where do I find all kinds of 24/96 music? Any good websites where I can order this? "

Editor's reply: "Sounds like a cool system. I guess it's a sign of my advanced years that I hadn't considered installing a PC in my car. Regarding the DAC upgrade, I'd go with the CardDeluxe; but as far as I am aware there are no websites offering 24/96 downloads. The file sizes, for one thing, are enormous; about 18 minutes of two channel 24/96 WAV data fill a 650MB CD-ROM. -JA"