CarPuter
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Gold Member Username: BernymacAQ HD3!!, CA United States Post Number: 1260 Registered: Sep-04 | Xmas is coming and I'm going to build my brother in law a new computer. Most likely everything will be new. Main thing is, I'm going to tear down his somewhat old computer and use the cpu,ram,hdd,and gfx card and build a CarPuter. It'll be relatively small, going to go in the front and create a center console for it. So now to the main question!!!!!!! When I play music from the PC to my Headunit, do you think sound quality will be effected? Do you think a better sound card will help create better sound? Just wondering. |
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Silver Member Username: Nd4spd18Post Number: 124 Registered: Jul-06 | I assume you will be using an analog input on the HU (such as rca inputs or headphone jack input). If that's the case, then yes, you will lose SQ compared to a CD which is digital. In your setup the computer would have to convert the digital music to analog, output it through the sound card, then your HU would have to process the signal and output it to your amp(s). When playing a CD on the HU, the digital music is converted to analog by the internal digital-to-analog-converter, and sent to the amp(s), so signal only goes through one conversion. Every time you convert digital to analog or vice versa you lose quality. Now, if you have a very high end HU with a digital input, and a high end sound card with digital output, then you could do what you are wanting to do with no loss of SQ. As for your question about sound cards, yes a good sound card will improve SQ. IMO creative sound blaster are the best sound cards out there. If you do decide to go ahead with this idea, you should also consider that the hard drive is the most fragile component in a computer, and most desktop HDs are not designed to withstand the amount of shock/vibration that it would receive mounted in a car. You may want to use a notebook hard drive and put it in an enclosure like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/Panasonic-Toughbook-CF-27-Caddy-and-10-Gb-Hard-Drive_W0QQite mZ150066650317QQihZ005QQcategoryZ38119QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem That enclosure is made for a panasonic toughbook, the most dourable laptops out there. |
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Gold Member Username: BernymacCambodian Post Number: 1275 Registered: Sep-04 | Good information, thanks a lot. |
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Silver Member Username: Nd4spd18Post Number: 126 Registered: Jul-06 | no prob.  |
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