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


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Most important: please realize this thread is about bleeding edge experimentation and discovery. No one has The Answer™. If you are not into tweaking, just know that you can have a musically satisfying system without doing any of the nutty things we do here.

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18 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Johnseye:  "...The bottom line is that the DAC and upsampling has had the biggest impact.  ..."

 

Thanks for the report - not surprising, I guess.  

 

I missed whether you did the other things after the DAC/sampling upgrades, but assume you did.

 

Can you characterize the effects of cable shielding as to magnitude and types of SQ differences?

 

Also sorry to hear you are MBAing into manglement...

 

I've been in management for...13 years, running the IT department for the past 7.  Just never bothered with the MBA until recently.  It's a good thing.

 

The differences I hear from the cable shielding is more depth and dimensionality of sound stage, clarity around instruments and more bass.   In fact the biggest difference in all of my changes has been a significant increase in bass.  I'm still getting used to it.  On one hand it takes more concentrated listening to hear the other instruments because the bass can be overpowering.  On the other hand, I suspect the music was recorded that way and I'm now hearing more of what was intended.  Surprising what an impact EMI/RF has on our equipment.

 

The bass and midrange impact was also increased by the DAC.  So the shielding is probably amplifying it.  I need to put the Audio Alchemy back in line to hear what the DAC is doing now.  Yes, the new cable shielding was done after the other changes.  I never had internal power cables inside the server, other than some small ones to the drive and sCLK.  Power was direct to the board from an external source.

 

I'm not sold on upsampling PCM to DSD.  It just sounds too flat and muted.  When I heard native DSD upsampled to 512 I got it.  I understood what people were talking about, but I just personally like PCM to upsampled PCM better than PCM to DSD.

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26 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

I'm not sold on upsampling PCM to DSD.  It just sounds too flat and muted.  When I heard native DSD upsampled to 512 I got it.  I understood what people were talking about, but I just personally like PCM to upsampled PCM better than PCM to DSD.

John, this statement about DSD is with the Holo Spring DAC?  If so, change the Hqplayer buffer to default, and then set the asio driver to the smallest buffer size that plays. The buffer size has a large impact on perceived presence or deadness.

 

 

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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30 minutes ago, lmitche said:

John, this statement about DSD is with the Holo Spring DAC?  If so, change the Hqplayer buffer to default, and then set the asio driver to the smallest buffer size that plays. The buffer size has a large impact on perceived presence or deadness.

 

 

 

Yup, Holo Spring.  I'll change the buffer and compare.  Thanks.

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Thank you Bricki. I think I'll give this a go. It's currently a right pain whenever I need to adjust my cable spaghetti - those darned  ferrites have such sharp teeth!

 

One final question: what diameter braiding did you use? The first UK supplier I came across had nothing between 6mm and 10mm, which seem respectively too small and too large for the job. The Supra CAT 8 cable looks to be around 7mm diameter.

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1 hour ago, TheAttorney said:

Thank you Bricki. I think I'll give this a go. It's currently a right pain whenever I need to adjust my cable spaghetti - those darned  ferrites have such sharp teeth!

 

One final question: what diameter braiding did you use? The first UK supplier I came across had nothing between 6mm and 10mm, which seem respectively too small and too large for the job. The Supra CAT 8 cable looks to be around 7mm diameter.

The braid can be expanded to fit over connectors.  Use 10mm if there are small plastic RJ45 connectors and pull the braid to fit the smaller cable.  If there are no connectors installed use 6mm.  If doing JSSG 360 you may need a larger size braid for the outer shield.

 

 

 

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Just wanted to pop in and say I am back from my travels, and hope to be more active. Meanwhile I have a lot of catching up to do with all the JSSG 360 findings! 

 

It will be interesting to compare JSSG 360 treated cables in multiple domains, like:

  • DC
  • clocks
  • USB
  • Ethernet

with their expensive "reference" counterparts. For example:

  1. I know the JSSG 360 Lush outperformed the original by a clear margin.
  2. But, does a JSSG 360 DC cable, like the Gotham or Supra, equal or outperform silver cables like the Audio Sensibility or Paul Hynes?
  3. Does a JSSG 360 Ethernet cable equal or outperform the likes of the SOtM dCBL-Cat7?
  4. Does a JSSG 360 Pasternack clock cable equal or outperform a Habst?

Sadly, the whole JSSG 360 layering process of braid/heatshield/braid is a bit outside my threshold of DIY skill. However, I'm open to loaners, and I'd be happy to compare with the reference cables I mentioned, since I have/own all of them.

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On 6/6/2018 at 1:36 PM, lmitche said:

Ok, so I just disabled spread spectrum for PCIE and had a listen.  Not good, everything sounds dead. I turned it back on and quality was restored. Phew!

 

I'll try disabling SS for the VRM next. Stay tuned.

 

FYI - this test was done with the BLCK SS turned off.

 

Fascinating stuff, spread spectrum clocks.

 

Thanks for your experiments.

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43 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Just wanted to pop in and say I am back from my travels, and hope to be more active. Meanwhile I have a lot of catching up to do with all the JSSG 360 findings! 

 

It will be interesting to compare JSSG 360 treated cables in multiple domains, like:

  • DC
  • clocks
  • USB
  • Ethernet

with their expensive "reference" counterparts. For example:

  1. I know the JSSG 360 Lush outperformed the original by a clear margin.
  2. But, does a JSSG 360 DC cable, like the Gotham or Supra, equal or outperform silver cables like the Audio Sensibility or Paul Hynes?
  3. Does a JSSG 360 Ethernet cable equal or outperform the likes of the SOtM dCBL-Cat7?
  4. Does a JSSG 360 Pasternack clock cable equal or outperform a Habst?

Sadly, the whole JSSG 360 layering process of braid/heatshield/braid is a bit outside my threshold of DIY skill. However, I'm open to loaners, and I'd be happy to compare with the reference cables I mentioned, since I have/own all of them.

With JSSG 360 there is no soldering.  You just need braid, shield, heat shrink tubing, a heat gun, and time.

 

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2 hours ago, austinpop said:

Just wanted to pop in and say I am back from my travels, and hope to be more active. Meanwhile I have a lot of catching up to do with all the JSSG 360 findings! 

 

It will be interesting to compare JSSG 360 treated cables in multiple domains, like:

  • DC
  • clocks
  • USB
  • Ethernet

with their expensive "reference" counterparts. For example:

  1. I know the JSSG 360 Lush outperformed the original by a clear margin.
  2. But, does a JSSG 360 DC cable, like the Gotham or Supra, equal or outperform silver cables like the Audio Sensibility or Paul Hynes?
  3. Does a JSSG 360 Ethernet cable equal or outperform the likes of the SOtM dCBL-Cat7?
  4. Does a JSSG 360 Pasternack clock cable equal or outperform a Habst?

Sadly, the whole JSSG 360 layering process of braid/heatshield/braid is a bit outside my threshold of DIY skill. However, I'm open to loaners, and I'd be happy to compare with the reference cables I mentioned, since I have/own all of them.

There's seems to have been a plethora of new diy dc cables lately so any cable "shootout" would be great.

 Rajiv, have you tried any of the cheap POE adaptor/cat7,8 cables (Ugreen etc) discussed in the "ISO Regen performance improvement Cheap!" thread as yet?

 

 

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On 5/31/2018 at 3:57 AM, lmitche said:

Tinned copper sleeving is used for USB and networks cables. Gotham for DC cables. Yes Gotham sounds better then Canare.

 

Hi Larry,

 

When comparing Canare 4S6 and Gotham, did they both have the JSSG360?

It is just that the I believe the Canare 4S6 is a speaker cable with no shielding but is AWG20 as opposed to the Gotham which is natively shielded but AWG28.

I think bigger gauge should theoretically be better for lower DC resistance even if Canare uses an inferior copper conductor.

 

Geoff

PH SR7 > MacMini+Uptone MMK Mod > Audirvana 3.2 > re-clocked D-LInk switch/LPS1.1 > sMS-200Ultra/LPS1.2 > tX-USBUltra/PH SR7 > Chord BluDave > Focal Utopia(Norne Silver) or Voxativ 9.87/ Stereo REL G1 Mk II

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19 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

 

One final question: what diameter braiding did you use? The first UK supplier I came across had nothing between 6mm and 10mm, which seem respectively too small and too large for the job. The Supra CAT 8 cable looks to be around 7mm diameter.

I used 3/8" braid. I ordered mine from a local supplier here in Australia. It was just wide enough when opened up to fit over the supra connector. It is a bit of a wrestle at first until you figure out whether to push or pull the stuff. A combination of pushing and pulling eventually squeezes it over. Good luck and make sure you share your impressions here when done ??

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14 hours ago, tims said:

There's seems to have been a plethora of new diy dc cables lately so any cable "shootout" would be great.

 Rajiv, have you tried any of the cheap POE adaptor/cat7,8 cables (Ugreen etc) discussed in the "ISO Regen performance improvement Cheap!" thread as yet?

 

 

 

To be honest, when it comes to DC cables, even after all my forays into Canare starquad and then JSSG, I have ended up finding my silver Audio Sensibility and Paul Hynes cables  to sound the best so far.

 

So I have been waiting for the dust to settle to see where the consensus on DC cables ends up between Gotham JSSG 360, POE, etc. I know several people have the silver cables I mentioned, so I am hoping someone will compare and post their findings.

 

I guess I am so happy with the sound of my system these days, I'm feeling a bit lazy to try all these DIY mods.

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28 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

To be honest, when it comes to DC cables, even after all my forays into Canare starquad and then JSSG, I have ended up finding my silver Audio Sensibility and Paul Hynes cables  to sound the best so far.

 

I also have the same conclusion. The quality and the gauge of the conductor is very important. I have done many many comparisons over the last years and my favourite conductor for DC cables is OCC copper. I don’t have anything less than 13 or 14 AWG. Yes it matters even for 30cm cables!

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Hi Rajiv, try the PoE. It's cheap and easy and doesn't need any DIY skills. 

 

Parts required:

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LX1WL2Z

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00QV1F0RU

 

Best of all, it's a clear step-up from my old star quad Canare with Oyaide connectors. 

 

Something I've been working on myself for a test, try connecting the unused ethernet ends of both ends of the PoE using a spare ethernet cable you may have around. You'd need female/female ethernet connectors like this to help :

 

https://www.amazon.com/PLUSPOE-Coupler-Ethernet-Inline-Connector/dp/B076C1F38Z/ref=mp_s_a_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1529169225&sr=8-16&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ethernet+connector+female+to+female&dpPl=1&dpID=416s9a2v7rL&ref=plSrch

 

This will form a loop of the unused wires and should act as a pseudo-JSSG. I've found further improvements with this technique. Far easier than any DIY cable ? for me at least. 

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