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

[zoltan]

2 minutes ago, d_elm said:

Is the SQ best for you with just the modified switch and no FMC in any position ?

You will get an answer from @auricgoldfinger too but in my setup which seems to be similar, I get better sound with the FMC in place. I have only tried it after the clocked switch but I will try it before the switch too. That would also benefit other devices on the switch. 

[auricgoldfinger]

Just now, d_elm said:

Is the SQ best for you with just the modified switch and no FMC in any position ?

 

I use the FMC in my system as follows (with the FMC before the modified switch):

 

Netgear GS108* > Ghent Audio Cat 6a** > FMC*** > Duplex M/M Patch Cable > FMC*** > Linksys SE3008*** > SOtM dCBL-Cat7 > sMS-200ultra > Lush USB > tX-USBultra

 

* JSGT

** JSSG

*** Modified and re-clocked

 

[jay]

On 4/23/2018 at 10:22 AM, auricgoldfinger said:

 

Just curious...have you tried the Gutwire on your DAC?

 

 

I spent a couple days with the Gutwire on my DAC, and I feel like it improved things.  I spent another couple of days with it on the pre-amp...I can't say for sure which I prefer, yet.  I do remember reading it needed a really long burn-in, too?  Once I get things a little more burned in on all the new equipment (including the Gutwire), I'll move it back and forth and report back my preference in my system.

[jay]

Thanks to all the suggestions of where to put the SOTM-modded switch--it hadn't occurred to me to put it between the Mac Mini and the sMS-200ultra.

 

I was all set to try both this evening, but..in my haste to get the SOTM gear in on Saturday, I'm not 100% sure what happened to the wall-wart that came with the modded switch from SOTM.  The modded Netgear switch says 12v/0.5a needed.  I can only find one 12v in the listening room, and it's a 1.5a.  My 8-port Netgear switches have Netgear branded wall-warts at 12v/1.0a.  I plugged in the one I found, and the power light on the switch just flashes, and no signal is running to/between the ports.  Is 1.5a not ok for it?

 

Can anyone with a 5-port Netgear switch, specifically one modded by SOTM, confirm what branded wall-wart shipped with it?

 

I may need to wait until the LPS-1.2 shows up and hope it works with the switch on 12v?

 

Is it possible my switch from SOTM is bad?

 

thoughts?

[auricgoldfinger]

50 minutes ago, jay said:

 

I spent a couple days with the Gutwire on my DAC, and I feel like it improved things.  I spent another couple of days with it on the pre-amp...I can't say for sure which I prefer, yet.  I do remember reading it needed a really long burn-in, too?  Once I get things a little more burned in on all the new equipment (including the Gutwire), I'll move it back and forth and report back my preference in my system.

 

IIRC, their website says it needs only 25-30 hours.

[auricgoldfinger]

35 minutes ago, jay said:

Thanks to all the suggestions of where to put the SOTM-modded switch--it hadn't occurred to me to put it between the Mac Mini and the sMS-200ultra.

 

I was all set to try both this evening, but..in my haste to get the SOTM gear in on Saturday, I'm not 100% sure what happened to the wall-wart that came with the modded switch from SOTM.  The modded Netgear switch says 12v/0.5a needed.  I can only find one 12v in the listening room, and it's a 1.5a.  My 8-port Netgear switches have Netgear branded wall-warts at 12v/1.0a.  I plugged in the one I found, and the power light on the switch just flashes, and no signal is running to/between the ports.  Is 1.5a not ok for it?

 

Can anyone with a 5-port Netgear switch, specifically one modded by SOTM, confirm what branded wall-wart shipped with it?

 

I may need to wait until the LPS-1.2 shows up and hope it works with the switch on 12v?

 

Is it possible my switch from SOTM is bad?

 

thoughts?

 

Have you connected the switch to the sMS-200ultra and powered both on?  If not, that is likely the problem.  The switch won't work without a clock signal from the sMS-200ultra.

[jay]

23 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

Have you connected the switch to the sMS-200ultra and powered both on?  If not, that is likely the problem.  The switch won't work without a clock signal from the sMS-200ultra.

 

I think so?  I put the connector wire on both and pressed them in to the level where they felt like they couldn't go any further (there's not a distinct "click").  I power cycled both units as well, but I can't get a signal from the Mac, even after power-cycling that a few times.

 

The power light on the switch is still slowly flashing.  It's solid on my 8-port units in the basement.  The port lights also don't flash, and I can't get to the Mac Mini nor the sMS-200Ultra remotely.

 

Undoing it all and throwing the cat5 back into the Mac, and all reconnects automatically.

 

I think something is wrong with the switch?

[seeteeyou]

FYI - we could get the bulk wires of Supra CAT 8 STP for 9 bucks per meter (with free shipping)

 

http://www.jenving.com/products/view/cat-8-stp-patch-frhf-blue-b150-1001800547

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supra-CAT-8-STP-cable-bulk-for-DIY-Made-in-Sweden-BEST-FOR-NETWORK-AUDIO/152930653863

 

CAT 8 connectors

 

http://www.jenving.com/products/view/rj45-cat-8-male-ethernet-plug-bulk-1011001375

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supra-RJ45-male-ethernet-plug-for-use-with-CAT-8-cables-STURDY-/401501783442

 

https://store.wireworldcable.com/collections/ethernet-cat8/products/rj45-plug-for-starlight-cat8-ethernet

https://www.amazon.com/WIREWORLD-Cat-Ethernet-Plug-RJ45/dp/B01M0V6CUE

 

http://www.cablematters.com/pc-938-62-6-pack-tool-free-cat-8-cat8-shielded-rj45-field-termination-plug.aspx

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Tool-Free-Shielded-Termination/dp/B074HHWNVN

 

http://www.delock.com/produkte/G_86485/merkmale.html

https://www.amazon.de/DELOCK-Stecker-feldkonfektionierbar-Cat-8-Metall/dp/B073X53FGB

[afrancois]

19 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

That's pretty much everything and limits the sPS-500 to a device that is just good enough to power an LPS, if even that.  It only re-affirms the importance of an LPS.  I don't think the sPS is a bad supply by any means, I'm just not sure where I'll use it right now.

 

It may also demonstrate the benefit of properly pairing a PSU with a device.  This was one of the factors when I made my decision to buy the REF 10.

I've made this decision already some months ago. I kept to sPS-500 to power two other LPS-1's. 

[auricgoldfinger]

7 hours ago, jay said:

I think something is wrong with the switch?

 

Seems like that could be the issue.  My recent experience with SOtM suggests they are having quality control problems.  It took 3 tries to get my OCX10 order correct (I had to pay return shipping for the first 2 incorrect ones), and they sent me an OCC copper cable for an sPS-500 that was dead out of the box.

 

Talk to whoever sold you the switch, May or the dealer, about getting it checked by SOtM.

[jean-michel6]

On 13/04/2018 at 1:29 AM, LTG2010 said:

My Linear ATX power supply by sean Jacobs arrived today. It needs a few weeks for component burn in but it's already sounding great, large soundstage, great dynamics, silent background, very detailed, neutral, good bass, very pleased, took just under 3 months mainly due to transformer manufacture.

It's a twin transformer design with 9 rails, 3.3v, 5v, 2x12V for the motherboard/CPU, 2x5v for ssd and hdd and 3x9v for SOTM trio.

It comes with a single umbilical connection at power supply and gland that feeds into the server. The wires are colour coded, but bare ended as Sean has an exclusivity agreement with Innuos. Heres my ScLK-ex server.

ATX wiring information is readily available here's a link with some good detail - this is how I did it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

I used ATX extension cables by Silverstone, 24 pin and 4 pin for the seperate CPU rail, simply cut off the male connectors to expose the wire and group the ground, 3.3v, 5v & 12V wires together and solder these to your seperate power supply feeds. The ground wires are all common on the motherboard so these can be all connected or daisy chained.

Modern motherboards don't need negative -12v voltages (pin 14), you can ignore these. A linear power supply does not have a 3.3V sensing voltage (pin 13) you can snip that off. You can't turn off your linear power supply from the pc so no need for the power on feed (pin 16). Pin 9 (purple) is the stanby voltage and is 5v, so connect this with your 5v feed (red wires).

Pin 8 (usually grey) is the power ok signal. The atx power supply sends a 5v signal to the motherboard once its all powered up and stable. We don't have this on a linear power supply so we need to 'fool' the motherboard into thinking its receiving a power ok signal, otherwise it won't boot. So we also connect this to the 5v feed. The power ok signal should activate between 100ms - 500ms after the supply is switched on, some motherboards might not boot if this criteria is not met. I had no problems with the supermicro X10, if your's does not boot you can easily get around this with a cheap delay relay from ebay, there are other methods also.

I originally made up some ATX connectors with silver plated copper cables and for powering the hard discs, these sounded awfull, very bright and distorted, so I switched to the Silverstone leads that appear to be tinned plated copper. For the SSD and hard disc I used Neotech OFC copper, amazing how a small piece of cable can clean up the sound. If making up your own SATA power connector, the middle pin is +5v and a pin either side of that is ground. Similarly I used Neotech copper for SOTM boards directly soldered to the board behind the external connectors, thus avoiding external connections and jack plugs.

Alec

 

 

Thank you for this very interesting feedback. 

I have a dual pc set up similar to yours . I am using also the same Supermicro mother board as you. 

On the player side I have also a sCLK ex board for pc lan and system clock and pcie SOTM usb as well as the txUSB board. 

 

I have a separate 4x5volts psu for ssd os and music ssd. 

Sotm pcie card and tx usb as well as sCLK board are powered by two sotm sps500. 

I have also a dual rail Sean Jacobs 12v psu for the mother board and I am powering the mother board with the 4pin atx plug only. 

 

I have already extremely good music from this system. 

 

However you went even further than me and I am extremely interested to know if you did compare powering your server with the 4pin atx only and 4 pin +24 pin atx. 

 

If not I would be extremely interested if you could do it to have an idea of the progress brought by using both atx 4and 24 to power the Supermicro board.

 

Could you give the 24 pin assignment that you used for the atx connector. 

According to your feedback , for the super micro board it was quite easy to set up an atx linear psu which is not the case for other mb. 

[LTG2010]

2 hours ago, jean-michel6 said:

Thank you for this very interesting feedback. 

I have a dual pc set up similar to yours . I am using also the same Supermicro mother board as you. 

On the player side I have also a sCLK ex board for pc lan and system clock and pcie SOTM usb as well as the txUSB board. 

 

I have a separate 4x5volts psu for ssd os and music ssd. 

Sotm pcie card and tx usb as well as sCLK board are powered by two sotm sps500. 

I have also a dual rail Sean Jacobs 12v psu for the mother board and I am powering the mother board with the 4pin atx plug only. 

 

I have already extremely good music from this system. 

 

However you went even further than me and I am extremely interested to know if you did compare powering your server with the 4pin atx only and 4 pin +24 pin atx. 

 

If not I would be extremely interested if you could do it to have an idea of the progress brought by using both atx 4and 24 to power the Supermicro board.

 

Could you give the 24 pin assignment that you used for the atx connector. 

According to your feedback , for the super micro board it was quite easy to set up an atx linear psu which is not the case for other mb. 

I've given a link to ATX pin layout in my previous post, its a view from the underside of the connector, if you have any specific question let me know I'll try to help. I forgot to mention the -5V /0V (pin 20)  is also not required.

It's not as simple as pulling out the 24 pin connector to test as both my 12V rails are 1.5 AMP which is insuffiecient to power the board, but previously I did power the motherboard using a 12V meanwell medical SMPS, a LPS1 for SSD and sPS500 with a Y cable for the SOTM trio.

The step up in sound quality is significant, in all aspects, not sure if it's mainly due to the quality of Sean's power supply or the multiple rails, I would think it's due to both factors.

Basically the principle of a seperate clean regulated supply to as many components as possible yields benefits. You are powering CPU, LAN, PCIE ,USB, RAM, with seperate rails, although the motherboard is further stepping down voltages it still seems to work well.

I was a bit sceptical with the SOTM trio but there is a definite step up in quality with 3 rails, - imagery, seperation, detail, etc. all improve.

For example comparing the motherboard USB output (already known to be very good)  to the txUSB exp, there is a big improvement in the stereo image, solidity and naturalness with the tx, the digital edge dissapears. Moving onto the txUSB-HubIN there is an improvement again but its more subtle, I suspect the USB link between the 2 components could be improved also. What is clear is that the SOTM items really sing with Sean's PSU.

The atx specification / 24 pin should be the same for all boards, you might have 6 pin or 2 x 4 pin etc for the CPU rail.You can also use a 20 pin connector as the last 4 pins are for higher power delivery meant for large PCIE graphics cards, I left it as 24 pin. You seem to have a very good set up as is, so the step up in quality might not be as pronounced as it was in my case.

 

 

[Johnseye]

20 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

 

The step up in sound quality is significant, in all aspects, not sure if it's mainly due to the quality of Sean's power supply or the multiple rails, I would think it's due to both factors.

 

 

I suspect it's the quality of the supply.  Even though the supply has multiple rails it still shares a single transformer.  In our limited testing of my multi-rail SR7 against the SR4 there was a sonic benefit to using two completely different supplies.  It was audible, and it bothers me because of its implications.  Further testing would need to be done to validate, which Rajiv and Eric are planning.

[LTG2010]

14 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

I suspect it's the quality of the supply.  Even though the supply has multiple rails it still shares a single transformer.  In our limited testing of my multi-rail SR7 against the SR4 there was a sonic benefit to using two completely different supplies.  It was audible, and it bothers me because of its implications.  Further testing would need to be done to validate, which Rajiv and Eric are planning.

There are 2 transformers, I originally planned to use just the 12v connection as I also have a jetway board and opted to power the board with its own transformer and SOTM and SSD/HDD with a seperate transformer. Then it expanded to an ATX Supply and the one transformer has the 2x12V rails.

That was suprising to hear regarding the SR7, I wonder if the same regulators are used for both supplies? a higher amp supply will need higher powered components, which might have a knock on effect sound quality, it will really need to drive a difficult load to 'sing.'

[Johnseye]

3 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

There are 2 transformers, I originally planned to use just the 12v connection as I also have a jetway board and opted to power the board with its own transformer and SOTM and SSD/HDD with a seperate transformer. Then it expanded to an ATX Supply and the one transformer has the 2x12V rails.

That was suprising to hear regarding the SR7, I wonder if the same regulators are used for both supplies? a higher amp supply will need higher powered components, which might have a knock on effect sound quality, it will really need to drive a difficult load to 'sing.'

 

There are 3 regulators.  Rail 1 has a pre and post (aka DR).  Rail 2 has its own.

 

Two transformers are better than one, but still not nine.  I suppose diminishing returns play a part, or in your case different rails for the same device.  I just loathe the thought of a separate LPSU for every component I want to power.

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

I suspect it's the quality of the supply.  Even though the supply has multiple rails it still shares a single transformer.  In our limited testing of my multi-rail SR7 against the SR4 there was a sonic benefit to using two completely different supplies

 

 I found this when using 2 separate transformer windings to provide 2 low noise PSUs for USB.

 It didn't sound as good as when using 2 separate supplies.

[auricgoldfinger]

43 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

There are 3 regulators.  Rail 1 has a pre and post (aka DR).  Rail 2 has its own.

 

Two transformers are better than one, but still not nine.  I suppose diminishing returns play a part, or in your case different rails for the same device.  I just loathe the thought of a separate LPSU for every component I want to power.

 

How significant was the difference in SQ?  Was it immediately obvious when switching PSU's or did it require careful A/B testing to elucidate the difference?

[Johnseye]

Just now, auricgoldfinger said:

 

How significant was the difference in SQ?  Was it immediately obvious when switching PSU's or did it require careful A/B testing to elucidate the difference?

 

It was immediately obvious, especially in the low end.  I'll let @austinpop, @lmitche or @Forehaven share their opinion.  This was powering the sMS-200ultra.  I am hoping Rajiv and Eric's tests do not confirm what we heard, but if they do I won't be buying a multi-rail PSU again.  I will also be able to duplicate the test with the SR7 and sPS-500, but those supplies are probably too different to draw a true conclusion whether the difference is attributed to the shared transformer.

 

[LTG2010]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

 

There are 3 regulators.  Rail 1 has a pre and post (aka DR).  Rail 2 has its own.

Does Paul use the same regulator circuit for both SR7 and SR4 ? One supply is rated at 10/5 AMP and the other at 2 amp, the 2 amp supply would usually require less or lower power components, less noise, etc. When powering a low powered device, the 2 AMP supply will sound more transparent, but will lack the ability to drive a difficult load. Unless the same circuit is used in both supplies and the transformer is smaller in the 2 AMP supply.

A test with the SR7 using 1 rail only vs SR4 will be useful.

 

40 minutes ago, sandyk said:

I found this when using 2 separate transformer windings to provide 2 low noise PSUs for USB.

 It didn't sound as good as when using 2 separate supplies.

You can never achieve 100% isolation between rails and both rails will be using the same core, but to stretch to 9 transformers would be financially a bit impossible for me ( I'd need a mortgage ) I'd actually thought 2 or 3 rails was the maximum feasable soundwise, but Sean seems to have managed it, with 8 rails in the Innuos Statement prototype.

[auricgoldfinger]

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

It was immediately obvious, especially in the low end.  I'll let @austinpop, @lmitche or @Forehaven share their opinion.  This was powering the sMS-200ultra.  I am hoping Rajiv and Eric's tests do not confirm what we heard, but if they do I won't be buying a multi-rail PSU again.  I will also be able to duplicate the test with the SR7 and sPS-500, but those supplies are probably too different to draw a true conclusion whether the difference is attributed to the shared transformer.

 

 

I also hope they don't confirm what you heard, but I suspect they will if it was so obvious.

[Johnseye]

14 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

Does Paul use the same regulator circuit for both SR7 and SR4 ? One supply is rated at 10/5 AMP and the other at 2 amp, the 2 amp supply would usually require less or lower power components, less noise, etc. When powering a low powered device, the 2 AMP supply will sound more transparent, but will lack the ability to drive a difficult load. Unless the same circuit is used in both supplies and the transformer is smaller in the 2 AMP supply.

A test with the SR7 using 1 rail only vs SR4 will be useful.

 

You can never achieve 100% isolation between rails and both rails will be using the same core, but to stretch to 9 transformers would be financiallyt a bit impossible for me ( I'd need a mortgage ) I'd actually thought 2 or 3 rails was the maximum feasable soundwise, but Sean seems to have managed it, with 8 rails in the Innuos Statement prototype.

 

I don't know what components are identical between the two.  You bring up two excellent points.  One is that the rail has a lot more current, introducing more noise for a device with lesser requirement.  DR Rail 1 is 19v @ 10A adjustable down to 12v @ 5A.

The second point of testing with only one rail active is good for a better understanding of apples to apples, but still won't matter in the grand scheme since I'll always be using both rails simultaneously.

[auricgoldfinger]

10 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

You bring up two excellent points.  One is that the rail has a lot more current, introducing more noise for a device with lesser requirement

 

I understand the theory, but I just replaced an sPS-500 powering my OCX10 with a higher current, dual rail JS-2 and heard a noticeable improvement.  Maybe that result is simply an indictment of the sPS-500.  I won't try to answer that question.

[Johnseye]

1 minute ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

I understand the theory, but I just replaced an sPS-500 powering my OCX10 with a higher current, dual rail JS-2 and heard a noticeable improvement.  Maybe that result is simply an indictment of the sPS-500.  I won't try to answer that question.

 

I think you'll be able to compare with the SR4 and 7 soon.  I definitely think more listening tests are needed and we're making conjecture right now.

[austinpop]

37 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

It was immediately obvious, especially in the low end.  I'll let @austinpop, @lmitche or @Forehaven share their opinion.  This was powering the sMS-200ultra.  I am hoping Rajiv and Eric's tests do not confirm what we heard, but if they do I won't be buying a multi-rail PSU again.  I will also be able to duplicate the test with the SR7 and sPS-500, but those supplies are probably too different to draw a true conclusion whether the difference is attributed to the shared transformer.

 

 

I certainly heard a difference, but I think our PSU test was very hurried due to lack of time.

 

I understand the hypothesis about multiple rails/1 transformer, but let's be clear - the sMS-200ultra was drawing < 1A, so we were not operating anywhere near the capacity of the unit. John's unit has one rail rated at 10A (what Paul calls EHD), and the second I'm not sure. John - is it an SD (3A) or HD (6A)?

 

As for the SR4 vs SR7 differences - not sure. I think Paul has already said that even when comparing his SD module, which is closest in rating to the SR4, he would pick the SR7 any day.

 

Once Eric's SR-7 is here, we'll compare.

[limniscate]

Order #7 has already been received for the SR7.  I'm order #10.