How a Laptop Was the Perfect Upgrade

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  Keep it Short 

         In electronics it’s usually best to keep connections short when possible and audio is no exception. Long lengths of cable can pick up EMI (Electro-magnetic interference) from any number of things, from your router, poorly insulated power cables and non grounded cable TV splitter boxes. This can add background noise lowering your immersive experience and losing some of your detail from a recording. 
     Knowing this, I have been facing an issue for a while with my digital source being in a different room than the stereo. That’s over 25ft of cable needed to snake from my computer to my DAC. I found a decent shielded usb cable with a repeater from Monoprice that fit the bill and made it work. It didn’t sound bad, the shielding was decent enough to keep out an impressive amount of interference and I didn’t notice a lack in detail. Over a couple years or so of use the repeater would introduce a random pop into the music signal and I knew it was time for a change, I needed something closer. I wouldn’t mind a streamer/DAC combo, but with the current chip shortage even budget options can be $500-1000. A 2014 HP laptop is a much more budget option for me with a range of benefits as I convert it into my personal media server. 


Battery Voltage


     The power coming in thru your wall socket is AC (alternating current) at usually 60htz in the US. Here is what 60htz sounds like. The job of a power supply for the electronics in your home is to eliminate that noise and turn the electricity from AC to DC or battery voltage. Non portable electronics store this energy in capacitors that charge and discharge quickly, but depending on the quality of that power supply there may still be some noise leftover. A battery helps lessen the issue by storing pure DC power disconnected from the power grid. This means using a laptop without the charger plugged in, my digital source has less potential for noise. 

Direct Connection


    The DAC that I am using in my system is the Keces DA-151 USB. Its a bit aged at this point for a digital component being around 13 years old, but it is still a very well built unit with a dedicated power supply and well designed output stage. Bringing in the laptop allowed me to shorten the length of my usb connection from 10m to just 0.5m making the perfect connection to the back of the Keces via my Aucharm USB cable.


The End Result


    As of writing I have only had a couple days to play with the new set up and make comparisons. So far the result has been good, even if I haven't had a chance to optimize the laptop for audio quality just yet. The result is a much quieter background letting the details shine thru without loss. Another benefit that I had realized is that the laptop also offered a new CD transport to replace the player from the early 90s I had been using, allowing me to use my higher quality DAC compared to the built in unit. I plan to do a follow up in the future as I do more experiments and get the laptop fully set up for media server duty. 

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