Nick, wow this must have taken you ages to work out. Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing the fruits of your efforts with all of us.

It's going to take me some time to try all of this out. And having bought a bunch of fans and HDDs, it's going to be a bit of a painful process stripping Le Monster down. (But hey, nothing compared to spending months sourcing a PMII and an expensive Weiss interface only to have the combo handily beaten by the original NOS1!)

Mani.

A quick update on how I'm getting on with my amps...

They're great, and I love 'em! Every change in the music (different recordings, XX settings, etc) comes through loud and clear. It's a cliché for sure, but I really don't think these amps have much of a sonic character... and yet they sound like no other amp I've ever heard. Ergo, all other amps I've heard do have a sonic character...

Attached are some measurements of the amps' THD performance (taken from Gerd's white paper):

1. Be careful here because I'm pretty sure K1 denotes the fundamental and K2 the 1st order hamonic, etc. This being the case, it's clear that the amp is dominated by even-order harmonics (K3 and K5), with the 2nd order harmonic rising linearly with power.

2. I'm not sure how common this is, but the THD just doesn't change much with output impedance.

3. Finally, THD remains pretty constant throughout a large bandwidth.

I'm no electronics engineer, but I think these results are impressive considering the design of the amp.

Mani.

DHF, why don't you try persuading Peter to sell a Juli@ card to you which has been upgraded with ultra-low jitter clocks? I'm assuming he has quite a lot of these cards hanging around as most NOS1 owners have upgraded to the async-USB input now. (In case you don't know, the original NOS1 used an upgraded Juli@ to interface with the PC.)

I bet you'd get a very nice spdif output from an upgraded Juli@. Just a thought...

Mani.

Ah well, in my case this was a mistake. I first tried the 460W fanless PS from my previous totally-silent PC in Le Monster. Although the LEDs on the X79 mobo all lit up, the PC would not boot up. So I tried another 460W PS from my other totally-silent PC. And again, Le Monster just wouldn’t boot up. Whenever I’ve had boot-up problems in the past (mainly using linear PSs in Atom PCs with SOtM modules installed) the culprit has always been a too-low-powered PS. So I naturally assumed this was the culprit here and so went ahead and ordered a 1000W PS. And once installed in Le Monster… it still wouldn’t boot up! And you want to know what the issue was? It was the bloody power cord I was using!!! It was rated at 5A, so should have been fine, but it just wasn’t. I replaced the power cord with a 13A one, et voila, everything worked fine. I haven’t reverted back to one of the 460W PSs yet, but am sure they’d work fine. Actually, the CaseLabs W8 allows installation of two PSs – at some point I might try powering the mobo with one PS and all peripherals with another.


Yeah, that was the idea. But I can’t figure out how to go ‘headless’ and also use XX in ‘Minimise OS’ and ‘Unattended’ mode. I’m hoping 0.9z-7 might provide a solution… For now, I’m using a cheapo Asus GeForce GTX 560 Ti.


My pleasure Nick. If you come up with any particular tweaks for the mobo let me know.

Mani.

A short while ago, Nick asked me about the specific component list of 'Le Monster'. I thought other people might be interested also, so here it is. Most of these components are readily available from Amazon, apart from the case.

HTH. But please feel free to ask any questions.

Mani.

• Caselabs W8

• Seasonic P-1000 ATX 12V 1000W Platinum Series Power Supply Unit

• 6x Noctua NF-P12 PWM 120mm Cooling Fan

• Asus P9X79 Workstation Series Motherboard

• Intel Core i7-3960X Processor - 3.3GHz, 15MB Cache, Sandy Bridge, Socket 2011, Intel Turbo Boost Technology

• Noctua D14-2011 Dual Radiator PWM CPU Cooler : NH-D14-2011

• (2x still on pre-order) G Skill Ripjaws Z 4x8GB DDR3 PC17000 2133MHz Kit for Intel X79 Quad Channel Platforms (currently using G Skill Ripjaws Z 16GB DDR3 PC17000 2133MHz Kit instead)

• Dell WD3000BLFS Western Digital 2.5 inch 300GB 15K SATA Raptor Drive with Sharkoon HDD Mounting Frame, 2.5-inch and 3.5-inchHDD Vibe Fixer Pro

• 4x Seagate Barracuda 3.5 inch 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB 6GB/S Internal SATA Drive

• Perixx PERIBOARD-515, Wired Professional Touchpad PS2 Keyboard - 370*138*20mm - 2.0m Long Cable - US Layout

• TeckNet USB 3.0 PCI Express Interface USB 3.0 Dual Expansion Card (Molex Splitter NOT included)

• USB 3.0 Ultra High Speed Cable - 5 Metres - Blue - Male A Plug to A Plug 5m - Indigo Banana Media

• USB A Female to B Male Adapter

Hey Paul, very nice indeed. So in a normal seated position, do your ears sit above the headrest of the chair or below? I suppose this'll have a major effect on the 'sound of the chair'.

Totally, totally

Lately, I've really lost interest in following up on the likes of 'computeraudiophile.com'. It seems to me that the real leading edge of computer audio is right here on phasure.com...

Mani.

Anything to share yet Paul?

I was thinking, money no object, what one thing would I buy to enhance my listening pleasure? And you know what, once you have the best DAC and the best amp on the planet (IMHO of course... hehe) there isn't much left to want. A very, very nice sounding pair of speakers perhaps. But even then, I'm not sure which ones I'd go for. Maybe a pair of Cessaro Gamma I speakers, with matching basshorms... in cream finish to match my not-blue NOS1.

Mani.

Not currently using the Molex power input. But might try this later this evening, once the kids are asleep. Will report back as soon as I've tried it.

Mani.

OK, a blue listening chair.

Mani.

I think we have to be a bit careful here. I've only just now had a chance to really listen and compare them, with the USB2.0 controllers disabled.

Well, they certainly sound different. The mobo USB3.0 port (ASMedia driver) sounds 'softer' and in a way 'sweeter'. But everything is perhaps a tad too 'rounded off', though this makes for a very pleasant and easy-to-listen-to sound. In contrast, the PCIe USB3.0 port (Renesas driver) sounds 'clearer' and 'cleaner'. But it can sound a bit forward and 'hard-edged' at times. (I just hope this isn't due to increased noise in the system - things can be so deceptive).

In both cases, the XX settings can be changed to make the sound more acceptable. With the mobo USB3.0, I found that Scheme 3 and SFS=430 sounds pretty good. With the PCIe USB3.0, I found Scheme 1 (thanks Nick) and SFS=470 sounds good. Right now, my preference is with the PCIe USB3.0. That clarity is just addictive.

Oh and the 5m USB3.0 cable with A-B USB adapter works fine. I've been doing all this evening's listening with this cable and, if anything, actually prefer it to the standard 1.5m USB2.0 cable that came with the NOS1. It sounds smoother.

In total, I paid less than £20 for the PCIe card, the 5m cable and the adapter. What a tweak!

Mani.

Hi Nick, will give Scheme 1 a go.

I went for an Asus P9X79 WS mobo. This does indeed have two ps/2 ports, so a non-USB mouse and keyboard shouldn't be a problem. The only minor annoyance with this mobo is that although you can disable USB 3.0 in the BIOS, you can't disable USB 2.0 there (the only option given is to disable 'legacy' USB 2.0). It seems strange that no option is given, but after hours of looking, I can't find it.

Mani.

Hmm...

Well in that case, I think it's some sort of super duper listening chair.

Mani.

Hey Paul, ? How much better could your system get for God's sake?

Is this a tweak or an actual component? The only component I can imagine that would 'obviously' improve your system would be a Sauermann amp. Barring something so dramatic, you must be upgrading your crossovers. Has that Peter Qvortrup been up to his sales tricks again?

Mani.

Hi Nick, thanks for this. After trying a few things, I stumbled upon this version of the driver myself, an hour or so before I saw your post. In any event, it has done the trick. Everything now works as expected (see attached jpeg).

And the sound? Well, very, very nice indeed. This £10 PCIe card may well end up being the best investment I've ever made in hifi. Thanks so much for letting us all in on this Nick.

And I'm still only using the standard USB cable provided with the NOS1. I've also just received a blue USB 3.0 cable and cheapo A-B USB adaptor. The only slight issue I have is that I had to order a 5m length of USB 3.0 cable, in anticipation of installing Le Monster in its permanent resting place in the cellar. I suspect this length may have a detrimental affect on the sound, but I really have no choice as Le Monster simply cannot stay in the listening room. I'll probably order a 1.5m length of USB 3.0 cable also just to hear how much the sound suffers with a longer length.

Thanks again Nick. This is a simply superb tweak.

Mani.

Oh no, I've just had my first BSOD in 2-3 years I guess.
(The last time was when I tried a PCI extender to use with my RME PCI card.)

I've just received a cheap (€11) 'Teck Net' PCIe USB 3.0 card from Amazon, which has the NEC/Renesas chip. With the Renesas driver installed, the card works with all other USB 2.0 devices I've tried... except the NOS1. When the NOS1 is connected, as soon as I launch XX, I get the BSOD.

The Renesas driver is version 2.1.28 and the firmware 4015. I've looked hard and long on Google but can't find newer driver/firmware.

Of course, I'm not worried about losing €11, but would love to be able to compare this PCIe card with my mobo USB 3.0 ports.

Any ideas?

Mani.