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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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14 minutes ago, lmitche said:

In the end, I ditched all the switches as the router alone sounds best. I look forward to testing the new Uptone switch.

 

Brought to mind the "Little Sally Walker" game my girls used to play when they were elementary school-age.

 

"... do your thing, do your thing, and switch."

 

Non-US residents are probably scratching their heads and saying: "Whaaaa?"

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5 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Brought to mind the "Little Sally Walker" game my girls used to play when they were elementary school-age.

 

"... do your thing, do your thing, and switch."

 

Non-US residents are probably scratching their heads and saying: "Whaaaa?"

I'm a US born citizen (Illinois), and so is my wife (New York City). We are both scratching our heads. Maybe Little Sally Walker is a Texan?

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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6 minutes ago, lmitche said:

I'm a US born citizen (Illinois), and so is my wife (New York City). We are both scratching our heads. Maybe Little Sally Walker is a Texan?

 

Maybe!  http://www.ultimatecampresource.com/site/camp-activity/little-sally-walker.html

 

As a non-US born first generation American, raising kids born in the US was like drinking from a fire hose - a crash course in local culture!

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12 minutes ago, Bruce Orr said:

Sorry to pile on, Rajiv. Grew up in the Midwest, got to Texas as fast as I could, but also clueless on Liitle Sally Walker. I’m feeling bad for her at this point. 

 

Luckily the link I sent proved it wasn’t just something I dreamed up! ?

 

Maybe a little girl thing? Did you guys raise daughters?

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4 hours ago, Quadman said:

 I too power the SSD with LPSU's (my DIY Sigma S11 at 7v followed by 2- 1A LT3045 boards in series (6V>5V)

Great combinations!Same 4xlt1963 parallel.I powered x10sba 3.3v bus rail with this .Amazing!!With good pico psu like innuos Zenith,the sq can be very good.But without pico,become another league.without well powered ssd, cpu. extra clocks, upsampling or filters

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3 hours ago, Johnseye said:

All DACs except NOS filter, but they do not upsample.

 

Que?

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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2 hours ago, lmitche said:

You should consider separate power sources for the 24 pin motherboard atx input via the hdplex and the 12 volt cpu power. This is a very worthwhile mod even with an atx smps powering the cpu.

I will be trying this with the new HDPLEX 200W LPS  and 400W Hifi DC-ATX for the 24-pin and my Seasonic 650W Gold for the CPU 8-pin on an ATX motherboard.  If I really like it, I'll probably change the old Seasonic 650W Gold to a Seasonic PRIME Ultra Titanium.

 

It will also be interesting to compare the 2A adjustable-voltage rails (with 4 x LT3045 each) on the HDPLEX 200W LPS to the LPS-1.2 and Paul Hynes SR4 I currently use for my Startech USB card and OS SSD (X25-M MLC with SOtM SATA II filter). 

 

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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I can't help but think that if you powered/clocked externally some of those mobo clocks you wouldn't get such big changes, hard to detect, in SQ from software or bios changes.  At least that is what I've found with my sCLK EX server.  

I'm thinking when electronic noise/jitter runs rampant in a mobo, then such software changes will be evident in a big way. 

 

Now, to be fair, my recent findings of slight poor sound from powering my HDD via mobo over separately, LPS-1, could also be looked at in such a way.  Was it the back feeding of noise from HDD in operation (which I think) or was it poor noisy power of the mobo feeding the HDD?  

Something to keep in perspective.

 

(JRiver) Jetway barebones NUC (mod 3 sCLK-EX, Cybershaft OP 14)  (PH SR7) => mini pcie adapter to PCIe 1X => tXUSBexp PCIe card (mod sCLK-EX) (PH SR7) => (USPCB) Chord DAVE => Omega Super 8XRS/REL t5i  (All powered thru Topaz Isolation Transformer)

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2 hours ago, lmitche said:

Hi Elvia,

 

I flipped the turbo switch as I stumbled into it doing something else. I had recently read several posts on CA about both AO on intel and in a separate threadripper thread that SQ improved with turbo mode disabled. My i7-6700k runs at 4 GHz at base speeds so there is no need for more. Prior to disablement task manager showed the clock at 4.19ghz, so the turbo switch disablement worked and lowered the frequency to 3.99ghz now. With the turbo switch staring me in the face, I thought I'd give it a try. So far so good.

 

I am not sure why this should sound better. My guess is that like any engine, running at full throttle strains things, so why should a cpu chip be different? I had previosuly set the bios to all core sync so the frequency across cores should have been the same prior to this change.

 

As to your emi/rfi idea, that could be true as well. My guess is the emi/rfi signature of these machines changes with software and music content in real time during playback. That likely creates a kind of feedback loop that echoes, literally, throughout the system. It also explains why cable shielding and powering things from multiple segregated power supplies makes such a huge difference. I have seven separate power sources in use today. I can easily think of places to add two to five more. That would be pretty crazy, but would likely divide and conquer the SQ beast in a positive way.

 

I am less enamored with clock changes, at least until I know I've got the cleanest possible power flowing into the existing clocks.

 

Anyway that's my two cents worth.

 

Best,

Larry

 

 

Off topic, but I hope you had better luck than I did.  I turned off turbo boost and my PC would no longer boot.  I7-6700k on a Gigabyte motherboard.

 

Colin

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