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atkinsonrr

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  1. Cool. Thanks Allan. I will set mine up as you have yours. That will make things easier. BTW, for anyone interested, I pulled that Belkin 12v UPS apart and played with it awhile. Couldn't get it to behave when fed 12v from a different source. So did some searching online and found some folks using this: picoUPS-120 12V DC micro UPS system / battery backup system for a 12v UPS solution. Problem is, it needs a 13.5 Volts or better at input and my linear power supply I have powering my motherboard is only 12V. The CAPS will take 12 to 18 Volts input so I could upgrade my linear to 15 or 18v but I'm not really into replacing more of my kit. But maybe this info will help someone else.
  2. Thanks for all the replies. John and John: you have me thinking about how to implement battery backup. I have some little Belken thingy (I think left over from an AT&T cable TV install) that is a 120 to 12v converter combined with battery backup. Since the CAPS is all I'm worried about, I may try to figure out how to insert that into my system while still using the linear power supply I have feeding the CAPS motherboard. It has a 32 amp battery and so it should be able to back up that Atom motherboard at idle for at least 8 hours. Will have to get into its little PC board and see if I can somehow separate the AC power interrupt switching function from the AC/DC converter function, then replace its converter with my linear. If anyone has tips for doing this, please chime in! If that fails I guess I can always go with turning the CAPS off using remote desktop (I run headless) and then turning it on via the front power button, as Allen and K have assured me that is reliable. But, when powering up using the power button, can you get CAPS to turn on, avoid sign in and automatically open JRiver? Otherwise it would be a bit of a PITA. I like Firedog's solution best, but again, not sure if I can be assured that Windows or Media Center won't end up being fried in the event of a power failure. Does anyone know: if Windows and Media Center are open but idle can either be corrupted or damaged if the power goes out? Thanks again -- Rob
  3. I am running JRiver via Windows 8.1 on a CAPS Carbon. Originally I was using the front button for turning the CAPS to hibernation every time I was finished listening. I'd nothing but problems getting that !@#$% button to do what it was supposed to do; sometimes it needed one press and other times two, half the time spawning a "improper shutdown" message from Windows. Probably as a result I had nothing but problems with Win 8.1, requiring me to do complete re-installs of the OS and rebuilding of all the software 2 or 3 times in the past 18 months. (Chris, if you've experienced vague but horrific feelings every now and then I confess it may be my fault for using your name in vain for ever convincing me to build a Windows machine.) Now everything's different--sort of. My power conditioner failed several weeks ago and with it my ability to turn the entire system off in a controlled way by turning off the CAPS. So since then, I've left the CAPS on 24/7 and just turned my amp on and off for music listening. Surprise! No more problems with Windows! This would be the happy end of story except for a couple power outages we had today. Once the power company seemed to get things straightened out, I plugged my amp back in, called up JRiver and this time got a message not from Windows, but from Media Center warning "improper shutdown". It occurs to me that the outage may have only caused a problem because Media Center was playing music during the first shutdown, if so maybe its not a likely enough scenario to worry about? Anyway, my question is: is there a safe way to leave CAPS and Media Center on (if not playing music) all the time? And/or how do others configure their system to avoid the pitfalls I've experienced? Any help is greatly appreciated.
  4. Hello all. Sorry! I monitored this thread for a couple days after my post and had no response, so I thought there was no interest. Ben-M: here are three photos. The first picture shows the fabricated mounts for the SSDs. You can also see some of the clear-insulated copper ground lines, particularly the two coming from the area of the SSDs. One of these ground wires is bolted to the SSD mount (thus grounding both SSDs), the other is coming from the copper mesh tape shield I added to the SSD power line. In this pic you can also see the small black plastic conduit I used around the SSD power line and the larger black plastic conduit I used around the SATA cables after I had applied the copper mesh tape shield to both. The plastic conduit was simply for safety, to ensure all that copper shielding didn't inadvertently short something on the board and also just to clean up the installation. The second picture gives a view of the grounding scheme. You can see all the clear-insulated copper ground lines: the two already mentioned plus one from each SATA cable shield and one from the USB card. These ground wires all terminate into the right side of the gold colored auto-stereo ground block you can see in the center of the picture and mounted to the floor of the enclosure. Coming out of the left side of this grounding block is 8 or 10 gauge solid copper that then runs to the back of the enclosure where it bonds with the enclosure and also connects to a banana jack for connection to a separate ground. Because you will be running three separate power supplies you need to take care that your grounding scheme provides a common ground between the motherboard, the USB board and the SSDs. The third picture simply shows the banana plug I mounted to the receptacle cover and the heavy wire that runs from that banana plug on the back of the CAPS enclosure to this banana plug at the receptacle.
  5. Want to fulfill the obligation to share with the CA community the results of mods I have just completed on my CAPS Carbon. A couple of weeks ago I was perusing the forums here and came up with a few thoughts about electrical noise interactions I wanted to check out. These thoughts were: 1. Solid State Hard Drives are electrically noisy. 2. SATA cables make a difference. 3. Shielding SATA cables can make a positive difference. 4. Anything you can do to electrically isolate the USB from Motherboard and then isolating both from the Drives will be positive. Before going any farther let me say this to anyone who is uncontrollably tempted to make me see the error of my unscientific ways. This post is directed at those folks here who enjoy experimenting to increase their enjoyment of music. None of the following was subjected to DBT. And I am not prepared to explain exactly HOW the mods work. I can tell you what I experience. I also need to add that I made several changes at the same time, so there is no way for me to say with any certainty which change did what. Sorry. I did not make one change, put the system back together for critical listening and then make another change, etc, etc for the same reason I did not do DBT. It is impractical. I can however say that the Carbon sounds better after the sum of these changes. How better? It is consistent with what I hear when making changes in power supply, reducing electrical noise, or reducing jitter. The music sounds simply more like music being expressed in a natural space vs being pushed like sausage out of a couple of speakers. There is more clarity. Percussion sounds that were lost in the mix are now very precise and clear. I can understand lyrics I did not before. I can clearly hear those little asides artists love to plant as the track is fading out. The music sounds more natural less edgy and more complete with the decays especially noticeable. How much better? All I can say is I would do it again, in a heartbeat. I had a lot of material on hand so cost to me was minimal. If you were to start from scratch, I would think you could do this for well under a hundred dollars. Is this a hundred dollar-wothy improvement to a thousand dollar machine? I would say yes, no doubt. OK so this is what I did: 1. Fed the SOTM USB PCIe card externally using a lab-grade power supply I had lying around. FWIW it is a Acopian AO15-MX100 variable voltage 0-15v 1 amp linear supply. I might have hooked this up earlier, but it is rated at 1amp and SOTM says their card requires "2 amp max". I haven't heard any problems for want of more current. This is a $215 retail power supply, but I picked up a pristine used example a few years ago on Ebay for around $50. 2. Fed my two SSDs with a cheap 5v power supply bought off Ebay. My sense from reading other's experiences is that the quality of this supply doesn't matter too much. The benefit is gained by getting the noisy SSDs off the computer's power supply. The power supply I bought was listed as "5V 4A AC to DC Adapter GT-4201DA-05 5.5mm OD 2.5mm ID Charger Power Supply Cord" and cost $6.99, free shipping included. I also installed a power inlet on the back wall of the Carbon and changed out the tip on the one that came with the power supply to fit. These connectors cost me $6.00 at Radio Shack. I then of course ran a power line (2-wire shielded) from that connector forward to where the SSDs are now mounted. 3. Changed SATA cables to those mentioned elsewhere as "sounding better". These are black with white ends that latch and are advertised on Ebay as coming from ASUS computers. They were listed as "2 Pack SATA 3.0 III SATA3 SATAiii High Speed 6GB/s Data Cable New ASUS Brand" and I got a pair of cables for $2.99 free shipping included. 4. Mounted the SSDs stacked on top of one another using a bracket I fashioned out of some scrap aluminum. Situated them in the opposite (left front) corner of the Carbon enclosure from the Motherboard to get as much distance as possible between the SSDs vs the mobo and the USB card. 5. Shielded the SATA cables with copper mesh tape I had lying around. Others have reported doing this simply using aluminum foil. The copper mesh has the advantage of being able to be soldered, allowing me to solder drain wires to the new shields. 6. Putting in a star grounding arrangement with a grounding block sold for car audio. I bolted the grounding block to the floor of the Carbon chassis and then used large gauge copper to connect it to the SSD enclosures, the USB board, and the shields on the SATA cables as well as the shield on the power line that now runs from the power connector I installed on the rear of the box to the SSDs. I then used large gauge copper to connect the grounding block to the rear of the chassis where I installed a 5-way binding post (in electrical contact with the chassis). Thats it! I have also installed a 5-way binding post into my metal wall plug outlet cover. Its connected via large gauge copper to the ground wire running in the wall. I will use it and the binding post at the rear of the Carbon to see if a separate ground line will reap any additional improvements. I realize a better solution might be to sink a grounding rod but I can't get outside from the wall where my stereo is. Hope others find this helpful. If you have any questions on the how-to just shoot me a response.
  6. I happened to have the same values as the factory caps, and replaced with the same value. Sorry, but I do not remember what the value was, and I just went through my parts stash to look for the ones I replaced but did not find them. Once you open the unit you can't miss them. Four radial electrolytics on the analog side of the board near the outputs.
  7. Hello Nemick I did not need the 5M but simply bought it based on the strength of the recommendation from the HiFi Critic comparison tests. During those tests, which were both blind and sighted, they compared the same cable -- the Chord Silver Plus USB -- in 1M length and the 5M length and found the 5M length superior. And in the 5M length it was superior to the other cables tested, all of them well thought of and with higher price tags, if I remember correctly. I am aware that many people feel shorter is better. I did not have the opportunity or, frankly, the motivation to do the many comparisons myself so I went with a reviewer that I trusted. I am sure there are many variables that could be at play. So, I take some reassurance from the fact that Martin Colloms continues to use the Chord USB cable for DAC tests, including a test of my current DAC, the Teac UD-501.
  8. Hi all. Just feel obliged to offer my experiences with a USB cable change. I did not conduct blind testing, so if that is your requisite for input to be meaningful please stop reading HERE. But, I have been an audiophile for 45 years; built amplifiers and tweaked many pieces of equipment. Haven't had too much trouble relying on listening to tell me what is an improvement--lasting real improvement that is--and what is not. I've been skeptical about the reality and magnitude of improvements that might be available by changing my venerable old Belkin USB cable. But, it was the next logical place for possible upgrade so I tried getting a sense which one to try by reading all the personal and professional USB cable reviews I could get my hands on. It became so confusing that I even tried to put all this "data" into a relational diagram that quickly became too busy to decipher! Then I saw that Martin Colloms @ HIFICritic did a USB cable test and actually picked one of the lower priced cables as the best -- although strangely in a 5M length. In the past I have found Martin's ears seemed to agree with mine, and the fact that the cable in question was only gonna cost me a hundred bucks was very satisfying to this retired cheapskate. So, I took a flyer and purchased a 5 meter Chord Silver Plus USB chord from an online store in the UK. To make a long story short, this cable swap has been a great success. Yes, USB cables do make a difference! I could cite a bunch of adjectives here, but I think it most meaningful to say it takes my rig to a new benchmark in moving from 'electronic' or 'digital' sound to 'organic' and 'natural'. Haze lifted? Yes you could say that. More 'see into'? Yes, you could say that. Most important to me is there has been, for as long as I can remember, a mid range glare in ALL reproduction through ALL my systems over the years. My thought is that early on in my turntable days this glare was due to early transistor amps. Later by the time I moved into tube power I was into digital and my suspicion is that at that point the glare was resident in the digital side of things. Maybe I'm just very susceptible to it, but it took the joy out of long term listening for me. Anyway, I hesitate to say this, but this glare seems to be gone! Would another USB cable have done this? I don't know. Is this the 'best' USB cable out there. I don't know. But it certainly works for me in my system, with my ears and my listening preferences. Love it!
  9. Just thought I would chime in here. I've had the UD-501 for a few months and love it. The first time I hooked it up I broke the IEC power inlet on the back when trying to seat my very tight Shunyata power cord. I could get power into it and I listened to it in stock configuration for a 2-3 weeks. After mulling over the choice of sending the unit away for an undetermined time period and just fixing it myself, I decided on the latter. While I had the top off (and since the warranty was violated anyway) I decided I was not impressed with the 4 generic (relatively) large output electrolytics in the analogue side and replaced them with 4 Nichicon MUSE I had on hand. This affords a good improvement in liquidity and decrease in "digititis" in line with other times I have upgraded caps in the signal path. I believe this cap upgrade and a change from my long-time Belkin USB cable to a 5M long Chord USB cable--which removed the vestige of midrange glare--have been the two most significant contributors to my digital set up sounding as smooth and analogue as I've ever heard it.
  10. The top memory slot on my motherboard is apparently damaged. Although it did not work to reseat the 4mb Mushkin RAM card in the top slot where it was, when I moved it to the bottom slot and turned the computer back on I immediately got a message on the TV/Monitor. I simply followed the directions on the monitor and Windows is now loading seemingly without a hitch.
  11. Hi All-- This is my first computer build so I am hoping the answer is real simple to one of the many experienced folks here at CA. I completed the Carbon build pretty much exactly by the book. The only variation I introduced is I have a 512KB SSD and I am using a linear 12 volt power supply rated at 3.4 amps. I have a DVD drive hooked up via USB and have a mouse and keyboard hooked up, also via USB port. When I press the on switch at the front of the case, the button lights, and I get a green led on the mother board. I have tried connecting to a TV via the HDMI port on the mother board and to a second TV using the VGA connector. I get no display whatsoever. I have the Windows 8 Pro (OEM version) from Newegg specified by Chris. It is loaded in the DVD drive, but again, nothing happens. Any help is greatly appreciated!
  12. dpaws--Very good point about the DC/DC converters being another source of noise. And, the SMPS by Daitron I referenced is 12v only. I too don't think SMPS by their nature are the problem. Especially now in the last year or two as Resonant supplies have become available. It has proven pretty difficult to find a really quiet one suitable for a server though. Well, the search continues. Or, if I hear that the Mini is on a par with the CAPS, maybe wgscott is right, I will just go the Mini route and make my life easier...
  13. wgscott--I am very partial to Macs but after reading comments here by Chris, and by others here at CA, there seems to be a consensus that the CAPS is significantly better in terms of audio quality than the Mini. I would love to hear otherwise, as I just really resist the idea of depending on Windows for music.
  14. Nobody on the forum has an opinion on whether this SMPS would be a high quality alternative for a CAPS 3 server?
  15. I have been following the new CAPS 3 roll-outs with interest, as I would like to retire my big old G5 Mac and go to something simpler, smaller and greener. I have reached a bit of an impasse regarding selection of a power supply for a CAPS I might build. I would like to avoid the bulk of a linear supply and the cost of a battery supply and beyond that would like a relatively green solution--particularly if the server will be left on 24/7. This leaves the switch mode route, but of course they are notorious for polluting with noise both radiated and transmitted via the power itself. Looking at various SMPS that are labeled as "Quiet" we find that they sometimes have noise ratings in the 100 to 200 millivolt range. I finally did find a fairly new line of SMPS made by Daitron in Japan that appear to be purpose built for situations where they could be used in lieu of a linear supply. They have a 12 volt 50 watt model with a noise rating of 5 millivolts. It uses the relatively new resonant technology that limits hard switching and the noise that it produces. The data sheet can be found here: http://www.daitron.com/documents/HFS50%20Catalog%20Dec%2008.pdf I just received the quote from Daitron for this (HFS50-12) power supply and it is expensive: $195 when ordering a quantity of 1 to 9. I know that many folks on this board have also been grappling with power supply issues. Does the Daitron HFS50-12 seem like a real alternative to going the linear or battery route for achieving maximum sound quality? Why or why not? I would love to hear your comments and opinions on this.
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