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376  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: Hunting for noise on: October 13, 2013, 08:51:52 am
Hi Nick

Why are you using a VCXO (Voltage Controlled Chrystal Oscillator)? These are used for PLL. It makes no sense to use them on a position with fixed frequency...

Regards Coen
377  Ultimate Audio Playback / Orelino / Orelo MKII Loudspeakers / Re: My definition of Ambience on: October 11, 2013, 01:33:53 pm
Insights from the (former) "golden age" of audio.

Regards,  Coen

378  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: AMD 6800K or the i7 2600? on: October 11, 2013, 12:37:32 am
Hi Coen

I know its better to have a 20 euro grafic card.
The igpu sounds worse.

Kind regards,
Michel

You are completely right! The IGP s@cks. That I did not think of it myself sooner unhappy. Sq is drastically leaping forward here.

Thanks for the reminder,

Regards, Coen
379  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: Controversial post and new Setting on: October 09, 2013, 12:36:08 am
Hi Coen,

What is the cluster size you use with NTFS ?

Regards,

Alain
PS: Did you try ExFat also, with 2048k clusters ?

I did not experiment with nfts clustersize yet. On fat32 i found the small clusters (2k min for a 6gig ramdisk) a bit thin/sharp and the higher values (up to 64k) a bit thick/slow. Not a really big difference. The 4k standard value seems a good compromise.

I did try exfat but it sounded maybe even more unnatural. Also the AWE driver messed negatively with the sound. All this is rather subtile though, but it is able to annoy me real fast!

On my system the ticket that made a significant difference for the better was selecting NTFS.

Regards, Coen
380  Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: Controversial post and new Setting on: October 08, 2013, 11:07:53 pm
You're right on Gerard!

I messed around with my speakerfilter setup which gave a few usefull insights, but couldn't get it to sound as I believed possible.

Next to a lot of small stuff one thing that REALLY helped was changing the IMDisks (now only playbackdrive) format from FAT32 to NTFS. The clustersize does matter, but not nearly as much as this simple change.

Now these new "controversial"  settings also work out very fine with me. I just experienced a very very very low punch base drum on Patricia Barber's "Regular Pleasures" track and all perfectly in sync with the music. Also tonally very even and a refined presentation of details. I did not hear this before on WIN8.

I'm even considering a move to win8 now  Happy!

regards, Coen
381  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: AMD 6800K or the i7 2600? on: October 06, 2013, 09:42:18 pm
Quote
I switch off the igpu function in the bios.
Its not the same i geuss?

Yep, the IGP will be disabled and without a video card you will have no graphics Happy!

In my setup this wasn't a clear difference for the better, actually I preferred without it. But that was a long time ago. Maybe I should dig up the 20,- EUR card.

As a compromise you could lower the IGP clock to the minimal value.

regards, Coen
382  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: USB Cables... again on: September 29, 2013, 02:17:33 pm
Of course it is concerning that this cable eliminates the ESD protection. Perhaps, if the merits of this cable design are accepted by he whose mind is unchained from such trifles as "knowledge,"(Move over Buddha, here comes St. Peter!)  a new means of protection will be developed.  Happy


For the record: esd protection of the usb is still working as designed with and without the usb power cable.

Maybe the good sound is due to the lack of the 5V wire or maybe it is about a superior design and implementation of the others. I am glad this works for you!

Regards, Coen
383  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: How to build a silent PC for XXHighEnd on: September 28, 2013, 11:51:14 pm
Hi Coen,

I think the i7-3930K will use a lot more than its 135w TDP...I have seen a figure around 170w somewhere or other.  My JPlay PC (when I had it) would draw less than 2A when running but would peak somewhere around 5A when shutting down (only 4A as startup).  Most PC's use more power shutting down than starting up, which seems strange.
Anthony

Check.

The 135 Watts is for power heat dissipation (TDP: Thermal Design Power), brief powerpeaks of 170 W should be within this thermal limit (think of a low duty cycle). Thats why you should have a safety margin on the PSU side.

The Jplay PC was/is kind of minimal wasn't it?

Windows does shut off and stores lot of stuff when powering down.

regards, Coen
384  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: How to build a silent PC for XXHighEnd on: September 28, 2013, 11:10:48 pm
Hi Peter,

In my pre NOS1/XXHE days I played with a linear psu and it did make a difference on the PC.  Is it your position that it could make a difference?  Or is it your position that if it does make a difference that something else is wrong?

When selecting the SMPS psu for my XXHE PC I followed your recommendation for the BeQuiet L7 530w because you had measured it somehow and determined that it does not spew too much hash back into the mains (I read that on this forum somewhere).  If we have a SMPS that works like that, where do you think the gains of linear supplies for a PC may lie?

Or is that a can of worms you would prefer not to open?

Regards,

Anthony

Anthony,

If I may,


135W is peak constant power... for the CPU only. Not when XX is running, but on booting...

This alone will fry the powersupply. Then there will be a videocard, memory and motherboard chips, all consuming watts. All summing up to a very weird powerconsumption between almost nothing and a lot.

A stable linear PSU that will do 12V @ 20Amps (that is like a safe rating) will be huge and very hot when challenged. You could parallell several smaller (linear lab) powersupplies but how do you make shure they are loaded evenly? I think most professional gear doing this kind of trick is 100% with a switched supply.

Linear PSU are fine for mac minis, laptops, energy efficient i3s, Atoms, etc. Not for "monster"PCs.

Also the motherboard itself got switching transistors to convert the 12V to 1.xx Volt that the CPU needs. You really can't get away from switching supplies.

But I have a hunch that the switching supplies are more gentile (inefficient) to the powerline when fed from a transformer. Most supplies have Powerfactor correction these days for compliance and energy saving. This couples the loading of the PC almost perfectly to the powerline.
A "linear" transformer at the input will decouple (filter?) all this stuff a bit so less noise on the line. Ideally for audio would probably to ditch the PFC and input rectifier and feed the primary voltage from a transformer and recitifier bridge. You will still need an enormous transformer to avoid sagging and the PSU loosing function.

Just some thoughts.

If you want simple and still good sound, buy a premium seasonic or something.

regards, Coen
385  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: USB Cables... again on: September 28, 2013, 03:25:00 pm
Hi Alain,

I cut the sleeve of the cable at the beginning and end. Pried out the 5V and cut it at both sides. So no 5 V at the NOS whatsoever.

I have not tested the cable when turning the nos1 off and on. It is allways on. The driver has no problems recognising the nos1. It should not matter since the 5v line is only connected to the ESD chip for safety.

Mayby you have a different nos1???

Regards, Coen
386  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: USB Cables... again on: September 28, 2013, 11:33:49 am
It cannot harm to look at the errors in the NOS1 driverpanel allthough you will probably find nothing there. I think my execution was too poor. Also I suspect the cut screen to have more to do with the errors than the cut 5V wires.

Regards, Coen
387  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: USB Cables... again on: September 27, 2013, 03:38:42 pm
I made a quick and (very) dirty "data only" cable from an existing €1,- one very similar to the one i use normally. i cut the shield and red 5Volt wire at the DAC side of the cable and pried out and cut the red cable on the PC side leaving the shield connected.

Iow:
Shield connected at pc side only
Power line cut at both sides not being able to pick up or transfer noise.

I will report my findings when i have a little more listening time on this cable. I also have a concern for esd safety that I have to reason out.


Regards, coen

This experiment is over.
No general improvement in sq, an unpleasant haze and ticks during playback gave away the flawed implementation. Error counters went through the roof after a couple of hours playing. No fixing applicable here.
Goning back: no errors whatsoever with the normal cable.

The strange thing is that sometimes it suddenly sounded real good only to disappear soon after, often in the same track. I did not discover any reproducable structure in this phenomena.

Regards,  Coen
388  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: USB Cables... again on: September 25, 2013, 05:32:27 pm
I my case with connected shield and powerline, the esd chip was blown. Iow the 5V protection was short circuit to ground. Somehow a current from the pc to the NOS1 ground was created. Cause onknown. At first I thought about the pc, but it was more likely that the nos1 amplifier had something to do with it. So far i did not investigate this any further. I have the habit of disconnecting the NOS1 when i do something to either the pc or amp.

Regards, Coen

P.s you need special equipment and some precision skills to repair the board.
389  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: USB Cables... again on: September 25, 2013, 04:21:43 pm
Hi,

About ESD safety: I see no reason for immediate concern after studying the esd protection chips datasheet.

The chip povides esd protection on +,- and 5v lines. So even when you cut the 5V wire on the cable, the NOS1 is still protected against esd on the 5V pin (and of course on the other pins) of the USB receptable via the traces of the USB board.


Still:

The matter of unexpected currents over the 5V line remains and it is not known what happens to these currents when the 5V wire on the cable is cut.
Please be aware that this no-powerline approach may backfire one day.

Regards, coen
390  Ultimate Audio Playback / Chatter and forum related stuff / Re: USB Cables... again on: September 25, 2013, 02:08:08 pm

Anyway, the change in sound is very substantial. Though I agree with most of what Mani and Joachim have said about a data only cable, one thing Mani said I didn't experience: here, with the data-only cable, the bass is now less deep but far more natural. I used Eva Cassidy's version of Fever whose intro is bass heavy. A/B-ing with the new cable was a revelation regarding a natural sounding bass. Moreover, for the first time, I was able to play the entire song at ear splitting levels.

A very quick first impression of my cable tweak: this does NOT work.
Like Boleary the whole soundstage sounded a lot "lighter", but with a pinched midrange and cymbals piercing needles in my ear. Gone was the magic sound i was experiencing before. Not good.

knowing myself audiowise: there is no cure for a bad first impression.

With the old cable much more wood and chestiness in voices and instruments. You can hear a piano is a wood and metal instrument. The music is really captivating. Well no punishment to go back.

This is all too quick in my view. This needs a second chance.

So I reconnected the screen at the DAC side. Well this sounds ok now, lighter but agreable. I will dive into the sound a little deeper tonigt.

Probably there will be some break-in involved so no definite conclusions for now.

Regards, coen
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