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[stefansmith]

Hi,
I'm wondering how other MC users are connecting their PC to their hi-fi in order to get that perfect sound that can rival a high-end CD player?

My set-up is as follows: all my CDs (500 or so) are encoded as APE files, normal compression, on my main PC. The hard drives are shared on the wired 100mbps network. This is linked to a small Shuttle PC next to the hi-fi, which has the hard drives with the APES mapped.
The small PC has an M-audio Sonica external USB soundcard to provide pure digital out, via an optical (toslink) cable, which in turn connects to my CD player (a now discontinued Marantz CD-17DA), which also can act as a standalone DAC, whose analogue outputs provide enough RMS to drive the amp.

All in all pretty good. I can clearly tell the difference in a blind listening test between a LAME MP3 encoded at 320kbps (the maximum quality) and an APE.
But i get the odd case of jitter and the playback is just not quite as 'bright' or 'full' as a regular CD playback -- especially in classical music.

Would be interested to hear what other people are using. Any audiophiles found that 'absolute sound' from a PC?

s.

[stefansmith]

In addition to the above, I forgot to mention that I'm using Waveout in the ouput settings.
Just read up on that, and will try DirectSound later....
My PC does not seem to detect ASIO devices.

S.

[Myron]

Well,  using lossless compression is a good start.

From there you need a clean, low jitter SPDIF output from your computer.  Toslink definitely does not qualify.  A coax connection will give you better performance if you don't run into ground loop problems because the transmit and/or receive ends do not use isolation transformers.

Also, the jitter rejection of your DAC has a lot to do with the results you get.  This is not often specified, so all you may have is your ears to judge.  Sounds like you're already hearing some problems.

See if you can try a coax digital output from a soundcard in your PC.

Personally I'm using a Philips SL400i media player connected via its coax digital output.  As far as I can tell, its sounds the same as my DVD player, and I do have a rather expensive system.

Hope this helps...

[lpr]

Hello,

Try to install those drivers if MC doesn't detect your native ASIO M-Audio drivers. (http://www.asio4all.com/). Also, you could check if you have the lastest beta drivers from M-Audio for your card (http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support.drivers).

After that, you have to set your outpout mode to ASIO in MC. Choose the ASIO drivers that works with your setup. Finally, you have to make sure that your audio card supporst ASIO, but I'm pretty sure it does.

Hope this helps.
lpr

[stefansmith]

"From there you need a clean, low jitter SPDIF output from your computer.  Toslink definitely does not qualify.  A coax connection will give you better performance if you don't run into ground loop problems"

Actually I find a toslink is better -- totally isolates the signal from the noise of the PC. If I ever get to a place with cleaner electricity I'll switch over.
Last night I tried Direct sound -- an immediate improvement.
Sadly, the M-Audio card I have, the USB sonica, is the only one in their range that does not support ASIO. So I switched to using the optical out of the Shuttle PC, driven by Nvidia, which does. Again an improvement, although very very slight.
However the difference between the PC and the CD is now barely distinguishable.
Thanks for the tips, but I'm still interested to hear of what other people are using, especially any recommendations of outboard DACs.

s.

[Alex B]

Here's a longish thread from last April. It started as a discussion about APE vs. MP3 quality, but during the thread there were many good comments about PC audio quality in general.

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=21002.0

I have had good experiences with my Terratec DMX 6fire 24/96 soundcard. The external Terratec Aureon 7.1 Firewire might be next on my shopping list. It can be used as an external DAC and even as a phono preamp.

http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20040621/
http://sounden.terratec.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=198&menu=219

[Mike Noe]

I have everything ripped to APE (high) and I just switched media servers and  have Media Center now running on a Shuttle XPC with an external power supply and a quiet fan at it's lowest (RPM) setting with a 2.4gHz Prescott Celeron.  I also moved the RME Digi96/8 into the Shuttle as opposed to using the built=in RealTek AC97 setup and I am using RME's ASIO driver.  Big difference.

My old Media PC was so loud, it was a mess, I can't believe I lived with it for so long.  Now, I run the analog out from the RME directly to my Preamp and also run the digital (COAX) out from the RME to a Denon DVD 5000 as a DAC, then on to the Preamp.  There is a difference in these two paths, mostly the imaging and lowend is affected, it's actually better using the RME analog out, even against the DVD5000 playing CDs/DVDs directly.

I just ordered TubeDAC+ kit from Scott Nixon to sit in between the RME and the Preamp.   We'll see how that plays out, I've got high expectations.

[pocket]

I have digital coax out (from the SoundBlaster Audigy Pro SPDIF) direct to a digital input on my Yamaha RXV-800.  Sweet setup.  I sincerely can't tell the difference between the CD and the FLAC's with that setup (my CD/DVD changer is a Yamaha as well with digital output). 

Also, I have only one computer.  I run the coax along the walls (well hidden) to the reciever.  When I'm away from the computer and listening to audio I have a wireless touchscreen monitor (the Viewsonic AirPanel) that works wonderfully as a 'remote control' for serving up audio  (and is the ultimate in cool factor) and allows me to surf the net and whatnot.

[stefansmith]

Thanks for the info.

Mike Noe: I'm also using a Shuttle I just bought, and found the internal power supply much noisier than I thought. In fact it also seems to be operating in overdrive. So I'm curious to know how you are unsing an external power supply, and which one? This is something I hadn't thought of, and may try out.....

& Pocket: The TubeDAC of Scott Nixon, wow... I've been looking at that too, and would be really interested in hearing how you get on with it when it arrives and you get it set up. I would have high hopes too. Would be great if you posted your impressions on this forum.......

s.

[Mike Noe]

Here's the Shuttle I've got at the Shuttle Website:

ST62K

And at NewEgg.Com

This is an older model, but popular with the "Silent" crowd as a turnkey setup.  I think it's the only one they sell with an external power supply.  It's only a 180W power supply, but the unit only has one slot.  I have 2 - 200GB Barracudas and a DVD drive (rarely used), no problems so far.

FWIW, there's a backlog on the TubeDAC+ boards, but Scott says I should have the kit in 3-4 weeks time.  BTW, Scott has also spent some time with the "Media-PC" concept and has some interesting findings.

[datdude]

check this forum out if you want answers:
http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

[Jakester]

Stefansmith -

My setup is very close to yours, including having a small PC for the hifi that pulls the 800+ CDs worth of .apes from a mapped drive.  Only difference is that I am using ASIO.  If you took the time to do lossless compression (hopefully in 'secure' rip mode to get bit-perfect rips) then you should take the step to get bit-perfect playback as well.  I use a $24 Chaintech audio card via toslink to my Anthem AVM20 pre/pro with excellent results.  In head-to-head with my CD player (via digital coax) I prefer the sound from the PC ASIO setup using .ape - it has more fine detail and in all other respects sounds identical.  But you need to go ASIO - no sound card in a noisy EM PC environment will compete with a good external DAC.  The Chaintech card does not have ASIO driver so I used ASIO4ALL following the directions here http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htforum/showthread.php?postid=2170297#post2170297

I do have one problem with this setup.  If I pause playback then resume I get a lot of popping.  Also, if a song finishes and there is not another song lined up in "playing now" I will sometimes get the popping when I start to play another song.  By repeatedly jumping back and forth between songs in a playlist and/or by dragging the slider around within a song I can usually get it to recover.  Or, if I kill and restart MC it always clears.  Simply jumping to the next song in a playlist works fine, and letting it play continuously through a large playlist works fine.  But this is a pain when just playing around and trying to dig up the perfect song for the mood.  I feel this is an MC issue but haven't been able to convince them of this.  I might try a different sound card with a native ASIO driver to see if it fixes it.

Hope this helps.

[stefansmith]

Hi Jakester,

I ripped all my APES using Exact Audio Copy, so hopefully they are bit perfect. In fact, one of the reasons I did it all was because many of my CDs, especially ones bought 15 years ago, were starting to age -- doing weird stuff like turning yellow. I rescued about 20 CDs by using EAC.

Yep, I've now switched over to ASIO, offered natively by the nVidia sound card incorporated into the Shuttle. I noticed a BIG difference to WaveOut with the USB M-Audio Sonica, and a very very slight difference to Direct Sound via the Sonica or the nVidia. The M-Audio Sonica does not support ASIO, even with Asio4all -- although I may try more tweaking to rule it out totally.

I'm also happy with the toslink, which among many people has a bad reputation. Recommended is a glass toslink -- a guy sells them on ebay for $30. I noticed a big jump in quality when I switched form a cheapo plastic one.

As for your popping problem -- I had a similar issue. I actually solved it by changing the encoding of all my APE files from "Extra High" to "Normal". Lost about 4gb on the HDD in the process, but no more popping and much smoother seeking too.

s.

[Imatation]

The ASIO protocol just allows recording software to see all the functions of a pro sound card. It offers no real improvement over direct sound for 2-channel audio. Any perceived difference is just that. On my setup I think ASIO sounds a little flatter than direct sound.

[Jakester]

stefansmith -

I used "normal" for the .ape encoding as well.  I have smooth seeks as you mention, but I can't get rid of the popping no matter how much I mess with all the settings in ASIO4ALL or MC.  I think it may just be that the MC->ASIO4ALL->Chaintech combo simply isn't going to completely work.  Any idea if the nVidea sound built into your MOBO is available as a card?

And yes, I"m using decent quality toslink cable.  I like toslink in this application - I don't trust a computer to keep RF junk out of a coax line and from what I've read I don't need to worry much about jitter with my Anthem pre/pro.

Imatation -

I thought Direct Sound still sends the audio through MC's internal DSP engine as well as Microslop's kmixer - i.e. no way to get bit-perfect under those conditions.  If you can't get a DTS file (embedded in a .wav) to play back on a DTS-enabled receiver then you don't have bit perfect.  My Anthem locks onto DTS with my setup - I know I'm getting bit perfect.  Here's a link to download some DTS files for testing: http://www.sr.se/multikanal/english/e_index.stm

[godavego]

I have about 700 CDs ripped to WMA Lossless via EAC.  My soundcard is an M-Audio AP2496.  Digital connection is via ASIO coax to a Rotel RSP-985 digital processor.  Amplification is a Krell TAS, and speakers are Aerial.

Using this setup, I can not tell the difference between a CD played from the PC and one played from my Rotel RCD-971.  So much so, that my CD player just sold on eBay.

However, I could tell the difference if I used DirectSound, WAV out, or analog.  Using ASIO, my processor doesn't know it's getting the PCM data stream from a computer.

[JONCAT]

Let us know how that Scott Nixon DAC kit works; I didn't know he made tube kits.

I too am an APE user; high compression.

I just upgraded from a M-Audio Delta 44 to an Emu 1212M, seems much more stable in terms of resistance to skips and pops. The Delta would only be affected by right clicking on the desktop & loading Properties. Surfing and such do not affect the audio.

I use ASIO as well as I was under the impression it helped to get bit perfect by bypassing Kmixer and such. I do like to playback with 32/44 in DSP settings.

I am also CD player-less as I am now using my dvd-rom drive. Analog Zaolla silver cables go direct to Sunfire Classic Tube Preamp and onto Quciksilver tube monoblocks> Klipsch RF-7's.

Sounding very nice but someday I plan to try comparing to outboard DAC very 1212M digital out. I'd also like to build my rig into a silent HTPC (maybe using a Reserator) and silent PSU from either Antec or Coolermaster and place it right on my audio rack. There is a nice case I saw that allows full size ATX psu and motherboards. Hide the dvd-rom in there and that's it. This would allow shorter cable runs as well.

JC

[bc]

Another guy here who has gone APE--and Emu 0404 modded by one of the hotshots at head-fi and custom IC cables.

I'm using a generic HK stereo receiver to drive Meadowlark Swifts set up for near-field listening. Amazing sound stage with the Emu.

Next step is quieting the box. Meanwhile I just picked up a pair of Audio Technica A500 closed headphones. They're not bad and they block the fan noise dead in its tracks.

Toys for the boys...

[Imatation]

I did not know that, I wonder why when I choose ASIO in MC it sounds so dead compared to direct sound? I am going analog out of a 2496 to a Fuchs Audio Zeus headphone amp with grado RS-1’s.

[dtblair]

IMO the key here is the soundcard.  I use either a RME Digi96/8 Pad or a LynxOne in analog.  I have both the RME in SPDIF and Analog out for two different systems.  The SPDIF uses Glass Toslink to connect to a Lexicon MC-12.  I figured that I would use the best DACs available so why depend on a $300 or less card to do your conversion.  I spent a lot of time researching the available cards before settling on the RME.  In this setup, I and no one who has audtioned my system, can tell the difference between the original CD and the ripped WAV.  I only use WAV files as harddrive space now for a home system is dirt cheap.  You CAN tell the difference between any compressed format and original WAV file.  The people who say no have lost their hearing.

Here is a great link for looking at soundcards:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rongonz/home_rec/soundcard.html

There is a difference between glass and polycarb regarding Toslink, glass pretty much elimates any jitter effects.  The recent studies show that Toslink w/ glass is equal or better than standard cable.  You can search to find various studies on that.

We are all searching...

[Myron]

IMO the key here is the soundcard.  I use either a RME Digi96/8 Pad or a LynxOne in analog.  I have both the RME in SPDIF and Analog out for two different systems.  The SPDIF uses Glass Toslink to connect to a Lexicon MC-12.  I figured that I would use the best DACs available so why depend on a $300 or less card to do your conversion.  I spent a lot of time researching the available cards before settling on the RME.  In this setup, I and no one who has audtioned my system, can tell the difference between the original CD and the ripped WAV.  I only use WAV files as harddrive space now for a home system is dirt cheap.  You CAN tell the difference between any compressed format and original WAV file.  The people who say no have lost their hearing.

Here is a great link for looking at soundcards:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rongonz/home_rec/soundcard.html

There is a difference between glass and polycarb regarding Toslink, glass pretty much elimates any jitter effects.  The recent studies show that Toslink w/ glass is equal or better than standard cable.  You can search to find various studies on that.

We are all searching...

Glad to see I'm not the only one who uses the WAV format exclusively!  People have become so enamored of the MP3 format that I fear it's taking us backwards instead of improving the quality of audio.

As for the toslinkg issue, while the fiber material can make a difference, the main problem is with the low bandwidth electronics in the low cost interface devices that are used in equipment.  This insufficient bandwidth is at the root of the inferior jitter performance of the toslink standard and NO fiber can fix it.

The coax S/PDIF interface is by far superior in this regard.  Unfortunately, it does bring other problems with it, especially in the context of the PC.  As I mentioned earlier, if the interface does not use isolation transformers, you can run into jitter issues caused by ground loops and clock noise in the PC.  This could easily explain the reason people seem to find that toslink sounds better than coax when using a PC.

[Jakester]

Imatation -

I suspect you simply prefer the effect that DSP is providing.  DSP can sound really good.  I simply prefer to allow my Anthem pre/pro to do all the processing and want my PC to be a transparent storage device for the bits that originally resided on my CDs - hence the effort to get bit-perfect rips ("secure" mode) and bit-perfect playback (ASIO).  MC provides a nice seamless end-to-end solution for bit-perfect audio.  Actually, it is the only all-in-one solution I know of for this.  And since storage space for PCs is so cheap now it just makes sense to me to pursue this.  (By the way, thanks J River - great product.)

This is a law of diminishing returns issue for sure, and most people see/hear no reason to take it this far.  And, sadly to me, too many people draw that line way earlier by using lossy compression schemes.  To me, lossy is fine in my car where road noise will squash micro dynamics anyway.  But on a nice home system there is a big difference (to me, with my system and my ears, and all the other disclaimers needed to prevent a big flame war ;^)

[Imatation]

Jakester,
I wasn’t using any signal processing with direct sound but I found out after playing with ASIO in MC for a while that something wasn’t syncing correctly after I changed to ASIO in MC if I started playback without restarting MC. Selecting ASIO then restarting MC before playing anything has solved the problem so now ASIO sounds at as least as good maybe better as direct sound

[Jakester]

Imatation -

Great.  Also don't forget that without ASIO the sound is flowing through Microsoft's kmixer.  This re-samples all audio and blends it so that audio from multiple sources (including the standard beeps and boops) can be heard simultaneously.  I can't speak with authority on this, but I've heard kmixer mixes everything to the 48k sample rate that is the DVD standard, not the 44.1k CD standard.  It also has it's own DSP engine.  So, kmixer can add it's own signature to your music if you're not using ASIO.

For those on the fence about lossless, here's a good testimonial: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=26377.0

[Myron]

You are very correct about jitter rejection being important.   Jitter in the digital signal usually appears as midrange distortion in the analog signal.

However, you are a little off base about optical S/PDIF and coax S/PDIF, neither has a real jitter advantage.  Coax has a groundloop disadvantage, and optical has a disadvantage when you go over 96kHz sampling rate.

For a great low (very low) jitter D/A converter, check out
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/ for their DAC-1.  I was impressed with the difference it made with my 320kbps MP3 files.  And when you feed it 96kHz/24bit DVD-Audio, it is pure joy.

I disagree entirely!

For reference please see AES paper "Is the AES/EBU-S/PDIF Digital Audio Interface Flawed?", Chris Dunn & Dr. Malcolm Hawksford

Interface jitter IS affected by interface bandwidth and toslink interface modules are highly band-limited compared to a coax cable.  The following is a quote from the conclusion of the above paper:

"several jitter mechanisms exist for the biphase-mark-encoded signal, the biggest problem being that of bandwidth limitation at any stage of the interface. We have shown that band-limited interface jitter has a strong relationship to the bit structure of the serial interface code, and hence can be highly correlated with the transmitted audio data. Measurements have confirmed jitter levels of higher than 1ns in an above-average interface circuit."

The limitations of the toslik interface are well known in the audio community as is evidenced by the absence of the interface in most high-end products.

As for the performance of the Benchmark DAC, there is no surprise here.  Any DAC with good jitter attenuation will help any interface as I mentioned in my origial post inthis thread.

[Imatation]

USB is supposed to have almost no jitter compared to S/PDIF.
http://www.wavelengthaudio.com/Cosecant.html

[Charlemagne 8]

I hate it when somebody uses my own evidence against me.

It's a good thing I don't need to worry about all of that "jitter - optical / coax - toslink, etc." stuff. I have a 6 channel system that is all analog except for the soundcard which is a Soundblaster Audigy 2.

That goes to three different amps via standard Radio Shack mini to RCA adapters. The two main amps (channel 1 through 4) are old Kenwood 40 watt KA5700s. "40 watt?" you say? I'll get back to that.

The third (channel 5 & 6) is an equally old JVC JA-S22. It was sold to me as a 40 watt also but I'm not sure about that.

From amp #3, the signal goes (via 18 gauge copper lamp cord) to a pair of  1970 Advents - one for center and one for sub. I don't have the center channel speaker placed correctly due to space restraints but the other works well as a subwoofer. It's not original guts - those dry rotted years ago. The new guts is better than the old guts as far as I can remember. I still have the same crossovers, though.

Amp #1 feeds a pair of Yamaha somethings, each as big as a medium sized refrigerator. Horn tweeters and 15" woofers.

Amp #2 feeds a pair of Peavey something or others just as big.

I bought the amps through Ebay. I bought the Advents new in 1970 and rebuilt them myself a couple of years ago.

I bought the auditorium speakers from the local music store. They were left for repair and never picked up.  I paid the repair bill and lugged them home.

Back to "watts". Some of you may remember back when a watt was a useful gauge of power capability. A 40 watt amp now is actually less than a 10 watt amp "back then". I say less because not only was it measured per channel, it was measured up to the point of distortion. Not so now. This observation is just from my Wal-Mart level experience. The high dollar stuff may still be legitimate but they won't let me walk in to THOSE stores.

My point being that my little amps have no problem driving my big speakers (as was suggested when I bought the speakers).
Fact is, ONE watt (as shown on the meters on the amps) is enough to drive you out of the room.
It's also enough to hear it well in the driveway with the windows and doors shut. Normal listening level is around 0.5 watts and that's if there's no one else here. I like it LOUD.
When anyone else is here, it's more like 0.1. If I wish to have a conversation with background music, it barely registers on the watt meters.

Don't get me wrong. I would buy high-end gear if I could afford it. As it is, excluding the computer itself, I have less than $1,000 in this jury-rigged setup of which I am so proud.

CVIII

[Krazykanuck]

What you have to remember is that sound levels are not linear.
Something that is twice as loud requires 10 times the power.
So yes the level of your background music maybe .1 watts.
Depending on what you are listening to a passage may be twice as loud so you now need 1 watt.
Depending on what you are listening to a passage may be twice as loud again so you now need 10 watts.
You can, depending on the music, very quickly run out of power on your amplifier which introduces distortion.
Ever know anyone who bought speakers rated at 100watts but couldn't figure out why they kept blowing tweeters with their 100 watt amplifiers/receivers. It was the distortion.
Now the question is whether you can hear that distortion or not.
In alot of cases I can but my wife can't.
Unfortunately my wife won't let me buy the 1000 watt amplifiers that I would love because she can't tell the difference.
Funny enough my kids can and are behind me 100% and it has nothing to do with withholding their allowance.

Anyways what is the point of my drunken rambling.
Like any of these types of discussions you may or may not hear the difference.
If you can't why spend the money? My wifes argument and I begrudgingly have to agree.
If you can tell the difference and you can afford it you owe it to yourself to do what you can to maximize your enjoyment. In my case that is nothing because like all good husbands I defer to my wife on all major expenditures and she figures feeding the kids is more important.

So to summarize
If you can tell the difference and you can't afford it now you owe it to yourself to do what you can to maximize your possible future enjoyment with as little cash outlay as possible.
In my case I rip in APE because I know at some point I will wear my wife down and will get the audio/video system I want and I want to be ready for it.
Unfortunately I may not wear my wife down but for minimal cost I am ready just in case I get lucky.

[Mike Noe]

As it is, excluding the computer itself, I have less than $1,000 in this jury-rigged setup of which I am so proud.

That's good stuff.

Just to add a bit more info....

Power is certainly one factor, headroom is important, but so is control: Output Impedence

[Iridescence]

Sorry, I'm very new to all this and don't understand a lot of what you guys are talking about but good sound is important to me. I have a fairly cheap soundcard that came with my motherboard "vinyl AC 97 codec". I do however have a very nice pair of headphones I spent several hundred dollars for and a very nice powerful German receiver and also a pair of decent quality Paradigm speakers. I have it hooked up to my computer with a standard RCA cable and I use DFX for DSP as well as the MC subwoofer thing.
I usually encode my MP3s at 192 kbit. I have a lot of MP3s so I don't really have the space to convert them to 320 unless I burn some to CD which I don't like to do and I find it hard to detect a difference in sound between 192 and 320.

I think I have fairly good sound sometimes I have problems with the sound only coming out of one side of the headphones and have to fiddle with the cable to fix it. But now I'm intrigued to see that there's so much I can do to improve sound. Can someone give my some tips on some reasonably inexpensive things I should do or point me to a web page with some basic info about this.

Thanks...

[Mike Noe]

Gosh, there is so much snake oil in the "audio" industry, it's hard to even know where to begin.  Then, so much is subjective, as you can see from this thread and others. 

That said, if you can find this book, Audio Reality, it would be an excellent place to start so as to be able to weed thru so much of the BS that is out there.

Perhaps the most overlooked issue to a pleasing environment is room dynamics -- is it a quiet room, loud room.  Speaker placement, listening position, furniture in the room, etc, etc.

It's one of those things that can get religious but if you try to be practical and focus on what is important to you, experimentation can be fun and rewarding without breaking your bank and sending you to the looney bin.

I regret that this is the only link I can provide to a FAQ and forum, but there are some good forums here and some of the FAQ is a good primer.

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/faq.html

Have fun!

[Markeau]

I have been getting excellent results with the Xitel Pro HiFi Link USB device via TOSLINK.  It comes with 30' TOSLINK, 30' Coax and 30' RCA cables which is really cool.

http://www.xitel.com/product_phfl.htm

[Iridescence]

I have been getting excellent results with the Xitel Pro HiFi Link USB device via TOSLINK.  It comes with 30' TOSLINK, 30' Coax and 30' RCA cables which is really cool.

http://www.xitel.com/product_phfl.htm

Hmmm...this looks good, certainly cheaper than a new motherboard. I think I'll get it, Anyone have any negative experiences with it? Would it be as good or better than a very good sound card?

thanks

[modelmaker]

From Iredescence:

I usually encode my MP3s at 192 kbit. I have a lot of MP3s so I don't really have the space to convert them to 320 unless I burn some to CD which I don't like to do and I find it hard to detect a difference in sound between 192 and 320.

I think the first place for you to start is at the source. Get a bigger hard drive and start ripping at VBR High (256kbs or better) or even step up to a lossless format.

As you start to improve the rest of your system with a good soundcard, better connection to your stereo system, etc., you are going to hear the difference between 192, 320 and your CDs. Your system is never going to sound better than the source it comes from.

Memory is getting cheaper every day, so that's where I would start before your library gets tooo big.

[Charlemagne 8]

Amen to that MM.  It's always good to leave your options, both present and future, as open as possible.

CVIII