THE PC CD

摘要

While Parasound's CD 1 looks just like a conventional player it is, in effect, a PC with CD-ROM drive and external USB soundcard combined into a less 'audiophile-threatening' chassis. Switch on the CD 1 and the Linux OS, running on a passively-cooled Intel D425KT Mini-ITX desktop PC board, boots to engage its proprietary disc management software. The motherboard still has its PS2 mouse/keyboard, serial/parallel ports and SATA connections in place, one of the latter hooked up to a Sony AD7800 (rewritable) CD /DVD drive. There's also more than sufficient RAM on the board to accommodate 30 seconds of buffered 16-bit/44.1kHz audio which is finally clocked out via one of its USB sockets. There's even a short USB cable running between this USB port on the PC board across to the (USB) DAC PCB sitting in the adjacent cubby hole. This internal USB DAC utilises an Analog Devices ADI853 converter, a very early-generation 24-bit/ 192kHz compatible part first launched in the late 1990s.