beaver
12-13-2006, 11:13 PM
I would like to solicit some thoughts about the putting my music library in MCE for easy access.
What i'm doing is ripping all my CD collections at the highest bit rate possible (lossless in WMA format-according to Microsoft this is Audiophile grade) and storing it on some sort of data base which can then be accessable by MCE. My MCE PC is connected to the receiver and an LCD monitor acts a the GUI which i can then use the MCE remote pretty much like a TV remote. I like the set up a lot because i don't need to put a CD on my player everytime i want to hear the music and the fact that you can access your entire music library via a remote is a killer for me.
My concern though is the quality of the music. I feel that even though the bit rate is at its highest level, the quality (and volume) is not the same as the CD player when i listen it in my receiver using the usual stereo analog input. The sound seems compressed missing some dynamism. Albeit if i connect an amplified computer speaker, the sounds seems OK. I'm wondering now that it could be a mismatch (like impedance) between the output of the sound card and the input of the receiver. Or something else but i cannot see anything on the connection side that's why i'm looking on tweaking the sound card properties of the PC and probably using the optical interface instead. I'm not particulary keen of using the optical interface since i want to use my equalizer.
Can anyone suggest which is the possible cause of the poor quality sound? Any thoughts or inputs will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
What i'm doing is ripping all my CD collections at the highest bit rate possible (lossless in WMA format-according to Microsoft this is Audiophile grade) and storing it on some sort of data base which can then be accessable by MCE. My MCE PC is connected to the receiver and an LCD monitor acts a the GUI which i can then use the MCE remote pretty much like a TV remote. I like the set up a lot because i don't need to put a CD on my player everytime i want to hear the music and the fact that you can access your entire music library via a remote is a killer for me.
My concern though is the quality of the music. I feel that even though the bit rate is at its highest level, the quality (and volume) is not the same as the CD player when i listen it in my receiver using the usual stereo analog input. The sound seems compressed missing some dynamism. Albeit if i connect an amplified computer speaker, the sounds seems OK. I'm wondering now that it could be a mismatch (like impedance) between the output of the sound card and the input of the receiver. Or something else but i cannot see anything on the connection side that's why i'm looking on tweaking the sound card properties of the PC and probably using the optical interface instead. I'm not particulary keen of using the optical interface since i want to use my equalizer.
Can anyone suggest which is the possible cause of the poor quality sound? Any thoughts or inputs will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.