Building a DIY Music Server

[RickyV]

9 hours ago, Nenon said:

I started doing the ATX connector wiring.

 

But the OCD in me really wanted to apply JSSG360 shielding. So here it is with JSSG360.

 

Here is the pinout of a 20-pin connector:

 

I connected it this way:

3.3V --> pin 1

5.0V --> pin 4, pin 8, and pin 9

12V --> pin 10

Ground --> pin 3

 

ATX connector done.

 

This M.2 to PCIe convertor is another compromise. It would have been better to have a second PCIe slot. But I have tested bigger motherboards with second PCIe slot, and they did not sound better. That's why I am sticking to this well tested recipe. 

 

Apacer RAM, JCAT Femto Net card and Pink Faun USB bridge with ultra OCXO clock installed.

 

 

Almost done with this chassis... need to install the EPS connector, connect the power button and do some finishing touches. More about the latter at the end of the build.

 

Next, I will be moving to the second chassis. A big custom state of the art 400VA toroidal is waiting to be installed in the second chassis. 

 

Where did you get the transformer from and curious about it’s casing. 
Do you have a close up picture of the regulator? Would have expected bigger capacitors, at least on the 5A one.

[RickyV]

17 hours ago, Nenon said:

Starting on the second chassis.

 

First I had to drill a lot of holes - 4 holes for the Gaia feet, 8 holes for the power supply boards, 4 holes for the transformer. Those were the easy ones.

The tricky ones are the holes for the GX16 connectors. One can remove the back panel and use a drill press. This is probably what I would do next time. The best way I have found to make these holes is using a forstner drill bit. It looks like this:

 

And no, a tiny cordless drill is not the way to do it. I use a powerful AC powered drill. It's a lot easier if you don't have a drill press. 

I drilled 3 holes for the GX16 connectors and one hole for the fuse holder.

 

Here is a little hint. A GX16 connector can snugly fit into the channel for PCIe cards. You have to use some force, but it fits. No need to drill holes if you can use those. That's where I put the fourth connector. 

 

I bought one of these plates to cover the motherboard opening:

 

And I installed a medical grade IEC filter / inlet. I go back and forth between a Furutech NCF IEC inlet (no filtering) and those filters. Both are great options. I spent some time comparing, and heard the difference, but I can't make up my mind which one I like better. I just happened to have one of these filters around, and that's what I used. 

 

Transformer installed. Fuse holder installed and wired. IEC filter installed and wired. Grounding completed. Heatshrink all around the high voltage. 

 

The next steps were difficult to document. I installed the rectifier/caps modules. I also installed the regulators for the fourth rail. It took a while to get the wiring done right (neat I mean), but I think the end result is not bad.

 

 

All voltages tested good! Time to make some DC cables. Stay tuned. 

 

These might be a good alternative. http://www.thel-audioworld.de/module/Netzfilter/Netzfilter.htm
Or use these https://www.ringkerntrafo.nl/shop/high-end-audio/scheidingstrafo-audio.html in a box near the power strip.

 

edit: what’s the price of the those regulators

[RickyV]

2 hours ago, Nenon said:

I don't know the price. It was a four rail Sean Jacobs DS3 LPS, similar to what Innuos uses. Probably best to contact Sean Jacobs for that. http://www.custom-hifi-cables.co.uk/home/power-supplies/dc3-power-supply

I asked Sean if he is willing to sell some boards to the DIY community, but he is currently away. We'll probably get an answer next week.

Yes that would be fantastic if he would sell regulator modules for the DIY community for a fair price. I now use the newclassd 5A regulators.

[RickyV]

28 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

 

The transformer is from Toroidy. It's their Supreme Audio Grade V2 version but customized for the requirements of this project. Their transformers are 10x more expensive than similar specs Chinese transformers. I have seen them on some ultra high-end gear recently. The Cerat Kassandra 2 REF DAC comes to mind, but I've seen them at other places too, just can't remember now. They come epoxied in the case by default. 

Thanks for the info didn’t know them. I am using this one for my NUC server and hopefully soon for the eindpoint NUC too. It has 4x21V 2A and cost me about 170 euros.

 

[RickyV]

32 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Also, I like the extra space between the JCAT NIC and PinkFaun card in the ITX motherboard. The JCAT generates a lot of heat (probably EMI too) and would be nice to keep it further apart. 

I may still order one of those motherboards to try. 

Maybe something like this I did with my jcat usb card, for EMI.

 

[RickyV]

9 hours ago, LJONESATL said:

Is that copper foil, or a copper sheet that you used for shielding?

It is 0.25 mm thick copper sheet. 

[RickyV]

This weekend I made a coping mistake and lost the core isolation code I used. I have a notepad with possible codes but didn’t mark the code in use. So I put in the code I thought it was but while listening something was off. It sounded muddy, not accurate (0 gstp 1-2 stylus 3),most cores to gstp . I remembered the temperature pattern the cores give so it was not to difficult to get the original code back  and liked it much better, 0 gstp 1 stylus 2-3. So giving the most cores to stylus.

Maybe it is all different when you have 6 or 8 cores to play with I do not know. But if you have the bare minimum cores for the core isolation function to play with I prefer giving the most cores to stylus.

[RickyV]

12 minutes ago, Nenon said:

0 stylus 1 gstp 2-3

Seems to sound a bit more dull compared to 0 gstp 1 stylus 2-3 which sounds more airy.

[RickyV]

Clock replacement guide from newclassd but works for all clocks. 

http://newclassd.com/index.php

[RickyV]

1 hour ago, Energy said:

 

Starting off are general answers, but the answers themselves are open to variable change depending on your system. 

1. In the multiple test configurations that I ran, 2 sticks sounded better than one. But only when the device was given adequate power. That means that on a music server that is given enough current, the dual channel bandwidth (or multiple sticks) and latency of data queue’s improved the sound quality despite requiring another 1.2V memory module that added additional power consumption. The closer the PSU was to it’s max current limitation, the more narrow these benefits became. For example on the endpoint I once used a 3A linear power supply that was cutting it close and when the second RAM was added, it actually became harmful to the sound. It wasn’t until I had switched over to a 5A did the improvement of the second stick become apparent. YMMV.

 

2. If they are of similar build then running both Apacer model’s at the same frequency shouldn’t be too far off, given that their PCB layout (traces) and IC’s are similar. However if the comparison was with different brands or models then given the two reasons above it would be a bad idea to mix them. Even Apacer sticks that run the same frequency but designed with different initial stated frequencies can come from different batches that don’t work as similarly. Given that, it’s probably a better idea to get only industrial with the same frequencies to be more certain that they perform more similarly. But right now harmful it is with the current configuration you have really depends.

 

3. In very rough numbers, I found the 2666 to be maybe 2% better than the 2400 (both industrial), and ECC was only maybe 1-2% at most. Both were at least 3% better than non-industrial. The changes in these specifications was more significant for the endpoint than it was for the music server. With the endpoint, since I use an AMD based NUC/Mini PC called the ASROCK iBOX-V1000 that supported ECC out of the box, I started off with low CL14 HyperX consumer RAM before directly moving over to ECC/Industrial. Where I got maybe 7% total improvement on the server, the endpoint on the other hand felt closer to 10%. My guess was that it is in the middle Of the audio chain and responsible for handing off the music file hence played a slightly more important role whether that operation went smoothy or not. An operation where RAM plays a fairly important role since the unit is made up of very few things (motherboard, CPU, and memory). Not to mention the AudioLinux operating system was off-loaded to the RAM via RAMBOOT so that could be a major contributor on why RAM made more of a difference here.

 

I’m sure Nenon will chime in on this as well with his thoughts.

Have you compared the NUC7I7DN.. and the iBox v1000 and which did you prefer? 

[RickyV]

17 hours ago, Nenon said:

EDIT: I was asked in a private message and posted here by accident. Here is the question:

My answer that I mistakenly posted here can be seen below. The context is a full size ATX motherboard. 

 

This is my best ATX build so far: 

  On 4/15/2020 at 1:56 AM, Nenon said:

 

My new build is:

- ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero full size ATX motherboard 

- AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU

- Apacer ECC RAM

- Upgraded motherboard clock with PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock

- The new JCAT XE USB card

- JCAT NET Femto card

- PinkFaun I2S Bridge with ultraOCXO clock

- Optane card for the OS

- HDPlex H5 Case

- HDPlex 800W DC to DC ATX Convertor

- Gaia feet

- Mundorf Silver Gold DC wire all around

- Euphony OS

 

 

I made that carbon fiber plate with two connectors that I quite like. One connector goes to the CPU / EPS and the other to the HDPlex.

 

On the other side I just drilled a hole on the plate and installed a connector to power the OCXO clock. I will be adding a grounding post this weekend as well. 

 

And of course vibration isolation with Gaia feet:

 

 

There were three big questions I wanted to answer with this build.

 

I will be honest with you and tell you upfront that I did not spend enough time to apply the typical systematic approach of testing. Here is why - I am doing this as a hobby and when I hear that something I did convincingly sounds better, I am not interested to go back and forth and study how much better it sounds. I wish I spent a little more time with each small change, but I had too many thing going on. 

 

Let's start with the motherboard. Does it sound better than the mini-ITX motherboard? Yes, it does. But I don't think we should make the conclusion that every full size ATX motherboard sounds better than its mini-ITX sibling. That's not true, and I have seen the opposite. But this particular ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero sounds a little better than the ASUS ROG Strix X470-I Gaming mini-ITX motherboard. Not much better, just a little. 

 

After adding the PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock, this motherboard sounded much better than the mini-ITX model. Not all OCXO clock upgrades are up to my taste. They all seem to help with details, but some of them make the sound too sterile, too clinical, even lean in some cases. That's kind of what I expected by replacing this motherboard clock. But my expectations were wrong, and I was pleasantly surprised. The effect was quite different than what I thought. The first thing I noticed was a lot of air between the instruments. There was also more layers, more depth, and the bass became tighter and more real. It was immediately noticeable, but after a week I decided to go back to the stock motherboard clock just to double check. I did not listen for long with the stock clock. It was all confirmed immediately and I switched back to the ultraOCXO clock. Another thing I noticed was that the PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock improved a lot the USB output of the motherboard. Especially the USB ports that are connected to the chipset sounded a lot better with the clock. I think for the first time I actually preferred the USB ports that go through the chipset than the ones that don't. But ultimately I preferred the new JCAT USB XE card. More on that later. One little detail - this clock requires really good and clean power. The cleaner, the better. And good DC wires. My Mundorf silver/gold DC cables came to rescue again. 

 

Having said all that, it's hard for me to answer the second question. 

I don't know. It's a different motherboard with ultraOCXO clock. It definitely sounds better, but how much of that has to do with the fact that I did not have to use a PCIe extension cable, and how much was due to the different hardware? I have no idea. 

 

I was also wondering how the passive cooling on the HDPlex H5 chassis compares with the Streacom. I was thinking to install two identical motherboards and run some tests to see how efficient in heat dissipation each case was. Well, I will leave that test to someone else. A lot of IT youtubers out there do those experiments. I just don't have the time. 

But I think it's obvious that the HDPlex H5 passive cooling is much better. Streacom on the left, HDPlex on the right:

 

Streacom has 4 copper pipes. HDPlex has 8 copper pipes. Streacom has a tiny aluminum mounting plate. HDPlex has a massive copper piece with a big aluminum heatsink going on top. Streacom's pipes are flattened and they lose performance this way. HDPlex are not and go inside groves in the heatsink. And the HDPlex heatsinks on the chassis are bigger, at least compared to the Streacom FC9. Plus the HDPlex supports full size ATX motherboard with vertical PCIe cards and no risers.

The only things I hate about the HDPlex is that you need to remove the entire backplate to install PCIe cards. Maybe it's convenient for one card, but try doing 4 PCIe cards at the same time when you also have 3 DC connectors with soldered wires on the plate... not fun! But some people think that's the best thing about this case. I won't repeat the conversation that happened previously in this thread regarding that. Between the two cases, my preference is the HDPlex case now, but that's mainly because of the full size ATX support. The HDPlex has thinner bottom and top covers - that's not good for vibration treatment. 

 

Okay, what's next? JCAT USB XE Card. It's really good and keeps getting better and better over time. I really like it, and it's an easy recommendation. I can't tell how it compares with the PinkFaun USB bridge with ultraOCXO clock, but (besides the PF) I can tell you that it's better than any other USB card I have tried. It would be interesting to do an A/B comparison between the PinkFaun with ultraOCXO and the JCAT card.  

 

Let me touch on CPU choices a little bit. Emile from Taiko has done an extensive research on CPUs and shared some of his results on another forum. My understanding is that he has tried pretty much every CPU he thought might have a chance no matter the price. And interestingly enough he did not like the sound coming out of the AMD CPUs he tried. Romaz also built a computer with an AMD Ryzen 9 that has 105W TDP in a Streacom FC9 chassis. I don't think the Streacom chassis is up to the task to cool down a 105W TDP CPU. At that point you need to start reducing the voltage / speed on the CPU just to keep it cool enough. That in my opinion diminishes the sound quality. And even when my chassis get somewhat hot, I can hear degraded sound. The HDPlex is a better choice, but as far as AMD CPUs go I don't think we can go higher that the 65W TDP of the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU I am using. 

 

Emile is a genius. We all know that. And it seems like he has resources we can only dream about. But I feel like it's difficult to compare CPUs and have a definitive conclusion about the sound of each CPU. Is it possible that the same CPU sounds very different in his system with his power supply and his choice of motherboard with his tweaked operating system than it sounds in my system with my power supply and my choice of motherboard and completely different operating system? I think the answer to that question is yes. Not only it is very possible, but it's also very likely. I really like the way this new server turned out. It's better than my previous AMD build, which I quite liked. It might be better them my previous Intel builds. It certainly sounds different and probably different people would have different preferences. 

But regardless of that, Emile's test sharing is very useful. Ultimately, there is only one way to find out, so here it is:

 

This is the ASUS WS C621E Sage Extreme motherboard with two Intel XEON SILVER 4210 CPUs that the Taiko Extreme uses inside an HDPlex case. It would be interesting to complete this build and compare with my other builds. Granted, I won't have the million small tweaks Emile has put in the Extreme, but I will apply all the stuff I have learned during my builds. Not trying to reach the Extreme but just to explore another route. I have a custom order Apacer RDIMM RAM coming in several weeks. Between now and then there is a lot of challenges I need to overcome. Don't ask me how I am going to passively cool down those CPUs for example. I don't know. There is no adaptor for the fclga3647 socket in the HDPlex or Streacom kits. I will have to build my own. I have several different Dynatron coolers coming my way as well as various cooling pipes and a pipe bending tool. Ideally, the CPU that is closer to the front of the chassis would be cooled by the left heatsink and the second CPU would be cooled by the right heatsink. That would be a heck of a project. 

Read more  

 

I think that the choice of motherboard/CPU @StreamFidelity has picked for his latest build is also good if you want to go with a consumer Intel CPU.

 

And I think the Sage motherboard and dual Xeons would be better than all of them. But so challenging... 

 

What about or has anyone used the i7-7700K CPU which according to taiko was a very good sounding CPU but they stopped with it because intel discontinued it. But I think you can still buy it.

[RickyV]

1 hour ago, Hauser said:

Phasure's Stealth 3

 

1 hour ago, Hauser said:

selection of OS

 

These are products from @PeterSt brain. He posts here on AS too sometimes. 

[RickyV]

1 hour ago, Nenon said:

Some updates from me below.

 

1. I completed my tube SET monoblocks a couple of weeks ago. They sound amazing! Even better than they look. The Duelund Cast tinned copper caps are still breaking-in as well as all the Mundorf MTube and MLytic AG capacitors I used but they are 99% there. Add to that, the custom silver wires used throughout, Mundorf silver/gold wire for the power supply, custom transformers, custom chokes, Z-foil resistors, WBT silver connectors, NCF IEC inlets, Grade A Sophia Electric tubes, Grade A Shuguang WE6SN7 PLUS tubes, SR Orange fuses, etc. I used to love my Lundahl output transformers but those beat the shit out of the Lundahls! These monoblocks are something special. They really are a piece of art, and I am very proud of the end result. Sorry for the ugly photo, but that's the best I have at the moment.

 

2. I am still playing with the Asus Sage build, trying different Optane cards and NVME storage (in RAID0 VROC configuration). It seems like no NAS will be used for this build. It's interesting because the NAS sounded best in my previous builds but not here. 

 

3. The custom Apacer RDIMM memory should be ready next week. Looking forward to try it on the Asus Sage motherboard. Speaking of Apacer, they discontinued the new RAM models that used the 2666MHz Samsung chips as Samsung stopped manufacturing some parts. That's quite unfortunate, as that was the best sounding memory. Here is a list of the older Apacer models (still using the top grade Samsung RAM and still wide range temperature but 2400MHz):

ECC DDR4 DIMM 4GB: 75.B93GZ.G000B (recommended for most server builds)

ECC DDR4 DIMM 8GB: 75.CA4GZ.G000B

NUC DDR4 SODIMM: 75.B93GJ.G010B

Hope that helps to those who have not upgraded to Apacer RAM yet. 

If you can still find it somewhere the ECC DDR4 DIMM 4GB model # D31.23185S.001 is in my opinion the best sounding RAM. Mouser still shows some on backorder, but I highly doubt those backorders would be fulfilled at all.  

Last note: I did not list non-ECC models, because ECC works (as non-ECC) on most motherboards and sounds better to my ears.

 

4. I managed to obtain a number of Buffalo BS-GS2016 switches before they disappeared from the market. Some will be used in my system. Some are promised to friends. And I might have some left that I would not need when I finish testing. 

After the excellent post by @auricgoldfinger about his modified Melco switch with PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock, I am determined to try that on the Buffalo as well. With some luck, my next switch would have the following features:

- Modded Buffalo BS-GS2016

- Replaced clock with PinkFaun ultraOCXO powered by a separate 5V rail.

- Two-rail Sean Jacobs DC4 LPS powering the switch and clock.

- Chassis vibration damping.

- Gaia isolation feet.

- Possibly a bank of capacitors on the input similar to what Melco does (to be determine if that's an improvement). 

 

5. Not really an update, but I thought the following post might be more useful here:

 

Finally, the life is getting back to normal in Chicago, and I am planning to enjoy the summer. There will be less frequent updates from me in the next couple of months. But there will be some!

 

wow Nenon really nice work those amps look amazing and judging from the components used they must sound amazing too. Those Duelund caps alone cost at least 220 euro apiece for the smallest one, hope you didn’t need to many of them. I may have mist it before or it slipped my mind but what speakers do they drive?

 

Enjoy the summer sun but hopefully you do not pull a romaz on us. 😃

[RickyV]

23 minutes ago, Nenon said:

built The Loudspeaker (TL-1) by Troels Gravesen about 18 months ago, and that has been my reference since then. Needless to say, I went overboard with my OCD. They also use Duelund tinned copper caps as well as Jantzen Amber-Z Caps, Path Audio resistors (not a fan of the Duelund resistors), special wire, WBT connectors, top quality 1.5'' thick baltic birch, etc.

They have 18'' woofers. The original design was using DSP and ClassD Hypex plate amps for the 18'' woofers, but I am very sensitive on bass details and definition. After a lot of testing, I settled on passive crossovers and bi-amping. Tried quite a few amplification options, including the Jeff Rowland 625 S2 amps as mentioned in one of my previous posts. But when I heard what those AudioMirror monoblocks did, I could not go back to anything else. That was not a self-intuitive test result. Typically one of the weaknesses of tube amplification is deep base. But I guess 95dB efficient 18'' woofers are a different beast. 

So, here I am, bi-amping with two sets of monoblocks (4 monoblocks total)!!! The question is what am I going to do in the summer months with those heaters... it was nice and cozy in the winter

😀 Troels, I know his site well so you are a diy speaker builder too. Nice higher efficiency speakers. 👍
Personally I fancy this model http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Ellipticor-3.htm, first order filtering and no capacitors in the filter and excellent drivers.

[RickyV]

Sorry moving this over to Nenon’s DIY server thread I thought I was in.

 

I narrowed the experiments down to two. One SJ will go inside my nuc case now I know it will fit in there.

So the experiment will be with what that regulator will be fed.

1 raw unregulated DC but with CRC capacitor filter like @elan120 has done.

2 the same as point 1 plus an other SJ regulator.

These components will be in an external case.

 

I have ask Sean about dual regulation and he told me that one module already has a coupled dual regulating devices. He also said that there is still some quality to be gained by using two modules. We will see what that brings.

I have enough AC in my transformer to give each regulator 5v of voltage drop.

Also bought 2m of 1mm mundorf silver and gold wire to connect everything 👍.

[RickyV]

On 6/14/2020 at 5:26 PM, RickyV said:

Sorry moving this over to Nenon’s DIY server thread I thought I was in.

 

I narrowed the experiments down to two. One SJ will go inside my nuc case now I know it will fit in there.

So the experiment will be with what that regulator will be fed.

1 raw unregulated DC but with CRC capacitor filter like @elan120 has done.

2 the same as point 1 plus an other SJ regulator.

These components will be in an external case.

 

I have ask Sean about dual regulation and he told me that one module already has a coupled dual regulating devices. He also said that there is still some quality to be gained by using two modules. We will see what that brings.

I have enough AC in my transformer to give each regulator 5v of voltage drop.

Also bought 2m of 1mm mundorf silver and gold wire to connect everything 👍.

 

I did some comparisons between my new Sean Jacobs DC3 regulator and my dual Newclassd regulators. For this comparison I made a test setup so I could easily switch between the two regulators keeping everything else the same. So after only some 30 hours of burn in/ listening time of the dc3 I switched back to the Ncd’s. And in my opinion the Ncd’s are a little less refined as the SJ. The SJ seem to be more musical, have a little better stability a little better resolution and a little better balanced sound. I inserted “a little” everywhere to emphasize that it is only a little but it is a noticeable difference and all those differences make the DC3 for me the better regulator.

 

 Next will be to build the DC3 into my NUC case and use the internal power connection again, with the use of the mundorf wire.

 

[RickyV]

2 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

 

This is interesting. I thought about it at some point but never tried it. It would obviously require a careful study of the motherboard design to figure out how to cut the ATX power and how to feed the RAM with a LPS without impacting the sensor / protection triggers. 

 

This would be quite difficult / costly to do on the Asus Sage motherboard I am using now. It has a quite complicated design, and I have 12 DIMMs. Already destroyed one CPU by accidently shorting two memory pins. With a $650 motherboard price and $550 per CPU street price, a few mistakes can make this experiment quite costly. I am not willing to do that. But it's probably worth trying on a cheaper and less complicated motherboard.

 

At this stage, I think that full linear power regulation is not necessarily the best thing in the world. While a linear power supplies is the most important component in the digital source, I find a mixture of linear regulators and switching regulators to sound better.

Perhaps that has nothing to do with linear vs. switching regulators but more with low powered vs. high powered processing. High power processing requires... as you can guess - more power. And it is practically impossible to provide the required Amps of low voltage (i.e. 1V let's say) fully linear regulated.

 

Imagine having to provision 100W at 1 Volt of linear regulated power to the CPU? That would be 100A of current. And let's say you are using regulators that need to drop 5V. That would be 500W of heat dissipation for your linear regulators. Passively cooling 500W of heat dissipation? Not sure what it takes to do that, but in my mind I imagine a heatsink the size of a speaker :). The good news is RAM does not require that many watts.

 

I am yet to hear a fully linear regulated computer or streamer that sounds better than some of our DIY attempts with high powered CPUs that use quite a few switching regulators. There are companies like Sonore, SOTM, etc. that try to do that, but those are in my opinion for away from what we are achieving here. But again, that's not comparing apples to apples. In fact every time I have replaced a switching mode power supply with a good linear regulated LPS, I have heard an improvement. So that experiment is definitely worth a try. 

 

Please post here if you try this. It would be nice to see a step by step guide and what the outcome was in sound quality. There are quite a few people here that can do it. 

 

Who knows what is underneath the Extreme’s mega capacitor bank, a HDpex 800w DC-atx maybe.😀 We can see there is not much room even for the old SGM 2015 EVO regulator’s won’t fit but the Extreme has only one rail choke filtered power supply.

The only thing we can do is “linearize” the atx and the 12v cpu voltages and the motherboard has to do the rest.

[RickyV]

On 7/12/2020 at 4:26 PM, RickyV said:

 

I did some comparisons between my new Sean Jacobs DC3 regulator and my dual Newclassd regulators. For this comparison I made a test setup so I could easily switch between the two regulators keeping everything else the same. So after only some 30 hours of burn in/ listening time of the dc3 I switched back to the Ncd’s. And in my opinion the Ncd’s are a little less refined as the SJ. The SJ seem to be more musical, have a little better stability a little better resolution and a little better balanced sound. I inserted “a little” everywhere to emphasize that it is only a little but it is a noticeable difference and all those differences make the DC3 for me the better regulator.

 

 Next will be to build the DC3 into my NUC case and use the internal power connection again, with the use of the mundorf wire.

 

Finished building the SJ dc3 regulator into my NUC case.

 

This is what I took as a base for the server, a 12cm wide heatsink with a copper heat transfer block.

 

After choosing the best position for the regulator I had some room left so I added an extra LC filter to filter RF, EMI as much as possible before going into the regulator.

 

 

This is the internal power point of the NUC. Normally there is a 4pin connector there but I removed it so I could solder the 4 silver/gold mundorf wires straight to the board. So I made it in a star quad configuration with two shields separated by Teflon tape.

 

 

 

The all most finished NUC server.

 

I still have to find a spot for the power switch and I want to polish the top a little beter.

Burn-in time.

 

 

[RickyV]

On 6/23/2020 at 2:23 PM, beautiful music said:

 

Thank you @Nenon for highlighting some points of the difference between Sean Custom PSU and Extreme internal PSU.

 

I would like to add also that the regulators playing some roles in the performance of PSU, when i took a look to to SR7DR or SR7T i figure out that Paul didn't use a fancy Capacitors like Mundorf in his PSU so eventually his regulators played the biggest effect in his PSU.

 

I think Roy or Rajiv talked about Paul methodology when he is designing his PSU but i'm not sure where is the link. 

 

Could you share some pictures of the inside of the PH sr7, I would very much like to see what PH has done.

Please 👍

 

[RickyV]

On 7/18/2020 at 4:29 PM, RickyV said:

Finished building the SJ dc3 regulator into my NUC case.

 

This is what I took as a base for the server, a 12cm wide heatsink with a copper heat transfer block.

 

After choosing the best position for the regulator I had some room left so I added an extra LC filter to filter RF, EMI as much as possible before going into the regulator.

 

 

This is the internal power point of the NUC. Normally there is a 4pin connector there but I removed it so I could solder the 4 silver/gold mundorf wires straight to the board. So I made it in a star quad configuration with two shields separated by Teflon tape.

 

 

 

The all most finished NUC server.

 

I still have to find a spot for the power switch and I want to polish the top a little beter.

Burn-in time.

 

 

After approximately 50 hours of burn in time I can say that I am really happy with the result. I seem to have gained more depth, the instruments and voices are more substantial, the soundstage seems wider and higher and less noise. (Not by a little bit)
So I really like the Sean Jacobs DC3 regulator but that’s not the only thing that contributes to this gain, the CRC, CLC or LCLC filter do their work too and are important I think. 
 

I’ll let this configuration get some more burn in time and then will do some experiments with pre regulator ( newclassd and dc3). So from 29V to 24V to 19V.

 

[RickyV]

6 hours ago, Nenon said:

I share mostly success stories, but there is a lot going on behind the scenes with my experiments. Here is a behind the scenes failure story... Tried to replace the clock on one of my Buffalo switches, and the switch board is fried.

 

 

The problem is I don't know why. I had someone else remove the clock, so that might be part of the problem. Also USPS was quite brutal with this package as it can be seen by the bended port. 

Well, one less precious Buffalo in this world. That specific buffalo breed is nearly extinct!

I will sacrifice another one, and hopefully it would work out next time. 

What a pity it didn’t work but indeed strange. I see three screws in the clock board where do they screw in? 
Do you still have the old clock, I think it’s worth to put it back and see if you can get it going.

 

[RickyV]

12 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Amazing work @Nenon. Remarkable project. Also (and truly no offence intended mate) batsh*t crazy too 😆. The bill of materials for the upgrades & DC4 power supply compared to the cost of the Buffalo must be quite a ratio.

 

Bravo tho! Looks awesome work. 

 

My Buffalo is still lurking in it's box as I try to summon the bravery and effort to tackle just configuring it and the DC power modification 🙄

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

 

I think we all are a bit 🦇💩 🤪.

 

 🤣

[RickyV]

1 hour ago, Soul Analogue said:

 

 The CNC machined heatsink for EPYC has finally arrived...

the size fits nicely...however I just do not have a hex screwdriver long enough to drive the 4 screws...need to get one before I can properly install it and test the thermal performance...🤨

 

OMG that thing is massive, how much does it weigh? Does conduct the heat through the wall thickness only and how thick are the walls?

I bet it helps with vibration control too. 😀

[RickyV]

3 hours ago, cool_chris said:

I also wanted to point that Austipop did fantastic tests with the Buffalows he got from Nenon.

He was much better in explaining all the details with why the PF Ultra Buffalo is his " best " switch 

and thats why I didnt want to repeate that.

 

In short it is mine best switch too and I can't imagine to listen without it.

 

Now what I would like to know is how the clock upgrade compares to the switch mode regulators upgrade in sq gain. Both report a nice sq gain.

[RickyV]

4 hours ago, cool_chris said:

Sure !
why not BOTH ?

Nenon mode to Buffalo , than Jord mode with PinkFaun clock 

AND adding the 3 separate regulators !
planning to do so.
an ultimate switch 

 

👍 That would indeed be the ultimate switch. Then may I suggest you wait for @tgb to see if his solution to the 1V problem works, because it is probably the easiest. ( MPAudio transformer and 1V/ 5A regulator) My solution is a 1V/5A lt3045 regulator and in front of that an other 1.8 V higher power regulator with a reasonable heatsink. Then have a 1A ldovr regulator for the 1.5 and the 3.3V or an other MPAudio dual 2.5A regulator for the 1.5 and 3.3V and feed it all with a 5V 5A power supply with a big heatsink. 
Heat dissipation is a problem if you go all linear. The second best option would be to leave the 1V alone and power the switch with 12V and only do the 1.5V and 3.3V with linear regulators, much easier and no heat problem!