I’ve taken yet another step on my continuing quest for a quiet PC. After bundling the guts of the PC into a specially muffled AcoustiCase, installing a Zalman Flower Cooler on the CPU, and another massive sink on the video card, what else could there be left to do?
Well, if you work on the assumption that all electrical equipment makes some noise, then the only way to get a completely silent PC is never to switch it on. Unfortunately that doesn’t actually make for a very useful piece of computing apparatus. The next best thing, though, is not to switch it on in the same room.
With the aid of a keyboard extension cable, a new USB hub (which acts as a USB extension cable, with added ports), and a very long monitor cable, my computer now sits on the other side of a nice, thick wall. It still makes the same amount of noise that it did before (which is very little, thanks to all of the earlier modifications), but it makes it somewhere else.
Which means that for the first time, it’s now really feasible to use my PC as a consumer music device: a stereo. Stereos don’t make any noise, except a very slight electrical hum. This is why “Media Center” PCs are doomed to fail–at least for the next few years. If your “Media Center” isn’t playing music, it has to be silent. Just “quiet” isn’t good enough. That means no fans at all. It’s got to be passive cooling all the way, unless you have the space and cash for a dedicated cabinet, or, like me, a convenient storage room on the other side of your living room wall.
So at the same time as getting the equipment to move the PC, I bought a set of Philips A3.300 speakers (2 flat stereo satellites + a chunky subwoofer). They don’t have the same depth and warmth of our old Mission 750 LEs, but for a set of mid-range computer speakers, they’re pretty good. They fill the living room with a crisp, clear sound that is great for radio and perfectly adequate for everyday MP3 listening. The big advantage they have over a full stereo set-up is that they don’t sit around on speaker stands waiting for a small toddler to knock them over.
I’m liking it a lot. We haven’t had music in our living room for about two years now, apart from the times we play music DVDs or cable radio through our TV, and the occasional cacophonic blast from the built-in speakers of my Iiyama monitor. But music is as central to my happiness as bread and pasta, and these new speakers are making me a very happy bunny.
Currently listening to: Dave Matthews Band – Live in Chicago at the United Center 12.19.98. Lovely.
(Next comes the whole question of what music/MP3 player to use on the computer…but that’s a topic for some other time.)
I can’t wait to hear about the MP3 player. A bit too high brow for me though, I’ll stick to my DVD and Sky for music.
Anyway thanks for the amusing blog. Glad I found it, and I would try the joiners at the Southside [ trying to think of them ] at some time.
From Angela – in Edinburgh..obviously nearby
I’m still searching for the ideal how-do-i-play-mp3s-on-the-hifi setup. Connecting the PC to the amp simply doesn’t cut it, IMO. I like my music too much to trust it to crappy PC sound cards, and I don’t want the computer in the living room.
I need a box that talks to a networked music archive, and plugs into the hifi. I’ve got two specific requirements.
One, that this box has a digital output. (For most of the last six years, our CDs have gone into a Cambridge Audio DACmagic 2. This is a Digital to Analogue Converter, and turns the raw digital data from the CD into actual music. Ours went bust a few months ago, and yesterday I finally tracked down a cheap replacement. Tears of joy were shed in chez Dave and Liz, since our CD collection now sounds fantastic again, rather than just pretty good.) The MP3 data needs to be converted to full 44kHz 16-bit per channel, and then pumped through a digital out connector, so I can put it through the DAC. This requirement is absolutely non-negotiable.
Two, the box needs to talk AAC, not just MP3. iTunes is responsible for ripping CDs, and it now does AAC: CD quality rips at 128kpbs. Any new CDs hitting the iBook are ripped to AAC, not MP3. I can’t actually tell the difference, but I’m getting more stuff stored per Mb. I can probably work around this with funky server-side s/w if I absolutely have to.
Audiotron and SLIMP3 produce boxes that are almost, but not quite, what I want. The SLIMP3 is a wee box that sits on your hi-fi. It’s got an Ethernet port, and talks to your music archive sitting on a file server somewhere in the house. You get a remote control, even a web interface. It’s a pretty cool box, but it’s only got analog out for now. Digital out will happen..