ASRMichael Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 22 minutes 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. Sure it has a 12 month warranty! 😂 Link to comment
elan120 Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 24 minutes ago, Nenon said: Tried to replace the clock on one of my Buffalo switches, and the switch board is fried. Ouch...that hurts... If possible and not too much trouble, could you share a closer look at the clock solder pad section? Link to comment
basillus Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 1 hour 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. You have removed the 2 capacitors between the crystal and gnd? Heat shouldn`t have destroyed it...can’t you measure if there are bad connections/pcb lanes? Link to comment
RickyV Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 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. Meitner ma1 v2 dac, Sovereign preamp and power amp, DIY speakers, scan speak illuminator. Raal Requisite VM-1a -> SR-1a with Accurate Sound convolution. Under development: NUC7i7dnbe, Euphony Stylus, Qobuz. Modded Buffalo-fiber-EtherRegen, DC3- Isoregen, Lush^2 Link to comment
Soul Analogue Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 7 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 is the symptom of it being “fried”? no boot up with all lights on? Or no even any light when given power? Builder of Linear Power Supplies Link to comment
Nenon Posted August 5, 2020 Author Share Posted August 5, 2020 Thank you all for your concerns and willingness to help. This is a normal day in the life of a DIY-er :). We just don't post too much about failures and only share success stories. I decided to switch things around for a moment. Give me a few days to get one working, and I will post pictures and instructions. I'll then try to inspect closer what happened to this one. NanoSword 1 Industry disclosure: https://chicagohifi.com Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs Link to comment
Popular Post austinpop Posted August 5, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted August 5, 2020 My completed Ode to your Wounded Switch Oh give me a home Where the Buffalo roam And the Fauns and the LPSes play Where seldom is heard A discordant note And the highs are not muddy all day. Submitted with a big Nenon, OAudio, flkin and 4 others 7 My Audio Setup Link to comment
Popular Post OAudio Posted August 5, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted August 5, 2020 Its not nice at all when a board dies without an obvious reason. I am not sure if clock replacement is a regular modification so apologies in advance if the following are things you know / have tried. CPR for the buffalo, just make sure you have a mask on they can be gooey around the mouth First voltages. Were you able to check the peak to peak or RMS voltage from the output of the Xtal that was originally on the board ? These days 0.8 - 1.2v peak to peak clock voltages are not uncommon as VCore voltages get lower with internal processor frequency getting higher. If the Pink Faun is say 1.8, 3.3 or 5v output then there is a good chance that the processor might not be starting or worse be damaged due to the pk - pk clock voltage exceeding the rail voltage of the clock input logic gate on the chip. Try looking at the data sheet of chip you are clocking. Assuming that the voltages are ok, (but try the following anyway). The Xtal that was removed probably had 4 SMD pads. Identify the GND pins or N/C pins with a meter. This will leave 2 remaining pins that the crystal was connected to. Inside the chip you want to drive there is most likely a hex inverter logic gate that is there to drive the original Xtal. The inverters inputs are connected to the two clock input pins of the chip / pads where the original Xtal was installed. One of the input pins connects to the on chip inverters output (this is the pin you need to drive when inserting the clock signal) the other is used as to drive a feed back loop around the chips inverter (this pin will most often not accept an internal clock input). Most often the only way to determine which pin is the correct one to use is to try both out. There is a 50:50 chance of nasty "moment" with expensive bits of kit when adding a clock where the board appears dead only to resurrect itself when the correct pin is driven. Finally looking at the Pink Faun you are using in the picture it looks like it is magnetically coupled on its output. If you think over voltage might be the problem you could load the Pink Faun's output pins a little just to pull down the pk to pk waveform levels. As a diagnostic it doesn't need to be anything elaborate just a small resistor will do I would start by trying 200 - 100 - 50 ohms. This would not be a good think to do long term for best timing performance but as a diagnostic it might help you to understand what is preventing the board from starting. Hope this might help to resurrect the beast . OAudio. Mr Morris, RickyV and lwr 1 1 1 OAudio Ltd. OAudio Supreme - music server. OAudio RealStream - digital audio components. Link to comment
Nenon Posted August 6, 2020 Author Share Posted August 6, 2020 I just replaced the clock on another Buffalo switch and it worked like a charm. More to follow. Exocer 1 Industry disclosure: https://chicagohifi.com Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs Link to comment
sig8 Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 A question for experts: My current Gigabyte Z490 Master motherboard has two available 8-pin CPU power connectors. I have only connected to one connector. Should I connect to both? I have never had or seen two 8-pins connectors near CPU before. Thanks. Link to comment
Soul Analogue Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 53 minutes ago, sig8 said: A question for experts: My current Gigabyte Z490 Master motherboard has two available 8-pin CPU power connectors. I have only connected to one connector. Should I connect to both? I have never had or seen two 8-pins connectors near CPU before. Thanks. Most likely the two 8p are connected you can use a dmm to check their continuity if they are connected, there is no rational reason to connect both 8p .. just to increase the wire counts to supply the 12v.... Builder of Linear Power Supplies Link to comment
Nenon Posted August 6, 2020 Author Share Posted August 6, 2020 1 hour ago, sig8 said: My current Gigabyte Z490 Master motherboard has two available 8-pin CPU power connectors. I have only connected to one connector. Should I connect to both? I have never had or seen two 8-pins connectors near CPU before. Thanks. The main reason some motherboards have more connectors is to be able to provide more current to the CPU, for more power hungry CPUs or for overclocking. The typical wire going to the EPS is 18 AWG. 4 x 18 AWG wires give you about 12 AWG combined gauge. But if you use both connectors, that would be 8 x 18 AWG wires, which is around 9 AWG. The motherboard Taiko Extreme has 3 connectors - 2 x 8 pins, and 1 x 6 pin, plus 2 of the wires from the ATX connector go to the same +12V DC rail. So that's total of 13 x 18 AWG wires, which is around 7 AWG combined wire gauge. No wonder why Taiko Extreme users report that thick power cords work really good! In your case, you have to look at multiple factors. How many Watts or Amps is your power supply? How thick are the power supply wires? What processor are you using? How are you using the CPU? Are you overclocking or underclocking? Are you upsampling? And so on... For most cases just using one EPS connector is good enough. I suspect that's the case for you as well but don't have enough details to tell for sure. Industry disclosure: https://chicagohifi.com Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs Link to comment
Popular Post Nenon Posted August 6, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 6, 2020 5 hours ago, Nenon said: I just replaced the clock on another Buffalo switch and it worked like a charm. More to follow. 5 hours later, and I am still listening to Qobuz :). That's a good sign. That switch with a PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock is sounding pretty good. I'll post more after I spend some time with it. But I am planning to replace the clock on one more Buffalo; and try two Buffalos with upgraded clocks (one is for a friend, but I will have the opportunity to test it). Those clocks are expensive, but they don't fail to surprise me every time I try them. We are reaching the price of the M12 Gold switch. As a matter of fact, if the timing works in my favor, I would be able to test the M12 Gold switch in my system while I have the two Buffalos with upgraded clocks. I am super curious what happens when you connect two Buffalo switches with ultraOCXO clocks, one M12 Gold, and the etherREGEN together :). It's complete madness, but why not if I have a chance to do it... It would also be interesting to compare the M12 Gold with those Buffalos with upgraded clocks. However, now that I am playing in the bigger league, I may not have the time (or the motivation) to test the smaller 8-port Buffalos. On 7/7/2020 at 4:17 PM, Nenon said: Buffalo switches - does the 8-port model sound like the 16-port model? Time to find out. But first, some serious burn-in time needed. If anyone is interested in those two 8-port switches, send me a PM. Too many Buffalos in my backyard :). Exocer, NanoSword and hicr49 1 2 Industry disclosure: https://chicagohifi.com Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs Link to comment
Popular Post Nenon Posted August 8, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 8, 2020 Here are more details on my modified Buffalo switch. 1. PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock - 25 MHz - https://www.pinkfaun.com/shop/clock/67-2916-ultra-ocxo.html It was difficult to remove the stock clock, but once I did the rest was easy. A couple people recommended the ChipQuik kit. That stuff is great and it works really good on chips with many legs that are exposed outside the chip. But because the four legs on this clock are under the clock, you don't really have access to them. The easiest way I have found so far was to cut the clock in half with sharp clippers and desolder each half individually by heating the two legs with my soldering iron. Here is a close up of the pins I used for the PinkFaun clock: The filtering capacitors and resistors are not required. You can leave them or remove them per your preferences. I used a very fine 24 AWG solid silver wire in enamel, similar to what AudioNote sells. The clock is mounted on special vibration damping standoffs that decouple the clock from the switch board. The bolt with a red circle around is using one of the holes on the switch board. I drilled holes in the switch board for the other 3 holes. If you are careful with the alignment, you will end up with 3 safe to drill places. Just make sure you use non-conductive nuts or add non-conductive washers. I added plastic washers on the bottom in my case. Otherwise the nut would short one part of the PCB to ground. I believe this is why my previous attempt failed... I think the board I thought that failed might be working, but the mounting nuts caused a problem. 2. The clock requires a dedicated 5V power supply. The quality of this power supply is crucial. I used a GX16 connector and 18 AWG Mundorf silver/gold wire. 3. I made a small PCB board to handle some extra capacitors. It mounts on the standoffs from the removed switching mode power supply. That should close the gap between the Buffalo and Melco switch. This board was done for my DIY hobby experiment only, and I won't talk much about it. 15.5 AWG Mundorf silver/gold wire is used on both sides of this board to connect it to the DC connector (GX16) and to the switch board. 4. I added two additional filtering capacitors. One is a 2.2 uF Mundorf silver/gold/oil film cap. This is a decent film cap but not my favorite. There is no space for Duelund CAST caps in this chassis. The other one is a 100uF AudioNote Kaisei I had laying around. I may tweak those in the future but it's a good starting point. 5. Grounding post. I used WBT Nextgen copper grounding post, just because I had a spare, and I like those and a 24 AWG stranded Neotech 7N copper wire. I don't like using solid wire for this type of grounding. I also don't like plated wires or much thicker wire. That should be a good balance. I ground the chassis and the clock, but will be experimenting more with that. For example I may ground the minus from the power supply to help shunting some of the noise. That's an area I would be exploring further. I have a Taiko SETCHI D-3 to try and a Synergistic Research Active Ground Block SE. 6. Chassis damping. This chassis is not designed for audio and wrapping with bitumen-based sound dampening material helps with the chassis vibration. 7. Gaia feet. Not on the main picture, but additional vibration treatment with Gaia footers was also done. That's it. Those are all my tweaks. The switch will be powered with a dual rail Sean Jacobs DC4 LPS and of course my favorite silver/gold DC cables. How does it sound? I am quite impressed so far but would like to live more time with it so it would properly burn-in and my bias settles down. But I know there will be some impatient members who would send me a PM asking about the sound, so I decided to take some notes and share my first impressions. Initial impressions of the Buffalo with upgraded ultraOCXO clock. My network during the test: Arris SB8200 modem --(copper)--> Ubiquiti Router --(copper)--> Buffalo switch --(fiber with Fintech transceivers)--> etherRegen --(copper)--> server. I kept everything the same, just swapping two identical Buffalo switches, one with the stock clock and one with a PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock. Both Buffalo switches were powered up with the same 12V LPS by Sean Jacobs. The 5V for the clock was powered by a LPS-1.2 (temporarily until I get the parts needed to adjust my rails). The switch with an upgraded clock is much better. I can’t listen to the stock clocked Buffalos anymore . It's hard to describe the change. There is no particular area that was improved. I can't tell there is better midrange, or better highs, or more dynamics, or anything like that. But the overall coherence of the sound has improved. The improved timing has a big impact on how the instruments sound. The difference is similar to listening to a garage band vs. a professional band playing the same notes. The music sounds overall more enjoyable. What’s really cool is the level of PRAT you get from bad recordings. It does not make bad recordings sound like good recordings but it makes them so much more enjoyable. It’s like you listen to a bad recording on a good reel to reel. And that's an interesting thing as well - with this switch with a modified clock, my digital is a step further away from sounding digital. And that's for streaming Qobuz. The sound is not lean like with many digital components with improved clocks and linear regulators sound. The body of the Buffalo is still there. If anything has changed, there is maybe a level of harshness that has disappeared and the bass is more clear but still deep and impactful. I have found that switches also impact local storage playing for some reason. Don't really expect that changing the clock impacts locally stored files, but I think it does. But my focus is on streaming music from Qobuz. I still have a lot of tests to do. An interesting experiment would be what happens when I plug my server directly to the Buffalo with ultraOCXO clock. Right now the ultraOCXO clocked signal goes from the Buffalo to the etherREGEN, which has a good clock but not as good as the ultraOCXO. Does that mean I am losing some of the benefits of the good clock? Needs to be tested by connecting my server directly to the Buffalo switch. On the other hand, the etherREGEN is designed to minimise noise... However, in my system using the B-side of the etherREGEN is not as good as only utilizing the A-side, so I don't go across the moat and don't utilize that part of the etherREGEN design. What does that mean for the noise generated by these switches? Would the Buffalo generate more noise? TBD. One thing that may help is to shunt the power supply on the Buffalo to ground. That's something I am definitely going to try. But as we speak about differences between my modified Buffalo and the etherREGEN, we need to keep things into prospective. The upgraded clock costs more than two etherREGENs. The power supply is another seven etherREGENs. The rest of the tweaks also cost as much as an ehterREGEN. And ever since we posted about those Buffalo switches here, the price went up 3 times, and they are still extremely difficult to find. I expect now PinkFaun will run out of clocks :)). And I need one more, so don't buy them all just yet. I will be modifying the clock on one more Buffalo and hopefully will be able to do some interesting tests. For example, what happens when you connect two Buffalos with upgraded clocks together? How do they compare to the M12 gold switch which I have access to and will be testing soon? And what if you combine two Buffalos with ultraOCXO clocks with the M12 Gold switch? I mean other than getting divorced and filing for bankruptcy... BigAlMc, shahed99, ASRMichael and 18 others 2 13 6 Industry disclosure: https://chicagohifi.com Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs Link to comment
beautiful music Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 14 minutes ago, Nenon said: Here are more details on my modified Buffalo switch. 1. PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock - 25 MHz - https://www.pinkfaun.com/shop/clock/67-2916-ultra-ocxo.html It was difficult to remove the stick clock, but once I did the rest was easy. A couple people recommended the ChipQuik kit. That stuff is great and it works really good on chips with many legs that are exposed outside the chip. But because the four legs on this clock are under the clock, you don't really have access to them. The easiest way I have found so far was to cut the clock in half with sharp clippers and desolder each half individually by heating the two legs with my soldering iron. Here is a close up of the pins I used for the PinkFaun clock: The filtering capacitors and resistors are not required. You can leave them or remove them per your preferences. I used a very fine 24 AWG solid silver wire in enamel, similar to what AudioNote sells. The clock is mounted on special vibration damping standoffs that decouple the clock from the switch board. The bolt with a red circle around is using one of the holes on the switch board. I drilled holes in the switch board for the other 3 holes. If you are careful with the alignment, you will end up with 3 safe to drill places. Just make sure you use non-conductive nuts or add non-conductive washers. I added plastic washers on the bottom in my case. Otherwise the nut would short one part of the PCB to ground. I believe this is why my previous attempt failed... I think the board I thought that failed might be working, but the mounting nuts caused a problem. 2. The clock requires a dedicated 5V power supply. The quality of this power supply is crucial. I used a GX16 connector and 18 AWG Mundorf silver/gold wire. 3. I made a small PCB board to handle some extra capacitors. It mounts on the standoff from the removed switching mode power supply. That should close the gap between the Buffalo and Melco switch. This board was done for my DIY hobby experiment only, and I won't talk much about it. 15.5 AWG Mundorf silver/gold wire is used on both sides of this board to connect it to the DC connector (GX16) and to the switch board. 4. I added two additional filtering capacitors. One is a 2.2 uF Mundorf silver/gold/oil film cap. This is a decent film cap but not my favorite. There is no space for Duelund CAST caps in this chassis. The other one is a 100uF AudioNote Kaisei I had laying around. I may tweak those in the future but it's a good starting point. 5. Grounding post. I used WBT Nextgen copper grounding post, just because I had a spare, and I like those and a 24 AWG stranded Neotech 7N copper wire. I don't like using solid wire for this type of grounding. I also don't like plated wires or much thicker wire. That should be a good balance. I ground the chassis and the clock, but will be experimenting more with that. For example I may ground the minus from the power supply to help shunting some of the noise. That's an area I would be exploring further. I have a Taiko SETCHI D-3 to try and a Synergistic Research Active Ground Block SE. 6. Chassis damping. This chassis is not designed for audio and wrapping with bitumen-based sound dampening material helps with the chassis vibration. 7. Gaia feet. Not on the main picture, but additional vibration treatment with Gaia footers was also done. That's it. Those are all my tweaks. The switch will be powered with a dual rail Sean Jacobs DC4 LPS and of course my favorite silver/gold DC cables. How does it sound? I am quite impressed so far but would like to live more time with it so it would properly burn-in and my bias settles down. But I know there will be some impatient members who would send me a PM asking about the sound, so I decided to take some notes and share my first impressions. Initial impressions of the Buffalo with upgraded ultraOCXO clock. My network during the test: Arris SB8200 modem --(copper)--> Ubiquiti Router --(copper)--> Buffalo switch --(fiber with Fintech transceivers)--> etherRegen --(copper)--> server. I kept everything the same, just swapping two identical Buffalo switches, one with the stock clock and one with a PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock. Both Buffalo switches were powered up with the same 12V LPS by Sean Jacobs. The 5V for the clock was powered by a LPS-1.2 (temporarily until I get the parts needed to adjust my rails). The switch with an upgraded clock is much better. I can’t listen to the stock clocked Buffalos anymore . It's hard to describe the change. There is no particular area that was improved. I can't tell there is better midrange, or better highs, or more dynamics, or anything like that. But the overall coherence of the sound has improved. The improved timing has a big impact on how the instruments sound. The difference is similar to listening to a garage band vs. a professional band playing the same notes. The music sounds overall more enjoyable. What’s really cool is the level of PRAT you get from bad recordings. It does not make bad recordings sound like good recordings but it makes them so much more enjoyable. It’s like you listen to a bad recording on a good reel to reel. And that's an interesting thing as well - with this switch with a modified clock, my digital is a step further away from sounding digital. And that's for streaming Qobuz. The sound is not lean like with many digital components with improved clocks and linear regulators sound. The body of the Buffalo is still there. If anything has changed, there is maybe a level of harshness that has disappeared and the bass is more clear but still deep and impactful. I have found that switches also impact local storage playing for some reason. Don't really expect that changing the clock impacts locally stored files, but I think it does. But my focus is on streaming music from Qobuz. I still have a lot of tests to do. An interesting experiment would be what happens when I plug my server directly to the Buffalo with ultraOCXO clock. Right now the ultraOCXO clocked signal goes from the Buffalo to the etherREGEN, which has a good clock but not as good as the ultraOCXO. Does that mean I am losing some of the benefits of the good clock? Needs to be tested by connecting my server directly to the Buffalo switch. On the other hand, the etherREGEN is designed to minimise noise... However, in my system using the B-side of the etherREGEN is not as good as only utilizing the A-side, so I don't go across the moat and don't utilize that part of the etherREGEN design. What does that mean for the noise generated by these switches? Would the Buffalo generate more noise? TBD. One thing that may help is to shunt the power supply on the Buffalo to ground. That's something I am definitely going to try. But as we speak about differences between my modified Buffalo and the etherREGEN, we need to keep things into prospective. The upgraded clock costs more than two etherREGENs. The power supply is another seven etherREGENs. The rest of the tweaks also cost as much as an ehterREGEN. And ever since we posted about those Buffalo switches here, the price went up 3 times, and they are still extremely difficult to find. I expect now PinkFaun will run out of clocks :)). And I need one more, so don't buy them all just yet. I will be modifying the clock on one more Buffalo and hopefully will be able to do some interesting tests. For example, what happens when you connect two Buffalos with upgraded clocks together? How do they compare to the M12 gold switch which I have access to and will be testing soon? And what if you combine two Buffalos with ultraOCXO clocks with the M12 Gold switch? I mean other than filing for bankruptcy... This is an outstanding DIY work @Nenon you didn't leave anything in this switch without modification, you pushed this switch to its limit which I like. Link to comment
tgb Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 Hi Nenon & congrats for this very nice work & report ! Regarding the photo where the clock is plugged : what are the left & right wire on the photo ? GND & clock ? which one is what ? I found the price of the Pink Faun a bit high for me, at 1250Eur (w/o VAT !). Thus I'll have a try with a cheaper one, a NeutronStar3 from NewClassD (when shortly available) at 600Eur (VAT incl. !) Rgds 2.1 basic stuff => 2 mains are Dynaudio Core59 + sub Dynaudio 18s Actives / digital AES in / active correction on PC side Passive daddy setup is dead Link to comment
genvirt Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 4/15/2020 at 9:56 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. WOW ! What a wonderful post ! Looked something like this a long time:) Read it as a bestseller for half a day:). Nenon - Thank You very much! Actually I’m a beginner here and in audio pc too, I have 4yo audio pc to which I add JCat Usb Femto card that’s make a huge improvement (now I’m thinking of upgrading to XE version) and Euphony rule it all. I decide that my PC need to change , so I want to build a new one with best audio quality possible and here Your configuration I very like and probably will come with it. I have a lot of questions , but will not put it all together while not read all around for decrease bothering. But a couple I want to ask anymore: 1. You mention that You’ve PinkFaun I2S Bridge card, but no world in the posts about - how it sound vs USB card? I’ve a Rockna wavedream DAC that has I2S input, so I thought to add it, what Is Your opinion about? 2. I was advised to use a CPU like Intel 9th Gen Core i7 9700T 2.0GHz 8C/8T 35W 12MB Coffee Lake CPU with T spec for less power using - but all what being discussed here is about 95w - apis here some reason? Does T CPU spec is not a best practice? I thought that less power better for less heating... 3. I thought to by this one motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z390I-AORUS PRO WIFI LGA1151 Mini-ITX Motherboard Do You has some experience with Gigabyte boards? Or better go with Asus that You choose? (Just curious) 4. Was advised to use this memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz Memory ... does it good? 5. I thought to get a Streacom FC10 case with Streacom ST-NANO160 160W nanoPSU and AC/DC adapter block, but now I think get HDPlex H5 with 800w atx, so in this case I understand right that nanoPSU no needed and all power will run by 800w atx? If You have suggestion where better to order parts - it’ll be nice! Thank You! Link to comment
genvirt Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 Hello! I see that with PC cases recommend to use with Gaïa feet. Do I understand right that is this ones ?https://www.amazon.com/ISOACOUSTICS-GAIA-III-ISOLATION-SPEAKERS/dp/B01NBN0UWQ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22O6LET7FO01S&dchild=1&keywords=isoacoustics%2Bgaia%2Biii&qid=1596880906&sprefix=Isoacoustik%2Bgaia%2Caps%2C313&sr=8-1&th=1 And wander why not to use three like this : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BQDQZ22/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A14FMGGKFTICNN&psc=1 Thank You! Link to comment
BigAlMc Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 8 hours ago, Nenon said: I will be modifying the clock on one more Buffalo and hopefully will be able to do some interesting tests. For example, what happens when you connect two Buffalos with upgraded clocks together? How do they compare to the M12 gold switch which I have access to and will be testing soon? And what if you combine two Buffalos with ultraOCXO clocks with the M12 Gold switch? I mean other than getting divorced and filing for bankruptcy... 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 Synergistic Research Powercell UEF SE > Sonore OpticalModule (LPS-1.2 & DXP-1A5DSC) > EtherRegen (SR4T & DXP-1A5DSC) > (Sablon 2020 LAN) Innuos PhoenixNet > Muon Streaming System > Grimm Audio MU1 server > (Sablon AES) Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC > PS Audio M1200 monoblocks > Salk Sound Supercharged Songtowers Link to comment
RickyV Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 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 🦇💩 🤪. 🤣 Meitner ma1 v2 dac, Sovereign preamp and power amp, DIY speakers, scan speak illuminator. Raal Requisite VM-1a -> SR-1a with Accurate Sound convolution. Under development: NUC7i7dnbe, Euphony Stylus, Qobuz. Modded Buffalo-fiber-EtherRegen, DC3- Isoregen, Lush^2 Link to comment
BigAlMc Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 35 minutes ago, RickyV said: I think we all are a bit 🦇💩 🤪. 🤣 No doubt whatsoever 😅 Synergistic Research Powercell UEF SE > Sonore OpticalModule (LPS-1.2 & DXP-1A5DSC) > EtherRegen (SR4T & DXP-1A5DSC) > (Sablon 2020 LAN) Innuos PhoenixNet > Muon Streaming System > Grimm Audio MU1 server > (Sablon AES) Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC > PS Audio M1200 monoblocks > Salk Sound Supercharged Songtowers Link to comment
ASRMichael Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 12 hours ago, Nenon said: I have a Taiko SETCHI D-3 to try and a Synergistic Research Active Ground Block SE. I’ve heard really good things about these... https://www.blackravioli.com/black-hole-effect/ Link to comment
Popular Post Superdad Posted August 8, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted August 8, 2020 14 hours ago, Nenon said: The clock is mounted on special vibration damping standoffs that decouple the clock from the switch board. Those sound interesting and useful. Can you share a link? 14 hours ago, Nenon said: The upgraded clock costs more than two etherREGENs. The power supply is another seven etherREGENs. I’m flattered that you use the cost of an EtherREGEN as a comparative measurement quantity for your tweaks! ASRMichael and Exocer 2 UpTone Audio LLC Link to comment
Popular Post Nenon Posted August 9, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 9, 2020 On 8/7/2020 at 9:05 PM, Nenon said: An interesting experiment would be what happens when I plug my server directly to the Buffalo with ultraOCXO clock. Right now the ultraOCXO clocked signal goes from the Buffalo to the etherREGEN, which has a good clock but not as good as the ultraOCXO. Does that mean I am losing some of the benefits of the good clock? Needs to be tested by connecting my server directly to the Buffalo switch. On the other hand, the etherREGEN is designed to minimise noise... However, in my system using the B-side of the etherREGEN is not as good as only utilizing the A-side, so I don't go across the moat and don't utilize that part of the etherREGEN design. What does that mean for the noise generated by these switches? Would the Buffalo generate more noise? TBD. Just a quick update: I swapped the positions of the etherREGEN and my modified Buffalo switch. Now my server is connected directly to the Buffalo like this: Arris SB8200 modem --(copper)--> Ubiquiti Router --(copper)--> etherRegen (fiber with Fintech transceivers)--> Buffalo switch--(copper)--> server. That turned out to be a shocking improvement! I expected a small difference that makes me do many A/B comparisons until I decide if I like one better than the other. Not at all. I just picked a random Qobuz track for the test. It just happened to be this one: artist: The Ray Brown All Stars track: You Don't Know Me album: Don't Forget The Blues But I also listened to different styles music after that to make sure it's not just that track that sounded better It took about 5 seconds from the track to hear how much better the new combination was. By the 14th second I was convinced what I heard the first 5 seconds was true. After 30 seconds there was no doubts at all. We've all been there, and you probably know what I am talking about. Towards the end of the track I knew I had a new reference! Obviously I went back and forth 5 or 6 times to double/triple/quadruple/quintuple check and never doubted even for a second which one was better. Never heard Qobuz sound so good! Going back to do some more critical listening now... beautiful music, StreamFidelity, lwr and 4 others 1 2 4 Industry disclosure: https://chicagohifi.com Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs Link to comment
lwr Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 46 minutes ago, Nenon said: Just a quick update: I swapped the positions of the etherREGEN and my modified Buffalo switch. Now my server is connected directly to the Buffalo like this: Arris SB8200 modem --(copper)--> Ubiquiti Router --(copper)--> Buffalo switch --> etherRegen (fiber with Fintech transceivers)--> Buffalo switch--(copper)--> server. That turned out to be a shocking improvement! I expected a small difference that makes me do many A/B comparisons until I decide if I like one better than the other. Not at all. I just picked a random Qobuz track for the test. It just happened to be this one: artist: The Ray Brown All Stars track: You Don't Know Me album: Don't Forget The Blues But I also listened to different styles music after that to make sure it's not just that track that sounded better It took about 5 seconds from the track to hear how much better the new combination was. By the 14th second I was convinced what I heard the first 5 seconds was true. After 30 seconds there was no doubts at all. We've all been there, and you probably know what I am talking about. Towards the end of the track I knew I had a new reference! Obviously I went back forth 5 or 6 times to double/triple/quadruple/quintuple check and never doubted even for a second which one was better. Never heard Qobuz sound so good! Going back to do some more critical listening now... Is the EtherREGEN re-clocked? Were both of the Buffalos re-clocked, or was it just one? If just one Buffalo, which one in the series was the re-clocked one? Both your experiments and your reports of the associated SQ benefits are a real inspiration. Thank you! SB88200 cable modem, EdgeRouterX SFP router, 2 series PFU Buffalo BS-GS2016 switches w/ SR7T LPS and Finisar FTLX1475D3BTL SFPs, Taiko NetCard, JCAT USBCard XE w/ JCAT Optimo 3 Duo LPS; DIY Taiko Extreme w/ Taiko DC-ATX, and Nenon design Level 3 supply; Denafrips GAIA DDC w/ Revelation Audio Prophecy Cryro Silver I2S connection to Denafrips Terminator Plus DAC; modified Pass Labs XP22 preamp, Pass X600.8 monoblocks, restored and modified Sound Lab M-1 electrostats with hot rod backplates Link to comment
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