I'll be sound asleep.  Hope it is a good one Peter.

Hi Peter,

Care to share what your "special footers" are yet?  A photo of your setup would be nice just so it is clear in our minds just what you are doing.

I've not tried my boards yet.  I have not one single audio style footer of any type in the house...never ever tried them.

Cheers,

Anthony

Seems to be the things to do...

It does seem impossible.  My mate was having his car serviced had and walked down the road to Ikea to kill some time.  Thought he would give me a call...

Well you would not credit this timing, but a mate gave me a call out of the blue today from of all places Ikea.  I said "how about you spring me a couple of bamboo cutting boards, the big 3 layer ones".  He says "you would not believe it, I'm standing right next to them"

So I have two on the way!

Nick, I think Peter is making a funny...instead of "hash" think of its equivalent words...mull, ganja, weed.

I doubt you will even need the crossover cable Mani, just a normal one should be fine with modern ethernet controllers.

I just came across this article in AudioBeats using Ikea bamboo cutting boards.  It is worth a read...

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/blog/ikea_aptitlig.htm

The suggestion is basically to couple the equipment to a mass that randomly resonates (the layered bamboo).  We don't have an Ikea anywhere near us here but it might be something to try.

Which one?  The couple that I have seen are not that great.

Hi Peter,

Given your recent efforts with super low noise clocks in the NOS1a and Nick going nuts with clocks here there and everywhere in the PC, perhaps it is time for me to resurrect this project.  Maybe this will help with the next rounds of advancement in computer audio.

Cheers,

Anthony

Ok, I understand that but what is the way forward?  Just stuff and stressed "sandwich" under the pc and some soft springs under the sandwich to damp frequencies under 5hz or so?

Is listening the only way to quantify a change in SQ?

Second question Peter.  Is it possible to "measure" the jitter for the different PC damping solutions to get some idea about the relative contribution of various vibrations to the change? Such as the two images you posted above...although it would be ideal to be able to generate a histogram on the jitter spectra rather than rely on the fuzziness of the line on the scope.

Perhaps change one variable at a time: usb cable routing and type; proximity to the soundroom; various types of "damping" et cetera.  I know that is a lot of work, but it is a nice linear workflow that may be able to shed light on which vibrations matter.

As as aside, your observation that softer damping of the PC works best seems to correlate with the idea of removing or minimising low frequency vibrations from the floor/rack.  Softer damping generally means that lower frequencies are absorbed by the damping.  Harder footers probably serve more of a "tuning" function and in my opinion based on my limited knowledge of this subject those sorts of "tuning" footers are "tweaks" rather than solutions. 

Cheers,

Anthony

Hi Peter,

Interesting!  But I really really don't want to be thinking about this stuff, and perhaps neither do you, the number of combinations and permutations are staggering and I think that getting to the 'basics' or essence of the issue will be very important here without getting sidetracked.

So, first question regarding your jitter images in post #3 above.  Can you be sure that your exercises did not affect the measuring equipment as well as well as the dac?  Or perhaps one more than the other?

Cheers,

Anthony

Price I believe.  The Xeons are very expensive.  I purchased mine second hand for less than the cost of the i7 otherwise it would have cost twice the i7 new.

Peter, I think that you are right about internal resonances affecting the NOS1a as well as the external musical vibrations.  You may remember a while ago we talked briefly about isolating the dac clocks on some form of suspension within the NOS1a in an effort to attenuate some mechanical vibration.

But the footers that you are experimenting with would largely be decoupling the NOS1a from vibrations that come via an excited floor would they not?  I think that the footers would have little effect on internal resonances, so getting the NOS1a into the basement away from the pressure waves of playback is a good start to the experiments (although you have been experimenting for some time now it seems).

Anthony