Juanpmar,

Some positive feed back on your ATX supply suggestion.

I bought the Coasir AX750 PSU you have used a coupe of week ago after reading your build review. It’s defiantly a high quality item with what look like very good quality components internally and a high standard of overall finish. Fitting the supply produced a definite positive change in the sound quality compared to my old £50 ATX supply. The fan has so far not come on at all in my PC so it is running completely silently  and there is no electrical noise from the cooling fan. Great !

Thanks for the recomendation,

Nick.

60 Hz doh! 

Tweeks 1.5 and 6 sound interesting as I have only 1 to 4. hope all is sounding good even if they cannot be measured 

Nick.

Peter hi,

Very interesting, I certainly have system "bad days" for sound....

One question, can you use your analyzer to do an FFT on the mains 60hz supply ? Perhaps setup a resistor potential divider to pick up the single level you need for the analyzer.  It would be very interesting to see a post of what the spectrum looks like. Bet its not a nice sharp spike at 60hz.

I'm in the car now but I'm going to have a careful read through your notes later.

Nick,

Ps change number 4 on the NOS1 is running now, will pm you with the details

Paul,

Sorry, actually some of the guesses are close to what is being changed, but I would rather Peter looks the changes over before saying anything too specific. Rest assured there is relatively easy headroom to be had which could be good news for NOS1 owners.

Regards,

Nick.

Just thinking what next sorry 

Hi all again,

Change no. 3 is now in the bag. Again it is quite simple, based on something I have done before this time inside the PC and also inspired by something that Peter mentioned in a PM.

The sound change is a significant one. Just when I thought that all the hash had gone, much more has disappeared, when will this stop ?  , I really don’t think there is much more left now. Sound changes centre on effortless macro and micro dynamics with improvements in instrument tone and levels of substance (again). Its all very "real" sounding and not at all forced. I am not quite sure about this but there could be a very, very slight loss in bass extension and high frequency response (compared to how changes 1 and 2 sound together). The three changes working together sound so right however that I am working on the theory that these small changes to the top and bottom end are just reflections of what is in recordings.

Altogether things are sounding pretty special now

As usual I will send the details over to Peter to look into and test.

Nick.

Scroobius hi,

I'm glad to hear that you are having shuch a good experience with your new NOS1.

If you can draw yourself away from listening to the NOS1, just for fun try listening to your Audio Note DAC driven by the NOS1 SPDIF output. I was surprised by the results when I tried this with my DAC 4. I defiantly still prefer the NOS1 but you get a good impression of what an Audio Note DAC can deliver when driven by a very good SPDIF signal 
http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1523.0



Could be even more tunefull bass etc to come 

Nick.

Juanpmar hi,

Great post, very interesting. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

Did the PC work first time with XX and the NOS1 ? (If so the component choices are interesting for me as I will need to upgrade some time soon).

What do you think the to sound quality compared to your old PC, have the extra speed, quality PSUs etc made many difference to sound ?

Thanks Nick.

Ps that's one nice looking system you have in the audio system pictures 

Gerard hi,

Just the stuff I have always done with DACs but the results here are bigger than usual. I think it is a function of how well designed the NOS1 is. If you stumble on a slight bottle neck and address it lots "gets through". I'm very interested to see what Peter makes of the changes how they measure etc. I'm always a bit cautious of posting claimed improvements just in case they don’t work elsewhere.

Hope your enjoying the sunshine !
Nick
.

Update

The post started with the tile "NOS1 to the next level ?" the "?" was there for a reason  . I have applied a second change now and IMHO it's time to drop the "?" (at least in terms of NOS1 potential).

What has changed ? very little (physically) and a great deal (sound) ... after the second change (very small change really and related to the first) the sound has just improved by another big step all over again  . More hash gone (I didn't think there was any left after the 1st change !), better bass performance (just listening to the hinges and doors in my house rattle as I write), improved dynamics and slam, sound more separated from the speakers etc etc.

You can really hear the differences that XX software settings make much more with the changes in place so it took a while to get to the sweet spot but its defiantly there now

I will send the details of change 2 to Peter to look at as well.

Nick.

Hi guys,

I'm proberbly as interested as anyone to see what Peter makes of this. It's not a passive component or cable upgrade.

I have had more time to form an opinion and play about with lower buffer levels than are the norm to compliment the change to the DAC, I'm convinced there is something very good here. What I have in my setup is a long way from a productised solution though, this is Peters domain if he likes what the change delivers enough to think it worthwhile.

There are a couple more things that might help  :)but I want to compare notes with Peter on these.

Regards,

Nick.

 Parphan hi,

They are good thoughts points 1 to 4 but its not these. In my case the DAC has not been touched with a soldering iron... Peter suspected magnets applied to the case (his joke only  ) , but the details are with Peter to test now. Let's see what he finds, could always be that I had a case of rose colour glasses this weekend (i don't think so though    ).

Cheers,

Nick

Gerard,

No problems. Have a drink for me too 

Nick

Gerard,

It is inside and quite simple in concept but I really don't want to say more because it is very important that Peter has time to look into it, test, measure, listen and take proper view on what if anything he would like to do. My comments are subjective only as I do not have the equipment to test quantitatively.

Being inside the DAC is defiantly not a recommended place to be. But I have been working with Peter on some aspects of my system setup for quite a while which is why I have been in there with his guidance - defiantly not recommended otherwise.

I have already passed some details on and I will send Peter some parts to try the concept when he gets back. It may or may not be something that Peter can use generally, it's absolutely his call.

Best Nick.

This is bit of a teaser post I am afraid for folks using NOS1s but listening to my system as I scan the forum I have to post on the subject

I have stumbled across a way to make the NOS1 significantly even more fantastic than it already is (to my ears). Bass is there in spades (rich, deep, superb pitch), tone of instruments superb (strings, brass, cymbals), just the most analogue sound I have heard from digital. The body and presence, sound stage and sense of performance are quite superb. The difference is similar in effect to moving from z3 to z4 but much more pronounced, you hear it from the first note played !

Anyway what I plan to do is send some gear over to Peter when he gets back from holidays in a couple of weeks as I think it is important that Peter looks at this before any more is said.

For now what I can say for a fact that there is a lot of "headroom" to be had (if you can image that) from what is an already undoubtedly a perfect DAC. 

Regards,

Nick.

Hi Boleary,

I am a big fan of relatively modest amps driving easy load high sensitivity speakers.

I have Avantguard Duos but any of their range would be very an excellent bet. They are all genuinely over 100db/w sensitivity. I bought used more than 10 years ago and have not looked back. I had Quad ESL63s before which became second system speakers for a while but whilst I loved them I simply could not afford the power amps to really control them well at the time.

Now I use gainclones amps with the Avantguards and get remarkable results  . The only down sides I can think of is that Avantguards are very large in a domestic setting (which may not be a god thing for you) and they are rare used.

The other speaker that would be on my list are Living Voice Avatars, they are made in Nottinghamshire, close to where I used to live. Always excellent reviews offering with high sensitivity and a very easy load to drive.

Best Nick.