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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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3 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

They also had a similar discussion here

 

https://superuser.com/questions/722128/can-a-motherboard-work-when-only-supplied-with-atx12v

 

Basically they could get away with only 12V via 4-pin connector simply because of the Mini ITX form factor. In other words, we couldn't have done that if we're talking about an ATX motherboard.

 

Furthermore, Supermicro also used the word or as follows

 

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/celeron/x10/x10sba-l.cfm

 

Finally @jean-michel6 already proved that's accomplished with a single 12V iFi Audio iPower feeding that 4-pin connector ONLY

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=244&tab=comments#comment-774699

 

After reading the manual it’s clear that you can use a single 12 volt power supply via the 4 pin connector to power the board. Your missing the point though. The 4 pin connector and the ATX connector feed the same circuits and there is probably a common ground.

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Good idea or what.

 

Meitner ma1 v2 dac,  Sovereign preamp and power amp,

DIY speakers, scan speak illuminator.

Raal Requisite VM-1a -> SR-1a with Accurate Sound convolution.

Under development:

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1 hour ago, rickca said:

Thanks for clarifying the nature of the improvement.  I'm curious about what technology difference between the motherboards might account for the improvement.

 

Innuos just went all out to buy whole bunch of motherboards, and then tested everything one by one afterwards

 

http://hifipig.com/innuos-zenith-mk2/

Quote

“We had to go through a very detailed oscilloscope for measurements. We have literally tested dozens of system boards and the noise patterns you get vary wildly between them. Some are absolutely dreadful and should never be used for audio.

 

As usual the noise should be the difference that makes the difference, though they're spending quite a bit of money on that experiment since it's more like trial and error until the discovery of the champion Supermicro X10SBA-L.

 

Antipodes Audio took a very different route, they just went ahead to pay Asus (an undisclosed amount of money) for designing a motherboard that's gonna meet their expectations.

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3 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

After reading the manual it’s clear that you can use a single 12 volt power supply via the 4 pin connector to power the board. Your missing the point though. The 4 pin connector and the ATX connector feed the same circuits and there is probably a common ground.

 

Probably? Would you please kindly point us to where Supermicro stated that?

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13 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

Innuos just went all out to buy whole bunch of motherboards, and then tested everything one by one afterwards

The question is why is the Supermicro motherboard less noisy than the others?  Clearly Innuos found you can't predict which motherboard is going to sound best ... they had to actually measure them with an oscilloscope.  In retrospect, once you've identified a motherboard that is superior can we figure out why it is better?  If we know that, we can design better motherboards.

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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15 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

I provided a quote from the manual above. Both the ATX source input and the 4 pin source input feed the board. At some point you are going to end up with parallel circuits if you feed the board from both source inputs and it’s not designed for that.

All the ATX boards I've used require both the 24-pin and the 4-pin.  Of course, they are designed for more powerful CPUs than a J1900.  Is this Supermicro mini-ITX board circuit design different than a standard ATX board?  I realize it's a SoC without a separate chipset.

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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9 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

Jetway boards are also very good eg. NF596 just as good as X10

OK but that doesn't answer my question.  Sure, there may be alternatives that sound as good as the Supermicro.  The question is why are some motherboards less noisy than others?

 

Is it the VRM?  Is it the layout?  Is it the PDN?  

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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3 minutes ago, rickca said:

All the ATX boards I've used require both the 24-pin and the 4-pin.  Of course, they are designed for more powerful CPUs than a J1900.  Is this Supermicro mini-ITX board circuit design different than a standard ATX board?  I realize it's a SoC without a separate chipset.

Its a bit different because you can power it only with the 4 pin 12V input. You can also power it with the 24pin ATX input or both although this is not stated in the manual supermicro confirmed this to me. Some of their board use the 12V input for 'extra' current when demand gets high. Whether there is some switching going on or a parrallel circuit its not clear.

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2 minutes ago, rickca said:

OK but that doesn't answer my question.  Sure, there may be alternatives that sound as good as the Supermicro.  The question is why are some motherboards less noisy than others?

It's a good point it seems the lower powered boards sound good - less noise generated, also the single chip processors seem to sound very good- less circuitry going on, and it must also be the build quality, server boards are built for continuous use and reliability in mind, they seem to also have better quality regulation at their outputs.

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3 hours ago, vortecjr said:

BubbleUPnP and the MPD/DLNA output supports this. I hadn’t tried it though. 

 

I compared cloud saved FLAC to Tidal FLAC using BubbleDS Next via LightningDS platform today. Even if they do sound a tiny bit different it is too close to make any firm conclutions. I also compared BubbleUPnP, BubbleDS Next and LightningDS app using Tidal FLAC. BubbleDS Next still sounds best followed by LightningDS and BubbleUPnP/BubbleUPnP Server.

 

 

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53 minutes ago, rickca said:

All the ATX boards I've used require both the 24-pin and the 4-pin.  Of course, they are designed for more powerful CPUs than a J1900.  Is this Supermicro mini-ITX board circuit design different than a standard ATX board?  I realize it's a SoC without a separate chipset.

In the case of the ATX board the four pin connector is also used to put power down close the processor. 

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3 minutes ago, Cornan said:

 

I compared cloud saved FLAC to Tidal FLAC using BubbleDS Next via LightningDS platform today. Even if they do sound a tiny bit different it is too close to make any firm conclutions. I also compared BubbleUPnP, BubbleDS Next and LightningDS app using Tidal FLAC. BubbleDS Next still sounds best followed by LightningDS and BubbleUPnP/BubbleUPnP Server.

They should sound the same. Also, the controllers does is tell the renderer what to play. The renderer is actually playing the content.

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13 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

They should sound the same. Also, the controllers does is tell the renderer what to play. The renderer is actually playing the content.

Not sure why they sound different, but they do in my perticular setup? It could be due to different mobile devices (and their WiFi connection) ofcourse. LightningDS on iPhone SE. BubbleDS Next and BubbleUPnP on Nexus 7. Still BubbleDS Next sounds slightly better than BubbleUPnP via Aries Mini. 

 

 

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30 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

I know the MiniBox ATX power supplies have been around a while, but how come no one is talking about NanoATX power supplies from hdplex.com?

Inspired by the Innuous design, I'm using a linear power supply and an hdplex DC to DC  converter here to power the 24 pin atx connector of a z170 6700k machine with the 12 volt cpu power coming from a standard 1600 watt ATX power supply. This is the SQ tweak of tweaks.  I can't believe what I am hearing.

 

The hdplex just sounds better then the minibox.

 

I agree with you, there should be a common ground in the board between these connectors and as such I did not expect such an improvement. It is frustrating in that I have owned all the kit to make this enhancement for years, and it was unused for most of that time. 

 

Thanks to this thread, I thought to test this change. I am glad I did. Now working to fit everything into the case, and to get one button power working again.

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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6 hours ago, rickca said:

Thanks for clarifying the nature of the improvement.  I'm curious about what technology difference between the motherboards might account for the improvement.

I don't personally know the boards.  My server has a Gigabite.  It sounds amazing.  But the builder want to put a new board in that only uses 6 watts.  I am assuming the micro board is also low power.   He says its way better than the amazing I'm already getting.  Here is the but,  a low power board can not handle much processing so there is no upsampling.  Of course his philosophy is upsampling is really reving the motor, making a bunch of noise requiring filters to clean the noise and filters can cloud - so don't upsample.  

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2 hours ago, rickca said:

OK but that doesn't answer my question.  Sure, there may be alternatives that sound as good as the Supermicro.  The question is why are some motherboards less noisy than others?

 

Is it the VRM?  Is it the layout?  Is it the PDN?  

 

I'm going to take a guess in that it's a combination of things with the layout, caps & regs having the most impact.  Just a guess though.  A communication with DFI, Supermicro or Jetway may answer that.

 

1 hour ago, vortecjr said:

They should sound the same. Also, the controllers does is tell the renderer what to play. The renderer is actually playing the content.

 

What does "playing the content" mean exactly?  At that point it's still a digital stream, not analog.  I always wondered exactly what the renderer does.

 

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2 hours ago, lmitche said:

Inspired by the Innuous design, I'm using a linear power supply and an hdplex DC to DC  converter here to power the 24 pin atx connector of a z170 6700k machine with the 12 volt cpu power coming from a standard 1600 watt ATX power supply. This is the SQ tweak of tweaks.  I can't believe what I am hearing.

Fantastic!  Which LPS and which HDPLEX DC to DC converter are you using?

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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52 minutes ago, rickca said:

Fantastic!  Which LPS and which HDPLEX DC to DC converter are you using?

This is part of it:  https://www.hdplex.com/hdplex-400w-hi-fi-dc-atx-power-supply-16v-24v-wide-range-voltage-input.html

Ryzen 7 2700 PC Server, NUC7CJYH w. 4G Apacer RAM as Renderer/LPS 1.2 - IsoRegen/LPS-1/.2 - Singxer SU-1/LPS1.2 - Holo Spring Level 3 DAC - LTA MicroZOTL MZ2 - Modwright KWA 150 Signature Amp - Tidal Audio Piano's.  

.

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24 minutes ago, Forehaven said:

Thanks.  Do you really need a 400W DC-ATX to power just the 12V 4-pin on an i7-6700K motherboard?  Also what are the DC input requirements of that 400W DC-ATX that the LPS needs to supply ... I see it's 16-24V, but how many amps?

 

I see the 400W DC-ATX only costs $95 so it isn't a big deal.  It's the quality that's important, so it doesn't really matter if 400W is overkill.

 

 

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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52 minutes ago, rickca said:

Thanks.  Do you really need a 400W DC-ATX to power just the 12V 4-pin on an i7-6700K motherboard? 

 

 

The linked dc-to-dc adapter is not for the 4pin cpu, but instead for the other power supply (16-24V), the one that is powering the rest of the server via the 24 pin ATX.  The 4 pin cpu gets its power from, in Larry's example, his existing (yes overkill but it's sitting there now unused) SMPS Seasonic Titanium psu.  

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Thanks @ted_b you are right I just read Larry's post again.

 

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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