A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[Cornan]

8 hours ago, lmitche said:

Try splitting your music server power across two power supplies and then we should talk about this once again.

 

Here is what one friend who tried it said:

 

"Complete blackness, vocals sound different than I've ever heard them before, there's a nuance in the voices that I've never heard. Incredible spatial separation both side to side and in depth and it seems that each instrument is perfectly marked out in space. Tonal balance is completely natural, to use a cliché very analog sounding."

 

I can't say it better myself.

 

In case you have missed it have a look at this mod.

 

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendor-s-bazaar/310402-fs-ultra-low-noise-power-supply-lt3045-based-pcb-6.html#post5353416

 

Pretty impressive stuff using two single ps to power RAM directly.

[Confused]

5 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Not sure what you're asking here. You'll recall that many people who've bought the trifecta have been astounded by the improvement due to the reclocked switch. Even now, with my Zenith SE chain, the switch makes a profound improvement on streamed music - i.e. Tidal, or music stored on my NAS.

 

The effect of the switch is by no means marginal. It is startling. I know that's not what you're asking. But once you have a component that makes a significant sonic improvement, it's not hard to grasp that changes to the PSU powering the component can be quite startling too.

 

So bottom line, moving from LPS-1 to LPS-1.2 to power the switch, the SQ improvement was substantial, not marginal.

Thanks, that does actually answer my question perfectly.  I think personally I am still a little jaded after my experience with the Aqvox switch last year, in my system it appeared to make zero difference.  Looking forward, I do have a SOtM modified switch to try, and a spare LPS-1 to power it.  Last weekend I set up the SOtM tXUSBultra & sMS-200Ultra ultra but decided the leave the modified switch until the other SOtM kit had time to settle in, and indeed I have had time to get used it.

 

So in time I will be able to try standard switch versus SOtM clocked switch, and the modified switch I can try with wall wart versus LPS-1 power.  Meanwhile, whilst the LPS-1 is out of my system, I think I will get the soldering iron out and do the ground mod in the Meanwell.

 

Hopefully I'll be less jaded after trying this!

[rickca]

7 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

There's something else from Supermicro that might be worth a look. X10DAi should cost $300 or so now

It's a monster.  Requires 24-pin and 2 x 8-pin.

[mozes]

10 hours ago, lmitche said:

Hi Mozes,

 

Your motherboard has two 12 volt DC inputs but they cannot be used simultaneously, so it can't be done with the Jetway.

 

The Supermicro motherboard used in the Innuos machine can take two DC inputs simultaneously. In my experience, it is the only embedded cpu motherboard that can do so, but I've not researched other options.

 

My Asus motherboard supports an i7-6700k which is usually positioned at the opposite end of the computing spectrum. Typically these motherboards have a big 24 pin atx connector supplying multiple voltages, and a 8 pin molex connector supplying 12 volts direct to the cpu. I am powering these two inputs from two different power supplies, each sized according to current demand.

Thanks Larry, I will keep this in mind for my future project when I feel the need to upgrade my server. 

[mozes]

Guys who are active on this thread, I have an idea. Why don’t we raise $1500 among ourselves and brief DFI to build a custom motherboard for us. The technical gurus here can provide the specs and they will also test and evaluate the motherboard. I am sure we will learn a ton of things here.

 

What do you think @austinpop ?

[rickca]

2 minutes ago, mozes said:

Why don’t we raise $1500 among ourselves and brief DFI to build a custom motherboard for us.

I like the idea.  Can we agree on a form factor ... mini ITX?  I don't want to build a workstation, and I don't want to be limited to SoC.

[sig8]

10 minutes ago, mozes said:

Guys who are active on this thread, I have an idea. Why don’t we raise $1500 among ourselves and brief DFI to build a custom motherboard for us. The technical gurus here can provide the specs and they will also test and evaluate the motherboard. I am sure we will learn a ton of things here.

 

What do you think @austinpop ?

I am in on the idea.

[austinpop]

48 minutes ago, mozes said:

Guys who are active on this thread, I have an idea. Why don’t we raise $1500 among ourselves and brief DFI to build a custom motherboard for us. The technical gurus here can provide the specs and they will also test and evaluate the motherboard. I am sure we will learn a ton of things here.

 

What do you think @austinpop ?

 

I love the idea! I assume the project would then go on to build a full custom server, using the collective findings from this thread?

 

I have to caveat that while I would be an enthusiastic tester of the resultant server, I’m not the one to drive this effort. Ideally one of you who are on the forefront of building your own servers...

[Cooler]

I would like to participate as well 

[Bruce Orr]

I'm in for an investment.  I'd be one of those silent partners who just reaps the rewards on the back0end!

[tboooe]

Consider me an avid silent stalker of this thread.  Count me in for investment of a new mobo.

[rickca]

10 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

I love the idea! I assume the project would then go on to build a full custom server, using the collective findings from this thread?

 

I have to caveat that while I would be an enthusiastic tester of the resultant server, I’m not the one to drive this effort. Ideally one of you who are on the forefront of building your own servers...

Yes we need a lead server builder.  Looks like finding a pool of investors is going to be the easy part.  We need to agree on requirements and several of us can participate in testing various components and power supplies with the motherboard.

[ted_b]

I'd be willing to put up the full $1500 and have Larry test it (I'm in the midst of a big cross country move, plus Larry can test way better than I  ).  However, what if it works?  What sort of group buy can we assume DFI will accept?  And will $1500 be enough for the specs we require (which I assume includes separate power paths for cpu and mobo, enough horsepower to upsample to DSD512 in HQP,  SFP output?, etc)

[Johnseye]

One very important consideration when designing this board.  How much horsepower.  I am interested in a low power board that can support upsampling to DSD512.  A proc that can do this has certain speed and power requirements.

[Johnseye]

2 minutes ago, ted_b said:

And will $1500 be enough for the specs we require (which I assume includes separate power paths for cpu and mobo, enough horsepower to upsample to DSD512 in HQP,  SFP output?, etc)

 

You hit the nail on the head Ted. Exact same thing I was thinking.

[BigAlMc]

I see Ted offered the full $1500 but if you guys go the route of a collective then I'm happy to contribute to the costs of the research. Echoing Bruce Orr's comment about silent partner I'd be contributing solely on the cash side as I know jacksh*t about building servers.

[seeteeyou]

IMHO we've gotta ask ourselves quite a few (serious) questions before we dive right in

• How many PCI Express lanes and how many x1 slots (for tx-USBexp) do we actually want?
• Do we actually wanna "waste" any space on that motherboard (while adding unnecessary noise / power consumption etc.) with components that are connected to the PCH?
• What kinda components (i.e. SATA / USB / Ethernet etc.) should actually be part of the motherboard when PCI Express add-on cards are vastly superior?
• Is it gonna be a proprietary form factor or a standard one?
• What kinda on-board components would still require their own clocks? And then could we group them close to each other so that all of them would be connected to the same SOtM sCLK-EX board in order to keep the length of each clock cable as short as possible?
• Is it a possibility to feed each and every on-board component with a dedicated source of power so that no more voltage regulators are gonna become the weakest link? (The CPU itself only consumes 1V or so and it's gonna be tough to figure out how to feed that)
• Will DFI charge more than $1,500 if we specifically demand that noise patterns must be measured by a very detailed oscilloscope? And then what are they gonna do if they weren't even able to meet / beat the performance of Supermicro X10SBA-L?
• Does it make more sense to build a motherboard or should we go for a carrier board instead? For instance, their DV970 (up to 16 cores) might be good for upsampling to DSD512 in HQP

https://www.dfi.com/Product/Index/149

https://ark.intel.com/products/series/97941/Intel-Atom-Processor-C-Series

 

In a nutshell, we've gotta figure out how we're gonna feed the "cleanest" source of power to that motherboard / carrier board as our top priority. And then we'll decide how many PCI Express slots (that are directly connected to the CPU) are required, so that we'll see what kinda CPU would suit our needs.

 

Let's say we're going for either Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake, we've got 16 lanes to boot but it's gonna be limited to 3 PCI Express slots or less

 

Kaby Lake = 16 PCI Express lanes (1x8+2x4)

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/82879/Kaby-Lake

 

Coffee Lake = 16 PCI Express lanes (1x8+2x4)

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/97787/Coffee-Lake

 

For Gemini Lake, we could get up to 4 PCI Express slots even though there are only 6 lanes

 

Gemini Lake = 6 PCI Express Lanes (2x1+1x2+1x2)
https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/83915/Gemini-Lake

[KingRex]

You really should consider the Mojo audio Illuminati power supply. It's significantly more expensive than others but the results I have on my system are quite outstanding.

[Johnseye]

5 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

IMHO we've gotta ask ourselves quite a few (serious) questions before we dive right in

• How many PCI Express lanes and how many x1 slots (for tx-USBexp) do we actually want?
• Do we actually wanna "waste" any space on that motherboard (while adding unnecessary noise / power consumption etc.) with components that are connected to the PCH?
• What kinda components (i.e. SATA / USB / Ethernet etc.) should actually be part of the motherboard when PCI Express add-on cards are vastly superior?
• Is it gonna be a proprietary form factor or a standard one?
• What kinda on-board components would still require their own clocks? And then could we group them close to each other so that all of them would be connected to the same SOtM sCLK-EX board in order to keep the length of each clock cable as short as possible?
• Is it a possibility to feed each and every on-board component with a dedicated source of power so that no more voltage regulators are gonna become the weakest link? (The CPU itself only consumes 1V or so and it's gonna be tough to figure out how to feed that)
• Will DFI charge more than $1,500 if we specifically demand that noise patterns must be measured by a very detailed oscilloscope? And then what are they gonna do if they weren't even able to meet / beat the performance of Supermicro X10SBA-L?
• Does it make more sense to build a motherboard or should we go for a carrier board instead? For instance, their DV970 (up to 16 cores) might be good for upsampling to DSD512 in HQP

https://www.dfi.com/Product/Index/149

https://ark.intel.com/products/series/97941/Intel-Atom-Processor-C-Series

 

In a nutshell, we've gotta figure out how we're gonna feed the "cleanest" source of power to that motherboard / carrier board as our top priority. And then we'll decide how many PCI Express slots (that are directly connected to the CPU) are required, so that we'll see what kinda CPU would suit our needs.

 

Let's say we're going for either Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake, we've got 16 lanes to boot but it's gonna be limited to 3 PCI Express slots or less

 

Kaby Lake = 16 PCI Express lanes (1x8+2x4)

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/82879/Kaby-Lake

 

Coffee Lake = 16 PCI Express lanes (1x8+2x4)

https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/97787/Coffee-Lake

 

For Gemini Lake, we could get up to 4 PCI Express slots even though there are only 6 lanes

 

Gemini Lake = 6 PCI Express Lanes (2x1+1x2+1x2)
https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/83915/Gemini-Lake

 

All excellent questions and each one needs to be answered definitively.  Easy to say, not easy to do.

 

• What add on PCIe cards would we use?  tXUSBexp x 2, NIC?  That's 3 right there.
• Do we all agree to use an sCLK?  If so the board would need to be sent to SOtM.  Some risk with that, but it should be ok.
• Shortest paths yes.  If we don't follow a standard form factor it will be difficult to mount in a case, but not impossible.
• Yes to independent power source options.

[ted_b]

5 minutes ago, KingRex said:

You really should consider the Mojo audio Illuminati power supply. It's significantly more expensive than others but the results I have on my system are quite outstanding.

I might be missing the point here, but external power supplies, are, in fact, external to our spec needs.  They can be user preferred.  We first need a motheboard and/or carrier board setup that accepts them correctly.

 

I apologize if you were answering another question.  Couldn't tell.

[ted_b]

My $.02 is that the form factor needs to be standard, and that SOtM compatibility might be needed, but no, all of us are not going to use their clocks.

[auricgoldfinger]

This is going to be interesting to watch with all the cooks who have strong and sometimes differing opinions and philosophical approaches. 

 

There needs to be a designated project leader who has ultimate decision making authority when conflicts arise. 

[lateboomer]

Guys, as said I am getting this Supermicro X10SBA-L-B for my new music server build. Due my tweaking itch I also order one Elfidelity PC HI-FI Power Filter card as shown to try to improve the noise on PCIE:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Elfidelity-PC-HI-FI-Power-Filter-card-PCI-PCI-Express-audio-power-purification-/251894390541?hash=item3aa6135f0d

 

However, the mboard only has one 1x PCI-E x2 (in x8) slot. I wonder could I use this riser card to split the pcie to 2 slots which one for the pcie filter card and another slot for the Sotm tx-UsbExp card? Does the mboard need to have pcie bifurcation support?

 

https://www.supermicro.com/a_images/products/Accessories/RSC-R2UE-2E4R.jpg

 

 

 

[Johnseye]

31 minutes ago, ted_b said:

My $.02 is that the form factor needs to be standard, and that SOtM compatibility might be needed, but no, all of us are not going to use their clocks.

 

We could build 2 boards and send one to SOtM.  Otherwise it's an sCLK modded board or not.  Too bad DFI and SOtM can't team up.  I highly recommend using the sCLK.

 

14 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

This is going to be interesting to watch with all the cooks who have strong and sometimes differing opinions and philosophical approaches. 

 

There needs to be a designated project leader who has ultimate decision making authority when conflicts arise. 

 

Or we make two boards, and/or consider everyone who wants to be involved and majority decides.

[ted_b]

This prolly needs a new thread, dedicated to "specs for the DFI build".  If I knew more I'd start it, but I don't.