I need help troubleshooting my home audio system, please.

JDBarrow

JDBarrow

Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2024
Messages
81
Location
Pleasant Hill, Iowa
I often play MP3 digital music through my home audio system. I have my Marantz receiver connected to my Samsung Smart TV via digital optical cable. The television is connected to my Windows PC via HDMI cable.

For best sound quality, should the computer be connected directly to the stereo receiver? Of course, I need the TV screen to visually monitor what the PC is doing. What hardware or cable form factor is needed to connect a PC tower directly to the audio receiver for an audio signal transmission?

Also, while playing digital music from the PC tower through the audio receiver, I noticed weird sound effects. It sounds like the music frequently fades in and out as if somebody is repeatedly turning the volume up and down. I use Windows Media Player to play my digital music off my computer. This fading effect is aggravated when I engage the Windows Graphic Equalizer via the Enhancements setting. On the plus side, the music in fact sounds crisper with the proper equalizer settings but this annoying fading in and out sound troubles my ears.

On the flip side, I don't have this fading in and out while streaming music to the receiver via Bluetooth paring. However, the sound is muddier, not as crisp and defined even when playing with the equalizer on the Motorola Moto E6 Android 9 phone's music player app, Musicolet, downloaded from Google Play Store.

Does having the computer routed through the TV set for an audio signal path adversely affect the playback quality of digital music sourced from a PC?

I tried monkeying with my subwoofer too. Changing the phase switch setting did not affect the undesirable fading in and out. Even turning the sub all the way down still indicated the weird fading effect through the pair of Dayton Audio floor speakers. The off fading effect is emphasized on bass notes, not tenor or treble ranges still. I know the polarity is correct on my speaker wires.

Should wiring the PC directly to the Marantz receiver improve digital music playback?

Is there a better music player application for PC's with equalizer features and Playlist capability than Windows Media Player for better fidelity?

The PC I have hooked up to the receiver and TV is a older Windows 7 64-bit machine. This PC will be soon upgraded to Windows 10 Home with high-end gaming grade hardware.
 
Update; I tried some more things out. The pulsations in volume diminished considerably when I put the WMP equalizer back into the Default mode thus sacrificing crispness of tenors and trebles. The volume pulsations are virtually non-existent when playing music from a source like YouTube on my Windows 7 PC through the Marantz receiver. It must not then be an issue of routing the audio path through the television set, Windows 7 audio drivers or anything to do with equipment and hardware in my setup.

It seems as the fidelity culprit is WMP and especially its equalizer feature.

I should also note that all the digital music in my library had been amped up to 95 decibels by me from the default 89 DB using the MP3 Gain application. This was to try to level out the volume off everything in my music collection uniformly. Some of the audio files sounded a bit weak as comparted with other originally. Whether amping up audio files by about 6 DB degrades fidelity, I can't say.
 
I’d ask, where is the music streaming from? The smart TV or the PC?

From the Smart TV to receiver, then Optical SPDIF, RCA interconnect cables, or HDMI (if available on the receiver)

If PC, then the more direct connection to the receiver the better. A small USB dongle DAC will surprise you connected analog to the receiver. I’m assuming there is not a USB input on the receiver. Some motherboards/sound cards have SPDIF capacity optical TOSLink, or coax.

Lots of possibilities, experimenting is advised.
 
Tuning a PC for Audio is a vast subject. Most on here would prefer to use a dedicated streamer like an Auralic or Lumin but I am one of those who still uses a custom Win 10 machine as an audio server.

Windows has a bunch of programs running in the background that are best turned off. I would recommend using a software like Fidelizer (https://fidelizer-audio.com/) to help smooth out all the background software before you install a music server software. There are a few others but this is the one I use.

For managing your music library and playback, here are some candidates:

JRiver - https://jriver.com/
The grand daddy of music servers but still hands down one of the best value propositions in the market. JRiver will handle almost anything you need including managing your music library. And it does play mp3 files.

Audirvana - https://audirvana.com/
Another well regarded music software that does more or less all that you need. Perhaps not as easy to use as JRiver but does an excellent job with playback and media management.

Jplay - http://jplay.eu/download/
High end music player that offers a remarkable upgrade path both with software and hardware. As good as it sounds, I would not recommend you go for this as your first media management software.

Foobar - https://www.foobar2000.org/
Easiest software player to recommend as it is free and does pretty much all you need to play your media.

This is a long and deep rabbit hole but good luck with your setup.

Regards


.
 
Nikhil said:
Tuning a PC for Audio is a vast subject. Most on here would prefer to use a dedicated streamer like an Auralic or Lumin but I am one of those who still uses a custom Win 10 machine as an audio server.

Windows has a bunch of programs running in the background that are best turned off. I would recommend using a software like Fidelizer (https://fidelizer-audio.com/) to help smooth out all the background software before you install a music server software. There are a few others but this is the one I use.

For managing your music library and playback, here are some candidates:

JRiver - https://jriver.com/
The grand daddy of music servers but still hands down one of the best value propositions in the market. JRiver will handle almost anything you need including managing your music library. And it does play mp3 files.

Audirvana - https://audirvana.com/
Another well regarded music software that does more or less all that you need. Perhaps not as easy to use as JRiver but does an excellent job with playback and media management.

Jplay - http://jplay.eu/download/
High end music player that offers a remarkable upgrade path both with software and hardware. As good as it sounds, I would not recommend you go for this as your first media management software.

Foobar - https://www.foobar2000.org/
Easiest software player to recommend as it is free and does pretty much all you need to play your media.

This is a long and deep rabbit hole but good luck with your setup.

Regards


.
Click to expand...
I have now ordered a bunch of expensive hardware to upgrade my existing Windows PC tower into a high-grade gamer.
including but not limited to: ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Super Twin Edge OC, AMD Ryzen™ 9 7900X3D 12-Core, 24-Thread Desktop Processor, MSI PRO B650M-P ProSeries Motherboard, Crucial Pro DDR5 RAM 32GB Kit (2x16GB) CL36 6000MHz, Overclocking Desktop Gaming Memory, Samsung 870 EVO SATA III SSD 1TB 2.5” Internal Solid State Drive

Naturally, I will want high-quality gaming audio. Are there any computer hardware upgrades for high-fidelity audio output?​


By "music server" I think people here mean a piece of software to be installed on a Windows, Linux or Mac machine.

Will JRiver Media Center import existing WMP Playlists? Will it handle folders with M3U files inside?
 
Last edited:
JDBarrow said:
I have now ordered a bunch of expensive hardware to upgrade my existing Windows PC tower into a high-grade gamer.
including but not limited to: ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 Super Twin Edge OC, AMD Ryzen™ 9 7900X3D 12-Core, 24-Thread Desktop Processor, MSI PRO B650M-P ProSeries Motherboard, Crucial Pro DDR5 RAM 32GB Kit (2x16GB) CL36 6000MHz, Overclocking Desktop Gaming Memory, Samsung 870 EVO SATA III SSD 1TB 2.5” Internal Solid State Drive

Naturally, I will want high-quality gaming audio. Are there any computer hardware upgrades for high-fidelity audio output?​

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that gaming hardware may not be optimal for audio. However, since gaming is your priority, use something like Fidelizer to turn off all unnecessary processes when you want to use your machine for audio.

JDBarrow said:
By "music server" I think people here mean a piece of software to be installed on a Windows, Linux or Mac machine.
Click to expand...

Yes. Its actually both software and hardware that is tuned to optimize your machine for audio.
You can still run your machine as is and see if you can hear the difference.

JDBarrow said:
Will JRiver Media Center import existing WMP Playlists? Will it handle folders with M3U files inside?
Click to expand...

Yup. JRiver can handle almost anything you can throw at it.



.
 
Nikhil said:
I would suggest bypassing the TV for Audio.
Continue to send video to your TV but send audio to your Receiver via USB or Optical cable.


.
Click to expand...
The television is sending optical audio to the receiver already. The receiver has but one optical input. The computer sends video and audio as well, as does the Panasonic BD player, to the TV via HDMI cables. My Blu-ray Disk player can play DVD movies and music CD's as well. Live TV broadcasts and playback from the BD player seem very good, sound-wise, since the audio receiver is still getting sound from the TV's optical output. As stated earlier, sound from the PC is still decent from sources other than WMP such as YouTube music video streams. The music sounds fair, not crisp, from WMP as long as the equalizer is not enabled. Better-sounding music comes from a YouTube downstream if the posted source video has high audio quality in the first place.

When I upgrade my TV set-top computer with fancy gaming components, I will then try out JRiver on it. They offer a free one month trial period. I plan to purchase a cable that will connect the PC mother board directly to the receiver via the PC's line-out (lime green) 3.50 mm jack to a pair of RCA input jacks on the receiver's back panel. Either AUX or GAME input. The TV set should still get a video signal via HDMI from the PC to monitor the computer on screen.
 
Last edited:
A tower pc is a poor source for audio, especially gaming tower pc’s. The cause is that there goes so many power through it, the inside is a big electromagnetic radiation field. This is the reason why audio computer and streamer builders want to use a minimum amount of Watts and try to shield as much as possible. Even the light of the power button affects in theory SQ, which no one notices.
 
I do recommend you try the direct PC analog out to the receiver line input. Again, a cheap USB dongle DAC has been superior in my testing. Same cord that you are planning on now. I have used Foobar2000, for music file playback, in the past with good results. It is free, but it is not Roon. Another free music library/player is iTunes, but I have not used it for years. You can drag your music folder into iTunes for use. I don’t think it plays FLAC files, but it’s not hard to convert FLAC to AIFF, the Apple Lossless file format.

You could still do video playback in the same way you are now.
 
Wha
NewAlkyogre said:
A tower pc is a poor source for audio, especially gaming tower pc’s. The cause is that there goes so many power through it, the inside is a big electromagnetic radiation field. This is the reason why audio computer and streamer builders want to use a minimum amount of Watts and try to shield as much as possible. Even the light of the power button affects in theory SQ, which no one notices.What then is the best
Click to expand...

NewAlkyogre said:
A tower pc is a poor source for audio, especially gaming tower pc’s. The cause is that there goes so many power through it, the inside is a big electromagnetic radiation field. This is the reason why audio computer and streamer builders want to use a minimum amount of Watts and try to shield as much as possible. Even the light of the power button affects in theory SQ, which no one notices.
Click to expand...
What then is the best device, if not a PC, to manage digital music in a home stereo system? Some folks here think a phone via Bluetooth is a bad source. I suppose some Android phone apps are superior for digital music playback and processing than others. I am an Android phone user. Doesn't a stereo receiver itself have a ton of electromagnetic radiation emitting from it?
 
All sorts of setups have pros and cons. Obviously affected by budget and space, and your own priorities.

“Clean” system to send music files to a DAC to amp/speakers was my priority. I use a small NUC, running ROCK to feed Roon to the small streamer in my DAC. Rabbit hole here…

I have the video axis of my system (BluRay, AppleTV, and cable) all go the TV. Optical out to the DAC. Of course, I’m limited to 2.0 music from my system. YouTube stuff on the AppleTV sounds great.
 
JDBarrow said:
Wha



What then is the best device, if not a PC, to manage digital music in a home stereo system? Some folks here think a phone via Bluetooth is a bad source. I suppose some Android phone apps are superior for digital music playback and processing than others. I am an Android phone user. Doesn't a stereo receiver itself have a ton of electromagnetic radiation emitting from it?
Click to expand...
It depends a bit on your budget. In this there is the option of buying a dedicated streamer. Actually: every streamer is a computer, but then with a low power usage and one goal: streaming only. There is a huge difference in sound quality between streamers. Although they all produce ones and zero's: the main enemy of streamers is timing, resulting in jitter, which is audible.

Surprisingly well are those raspberry pi based streamers. Especially when these are in a metal housing and are powered by high quality linear power supplies (LPS). You could also make such a streamer yourself by buying a raspberry pi, build it in a metal house and buy the right LPS yourself. As software you could use something like Volumio and control it with your smartphone or tablet.

What I am doing: I use Roon for streaming. Because a raspberry pi is not strong enough to run Roon's software I use an Intel Nuc, and build that inside a dedicated metal housing. From an 5i3 nuc all nucs will do the job.

Companies that make dedicated streamers also use something like that. The cheap ones are not powered very well, hooked directly to the net did use cheap components etcetera. The high ends use very good components, did shield everything well, use the best software, ground everything well, have high end computer clocks instead of standard clocks and make use of a very good power supply.

It is a bit on your budget, but a better streamer makes a huge difference. Very cheap solutions are not there, so it is not a good idea to save your money on this. But if you have something to spend, there are very nice streamers on the market.
 
I think I will try JRiver first and see if MINE EARS like what they hear. I'm pressed for physical space on my entertainment rack anyway. Back in the 1970's and 1980's, it was much simpler to play a cassette, record or 8-track tape.
 
JDBarrow said:
I often play MP3 digital music through my home audio system. I have my Marantz receiver connected to my Samsung Smart TV via digital optical cable. The television is connected to my Windows PC via HDMI cable.

For best sound quality, should the computer be connected directly to the stereo receiver? Of course, I need the TV screen to visually monitor what the PC is doing. What hardware or cable form factor is needed to connect a PC tower directly to the audio receiver for an audio signal transmission?

Also, while playing digital music from the PC tower through the audio receiver, I noticed weird sound effects. It sounds like the music frequently fades in and out as if somebody is repeatedly turning the volume up and down. I use Windows Media Player to play my digital music off my computer. This fading effect is aggravated when I engage the Windows Graphic Equalizer via the Enhancements setting. On the plus side, the music in fact sounds crisper with the proper equalizer settings but this annoying fading in and out sound troubles my ears.

On the flip side, I don't have this fading in and out while streaming music to the receiver via Bluetooth paring. However, the sound is muddier, not as crisp and defined even when playing with the equalizer on the Motorola Moto E6 Android 9 phone's music player app, Musicolet, downloaded from Google Play Store.

Does having the computer routed through the TV set for an audio signal path adversely affect the playback quality of digital music sourced from a PC?

I tried monkeying with my subwoofer too. Changing the phase switch setting did not affect the undesirable fading in and out. Even turning the sub all the way down still indicated the weird fading effect through the pair of Dayton Audio floor speakers. The off fading effect is emphasized on bass notes, not tenor or treble ranges still. I know the polarity is correct on my speaker wires.

Should wiring the PC directly to the Marantz receiver improve digital music playback?

Is there a better music player application for PC's with equalizer features and Playlist capability than Windows Media Player for better fidelity?

The PC I have hooked up to the receiver and TV is an older Windows 7 64-bit machine. This PC will be soon upgraded to Windows 10 Home with high-end gaming grade hardware.
Click to expand...

Digital streaming is not as complicated as some people make it sound.


If you are streaming music from a music provider (Spotify, Amazon, etc.), you can use a stand alone streamer and bypass your Windows PC.

You connect the streamer to your network and to your receiver and you are done.
 
nicoff said:
Digital streaming is not as complicated as some people make it sound.


If you are streaming music from a music provider (Spotify, Amazon, etc.), you can use a stand alone streamer and bypass your Windows PC.

You connect the streamer to your network and to your receiver and you are done.
Click to expand...
I chiefly play MP3 music already in my library collection: literally 1,000's of tracks collected since about 2008. Some tracks were ripped from CD.
 
You can use a streamer and connect it to your computer to access your music library (Ethernet).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top