Car PC Question...What do you use as your sound processor/controller?

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May 28, 2007 | 01:15 AM

VinceC5

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Melting Slicks

Joined: Sep 2004

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From: Spring Texas

Car PC Question...What do you use as your sound processor/controller?

I'm sick and tired of all the bad Ipod interfaces. Even the new Alpine IDA-X001 doesn't do it for me. The **** is perfect, if only it did the same thing the ipod control did. I don't believe when they advertise that it was designed along with iPOD engineers. That is BS!!

Car PC is probably the only thing that will make me happy.

So question is: What did you CarPC guys use as your sound processor/ input to amplifiers?

thanks,
Vince

May 28, 2007 | 10:54 AM

bbentley40

Racer

Joined: Apr 2006

Posts: 256

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From: Huntsville AL

I did the simple way for now. Just get an adapter that goes from 1/8" jack to RCAs. You can plug it into the soundcard on the PC then use RCA splitters to go out to 4 channels.

Here is a good shot of what I am talking about..

But dont do what I did here.. put the splitters right before the amp! That way you only have to run 1 RCA cable through the car. I was stupid and didnt think about that until I was trying to fight the carpet and get it back in, then I still didnt change it.

I plan on looking into a DAC eventually, but I have to find one that allows me to still get my XM radio signal into it.

May 28, 2007 | 12:37 PM

NorthTexasVette

Le Mans Master

Joined: Apr 2007

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i am in the process of getting my carpc. I am going to go digital coaxial out from the mother board to a DAC. From the DAC I will go rca's to my alpine headunit. That way the headunit will provide the power to the speakers, and then go rca out to amplifier that will power my subwoofers.. I am doing this becuase I happen to have a alpine headunit in my garage. I was going to go with the pxa digital audio processor and then get the rux controller but that would be too expensive for me..

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/car-...gital-dts.html

http://mini-itx.com/hardware/ac3

I'm sure Scott_FX will be here shortly to help out also..

May 30, 2007 | 12:33 AM

scott_fx

Le Mans Master

Joined: Jun 2004

Posts: 5,572

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From: Los Angeles Ca

here i am :-)
here are the thing's i've tried:
*sb 5.1 live pci soundcard -> amps
*sb 5.1 live pci soundcard (kxproject drivers)-> amps
*sb 5.1 live pci soundcard (kxproject drivers)-> audio control 24xs active x-over/line driver -> amps
*alpine pxa-h701 -> amps
*crystal dac -> butler lx-23 active x-over -> amps

i've been pleased with the sound through each phase of expirementaion. The alpine was easy and sounded the best so far (haven't tested the cyrstal dac setup yet). The audiocontrol setup sounded really great as well. the key to that (imho) was the kxproject drivers. it really did wonders for the inexpensive sb card. it jumped up the voltage and gave a great crossover. With a kxproject compatible soundcard you can adjust every element of the soundcard, you can put time delays internally 'rewire' the input/outputs and tons more.

if you do go the soundcard route and you dont choose a soundblaster compatible card then you should check into an asio compliant card. there are tons of powerful pro tools out there that will let you get the most out of your pc system.

dont forget to look into usb dac's as well. there is a silverstone dac out there that can be easily modded to bump up the output voltage for 4v outputs

May 30, 2007 | 02:03 AM

VinceC5

Thread Starter

Melting Slicks

Joined: Sep 2004

Posts: 2,847

Likes: 439

From: Spring Texas

Quote:

here i am :-)

Well it's about time Scott!!!

I'm looking at going with the USB route since I want to use my laptop for this.

Thanks everyone for responding. I'm going to search for that silverstone dac or may just look into the alpine pxa-h701.

Is that a 5.1 DTS, Prologic decoder? I'll do some research...

thanks

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