Juan hi,

I have my system back up now and have been having a go at tunning the recently built pc. At the moment I have all cores unparked, I will try both configs as well.

After a couple of days playing around the sound is really great. I'll post a few notes on what has worked. I'v not done anything new, mainly stuff that we have come across before but boy the ASUS X79 / 3930 CPU really, really responds 

This SoTM card looks interesting, seems like it may not be available yet but could be a useful upgrade.
 
http://www.sotm-audio.com/products7.php

Nick.

Well I couldn’t wait for the decorating to be finished. I set the system back up this morning, it will have to be moved out again in time for Monday but I’m  so glad I had listen.

I found something out about the old, and not so trusty as it turns out, motherboard in my last PC.
 
I have held off doing a PC upgrade for years and kept using an ASRock G43 chipset mother board. Throughout this time improvements in the system (XXHE releases, using a HiFace, gainclones,  iterations of the NOS1 and USB3) have removed layer after layer of distortion. BUT, still at higher up-sample rates (> 88khz) a veil came over the music making it slightly confused and no matter what I did it just would NOT go away. In addition to this veil there were also strange high frequency overtones present when I tested the system with sweep frequency tracks. Still a superb sound overall to listen to, but bl**dy frustrating 

This morning with the new motherboard (I doubt the problem above was down to the old Quad core CPU) the problems have gone ! Peter will know how desperate I have been to banish this problem and has helped so much with suggestions. Many, many thanks Peter, you were right 
 
The point I wanted to share is that motherboards CAN and DO cause distortion, in my case it has been easly masked with other forms of distortion in systems for years but it was there all the time. It makes this thread very important IMO,  information on good PC builds is clearly so important to sound quality. My PC has components selected from both Juanpmar and Mani’s builds so a BIG thanks guys for posting the details or your builds.

The sound of this new PC Build is quite epic compared to the old, the things that stand out are the substance in the music, the timber of voices / instruments and the smooooothness. And this without much tunning yet of the system and with Z09-7 on the way. I am late to using a really hi spec PC compared to many on the forum so I others will know all about this but I am really pleased the upgrade.

Nick.

Ps Spec details of my build to follow.

Pps the old PC is now going to do punishment as an internet toaster for my daughter, it has no place in a music system
 

Juan hi,

Thanks for feed back on your experience. I will be able to take a better listen myself when the my main system is up again and noting Peters warning (here http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1989.0) decide if its for the better. At least the change can be reversed easily.

I think Gonzalito must take credit for spotting the registry edit. I as said in the original post here, I had a feeling I had read something similar, as it turned out is it exactly the same Gonzalito's suggestion.

Best,

Nick.

Thanks Peter

I had a feeling in the back of my mind that I had seen something 

It's an interesting effect on sound applying the change but I  take you point made in the other post that it may not be for the better.

Nick.

Juan hi,
I think more cores will help SQ, the OS has to place interrupt driven requests to processors whilst music plays and there are block memory copies taking place for XXHE. For the load these create I doubt that the parked cores would be stepped up. This means that there is a greater chance of interference by these processes with the CPU (s ?) looking after audio and USB drivers etc.

Also the process for unparking a CPU will take a little time.

Give it a go there are only three registary key values that have to be changed and see if you can hear it.

Best nick.

Hi,

I have been setting up my new PC which has a 3930 CPU with 6 cores or 12 when set to use hyper threading. As many people are using multi core CPUs I thought his may be useful.

I have searched Phasure to see if this has come up before and could not find it so apologies in advance if those with lots of cores already know this.

When looking at the CPU load graphs in Performance Monitor I noticed that 6 of the 12 cores available were marked as “Parked” next to the CPU load graphs. This was the case with or without XXHE playing so not something that XXHE was doing, Humm….

Goole turned up an answer to this. It seems that W7 default behaviour is to “park” your expensive CPUs effectively turning them off in the interests of power saving !! I my case with a 12 core system only 6 cores were left running. I have attached a link to a registry edit that solves this and gets all cores running.

http://pcmichiana.com/disable-cpu-core-parking-for-multi-core-processors-faster-7-episode-20/

I am having to listening using USB powered £20 Logitech speakers (main system down for decorating) but I can hear the difference in sound quality with the CPUs un-parked.

It would be interesting to know if anyone listening with their “proper system” has “parked” CPUs and gets an improvement with this tweek.

Best,
Nick.

Ps I have a second possible little tweek regards CPUs configs but I need to get my normal system up to test this first.
 

Mani hi,

Many thanks for the details of "le monster", that is some build and worthy of the name IMHO.

My "demi monster"  is up and installing W7 just now. We have a lot of components in common the main being the Asus X79 WS motherboard which looks superb. I am still using my existing HDD and see you have sourced some very high performance drives so I may give these a try.

I will post more on the config when I get music playing ok. It may be a few days because the rest of my system is stored away safely whilst the decorators finish the hall 

Out of interest what graphics card did you go for ?

Thanks again,

Nick

Juan hi,

Interesting findings for Scheme 1, I think Mani has a very high end PC as well now and also mentioned a slight sharpness using scheme 1. I will soon be able to test on a new 12 core PC myself, the parts for my demi monster PC build have started to arrive today .

Listening,

A lot of posts have been from NOS1 users so it’s good to know that the HiFace also benefits. I will be helping a friend build a setup based around a HiFace very soon so I will spec a USB card for his PC, thanks.

Regards,

Juan,

Good to hear that the card works so well. I think there is a definite evidence now that this particular card / chipset tends to out perform some motherboard USB3 ports which is good for us all to know.

Have a go with processor scheme 1 (you are showing Scheme 3 in your signature), the detail level is crazy :-) but it still manages to sound right.

Best Nick.

I love XXHE, well done Peter really top stuff !

(post from an IPad just waiting to be used for this  )

Paul hi,

So pleased that you have had a good experience with the PCIe card. Boy the detail level is something particularly with scheme 1 ! I hope your system has reached new hights of sound and comfort this week 

Don't stay up too late 

Best,

Nick.

The card I have has SATA power connection. As far as I can see the chipset is powered from the PCIe bus and the aux SATA power is there only to provide for the higher spec inline current delivery of the USB 3 standard. When I hooked the SATA power up to the pc ATx supply to try it if anything sound had very slightly more edge to it. I guess this could be the effect of connecting the SMPS relatively directly into the NOS via the USB +5v in line supply.

Regards Nick.

Really good spot, solves the mouse / keyboard issue over USB. The only problem is that this was my last excuse for holding off so this is going to be expensive 

Nick.

Hi,

Another thing to try if using USB 3 is setting to scheme 1. It seems the differences are easier to hear now. Scheme 3 was my favorite using USB 2 but with USB 3 scheme 1 seems to be a good deal more detailed and smoother at the same time.

Regards,

Nick.

Mani hi,

I am very pleased to hear that the card works so well. I suspect that the native PCIe connection gives a very low transfer latency for the audio stream which is good. Of course it could also be a good driver for this chipset as well.

Looking at the architecture for the 3960 I have a feeling you may have the best platform available right now  It's interesting to get information on the comparative sound of mobo v's PCIe USB particularly in your system as I think I may shortly have a very similar setup. Thanks.

I have been trying different USB cables that I have about the house. Using a blue USB cable changes sound in my system but not clearly for the better more "just different". As it happens for a week of so I'v been using a 5m cable (thinking that the length may help to attenuate some pc generated noise). I don't know if it really helps with noise, but I can say that you shouldnt have too much to worry about using the long cable 

One quick question did you go for the Sabertooth x79 board ? The only thing it dosent do that I would like is that it only has one ps2 connection so its hard to keep both the mouse and keyboard off USB.

Best,
Nick.

Ps try shutting the mobo USB off in bios (best) or device mgr, that should give an improvement  too.