PC - cheap optimisation?

[numlog]

2 hours ago, KingRex said:

Couple comments. 

So optical and ethernet are like the HQ 'plug and play' solution to link PC and audio, just out of curiosity what is the ideal route for maximum SQ?

 

 

 

[ElviaCaprice]

2 hours ago, numlog said:

So optical and ethernet are like the HQ 'plug and play' solution to link PC and audio, just out of curiosity what is the ideal route for maximum SQ?

 

 

 

That which sounds best to you!  Welcome to the rat hole of optimization.  

Mine is USB.  You could do similar for optical, I would imagine (maybe even cheaper??), but why limit your format capabilities and component choices?

[Ralf11]

the ideal route for maximum SQ depends on what your defn of ideal is

 

if it is cheap, then figure out which USB ports to use - that costs $0

 

 

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, numlog said:

OS is on the SSD, music is stored on HDD. If you think drive power supply will make a difference would it be better to use a dedicated transformer with this board? could even use dual voltage supply to power both drives or just the HDD to isolate it from PC power as its the only mechanical device left in the PC.

A quick answer as I have to do a 120KM " school run" to Sydney shortly.

 Just using this PSU with the OS SSD does help, as it isolates it's electrical noise from the other SSD and helps to keep it's electrical noise from getting back into the rest of the PC . Even better is a dual +5V supply that powers both and isolates them better from each other. A HDD needs +12V and +5V and doesn't benefit as much from improved power. An internal Optical device does however, such as the LG GGW H20L BluRay writer that I use for ripping CDs.

I use a more sophisticated dual +5V supply for both my OS and Music SSDs.

[Ralf11]

my view - and certainly cheaper than an LPS - is to galv. isolate the DAC from the PC/music server - see the Behind the Digital Curtain thread

 

may cost you $100 - Eitr

 

for about $500 use a ClearFog optical link - it is @jabbr approved  (look for the little sticker with dendrites rampant on a shield)

 

no matter what try to put the PC several feet away from the DAC and on a different electrical feed

 

then buy a power strips (again @jabbr approved) for multiple units to plug into a single point

 

with the above you are cheaply reducing noise from the AC line, from gnd loops and from the PC

 

it is incremental - you can go further than the above with an isolation transformer (which the mavens here seem to have bid up from < $200 to > $600) and many other things - on & on

 

BTW< you aren't listening to mp3 are ya?!

[beerandmusic]

just replace your dac with a network player (e.g. lumin d2 or altair, or higher if budget allows)

[numlog]

8 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 you aren't listening to mp3 are ya?!

mainly just listening off youtube, set it to HD when I can

 

[Ralf11]

ok, do you want to spend the $$ for an LPS?

[numlog]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

ok, do you want to spend the $$ for an LPS?

A completely linear PC power supply? no, that would be far to expensive and would feel like a waste with a noisy mobo.

 

something minor like a basic LPS for the drives as suggested by sandy, just to provide some isolation.

it probably isnt worth spending much more than that with the current PSU and mobo.

 

The Schitt Eitr does have a lot of good reviews and is pretty affordable but there's no coax on the DAC, only USB.

 

[numlog]

some more ideas on the cheap end of thing, mostly just recycling stuff I've read on here but will be a handy resource for anyone looking for this kind of info.

 

apparently the primary PCIe slot on the mobo has a better connection to the motherboard than the I/O panel connections so a basic PCIe USB card with couple slots could offer better sound quality over the normal ports.

 

improvements have been reported with audiophile USB cards. The SotmtX-USBexp has low jitter clocks,  supply filtering+regulation and an external power supply input. Any serious audiophile is not going to rely on USB power so the regulation is kind of pointless, the ifi iDefender will filter and has an external power supply input, plus its external so you aren't sending your clean power back into the PC.

 

Low jitter clocks... not 100% sure about this but I think clocks are fairly easy to upgrade if you have some soldering skills, a good clock wouldnt be crazy expensive. removing the original clocks would be the tricky part but you dont have to worry about damaging them... this is something I will have to experiment with.

[sandyk]

4 hours ago, numlog said:

mainly just listening off youtube, set it to HD when I can

 

How do you listen to YouTube material ? It's not exactly high res material.

 For best audio from YouTube you need to download and save it. The sweet spot for YouTube videos is with 1280 x720 videos which have the highest quality of .aac audio at 187Kilobits. 4K music videos can have as low as 64 Kilobits .

 The record companies don't seem to want you to have access to material with both great looking video and decent quality sound.

[numlog]

9 hours ago, sandyk said:

How do you listen to YouTube material ? It's not exactly high res material.

 For best audio from YouTube you need to download and save it. The sweet spot for YouTube videos is with 1280 x720 videos which have the highest quality of .aac audio at 187Kilobits. 4K music videos can have as low as 64 Kilobits .

 The record companies don't seem to want you to have access to material with both great looking video and decent quality sound.

I was joking, only lossless. compressed audio has very little depth to my ears

[ALRAINBOW]

Find some of my posts and read them. And don’t care what others say of my comments 

then ask me for advice. I have tried so many times to help in this and get flamed from makers of devices or even worse quoting what others say so it must be true lol. 

While a. World class two of setup is above 8 k 

a really good sever can be have for less then 1500.  A few simple methods must be adhered too. And no exp clocks needed 

[jabbr]

On 5/17/2018 at 4:54 PM, Ralf11 said:

my view - and certainly cheaper than an LPS - is to galv. isolate the DAC from the PC/music server - see the Behind the Digital Curtain thread

 

Thats the take home message. 

 

There is a limit to the ability use a fancy LPS to reduce noise in a typical PC. Folks try independently powering I/O cards, SSDs, SATA etc but really this is, IMHO, largely a waste of time and resources  that would be better devoted to isolating the DAC from the PC with Ethernet and as I see it, fiberoptic Ethernet?

 

Why is this limited? Well PC motherboards don’t actually just use ATX voltages rather have their own onboard switching buck-converters.

 

Now something like the ultra Rendu might use onboard linear regulators ( @barrows can confirm ) — and this is a network renderer. But you know otherwise these crazy expensive dedicated servers might use expensive LPS to, err, feed a little switcher onboard. ??‍♂️

 

Regarding output quality in I/O understand that a 10Gbe fiberoptic Ethernet link is specified to have end to end picosecond range jitter, and that’s with any old ATX supply, so ... is there room to improve on the server side? 

 

Cheap optimization!!! Get yourself an Intel x520 NIC on eBay!!! Stick it into your cheap PC server

 

On 5/17/2018 at 4:54 PM, Ralf11 said:

 

for about $500 use a ClearFog optical link - it is @jabbr approved  (look for the little sticker with dendrites rampant on a shield)

???

That cost might be for the ClearFog with all of the extras to get it to work eg LPS etc. The box itself is $140 ?

[barrows]

33 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Now something like the ultra Rendu might use onboard linear regulators ( @barrows can confirm ) — and this is a network renderer. But you know otherwise these crazy expensive dedicated servers might use expensive LPS to, err, feed a little switcher onboard. ??‍♂️

This is one of the main advantages to using a made for audio device like the Rendu Series Renderers.  Unlike off the shelf ordinary commercial computer products, a (yes more expensive), made for audio device can use lower noise parts, and better parts, and more different power supply domains (more independently regulated supplies) at the PC board level.  and this is also why Sonore gave up making audio "Servers", as the commercial Mother Board was always noisy, no matter how many linear supplies, and special USB output boards we put in there.

So with Ethernet distribution and a well designed and built Renderer, you get all the noisy gear away from the audio system, and the isolation inherent in Ethernet.

[jabbr]

22 minutes ago, barrows said:

made for audio device can use lower noise parts, and better parts, and more different power supply domains (more independently regulated supplies) at the PC board level.

 

So for example, independent linear regulator 1.3V for RAM?

 

Intel CPUs can have complex voltage requirements eg 0.6 - 1.4 V range

 

ARM varies with brand but could be 0.9v to 1.1 etc 

 

These voltages are not ATX, and unless onboard regulators are linear, buck converters are typically used.

[barrows]

12 minutes ago, jabbr said:

So for example, independent linear regulator 1.3V for RAM?

 

All onboard regulators in the ultraRendu and Signature Rendu SE are very low noise, linear types.  So each circuit/device need is powered by a low noise linear regulator, and there are no switching regulators (or even "ordinary" less than really good, linear regulators).

[mansr]

33 minutes ago, jabbr said:

So for example, independent linear regulator 1.3V for RAM?

 

Intel CPUs can have complex voltage requirements eg 0.6 - 1.4 V range

 

ARM varies with brand but could be 0.9v to 1.1 etc 

 

These voltages are not ATX, and unless onboard regulators are linear, buck converters are typically used.

There are also on-chip regulators. Good luck replacing those.

[barrows]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

There are also on-chip regulators. Good luck replacing those.

Of course, but why get ridiculous about it?  As has already been discussed on many threads at this forum: custom chips for this purpose are just never going to happen due to the very high expense of chip development.

The fact remains that when a manufacturer/developer pays as much attention as is reasonably possible to reduce the noise/interference issues which can be problematic in computer based audio, the audio performance is improved.  What is really surprising (to me) is that the system clock for a Renderer really matters as well, and that there are sonic gains to be had by using a low phase noise clock, for both the processor and the USB hub.  

[chauphuong]

Seems that a Rasp Pi has only 1 SMPS onboard, and removing it opens the door....

[Ralf11]

THX @jabbr - $140 for one box, but I am not all familiar with the device - do you need one box or two?

 

@barrows - Your products solve the problem and are easier to use, but will cost the user more $$ (plus depriving them of the DIY 'experience')

[jabbr]

2 hours ago, barrows said:

What is really surprising (to me) is that the system clock for a Renderer really matters as well, and that there are sonic gains to be had by using a low phase noise clock, for both the processor and the USB hub.  

With the cost of the Crystek being what it is there is little reason to use a bad clock. That said you can use a “femto” clock but if your logic chips are “nano” then you get nano. That’s why the 10Gbe fiberoptic Ethernet standard specified at least “pico” end-to-end (10Gbase-SX)

 

This is substantially better than what is required for 1Gbe and this be reason why I use 10G parts in 1G mode — unlike with copper Ethernet where the low speed parts draw much less power (eg100 Mbe ) with optical the newer higher speed parts not only don’t draw (much) more power but are light years better technically.

[jabbr]

23 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

THX @jabbr - $140 for one box, but I am not all familiar with the device - do you need one box or two?

Get a switch with an SFP port and run a fiber between it and the ClearFog — only need one ClearFog.

[numlog]

5 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Thats the take home message. 

 

There is a limit to the ability use a fancy LPS to reduce noise in a typical PC. Folks try independently powering I/O cards, SSDs, SATA etc but really this is, IMHO, largely a waste of time and resources  that would be better devoted to isolating the DAC from the PC with Ethernet and as I see it, fiberoptic Ethernet?

 

Why is this limited? Well PC motherboards don’t actually just use ATX voltages rather have their own onboard switching buck-converters

Finished the supply for the SSD with an LM350 and seperate transformer. While I cant say its not limited compared to the isolation option, its definitely NOT a waste of time or resources considering the price difference. This was the biggest improvement so far, to describe in 1 word: open

 

this drive is for the OS only! thanks to sandy for the suggestion.

[Ralf11]

I see switches with an SFP port for $150 to $250 so we are not a lot below the $500 level for the low buck user...