Hey Praphan,

Although I don´t use tubes anymore I have some experience with the KT88. I used them in my previous Supratek Mondeuse amps http://www.supratek.biz/mondeuse.php

I tried several KT88 like the Electro Harmonix, which came as standard with the amps, this tube was the more dynamic of all but also was a little brilliant for my taste. I tried also the GE 6550 (General Electric) (NOS), they make a clean sound but with less body than the other tubes. At the end I got the KT88 Gold Lion replica.They sounded really well, better than the other ones and have an acceptable price. The Gold Lion were smoother and easy to listen. Whatever the tube you choose try them with different kinds of the other tubes in your amp to get the final sound that better suits your taste.

Best regards,
Juan

Probably you are right. I use a SFS of 430 and I noticed that it covers very well a volume range between -36db and -27db. That´s the range I use almost all the time for all my music. With that in mind I realized however that most of the time -33db  is the perfect volume level, but is that due to the acoustical condition of my listening room and to my system (amps/loudspeakers)?, or it is due only or mostly to the SFS setting?. Probably all the parts are important and related.


I really don´t know if that would be easy to do or even if that would be possible, but wouldn´t it be easier to choose the best sounding SFS setting for the most usual volume level and vary the volume a little depending on the album?. For me at least this way works well.

However I must agree with you that this is a relevant issue and that there are important differences in SQ with a certain SFS at different volume levels.

Best regards,
Juan

I really don´t know if anyone has the same mb and case I have but, for the ones who are using the same system as me I´d like to post some considerations. I believe however that what it has to do with vibrations is applicable to everybody.

So far I had working in my case three 18cm fans in the bottom, one 12cm fan in the upper side of the case and one in the cpu cooler (the Noctua NH-U12P SE2). Now I took out all the fans but two, those that are in the bottom of the case.

This case, the SilverStone Fortress FT02, has 90-degree motherboard mounting design that makes a favorable effect for natural heat convection, the CPU fan is oriented in to the path of the coming air flow from the bottom fans. I took out the CPU fan but the two working fans at the bottom provide enough air to maintain the CPU, motherboard and North bridge at 41ºC, 39ºC and 66ºC respectively which is well into the safe side. The warm air goes out of the case for the upper part which is open. The room temperature is 23º/24º.
The speed of those two fans are fixed at 900rpm so the noise barely audible. The psu fan is never working because it has enough cool air coming from one of the bottom fans.

The hard drives don´t need any fan, they are in vertical position so the air is also naturally going upwards, also the rear part of the case where they are is open (you can see part of the WD Green label)

The case is closed but only in the front side, the rear side has no cover although this part is almost totally closed by the rear plate where the mb is attached, this open rear part allows a better refrigeration of about 4 or 5 degrees for the cpu than when it is closed.

I have also the case resting on four Vibrapods.

At the end what´s the situation now?:
-Just two fans vs 5 fans that I had working before.

That means:

-Less interference.

-Zero vibration in the mb because there is no fans in the cpu nor in the gpu which is passive.

As this has to do with hardware and not with software the improvement in sound that I can feel now, smoother and cleaner sound, are applicable at any XX version, including the next 0.9z-7 and in my opinion has to do, besides with less interference, mostly with the lack of vibrations. Even those cpu that are refrigerated by water has vibrations.

Vibrations are considered very important in the audiophile world but still need deeper consideration in the music pcs.

Here you can see some photos. The only working fans are the two at the middle and right side in the bottom of the case.

Best regards,
Juan

Tall and tan and young and lonely
The girl from ipanema goes walking
And when she passes
Each one she passes goes haaa...
 

Enjoy it, Mani!!

Best regards,
Juan

Most of us are using now the USB 3.0 as the interface to connect the music pc to a) external hdds, b) to connect the music pc to the NOS1.
The advantage to improve the USB 3.0 speed for transferring data is obvious but I wonder if the speed of the USB 3.0 has any influence in the sound quality when transferring data to the NOS1.

I´ve found this interesting review: Faster USB 3.0 Performance: Examining UASP And Turbo Mode http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3-uas-turbo,3215.html

Turbo mode can be found in the bios (at least in the Asus boards) and can help to burst the USB 3.0 performance. http://event.asus.com/mb/2010/The_Best_USB3_Experience/The_UASP_For_USB3.0.htm

Manually enabling Turbo mode on a board from a vendor that doesn't offer its own utility is possible by modifying the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbstor\054C00C1 registry key. Add a 32-bit DWORD value named "MaximumTransferLength" and specify the maximum transfer size value between 65535 (64 KB) and 2097120 (2 MB) in the data field.

I enabled Turbo mode in both ways, in the bios and in in the registry and it seems to me that now I have a better sound.
Maybe others could test it and let us know about it.

Best regards,
Juan

When I look back to the long road covered I realize that the road ahead has no end 

Ok, reading it more carefully I see that you have it very well thought and built.

But let me ask it in other way. How could take advantage of your music pc the people who already have one? I´d like for example one HDD with XXHighEnd installed "perfectly" I mean, installed by you personally. To get XX correctly installed is one of the bigger issues people have.

Let me suggest you the use of a water cooler as an alternative to the Noctua , eg Reserator, also being used by another ones in the forum. Not my case yet but could be an option for a totally silent pc.

Best regards,
Juan

Hey Peter,
This are great news for the ones who want a music Pc. Let me ask you a couple of things:

- For the ones that already have a music Pc would it be possible to order just some parts?

- Would be nice if this music PC could come with XXHighEnd already installed as an option, even if it requires the OS also installed. Would it be possible?

Best regards,
Juan

From my experience I can confirm that the NOS1 does sound much better in my system than my $24.000 Emm Labs CDSD SE/DCC2 SE and that is why I sold the latter. And the EMM Labs it is considered among the best cd players in the world. Nothing against EMM Labs, but that´s the way it is.

Best regards,
Juan

I, as anyone else, appreciate Peter´s work and also I´m conscious that he´s receiving little financial reward in return. I wonder even if that exhausting work situation is sustainable without a proper financial support. What I can say is that any decision Peter takes in this regard will have my support.

Best regards,
Juan

  -------> 

I think you are right Peter, I´m going to use a computer as remote and see how it works. I have two possibilities:

- As I work with a computer in the same room where I have the music system I can use this pc as a remote. I don´t use it with wi-fi or lan. This computer is absolutely silent.

- I could use also a HP netbook mini 110 that I also have although its battery doesn´t work and it has to be connected to the wall, this model doesn´t have bluetooth either, so I must buy an adapter if I want to use it.

Meanwhile let´s wait to see what others with tablets can say about their experience (thanks Mani).

Best regards,
Juan

The other device I always had in mind is the Asus EE Pad Trasformer. It has several advantages like the possibility to use it as a tablet or as a notebook with a detachable keyboard that also add extra battery time. It also has an USB 2.0 port.

Peter, wouldn´t you mind to take a look and give me your opinion in terms of functionality as remote?: http://eee.asus.com/en/eeepad/transformer-prime/specification/

Best regards,
Juan

No, I´m not sure, I just read that it is possible to use the iPhone to thether it to the iPad.

Of course I know that I´m going to use the iPad also for some other things, like surfing the web or reading the XX forum but you are right, there are an unlimited world of accesories that can rise the final cost.
On the other hand the difference with the cheapest device to be used as remote could be around 300€. Does this difference make it worth what the iPad offers in terms of image quality or speed surfing the web?. I need to make further investigations.

Regards,
Juan

Hi Mani, reading the iPad manual I´ve found that you only need wi-fi to use FaceTime (see pg 55 http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/ipad_user_guide.pdf.) If you are outside in a place without wi-fi you can use your iphone with 3G to provide your iPad with 3G.

That means that if I am going to use the iPad mostly as a remote the best option is the cheapest one or as much the 32gb model , although I´m not sure if I need that extra 16gb. This extra 16gb cost 100€ that I could use for example to buy an authentic ebook. I´m not going to use the iPad to store movies or to play games so probably the 16gb is my best option. I´m going to wait for a while before I order it to see other´s opinion.

At 479€ for the cheapest iPad I must add also the price of the bluetooth dongles, two in my case, and that makes a total of 579€ which is a big amount for a remote.

Best regards,
Juan