Hi Anthony,


I just may give it a try but I do not have a power supply. I do have a linear 5v supply for the Molex and a 3.3v regulator. So I would have to find something to drive the 3.3v regulator it should not be impossible.

If I were a betting man (I would be willing to bet Peter another bottle of whisky on this ha ha) my hunch would be that it will not affect the sound when the clock is a Dexa. The clock output of the Dexa is isolated & floating. The power supply is the Dexa and it too is floating. OK I know that is not the whole story but as this has to be all about jitter...........

Nick and I have discussed a couple of times that the Dexa improvement could be about power supplies but there again who knows?

Anyway I cannot do this straight away as I am busy just now but as soon as I can I will have a play.

Cheers

Paul

I needed a PCIe USB3 card for another PC so I took the opportunity to get hold of a Silverstone. I removed the clock from the Silverstone and connected a Dexa coax. With two PCIe cards each hooked up with coax leads for the Dexa a quick swap was now possible for comparison purposes. So I could swap the cards almost in the time it takes to reboot.

The result I can hear no difference at all nothing, zippo, zilch not a sausage (probably that does not translate in to Dutch ha ha).

But it is possible to hear the very smallest of differences in this system (as both Nick and Mani will confirm) - if I move the PCIe Dexa clock just a few inches away from where it is mounted the sound clearly is not as good (presumably RFI affecting the clock).

So there a couple of interesting results: -

1. With Q5=1 if I move the PC Dexa clock to a worse location (i.e. more jitter) it is clearly audible.

2. With Dexa clock applied to a Silverstone I can hear no difference compared with a.n.other PCIe card.

Maybe this is not exhaustive but interesting none the less.

By the way removing the clock from the Silverstone card is a doddle (with 2 soldering irons) it would be my first choice card for applying a Dexa mod - much easier than the other cards I have looked at.

P

Its a watering can spray water all over the inside of NOS1 and reduce everything to earth potential.

Anthony - not sure how much of a win it was with your best players out but hey we will take anything going now!!

Not sure what effect the Dexa's are having in my system as they and their PS are not connected to PE (and definitely sound worse when they are). The clock output is floating as well.

Hi Anthony - I isolated the bracket temporarily using tape and I could not hear any difference.

Not sure if it has any bearing at all but I had strange result changing the earth layout of my system some time ago (which I posted about then). My amp is 4 x channels (amps) and each is bridged so 8 amps altogether. That does not mean a lot other than because it is bridged it accepts balanced inputs from NOS1. When I first installed the amp I had much trouble getting noise levels down to the low levels they were with my previous SE amp (never believe what anyone tells you about balanced connections ha ha). So I went through everything. The electronic ground of my amp is not connected to PE (ie it is not connected the case of the amp) so the case of my amp is not connected to anything except PE. The last thing I did with the earthing arrangement was to connect the case of my amp direct to the earth spike in the garden (which the PC and NOS1 PE's are connected to also but by a different route). So true star earthing as close as I can get it. That could not make any difference could it? wow what a difference it made probably one of the biggest & most fundamental improvements in my system. Maybe there was hash/rfi (or trafo induced eddie currents) on the case of the amp that are now routed away from NOS1. Maybe for that reason the ground of the USB in my system clean and so lifting the USB ground is not making the same difference it is making for others. Who knows? I don't suppose anyone really understands grounding arrangements anyway? and they are different for different systems and locations. A true black art.

If I remove the metal bracket (the bracket that is now plastic on your card) from a PCIe card and just plug it into the socket on the mobo with no bracket at all on the card so that nothing on the card is touching the frame of the PC and I then measure for continuity between the ground plane of the PCIe card (ie the track around the holes that the bracket screws into) it shows that the ground plane of the PCIe card is still connected to the PC frame (PE). So isolating the bracket only does not achieve anything and the ground pin of the PCIe card needs to be isolated / cut to achieve isolation. I may have missed it in this long thread but is that what you have done to your card?

Also after the posts about Windows 7 I thought I really had to listen to it again. This time with 1.186 with Q5=1 settings. And the result? exactly the same as before. It is not even close W8 is MUCH better. W8 sounds clear and precise but smooth and never tiring, piano sounds just fantastic the tonal quality of a real instrument comes across and the sound is stay up all night good never tiring. Instruments are separate from the speakers and the bass much better quality detached from the speakers and stereo. I was listening to Britten Peter Grimes the other night there were instruments precisely located in the space behind the speakers bass was stupendous.

W7 does not get even close to W8 it sounds "smudged" less defined rounded over and bass loses its impact sounding monotonic and all from somewhere in the middle.

In fact I could use the same description as Peter did in his comparison but just changing the 7 and 8 around.

Very strange. I really would like to use W7 just to get the album art back but here it just does not sound good enough!!!

Peter - is your PCIe card totally isolated from ground i.e. is the ground on the backplane now also isolated as well as having replaced the bracket with a plastic one?

By the way some time ago I spent much time getting all the grounding and earthing sorted in my system. At that time I played around isolating the USB ground at NOS1 I also lifted the black wire from the USB socket. Also I taped the bracket of the PCIe card to isolate it from the PC chassis but I could not hear any difference at all. Not a jot. The only thing I did not do was lift the ground on the PCIe card from the backplane.

But there were other changes to grounding that made a big difference................. and did not make any sense at the time but maybe they do now?

Well I can see is that there is a USB A to B converter which does not seem like a great idea - unless it has been modified in some way?

Ha ha I have not forgotten they are safe here ready for the recall!!

Also there is a small pair of clogs here but that's another story.

Peter - do you mean sugar cubes (i.e. the 1cm3 cubes that are typically stuck on the walls) http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/acousticsystem4/sugar_2.html  or the bigger versions of the same that currently sit under my NOS1 as "feet"?

As it happens I still have the three (bigger) cubes under my NOS1 only because I kind of forgot about them. I have not bothered to remove them because my NOS1 needs feet as I have that bolt head poking through the bottom of my NOS1 so I need feet.

I have to say with those feet in place and on W8 the sound here is really special (to my ears anyway) I have not recently been tempted to make any changes but maybe I should just remove them and see what happens.

Paul

I think a new thread "Condom" is needed apparently they are good for hiding hallucinogenic drugs.

Paul

Peter - this is very interesting background info. I had completely forgotten that Mark Waldren is "Dr. AIX" founder of AIX Records. I have some of his downloads and I have to say they are mighty fine sound quality. Actually the downloads come from iTrax but Mark W is founder of that also.

Paul

I have now had time to listen to different settings and I have to say my experience seems to be different to Nick's this time. Now I am listening without my internal DVD connected which affects things greatly.

First thing is that for me lower Q1 & SFS settings generally sound better to me. And the difference is consistent with what I have always found and that is the lower settings sound crisper tighter and better controlled. But it is the Q5 setting that is the most interesting.

First thing of note is that Q5=1 does not transform the sound quality as much now as it did when the internal DVD was presumably spewing noise all over the place.

But I have to say I do prefer the sound with Q5=1 to me the sound is crisper clearer and the bass is better defined. That is with 14x1 1 1 1 & SFS=1.

If I then change Q5=5 the sound is a little untidier and the bass is not quite as good. But we are not talking a massive difference overall.

I started with Nicks settings 24x2 1 1 5 & SFS=60 and to start with I thought I preferred them because the album I had on at that time the singing had less of a lisp. But then I put on another album and this time I preferred the singers voice with Q5=1 mmm not what I expected.

So somewhat inconclusive but I shall stay with 14x1 1 1 1 & SFS=1 at least for the time being. I have tried even lower SFS and Q1 settings but they did not seem to make a big difference.

So before I get completely nuts I shall stop playing with settings and listen to music which is sounding mighty fine now.

Cheers

Paul

Mmmm I will have to "pluck up courage" to try phase alignment given my history with PA. Maybe later tonight when I am feeling brave................

Paul