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

[auricgoldfinger]

I’ll participate as a funder. 

[mozes]

It is amazing that there is a wide acceptance to the idea. Unfortunately I can’t drive this project as I have neither the time nor the technical expertise. Without a leader, I don’t think we can make it happen. 

[seeteeyou]

4 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

• What add on PCIe cards would we use?  tXUSBexp x 2, NIC?  That's 3 right there.

 

Indeed, 3 slots should be the bare minimum if we're having absolutely no on-board SATA/USB/Ethernet components. We just can't really go above 3 with either Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake. To get more than 3 slots / 16 lanes, we'll have to think about the power-hungry Core X-series with 28 or even 40 lanes.

 

Now we just need to decide whether we still wanna have one more slot for a display card or not.

 

4 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

• 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.

 

That's gonna be the $64,000 question, depending on what kinda approach we're going after. Let's say we're shooting for that "Go Big or Go Home" approach, how on Earth could anyone be contented with anything less than the performance of sCLK-EX? All we need is just asking DFI to solder the right connector to the location where the clock(s) is/are required, then they'll let us specify the frequency in the manual and we'll figure out what kinda clock(s) should we get.

 

And then it doesn't HAVE to be sCLK-EX to begin with, we might also get Neutrino 2 since an owner of Singxer SU-1 already had a taste of that already

 

http://www.newclassd.com/index.php?page=24

ttps://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/29553-my-very-mini-review-of-the-singxer-su-1-ddc/?page=52&tab=comments#comment-788425

 

4 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

• Shortest paths yes.  If we don't follow a standard form factor it will be difficult to mount in a case, but not impossible.

 

Most likely Mini-ITX cases wouldn't have the space to accommodate 3 (or more) PCI Express add-on cards, while we still wanna keep the size of that motherboard reasonably small for the sake of short clock cables. Let's see how we'd like to strike the right balance then.

 

4 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

• Yes to independent power source options.

 

Now we've gotta reach a consensus at some point. Not all of us here are owners of SR7 with lots of rails, while the current draw of each component would obviously depend on what we're doing. Feeding the CPU with its dedicated power source should be a given since that's already reported by Larry and others. And then Sligolad also boosted the SQ big time when he fed power to his RAM separately with LT3045 @ 3A.

 

How about the PCH if we weren't even having anything connected to that, as long as we've got our own PCI Express display cards? Maybe ask DFI and see if PCH were actually required for a motherboard to function properly or otherwise.

 

SATA / USB / Ethernet should be taken care of already since we'll add our own PCI Express cards. What else do we need?

 

Of course we've gotta consider what to do about the 4-pin/8-pin CPU connector in addition to the 24-pin ATX connector. We're expected to provide 12V for the 4-pin/8-pin CPU connector while it's inevitable that will go through a voltage regulator, given that CPU itself should require only 1V or so. Now that we're planning to feed the CPU with a dedicated source of power, do we still need that 4-pin/8-pin CPU connector or not?

 

Similarly, our game plan (for the best case scenario that is) should be feeding each and every component with a separate power source in order to prevent "lousy" voltage regulators from ruining the day. If that particular mission were actually accomplished, maybe we could also ask DFI to find out if that 24-pin ATX connector were still necessary?

 

Like what I said before, it just really depends on whether we're going all out or are we contended with something that might be "as good as" or marginally better than Supermicro X10SBA-L.

[lateboomer]

I will fund the new motherboard with both my arms and legs together.

[seeteeyou]

11 minutes ago, mozes said:

It is amazing that there is a wide acceptance to the idea. Unfortunately I can’t drive this project as I have neither the time nor the technical expertise. Without a leader, I don’t think we can make it happen. 

 

I've been "dreaming" about a project like that myself, though most of us here should agree that only someone like @romaz is qualified to be our leader. However, he's just too busy himself and that wouldn't go very far.

 

Another possibility would be finding someone here who does speak Korean and then maybe we could approach SOtM with a specific list of requirements. We'll see if Lee were interested in selling something between sMS-200ultra the successor to their sMS-1000SQ. That's gonna help them to sell more sCLK-EX and tx-USBexp anyways so that wouldn't be such a bad idea IMHO.

 

Other than that, I could only think of asking Korat Engineering how much would it actually cost to get a single piece of customized carrier board for SolidPC Q4 off the ground, and then is there a way to arrange a group buy afterwards

 

http://www.korat-eng.com/contact

https://wiki.solid-run.com/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=ibx:microsom:docs:sr-usom-ibx-assy-rev1.0.pdf

 

BTW, this one ain't gonna be x86 by any means but they're asking even more than DFI did

 

https://www.gumstix.com/ordering/geppetto-orders/

Quote

• For your first order, on a new design, the initial manufacturing fee is $1,999. This covers setup costs for fab design, stencils, and SMT programming.

• On repeat orders for a design that has been built before, the repeat manufacturing fee is $999. Repeat manufacturing setup fees apply to reorders requiring no change to the PCB fab. This is for any quantity and will be delivered within 15 days.

• On orders going to production, the initial production fee is $499. Production orders of more than 50 boards with a lead-time of 5 weeks will be charged $499.

Orders in production are subject to a minimum of 50 units, and have no manufacturing setup fee.

 

 

[manishex]

Very interested to see what the motherboard can do.

[BigAlMc]

At the risk of getting too serious here we need a project definition. 

 

Something like:

 

Why are we doing this? 

What are we hoping to test/achieve? 

How do we propose doing so? 

Who is going to lead and do it? 

 

Without that sort of scope and plan it'll be impossible to define and decide if its a success. 

 

And no, I don't pretend to have the answers. Am just saying they're amongst the questions we need to ask. And who knows, perhaps there's more than one project here! 

 

Cheers, 

Alan (not a project manager but yeah. I do work in technical projects) 

 

[Hauser]

Just a word of caution here.  Small, heavily customised projects generally end up costing a similar amount to commercial off the shelf options; those also have the added benefit of better re sale.  Roy (romaz) did not find much difference in sound between his own customised effort and the Innous Zenith.

 

Martin

[seeteeyou]

Wait a minute, @romaz did ask DFI about the costs but eventually he only sent his "plain vanilla" BW171 to SOtM for sCLK-EX mods.

 

And then fairly recently he did talk about starting his own project in the future

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=241&tab=comments#comment-773624

Quote

While I am content with what I have for now, at some point (as a leisurely hobby rather than as a necessity), I may yet try and design my own.  For those interested, one way of doing it without going to the expense of designing a complete motherboard from scratch is to buy a SOM (System-on-Module) from someone like DFI and these SOMs are relatively inexpensive.  These small boards essentially contain an Intel SoC (System-on-a-chip) which would then contain the CPU of your choosing (from Celeron to i7) and an appropriate Intel chipset as well as RAM slots but nothing else (i.e. no audio, video, LAN, USB connectors or PCIe slots).  This SOM board then plugs into a "Carrier Board" that customers can design themselves and it is the Carrier Board that will house all peripherals and ports.

 

And then ZENith SE Mk.II didn't really have any clock upgrades whatsoever, maybe they're simply saving that feature for even better products down the road.

 

In other words, we've got quite a bit of room for improvement while the sky is the limit IMHO.

[zoltan]

53 minutes ago, Hauser said:

Just a word of caution here.  Small, heavily customised projects generally end up costing a similar amount to commercial off the shelf options; those also have the added benefit of better re sale.  Roy (romaz) did not find much difference in sound between his own customised effort and the Innous Zenith.

 

Martin

Very true! I have probably lost more on DIY (at least in percentages) than on buying and selling off the shelf stuff over the 25 years in this "business". But then again, it is what this hobby is about for some (of us). 
I didn't mean losing money. The other. 

[sig8]

On 2/28/2018 at 7:08 PM, 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.

Larry: I have a i7 6700 Gigabyte MoBo  and I am currently connecting 24 pin ATX and 8 pin CPU to a HDPlex 350W power supply. To power the mobo  8 pin by a separate power supply you take all four yellow wires and connect them to +12 and all four black wires to -12v/GND, is that correct? 

[tims]

Maybe I'm in the minority here but if this project goes ahead would it be a good idea to have it's own separate thread?

I (and maybe others) do not plan to participate and I think there must be a whole load of things to figure out that may be better with a fresh thread/topic purely devoted to the build.

Just a thought!  

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, tims said:

Maybe I'm in the minority here but if this project goes ahead would it be a good idea to have it's own separate thread?

I (and maybe others) do not plan to participate and I think there must be a whole load of things to figure out that may be better with a fresh thread/topic purely devoted to the build.

Just a thought!  

 

I think you’re right.

 

I’m going to invoke OP privileges and ask that folks interested in this topic of customizing a mobo create a new thread for it.

[ted_b]

1 hour ago, tims said:

Maybe I'm in the minority here but if this project goes ahead would it be a good idea to have it's own separate thread?

I (and maybe others) do not plan to participate and I think there must be a whole load of things to figure out that may be better with a fresh thread/topic purely devoted to the build.

Just a thought!  

What a great idea!  (sorry, being snarky....I said same thing 10 hours and one page ago).

[Dev]

DFI motherboards are way overpriced. Why not ask Supermicor instead ? They have already proved to be very competent with Innous sever.

[One and a half]

22 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

<Snip>

How to Set Affinity for an Application on CPU in Windows 10

http://www.howto-connect.com/set-affinity-for-an-application-on-cpu-in-windows-10/

 

 

In other words, why don't we leave any "useless" processes / programs for CPU1 while CPU2 could be dedicated for "useful" audio-related stuff? Similarly, we could install up to 3 pieces of tX-USBexp (1 for USB DAC / 1 for storage / 1 for Ethernet) that are directly connected to CPU2 while the rest of the motherboard might not really matter anymore. Alternatively, HQPlayer could use one of the processors for upsampling while everything else could use another processor.

 

I tried the technique of assigning Roon.exe and RAATService to CPU7 (last CPU on CPU 1 of 2).  CPU7 peaked around 10% then trundled along at 5% average according to the System Resource Monitor. Sound wise, tell you what, solidified the image, well certainly didn't do worse.

[lmitche]

7 hours ago, sig8 said:

Larry: I have a i7 6700 Gigabyte MoBo  and I am currently connecting 24 pin ATX and 8 pin CPU to a HDPlex 350W power supply. To power the mobo  8 pin by a separate power supply you take all four yellow wires and connect them to +12 and all four black wires to -12v/GND, is that correct? 

While I can't validate the colors used in your build, yes that's the idea.

 

You could keep the current hdplex and only connect the 12 volt EPU/CPU cable or leave the 24 pin side in place and get a second lpsu for the 12 volt side. I'd size the latter at 200 watts just to leave some headroom. The 24 pin side runs closer to 25 watts in total on my 6700k motherboard so a smaller power supply works. The hdplex 400 watt atx DC DC does well here driven by a 19 volt signal 11 lpsu. You can buy those from China for $100.

[lmitche]

18 hours ago, rickca said:

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

My 1600 EVGA has two 8 pin outputs.

[lmitche]

On 3/1/2018 at 3:06 AM, Cornan said:

It is a full blown 0-15v 5A/LT3045 power supply (totally 10 pcs LT3045 boards) with PI-filter (digital filter) at the output. 

Micael, where are you sourcing this from?

[lmitche]

On the motherboard project, I am delighted to be asked to manage this, but would like to have a quick talk with Ted before committing.

 

Like seeteeyou, I also have some thoughts about requirements and additional research that should be done before proceeding. Stay tuned for a longer post explaining my position. I'll expect to write that over the weekend.

[rickca]

4 minutes ago, lmitche said:

I am delighted to be asked to manage this

Thank you for considering taking this on.  I have a lot of confidence in your experience.

[rafa]

20 hours 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.

Are you crazy to pay 1000$ for this: 

[Cooler]

This is audio market, we pay $500 for usb cables

[LTG2010]

1 hour ago, rafa said:

Are you crazy to pay 1000$ for this: 

Thats just the regulator board.

[KingRex]

You forgot to include a photo of the case, transformer, overload protection, engineering that went into layout of the board and selection of parts etc.  Plus the owner wants to pay his employees and earn money himself.    The initial PS feeding the server is probably one of the most critical components in a server.  Start with ok power, make an ok server.  Ask for a bulk buy price? 

 

I don't know if your involved in the custom server of just looking for a PS.  If your part of the custom server, Alrainbow has prooven win server 2016 sounds better than other operating systems.  Why use win 10?  Because its easier?   Back to others people's point.  What is your purpose here.  To build your own for fun, or extract the highest SQ and leave SOTM /Innuos /Sonore in the dust.  

I find it intriguing what your doing. Your talking way over my head, but non the less there does seem to be need for a leader, product roadmap and some focus on the end goal keeping a budget in mind.

 

If I may, try and contact Adrian with Thelinearsolution. He is here in Seattle and may be willing to help for a price.  I believe he knows all about SOTM, clocks, PS etc.    I'm pretty sure he has built a lot of these. Guessing now, but he has probably experimented with isolated power to components.  He has offered to look at my server and suggest mods to improve SQ if needed. 

That leads me to another though, have you decided if the highest performance is to come from internal storage or Ethernet. Is this an all in one unit or to be controlled from an external unit.  Maybe I missed that part but both can have a big impact on design and SQ.  Chord does all its upsampling in a separate machine??? Just a thought.