# Computer audio in a car .... Set me straight



## cirrus1 (Nov 9, 2010)

Computer audio in a car .... Set me straight

Call me way behind the times, but I just now switched over to computer audio in my home system, ALL with the help of a friend. I was able to rid myself of my BluRay/DVD/CD player , and preamplifier, and now ALL of my music comes straight from my external hard drive.

So I want to do this in my car now. I have ideas, but I am pretty sure my ideas are waaaay off, and I need help with some advice ( please remember if you use ANY abbreviations or tech speak, I will simply be lost )

Here is what I am thinking of doing ... please advise if there are easier or better ways :

Thinking about getting a nice power inverter first. Then I can plug in my laptop and external hard drive in the car. I can buy a USB DAC and plug it in also, and go from there to my car's amps.

So here are my questions :

*#1 - Does anyone make a head unit that can control Foobar2000 instead of having to use a laptop ?

#2 - Does anyone make a REALLY small computer ( not laptop ) with a small separate screen, for controlling Foobar2000 which would make installation options better ?

#3 - IS there ANY chance there is a computer program add on ( like equalizers ) that allows for time alignment ?

#4 - In my ignorance, what am I missing to best do what i want ?

Thank you for any help you can offer. *


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## chefhow (Apr 29, 2007)

Search CarPC or Carputer in the forum seach function and you will find tons of info on the subject.


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## 14642 (May 19, 2008)

www.MP3car.com is your friend. Buy the carnetix power supply. Seriously. It's great. The rest is pretty simple, unless you need your PC to boot super fast, want to navigate, listen to the radio, have BT for your phone, and add a multichannel audio interface...then it's gets a bit more involved.


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

cirrus1 said:


> *#1 - Does anyone make a head unit that can control Foobar2000 instead of having to use a laptop ?
> 
> #2 - Does anyone make a REALLY small computer ( not laptop ) with a small separate screen, for controlling Foobar2000 which would make installation options better ?*


any small touch screen like a lilliput, should be able to control foobar2000. although you'll probably want to connect to a keyboard/mouse for initial setup.

i'm in the process of building one now. i chose lilliput screen, and once the drivers are installed, you can fully control windows by touch. it can get tedious, hence the keyboard mouse.

i think Ride Runner gives a "big button" interface to control foobar or winamp.


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## Brian Steele (Jun 1, 2007)

Andy Wehmeyer said:


> www.MP3car.com is your friend. Buy the carnetix power supply. Seriously. It's great. The rest is pretty simple, unless you need your PC to boot super fast, want to navigate, listen to the radio, have BT for your phone, and add a multichannel audio interface...then it's gets a bit more involved.


I think a quick "beginner's guide" might be a great addition here. I've been thinking of doing something similar myself (perhaps along the lines of mounting a netbook with SSD drive in the glove compartment, extending an external touch screen to the dash, using an external USB device for audio, and storing the music on a USB-connected "Passport" drive, or something like that ).

It's the software that's tripping me up. For example, would be nice to know if there are any Windows-compatible packages out there that support multichannel audio and provide features such as filtering, EQ and limiting per channel, but not so CPU-hungry that audio/video playback is adversely impacted.


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## TREETOP (Feb 11, 2009)

#4: Just in case you're unaware- Most modern head units have some type of USB input to allow the unit to play compressed (and some allow lossless as well) files from a regular flash memory thumb drive. 
Quite a few of these will also allow the use of an actual external hard drive right from the USB port, usually limited to 250gig and 500mA. 
I'm using an inexpensive $29 120gig hard drive as mentioned and it works wonderfully. 
Point being, you can listen to and control a large library of music with just an aftermarket head unit and hard drive if the carputer route is more than you want to deal with.


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## Brian Steele (Jun 1, 2007)

TREETOP said:


> #4: Just in case you're unaware- Most modern head units have some type of USB input to allow the unit to play compressed (and some allow lossless as well) files from a regular flash memory thumb drive.
> Quite a few of these will also allow the use of an actual external hard drive right from the USB port, usually limited to 250gig and 500mA.
> I'm using an inexpensive $29 120gig hard drive as mentioned and it works wonderfully.
> Point being, you can listen to and control a large library of music with just an aftermarket head unit and hard drive if the carputer route is more than you want to deal with.


Not many of those head units will supply the other features I'm looking for, like filtering, multi-band EQ, time alignment, and compression / limiting, and I'll even less of them provide the owner with the opportunity to change/enhance its functionality via software upgrade .


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## m3gunner (Aug 6, 2008)

TREETOP has an excellent point... +100 on that one.

I'm using an iPod with my 9887 with all Apple Lossless files and I couldn't be happier. Way less trouble than going the full carputer thing and I have full control over TA/xover/EQ.

Of course, if you're trying to go the full "I want to play" route, read up on the above. I was going to go that route with a Mac Mini/Carnetix1900/USBMonitor, but I just don't have the time or patience to go there so it's all sitting in the closet waiting for me to post it up on the Classifieds...


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## TREETOP (Feb 11, 2009)

You can also use an external processor to get all those features, using a regular head unit with USB as your source.


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## Ultimateherts (Nov 13, 2006)

It also comes down simplicity. It sounds like you are not very technical and that's fine nothing wrong with that. However, A basic head unit with usb would be so much easier for you to use. I ran a carpc once and even though I come from a Computer Science background a head unit is a lot less of a headache.


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## SpeedEuphoria (Sep 15, 2010)

I think the processor will depend on how much your trying to accomplish but pretty much any atom CPU should do and 512mb would be fine, but a good soundcard would be better suited for more intense surround setups 

Now if you playing video then thats a different story. Due to form factor something like the Nvidia ION graphics is prob best suited.
like this which can be had onsale for ~$170 if you watch

I agree with TREETOP though for me having a headunit that fits in stock location that can play from USD and has a nice remote is a better solution then having to keep a keyboard in my car, or having to tweak it for hours to get it setup(and I'm computer savy)


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

Seems like a lot of people (myself included) are curious about CarPCs.
I finally decided to go "whole hog" and build one from scratch. It won't be cheap, but there isn't a head unit on earth that will come close to it's capability.

If you want to play 192/24bit files...no problem. 500 band eq...now problem. Time alignment, room correction, level matching, television, am/fm/HD radio/XM/Sirus, backup cam, GPS nav, net access...your imagination (and CPU) is the limit.

The learning curve will be huge, but I'm in no hurry and there are plenty of guides floating around the internetz.

Plus, if there's something you don't like, you can easily change components and make it better/worse.

Wonder if it's popular enough to have it's own CarPC subforum?


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## millertime (Dec 31, 2009)

i was thinking about this the other day.. i found the carputer one and it looked kind of good except for the price.. so anyway i e-mailed crutchfield to see if any headunits were out or coming out that had like windows 7 or windows XP in them ... they told me that there is no way they would do that becuse of pepole driving and getting in wrecks becuse of it.. which i think he should catch up with times, i think ford and dodge allready have it.. i am sure the dodge caravan allready has it.. i seen it on a hallowwen show this year for ghost hunters halloween special ( Dodge was supporting the show so they had it there and they were out in it watching tv and plugging in there stuff.. and on the web in it ) sorry for the long post.. i think having a computer built in a after market headunit is getting so close and i would be buying one .. there is just so much you could do with it like was said above... and a carpc subforum would be nice


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## 14642 (May 19, 2008)

Don't doa netbook. Seriously. Do a google search for mini pc or check out the offierings at MP3car.com.

For signal processing, there are a bunch of ways to do it, but you'll need an audio interface. I use an edirol UA101. It's not high end, but it is reliable, simple to use and sounds great. 

This project is not for the faint of heart, BTW, unless you buy a PC designed for cars. I think there's a double-din unit, but it's crazy expensive.


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## millertime (Dec 31, 2009)

Andy Wehmeyer said:


> Don't doa netbook. Seriously. Do a google search for mini pc or check out the offierings at MP3car.com.
> 
> For signal processing, there are a bunch of ways to do it, but you'll need an audio interface. I use an edirol UA101. It's not high end, but it is reliable, simple to use and sounds great.
> 
> This project is not for the faint of heart, BTW, unless you buy a PC designed for cars. I think there's a double-din unit, but it's crazy expensive.


after reading all this i went and searched and found the mp3car site to..it has alot of good info


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## Infinity (Jun 28, 2005)

If you wanna get crazy, I built one for a buddy using a VIA pico-ITX board. It was all stuffed into a DIN sized case (old Craig chassis ). Then, a factory blank panel was put over it for complete stealth. A small LCD was placed in the visor for visual, and it's all controlled by a wireless trackball. It was neat, and worked well, even doing multi-zone and video for rear passengers (I know, stealth head unit and rear screens ).


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## Howard (Nov 9, 2010)

SpeedEuphoria said:


> I think the processor will depend on how much your trying to accomplish but pretty much any atom CPU should do and 512mb would be fine, but a good soundcard would be better suited for more intense surround setups
> 
> Now if you playing video then thats a different story. Due to form factor something like the Nvidia ION graphics is prob best suited.
> like this which can be had onsale for ~$170 if you watch
> ...


Only $170, good choice!


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

I'm building a 2core AMD (45watt) and Jetway mini-itx board. did an initial install of win7/centrafuse and have everything (even the monitor) running off a 160 watt m2 power supply. with everything powered up and cpu idling, it pulls 3.8amps from the battery. using an ATX power supply, plugged into the wall, it was showing around 60-70 watts according to my watt meter.


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## SVOEO (Nov 2, 2009)

I don't get it. Could someone explain WHY anyone would want to go through all the hassle of these sorts of solutions rather than a 160GB iPod with ALC tracks? I mean other than just 'cause? 





m3gunner said:


> TREETOP has an excellent point... +100 on that one.
> 
> I'm using an iPod with my 9887 with all Apple Lossless files and I couldn't be happier. Way less trouble than going the full carputer thing and I have full control over TA/xover/EQ.
> 
> Of course, if you're trying to go the full "I want to play" route, read up on the above. I was going to go that route with a Mac Mini/Carnetix1900/USBMonitor, but I just don't have the time or patience to go there so it's all sitting in the closet waiting for me to post it up on the Classifieds...


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## SpeedEuphoria (Sep 15, 2010)

I thought about it and for me symplicity rules, also I have a netbook so if anything I could play music/video from there(fits in glovebox)


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

just 'cause' is probably a good enough reason 

but for me (and others, i'm sure) I wanted a double-din/nav unit with the processing power of a 99prs or bit one. i also wanted all signal processing to remain in the digital domain. it also opens up the possiblity of using higher quality music files.

i've thought about doing one for years, but lack of am/fm tuning always kept me from doing it. now there are several tuners to choose from and the touch screen displays are hdmi also.

i did the initial install of mine yesterday and so far i'm very impressed.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

ashman5 said:


> just 'cause' is probably a good enough reason
> 
> but for me (and others, i'm sure) I wanted a double-din/nav unit with the processing power of a 99prs or bit one. i also wanted all signal processing to remain in the digital domain. it also opens up the possiblity of using higher quality music files.
> 
> ...


Very nice!

I like what you did with the volume buttons. What OS and soundcard/DAC are you running?


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

t3sn4f2 said:


> Very nice!
> 
> I like what you did with the volume buttons. What OS and soundcard/DAC are you running?


thanks, but I can't take credit. Centrafuse is the OS. It runs as a shell replacement for Win7.

For now, I'm just using two channels of the onboard (Realtek 5.1) sound. I do have an ASUS Xonar D2/PM PCI card on order.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

ashman5 said:


> thanks, but I can't take credit. Centrafuse is the OS. It runs as a shell replacement for Win7.
> 
> For now, I'm just using two channels of the onboard (Realtek 5.1) sound. I do have an ASUS Xonar D2/PM PCI card on order.


Ah ok, I was asking because of volume control quality. But since you are using win7, it will handle volume control in 32bit float (ie excellent quality). So even if the Asus card's driver aren't compatible with Centrafuse, you should still be able to use the "WAVE" volume control option in centrafuse for volume control before the soundcards DSP chip (ie the one that does the 32bit volume control the same way that win7 does).

The only differences would be that those cards generally have more refined DSP, as in the have soft mutes and no zipper noise when changing volume rapidly. Also since they attenuate after the windows audio stack, any software hangups that allow for a full scale sound to leak through will also be attenuated since the soundcard works independently of windows.

if you find that the Asus card is not compatible with Centrafuse and you still need that soundcard DSP volume control, you might want to look into an EMU1212M. It measures as good or better the the Asus cards (higher voltage balanced outputs as well if IIRC) and it should be compatible. My EMU0404PCI worked just fine with Centrafuse when I tried it out. Volume and mute buttons controlled the soundcards DSP buttons correctly.


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

thanks for the heads up.

most of what I'm doing is based on wungun's post. he claims to get excellent sound quality from centrafuse>vac>audiomulch>asio4all.

i've created a build thread
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...mblings-newbie-carpc-install.html#post1163705


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

ashman5 said:


> thanks for the heads up.
> 
> most of what I'm doing is based on wungun's post. he claims to get excellent sound quality from centrafuse>vac>audiomulch>asio4all.
> 
> ...


Are you doing straight stereo out or multi channel filtered outputs? Because if you're doing straight stereo out on two channels and don't want to purchase the additional software to make ASIO work with centrafuse (if it cost anything that is), direct sound drivers that are compatible with Centrafuse, are identical in quality to ASIO since they replace the base windows archetecture. Or at least they are with EMU cards.

Here's a comparison I did between ASIO and EMU Directsound.

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diyma-sq-forum-technical-advanced/78835-asio-vs-drm-compatible-carpc-frontend-friendly-e-mu-directsound.html

The only difference would be slightly greater latency on the DS drivers which could be an issue with video playback. Although their might be a video setting work around.


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

I'll be doing a 6ch/3way output. 2way front and sub.

Thank you for the input. Honestly, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the ASIO/DirectSound stuff. The latency/video issue isn't a factor at this point, but I would like to know that I'm implementing isn't going to degrade the audio outside of the audio processing/vst chain.


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## SVOEO (Nov 2, 2009)

Higher quality than lossless ripped CDs? SACD DVD-A you mean?


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

ashman5 said:


> I'll be doing a 6ch/3way output. 2way front and sub.
> 
> Thank you for the input. Honestly, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the ASIO/DirectSound stuff. The latency/video issue isn't a factor at this point, but I would like to know that I'm implementing isn't going to degrade the audio outside of the audio processing/vst chain.


Yeah it's hard to know how any little setting is going to affect the sound.

I like to compared the unprocessed digital stream going into soundcard for final conversion to analog with the original file being played. Basically making an ASIO in recording with the proper software. Then opening both the original track and the recording in Audacity sound editor. Then aligning sample value and inverting one of the tracks. After, you play both together and if all you get is silence then you know that the output is a sample perfect copy of the original file. Essentially if you have a digital sample with a value of 5 and you play a digital sample with a value of -5, you get 0dB of error. With that method there is no room for subjective bias, or internet opinions to sway the results.


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## crease-guard (Mar 15, 2008)

I have a carPC in my vette. Running a TosLink out to a Zapco DAII and that into a pair of SLB-U volume controls and that signal then split to 3 zapco dc reference amps.

The CarPC is a bit of a project. I wanted to do more than just audio, I wanted all kinds of interfacing, Nav, Bluetooth etc... Long and short of it is I got it all working and working pretty smoothly. I drive the car on a regular basis and have all the kinks worked out and it's a very stable system. I also run Centrafuse for the front end. It has a couple issues but for the most part it's really solid.

Sound is good. I just recently started tweaking with the Zapco software and crossovers, slopes and TA. Haven't even touched the Eq functionality yet. Just tweaking the Xover, slopes and TA makes big differences in sound and stage.

if you do the PC route, be ready for some time invested and trial and error. it's not a plug and go thing. Oh, and don't use an inverter. That is rule number one in the CarPC world, inverters will wreak havic on your system, especially if you are trying to setup any type of audio system. Toslink or not, you will get all kinds of noise issues with them. There are pleny of power supplies made just for the car.

Jay


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

Everyone worries about reliability. I was impressed how well my carputer ran. Funny enough the monitors, and the usb volume knob are the only things that gave me headaches. The two things that should be plug and play. 

If I were to do it all over again I would use an industrial monitor and no multifunction knob.


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## crease-guard (Mar 15, 2008)

I was worried about that as well but it's been quite reliable once I got everything setup correctly.

I had a wireless keyboard but that created all kinds of issues if I needed a keyboard on bootup so I just wired one in and slide it behind the passenger seat when not in use. You never know it's there.

So far (knock on wood) my monitor has been fine.

Which one are you using? I'm using the Lilliput sunlight readable from Mp3car.com. So far I've been pretty impressed. Direct sun into the monitor you can't read it but otherwise not too bad.

Jay


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

crease-guard said:


> I was worried about that as well but it's been quite reliable once I got everything setup correctly.
> 
> I had a wireless keyboard but that created all kinds of issues if I needed a keyboard on bootup so I just wired one in and slide it behind the passenger seat when not in use. You never know it's there.
> 
> ...


I have a big ole thread somewhere around here on the whole build, it was more or less a DIYMA adventure  I used Xenarc screens. Brigtness was very good but I kept having problems with my second screen. One screen setup was straightforward. The second required DVI connection and that was a pain, the digital convertor had hardware problems. Furthermore XP didn't like dual screen much and would freeze my touch screen abilities. 

I have a more elegant solution to your keyboard problem.  I used a blue tooth keyboard/mouse setup on mine, logitech mx 5500. You don't have to have the keyboard and mouse in the car, you just have to have the usb plugged in. So go on Ebay and buy a replacement used usb drive for a keyboard/mouse. You can use a usb slot in the cpu and not hog on usbs upfront if you have any. 

If you want to spend the dough just buy the whole thing. It's sweet to tune the car setup using wireless gear. I did engine tuning and full active audio filtering through my carputer.


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## AWC (Mar 31, 2008)

Andy Wehmeyer said:


> Don't doa netbook. Seriously. Do a google search for mini pc or check out the offierings at MP3car.com.
> 
> For signal processing, there are a bunch of ways to do it, but you'll need an audio interface. I use an edirol UA101. It's not high end, but it is reliable, simple to use and sounds great.
> 
> This project is not for the faint of heart, BTW, unless you buy a PC designed for cars. I think there's a double-din unit, but it's crazy expensive.


My big problem with making this build (which I'm gunna do anyway, because I get bored) is the sound processing software. I am planning to use a MOTU Hyperlite MK3, which has 10 analog outputs. Is there way to find openshare, or purchase, software versions of the auto-correction features on the MS8? Is it maybe even possible to purchase the L7 processing? How far can CarPC processing go for the purposes of car audio without building the program myself? Are the HT auto-correction downloads that are available but implied for home use, going to be a possibility for car use?


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