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

[bodiebill]

55 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Let's quantify the improvement of a single box solution over a dual box solution as 'delta1'.

...

The main question is how much your DAC benefits from upsampling. And that might be a pretty tough question to answer. 

But generally speaking, if the benefit of upsampling is more than delta1, then go with a two box solution. If the benefit of upsampling is less than delta1, then go with a single box. 

 

That seems like simple guidance. However, so few of us know the delta1 that results from a high-quality single box solution as the latter is so difficult and expensive to build.

[bodiebill]

So I think we agree a really good and powerful LPS for a heavy lifting server is quite a challenge. But what about devices that draw only very modest current (say up to 2A)? I see that some member's use f.i. multiple Paul Hynes LPS'es for this. Very expensive. For my JCAT net card FEMTO and my ISO Regen I use cheap Chinese LPSU's (Studer900, € 40) followed by either a LDOVR or MPAudio box that converts the output to a lower voltage using LT3045's. Or alternatively Chinese battery powered LPSU with 4 LT3045's, good for 5V and 2A.

As a rule, the larger the voltage difference, the lower the ripple/noise, so the better the SQ. Also putting two LT3045 units in series further improves the result (i.e. 9V => 7V => 5V).

To be precise:

Studer900 6V => MPAudio DLS-HPULN => 5V => JCAT net card FEMTO or

Chinese battery powered LPSU => 5V => JCAT net card FEMTO

Studer900 9V => LDOVR DXP-1A5DSC => 7.1V => ISO Regen

See pics.

The results are so good (and I compared quite a few options) that I have not been tempted yet to try expensive LPSU's for this.

Anyone else here tried something similar?

[bodiebill]

On 4/22/2020 at 12:29 PM, bodiebill said:

So I think we agree a really good and powerful LPS for a heavy lifting server is quite a challenge. But what about devices that draw only very modest current (say up to 2A)? I see that some member's use f.i. multiple Paul Hynes LPS'es for this. Very expensive. For my JCAT net card FEMTO and my ISO Regen I use cheap Chinese LPSU's (Studer900, € 40) followed by either a LDOVR or MPAudio box that converts the output to a lower voltage using LT3045's. Or alternatively Chinese battery powered LPSU with 4 LT3045's, good for 5V and 2A.

As a rule, the larger the voltage difference, the lower the ripple/noise, so the better the SQ. Also putting two LT3045 units in series further improves the result (i.e. 9V => 7V => 5V).

To be precise:

Studer900 6V => MPAudio DLS-HPULN => 5V => JCAT net card FEMTO or

Chinese battery powered LPSU => 5V => JCAT net card FEMTO

Studer900 9V => LDOVR DXP-1A5DSC => 7.1V => ISO Regen

See pics.

The results are so good (and I compared quite a few options) that I have not been tempted yet to try expensive LPSU's for this.

Anyone else here tried something similar?

 

This week I received a Keces P8 with dual rails 9V/12V and 18V/19V (both 4A) plus USB 5V (1A). This enabled me to try quite a few permutations, applying the SR4 and the LT3045 boards where they had the most positive effect. For now, for my HQPe server - NAA endpoint setup, after only one day of breaking in the Keces, I have decided on:

• XT Power battery 5V for the server's JCAT net card FEMTO
• Paul Hynes SR4 19V for the MikroTik 305 SFP/RJ45 switch
• Keces P8 19V for the endpoint PC with HDPLex 800W DC-ATX converter
• Keces P8 9V => LDOVR DXP-1A5DSC (LT3045) => 7.1V for the ISO Regen
• iFi Power 9V into MPAudio DLS-HPULN (LT3045) => 7V into Chinese PS (LT3045) => 5V for the Elfidelity USB card

The latter (Elfidelity card) sounds clearly better than direct from the Keces P8 5V USB, probably because of the double (serial) LT3045 noise reduction.

 

As 19V supplier for the endpoint PC the SR4 sounded only very slightly better than the Keces. The SR4 made a clear difference on the MikroTik switch.

 

I also tried powering the endpoint CPU/EPS seperately with the SR4's 12V, but this did not give a clear improvement compared to the Keces powering the motherboard + the CPU via the HDPlex 800W.

 

I have ordered a 6V Chinese LPS to be able to further simplify and increase the possibilities 🙂

 

Fyi, for what it is worth...

[bodiebill]

Not much discussed here, but the € 40 the Elfidelity AXF-100 PRO III Internal USB card for me was a very pleasant surprise.

https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/pc-htpc-modules/elfidelity-axf-100-pro-iii-internal-usb-power-filter-for-pc-p-9056.html

In my setup the resulting jump in sound quality was at least as substantial as that when adding the € 435 JCAT net card FEMTO. Apples and pears of course, but still... YMWV 🙂

Both externally powered with 5VDC LPS.

[bodiebill]

4 hours ago, bodiebill said:

• Keces P8 19V for the endpoint PC with HDPLex 800W DC-ATX converter
• Keces P8 9V => LDOVR DXP-1A5DSC (LT3045) => 7.1V for the ISO Regen

 

Handy that the Keces displays the current drawn.

For my endpoint PC (motherboard + CPU) it never goes above 1.1A.

Motherboard only never above 0.7A.

ISO Regen never above 0.3A.

[bodiebill]

12 minutes ago, beautiful music said:

Curious to know what is your endpoint PC configuration.

 

GentooPlayer with NAA    
case    Streacom FC5 EVO
mobo    Supermicro X11SAE-M
cpu    Intel Core i3-6100T (35W TDP)
memory    2x Apacer D31.23185S.001 4GB ECC DDR4 2666MHz (wide temperature)
NIC    stock

USB    Elfidelity AXF-100 PRO III
PSU internal    HDPlex 800W DC-ATX converter
PSU external    Keces P8 19V/4A
SSD/HD    n/a (SATA deactivated in BIOS)

[bodiebill]

10 hours ago, Exocer said:

Back to why I quoted you @bodiebill, do you use the Elfidelity card in the GentooPlayer endpoint? It wasn't plug and play with GentooPlayer (in my setup) and would appreciate any guidance on this topic. Note: I am not externally powering it yet but will soon have a 5v source for it.

 

Thanks Rob for sharing your build. I do expect that the Elfidelity usb card will make a positive difference once you get it to work.

 

Indeed I use the card in the GentooPlayer endpoint. It does not really make contact with the PCIe slot (plastic connection), so it cannot get its power from there. When I first installed it I connected it only to the internal usb 3.0 connection as I was going to exclusively use an external PS. However, that did not work. I also had to connect the internal power cable (in my case to the HDPlex 800W DC-ATX) even though I am not using it in the end. After that the USB port and my connected DAC were recognized

Not sure how you set it up, so don't know whether this is of any help.

 

One quirk with the Elfidelity card is that when I power down the PC, it starts switching like crazy between internal (by then absent) and external PS. So I make a habit of turning off the external PS before PC shutdown.

[bodiebill]

deleted
 

[bodiebill]

7 minutes ago, Exocer said:

Thank you! I appreciate the tip.

 

 I did the same as you, connecting only the internal USB 3.1 Gen 1 connector. That little red light on the rear panel was a bit deceiving.

 

Cheers.

 

Yes, here red is always on, green means internal power and yellow shows that external powering is succesful.

 

Will you let us know how you like the card? I suggest a few days of break in.

[bodiebill]

3 minutes ago, Exocer said:

Excellent. I now understand how the lights work (I lost the little paper it comes with in the storm of building the HDPlex case :))

 

Looking forward to sharing my impressions. I suspect that this USB card will hang around until I can get proper clean power to the server... So several weeks/months.

 

Do you expect that clean power to the server will make the card redundant? That is not my experience. Even with the best of LPSU's the motherboard appears to add noise that ends up in the stock usb connection.

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, Exocer said:

 

Good question. No, I do not believe the clean power will make the card redundant. My comment was a bit misleading. What I mean is I will prioritize clean power to the server first. Then perhaps I will consider replacing the Elfidelity card with something higher end, ala Pink Faun, JCAT Femto USB etc. 

 

So, the card will not immediately come out once I power the server via clean(er) power but the planning of the replacement card will begin once everything is settled in.

 

I have the impression that my DAC (a Denafrips Terminator) is less sensitive to USB signal upgrade devices. Maybe because it is fine-tuning the stream with its own clock. However, cleaning the USB signal from electrical noise still seems important. That is why the Elfidelitry usb card (€ 40) appealed to me, as that is exactly what it is doing, without the need for a riser card to connect to the PCIe slot (which could add to the burden of the motherboard and lessen the benefits of the expensive cards).

And it did result in a substantial SQ improvement that does not leave much to be desired. Therefore I am fighting that urge that is part of the audiophile disease, namely to buy a "much better because much more expensive" card. Of course I would be happy to try and compare, but not by spending another € 400 when already perfectly happy.

[bodiebill]

Good to hear. I would give it two days...

And much depends on the external LPS. Enjoy!

[bodiebill]

Today, after a month of hesitation, I managed to power my Cisco 2960G-8 switch with a 12V LPSU, forgoing the stock SMPS. Here are some pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ht6hxhHLQMK2i1A1A

 

I first checked the current draw with a Keces P8 and it never came above 0.9A with 1 SPF and one RJ-45 connected.

 

Now using a Studer900 12V. There is some SQ improvement but not as much as I expected.

As a next step I may try a Studer900 Talema 14V into a MPAudio DLS-HPULN to output 12V.

 

Setup:

router => CAT8 => HQPe server => JCAT net card FEMTO (bridged) => CAT8 => Cisco 2960 => fiber => MikroTik 305 => CAT6 => NAA endpoint

 

Objective: getting top notch SQ without investing in an audiophile switch like SOtM, Melco or ER 🙂

Any chance I will succeed?

 

 

[bodiebill]

11 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Today, after a month of hesitation, I managed to power my Cisco 2960G-8 switch with a 12V LPSU, forgoing the stock SMPS.

 

Does anyone happen to know whether this Cisco switch would also accept DC voltages higher than 12V directly to the main board?

[bodiebill]

33 minutes ago, RickyV said:

I think nobody knows that for sure. I wouldn't try that unless you are willing to take the risk of killing it.

 

Good advice, I will stick with 12VDC.

[bodiebill]

9 hours ago, matthias said:

A very good card which is less expensive than the "audiophile" ones, is the Sonnet with ASM3142 chipset:

 

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegro-usbc-pcie.html

 

It does not look like this card can receive external power, correct?

In my experience 80% of the SQ improvement of audiophile usb cards comes from good external linear power.

[bodiebill]

5 minutes ago, matthias said:

Correct, but the price of this card is about 10% of audiophile cards with the same chipset.

Depending on your set-up you can use it with this device

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo-express-sel-tb3/overview.html

and power the Echo Express SEL with a HQ 12V/5A LPS.

 

Matt

 

Thanks Matt. In that scenario the total price would come close to that of an audiophile card.

 

The Elfidelity card still seems an interesting option: also 10% of the cost of the audiophile cards, external 5V power and no interaction with the PCIe slot (so no riser card needed in my case). All subject to the perceived SQ improvement of course. And I must admit I have not done comparisons other than to the motherboard's stock usb output. 

[bodiebill]

3 hours ago, matthias said:

AFAIK, the Elfidelity card provides only cleaning, removing of noise, injecting of external 5V and needs USB input.

Correct?

So it is barely comparable with an (audiophile) USB card which has its own USB host controller.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

I think that is correct.

 

The effect of the cards is DAC dependant and in my setup the Elfidelity apparently already comes a long way by just removing noise (and not adding significant pollution itself thanks to a good external LPS). This may be because the ISO Regen and Denafrips Terminator together effectively deal with the jitter part.

 

So I am curious to hear what an expensive card would add to this, but just have not tried yet...

 

@matthias Did you (or anyone else) compare the Sonnet USB card with an audiophile usb card?

[bodiebill]

USB PCIe cards based on ASM3142 are available on AliExpress around $17,

These can be powered with a SATA power connector, so does this mean they could be powered externally? Or does the power for the card itself come from the PCIe connection?

[bodiebill]

6 hours ago, lmitche said:

You may want to try a lower voltage like 5 volts. Many of these switches use commodity 12 volts power supplies and then drop the voltage to 3.3 or 5 volts for use internally. I did this recently with a Linksys RE9000 labelled for 12 volts. It works fine and sounds better fed at 5 volt with a two step two amp lt3045 dc to dc regulator.

 

I do not think that will work with the Cisco 2960G. When I hook up a LPSU lower than 12VC (f.i 9VDC), it does not boot. No lights, no activity.

[bodiebill]

7 hours ago, lmitche said:

A bunch of us have been using Startech PEXUSB314A2V USB cards with Intel motherboards since they were first discovered by @rickca almost 3 years ago. They contain Asmedia 1142 chips and work nicely with Startech HDD enclosures using the same chipset. These need to be powered at 12 volts via the Molex or Sata connectors to sound best. They are dual channel cards with a pair of ports on each channel. Using one device on a channel two devices can be configured to run at 10 GPBS (USB 3 gen 2 speeds) each simultaneously. Plug one into a direct to CPU slot and it's a great solution.

 

The newer AMD motherboards often contain Asmedia 3142 controllers connected via the PCH to the processor. I have one, but don't use it as the processors have onboard USB 3.0 Gen 1 controllers directly on the CPU chip. This mini-SOC solution beats the SQ going through the PCH, so the PCH is disabled entirely.

 

Thanks Larry. Would you expect any Asmedia 3142 card to perform well SQ-wise when plugged into a CPU PCIe slot? Or should I look for certain brands?

 

Also, I would have to use a riser card. Would this be detrimental to SQ?

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, lmitche said:

In the end I expect it will benefit from a 12 volt output from a lt3045 chain from Mpaudio, or LDOVR, (DXPWR).

 

I definitely will try that, using f.i. a 13 or 14VDC LPSU and an MPAudio LT3045 PSU. 

 

1 hour ago, lmitche said:

I'm not sure how much current it needs. The spec sheet says 11 watts, so 1amp should do it. Likewise LPS1.2 power may be perfect.

 

Quoting from one of my earlier posts regarding my fanless Cisco 2960G with 8 ports:

"I first checked the current draw with a Keces P8 and it never came above 0.9A with 1 SPF and one RJ-45 connected."

[bodiebill]

2 hours ago, lmitche said:

As a rule, I don't like to guess on how equipment is going to sound preferring to hear it with my own ears first. Nevertheless, if I were spend some money to experiment with a new off-the-shelf USB card for an Intel system, I'd look for:

• an Asmedia chip, 1, 2 or 3 generation series with USB 3 gen 2 support
• 5 or 12 volt power injection through a molex or sata connector
• and at least two channels at 10gbps each on a single card

The Startech card referenced above ticks all these boxes.

 

Thanks Larry, I will ponder on it 🙂

 

You mentioned above that powering (f.i.) the Sonnet card with 12 volts sounds best via the Molex or Sata connectors. Does this mean that all the power for the card comes from there? Or is some of the power drawn from the PCIe connection? Good to know if one aims for a purist (LPSU only) solution...

 

 

 

[bodiebill]

9 hours ago, rickca said:

Here is the answer from Startech:

 

I have heard back from our development team and 3 to 5W will always be drawn from the PCI-e slot when using the PEXUSB314A2V.

 

I have provided a chart below with further detailed information:

 

Thanks rickca. So it looks like an external PSU (connected via SATA or molex) will take over duty for the 12V rail, which should make a positive difference in terms of electrical noise as this rail has the highest load, correct?

[bodiebill]

7 hours ago, Exocer said:

1. Since it seems as though there is only one expansion slot which avoids PCH, which would yield the bigger sound quality improvement,A or B?

A. Dedicated USB PCI-E card like the Sonnettech/Startech

B. A dedicated Ethernet/Fiber PCI-E card of equivalent quality to A

 

In my setup A definitely had the bigger effect.

Putting a JCAT net card FEMTO in the endpoint was a little disappointing. It faired better (against my expectation) more upstream in the server.

Even the modest Efidelity USB cleaner card in the endpoint had more positive impact on SQ than the FEMTO in either PC.

 

Yesterday I installed the last version of WTFPlay. I used this some time ago and was impressed, except maybe for the user friendliness. However, the SQ of this last version blew me away, and I am seriously considering to go this route. This means one lean stand-alone box WITHOUT any ethernet connection. It does need a screen and keyboard though.

I will not elaborate as this seems off-topic here, not being a 'streaming' setup.