Thanks Fidelio for keeping this thread updated with interesting new PCI cards. That ouverture sure looks pretty serious. Would be nice, though, to see som highres pictures to check out more details. Or listen to one 

Per

Peter, THANKS A LOT - I really appreciate your attempts . It will be easier and cheaper to set up a quiet music pc if one can go for a less powerful processor and XP. (I buy one, I will go for the dual core Atom 330 or faster, though - just to have some spare power Keep up the good work. Per

Have you tried setting Priority for PlayerPrio and ThreadPrio to "Nothing"? I read about this here:

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=629.msg4493#msg4493

while playing playing around with an earlier version (demo) version (engine#3) on a slower laptop and getting the "... did not start in time" and other error messages (I think...)

Per

Hi Peter,

Wow - that would be well received, I think / hope

Will that open up for running XXHIGHEND fluently on Atom 230 (single core) and XP?

My guess would be that you have written an ASIO driver for XP?

Keep up the good work.

Per

Hi Peter,

What about running a naming contest for 1) XXHIGHEND and the 2) PHASURE NOS1 DAC.  You would have nothing to risk as you could just stick to the names you already have if nothing better surfaces.

Per

Peter, I think the Danish DACT guys discuss what you are talking about in this link:

http://www.dact.com/html/ct102_vs_batteries.html

Per

Thanks a lot JohanZ for the suggestions and the link. I might start out cheap then with the standard HD2 and the opamps you suggest. It would be fun to AB listen to the Burson modified HD2 and the standard HD2

Per

Thanks Mojave. Looks very interesting, too. But as far as I have read, the Asus Essence ST does NOT do 88.2 and 176.2 khz sample rates - whereas the Audiotrak Prodigy HD2 should do anything between some 33 and 192 khz. Isn't that important in order to not hamper Peters great intentions with upsampling and arc prediction in version 0.9y-4?

Per

Thanks a lot guys, Great comments.
 
That was exactly the kind of discussion / content I had in mind when starting this thread 

Keep it flowing 

By the way. The Burson modded Audio Prodigy HD2 se is priced at $322 or 217 EU plus VAT. What are we talking about for the Onkyo SE-200 ltd?

Per

Hi all,

I think it would be great to have a thread to discuss PCI soundcards.

While I was searching for a good internal soundcard (to analog out) to get a good but lowprice start with XXHIGHEND 0.9-y4 and upsampling / arc predition I stumbled over this modded card from Itemaudio:

http://www.itemaudio.co.uk/prodigy_hd2.html

Looks interesting. I might give it a try.

Best Regards,

Per

Thanks, Earflappin. I live in Denmark - on the beautiful Island of Bornholm http://bornholm.info/?langId=2 just south of Sweden and actually it belonged to Sweden once so you were very close with your guess 


Well, to be honest I do not know. But I guess so.


I don't know right out from memory of any finished SLA battey based powersupply product besides UPS powersupply's for PC's that some audiophiles use, but a while ago - on a rare day where I felt a little better - I just connected my TEC 7510 DAC to a standard 7.2 aH SLA battery that my wife boutght me (They are very heavy stuff these lead batteries said my ahcing muscles Well, I cut the power supply cord from the DACs cheap standard switchmode powersupply and connected the wires (remember right polarity!) to the poles of the battery. I then just put back the small plastic protector connectorcaps on the battery poles - and voila,  up and running I was with a drastically improved sound quality.

I have read that it is advisable to ALWAYS put an inline fuse of for instance 1A on the positive lead from the battery to prevent any disasters. (Remember a 12 volts SLA battery of 7.2 aH is VERY powerful and full of hazardous metarials). Enjoying the sound quality (every aspect improved) I unfortunately forgot to monitor the voltage on my SLA battery and when the sound from my DAC started dying and distorting terribly it was also too late to save the battery  Voltage had dropped to (well, errm, to below 6 volts) I was not able to recharge / revive the battery.... 

Regarding sound quality and different brands of SLA batteries, Yeo from www.diyparadise.com has strongly advocated for Hitachi as the premium choice for sound quality. On another line one could also experiment using Li-Ion batteries or the newer Li-Iron types. I think Wavelength Proton (from Gordon Ranklin) has some kind of semibattery psu design based on an internal Li-Ion battery. From what I have read battery power always fare very well against quality linear / switchmode psu's even though the output resistance from a top quality psu is much lower (around 0.1 hom or so I think) Output resistance is - I have read - important for minimal noise and sound quality. But using a battery hooked up the way I did is definately more difficult to handle than an ordinary plug and play psu...

Hope all this was not to way off-topic. Praise to Peter for his very kind and forgiving attitude

Per

Hi Earflappin,

Fun you mention it - I have also thought a lot about this. Actually I plan - when my health allows - to set up an external PCI expansion box that only contains the soundcard. Besides needing the physical strength to fiddle around with all this (I suffer from a severe muscle disease) it is also a rather expensive approach. A box like this from Magma http://www.magma.com/products/pci/1PCI/index.html costs about a grand (thats more than a hot-rodded PC!) I have though seen a noname box - for PCI express only - at around 300 dollars but the EU based company (I do not recall the name) never responded to my inquiry if a PCI interface card was available.

The idea about seperating the soundcard and the PC is - as I see it - that you can supply this box (and your soundcard) with a clean DC supply (12 volts) from a SLA battery or the likes. Secondly the soundcard sits alone in the box - totally awasy and shielded from the motherboard and other noisy parts of the PC. The only connection between the PC and the expansion box is the PCI / PCI-express interface cable between them. (There might be twists to this that I do not see a non engineer)

It would be very interesting to measure distortion and and noise on a soundcard sitting 1) in a PC vs the same soundcard 2) in an expansion box with its own DC (battery) power supply.

Another and more DIY approach could be to use a PCI riser for the soundcard in an ordinary PC, cut the 5 and 12 volts supply tracks on the riser card and connect these by wires to an external power supply instead. That would be a lot cheaper than an expansion box (if it works that is) The only thing that this solution would not do is seperating the soundcard from the noisy inside of the PC. But that could be had if you'll be radical enough to extend the PCI riser out through PC case having the soundcard sitting in a cage outside the PC - much like you see with tube amplifiers! That would look pretty cool, I think  The only problem with this radical approach would be whether the distance between the soundcard and the motherboard would be too long but with the right case it should work - maybe a mini or low profile (1) PC case.

Now I got this out of mind (for now) - so thanks for bringing up the subject of EMI / RFI / Power supply, Earflappin. It has been a pleasure to read about adventures with setting up XXHIGHEND.

Good luck to you and all - and please keep us posted on the results I personally would love to know if anyone has actually tried the expansion box approach to the soundcard and if they actually gained sound quality improvements from this.

Best wishes,

Per

Fantastic achievement, Peter. 

How does your dac sound when fed a 16 / 44.1 signal from a ordinary CD transport through either SPDIF og AES? Do you have ANY idea if the price of your dac will end above or beyond the 2000 Euro mark and when it will be ready for sale? Are we talking 1 or 2 years from now cause I might be tempted to live with my humble TEC 24 / 96 spdif and toslink dac and rig a PC with XXHighend and souncard with SPDIF out until then. And start saving up....

Keep up the good work - and take care.

Best Regards,

Per

Hi Peter,

Wow - these graphs show impressive low THD+N even when measured at -20dB. (0dB should be even better measurewise - but I am not an engineer so my understanding is pure layman on this). Have you measured liniarity at low levels - for instance at -80dB which is how some Hi-Fi magazines often test CDs and DACs.

Thanks again for sharing your work and enthusiasm. Now we all anxious await to hear the news

"PHASURE DAC-1 is ready to ship - introductory price - $499.99"

Take care.

Best Regards,

Per Borgen

PS: Hmmm - I still wonder how you get that I2S signal out of the PC... ;-)