Hi Peter,
My Silverstone usb is the same! I replaced it by the PP. What is the trimpot? The round thing underneath the clock next to the molex connection? And how does it work? I can do some tests with it.
Regards

Hi Peter,
What Silverstone card are you using? I have one laying around.
In the meantime I did some changes on the bios BLCK setting! Tested different settings, 93, 100, 99.8, 101, 101.5 etc Still more to try. And yes they make a difference. Currently my best setting is 94.6.
My daughter is helping me, she is 13 and hears the highs better than me, I am 50.
She complains about aer hurting highs with most of the setting, but the 94.6 gives the best results so far. Maybe there are better settings.
Feel free to delete this post if off topic......
Regards

Hi Peter,
Just a small update. With the currently low q1 and SFS settings the tick is at the start of the track now. Not a big issue anymore.
Regards

Hi,
Just info. The lowest I can get is SFS=0.6 and q1=4. With SFS=0.2 and q1=1 there is no sound. In between random skipping sound.
Arjan

Hi Peter,
I just heard a live album, and you are right (as always) no tick.
I am sure that I hear on other cd's this tick not at the start but short after the start of the track.

What I will do is, next time I listen to music (more albums) I will make notes. And will come back on this.

I was hoping that with all the changes we are doing (Q and SFS) this tick should vanish.

Thanks, Arjan

I always play albums. After 3 or 4 tracks of the album the small tick starts. At the start of a new track, around 1 or 2 sec in the track a small tick happens. The first 2 or 3 tracks of the album are okay. The tick is as if it skips some data, not much.
I also tried W8.1, although the sq was not good, this tick was gone.
I have tried al kind of settings but notting seems to change this behavior. Any suggestions?

Kind regards, Arjan

Hi Peter,
Yes, this is much better, the SF=0.8 does the trick! All details are back!
I was already on Q1=6 and SFS=1.2 and that was an improvement. In the past going below 1.2 was not possible for me so did not try that.
My clock resolution is on 5ms. I can not have 0.5ms, it sound compressed.

I can say that the SQ has never been so good!

Hi Nick,

I have the audio grade usb3 card and did some test today. First I used a external battery Konig 5V-2.1A 7000 mah (normally used as backup for an ipad) via a usb-molex cord. This is no success! Maybe not a good battery to test with, but that is the outcome. Next I tested with an external linear peaktech lab power supply. Much better. But the normal internal bequiet power supply (pure power 530W L7) still beats that....

Some other results of the tests: PC without the hood is much better, more open sound. Also the harddrive outside the pc box made a nice improvement.

I have a little problem with the usb card, only the 5V leads may be connected. It seems that the card is leaking through the 12V leads. But it works fine without the 12V leads in the molex.

I checked the card it seems that the additional components are connected via some small leads soldered to the molex. So connect this to a separate battery seems possible.

kind regards 

Hi Coen,

I saw a picoPsu on the same site were the audiograde usb3 comes from.
It is Max. 160 - 168 watt. Why are these picoPsu's so limited?

Yes, a one box solution is the best. The idea of splitting the pin24 and CPU power was just my 'out of the box' thinking. But as stated before I am not an expert. So I totally missed the power management issue.

Regards, Arjan

Hi,
I am reading this interesting discussion. I am not an expert!! but here are my ideas:

I will use 2 simple adjustable supplies (PEAKTECH-6080) for the audio grade usb3 card 5V and HDD (via esata) 5V and 12V. I already ordered this.

Will try later a picoPSU 160 XT with following fixed output supply, EA Elektro-Automatik EA-PS 2012-15 (12V 15A).

Question will this picoPSU work on the XXHighend PC? If not, possible solution: Leave the standard ATX supply on the 24pins and use the picoPSU to feed only the CPU and fans?

regards, Arjan

Hi Dave,

I use the ASRock X79 Extreme4-M micro ATX mobo. It might be cheaper then the Asus. It works fine for me. Maybe Asus has more features, but for SQ they are not needed.

regards, Arjan

First reaction of my daughter of 12, wow dad this is much better! Yes, it is a fresh, open and clear sound. Really good.

regards, Arjan

Hi,

Same issue also here.

kind regards,  Arjan

Hi Peter,
Solved! Uninstalled Windows Essentials Security and Unattended is running. Now we are listening to the best SQ ever heard on our system!
regards, Arjan

Hi all,
I have my new audio PC up and running, based on a 3930K processor. And the SQ is super!!!
I have one issue, when trying unattended it never starts playing, the famous message that should disappear will never disappear...... Any suggestions?
kind regards, Arjan