Build a dedicated Audio PC

[Fran]

All good to hear. antivirus and search is a killer I reckon. They had to turn off all search on teh PCs in work due to the amount of bandwidth they were using!

The heatsink is just a simple lowish profile one, nothing fancy. Since I was keeping the fan I wasn't too worried about getting the most super duper one.


Fran

[nige2000]

just after dismantling the build to put more thermal paste on the cpu knocked 10 degrees off, although now it looks like a toasted cheese sandwich. think ill put the lid on it and forget about it.

what do you think is best for music file storage ssd or usb3 external hard drive?

Ciunas with jplay 5.1 sounded great, although we focused mostly on getting the best out of the pc, and im glad i wasn't chasing low ultrasize for nothing.
i feel confident enough that it would play without issues at us=30 at up to 24/192 without having to rise us. it does play @ 28 but want to leave a bit of room as there is a odd little pop or click (as very seldom as it is its still can happen)

will have to hear the ciunas again. i don't know how else to reduce us/latency without heavily reducing the functionality of the os, disabling usb ports would most likely help, but i sort of need em.

another thing ive noticed just now, is a small benefit of using usb3 ports for the dac, probably power related.

[jkeny]

I couldn't get my US down below 200 with the NUC in single PC usage. I'm not sure if booting from USB & using USB DAC is putting too much latency demands on USB handling so I decided to order a mSata drive to boot from or play music from & see how this goes. I Nige is able to get below 30 on i3 CPU then I was hoping I could too with lower clocked i3 CPU. Different motherboard will also make a difference, I guess.

Anyway, good to hear that lower US improves sound, now achieving this lower US becomes the challenge.

In answer to your question about music storage, Nige, I think it depends - on the one hand you have the issue I mention above - on the other hand you may be able to provide a cleaner PS to the USB stick which could be of benefit?

Edit: Here's a link to a discussion on music storage devices that might help? http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaud ... 21831.html

[jkeny]

Turns out that link I gave to Audioasylum isn't very useful - the place lives up to it's name - the sanity displayed on this forum is a shining example to how possibly contentious topics can be discussed/debated/investigated.

Anyway, I borrowed a Mac to see if I could boot from my USB stick & after reading the guidelines about this I thought it was a fail but lo & behold rebooting the MAC while holding down the alt key shows the bootable drives & the Windows WTG is one of them & it can be booted from.(IT only works from a cold start & not from a restart). I'll check out Jplay running on it etc. but the bad news is that I need the WTG for my tests so won't be able to send this WTG stick around to Mac users. My other 32Gb USB stick is agonisingly slow so creating a WTG stick with it is not really feasible.

[nige2000]

Turns out that link I gave to Audioasylum isn't very useful - the place lives up to it's name - the sanity displayed on this forum is a shining example to how possibly contentious topics can be discussed/debated/investigated.

Anyway, I borrowed a Mac to see if I could boot from my USB stick & after reading the guidelines about this I thought it was a fail but lo & behold rebooting the MAC while holding down the alt key shows the bootable drives & the Windows WTG is one of them & it can be booted from.(IT only works from a cold start & not from a restart). I'll check out Jplay running on it etc. but the bad news is that I need the WTG for my tests so won't be able to send this WTG stick around to Mac users. My other 32Gb USB stick is agonisingly slow so creating a WTG stick with it is not really feasible.

i've a macbook pro retina and macbook air both enter boot drive select on holding alt key on reboot and cold start.
well you got it going thats the main thing.

[Sligolad]

Nige, i got my system runing great by changing bitstream in Jplay to 32 from native....guess the extra bits added as padding help with errors, syncronisation, network transfers, who knows but it has taken nothing away from the sound at Ultra 20.
Tried bitstream at 24 as well but pops, clicks and ocasionally white noise still an issue so 32 is what works very well for me!

[jkeny]

Nige, i got my system runing great by changing bitstream in Jplay to 32 from native....guess the extra bits added as padding help with errors, syncronisation, network transfers, who knows but it has taken nothing away from the sound at Ultra 20.
Tried bitstream at 24 as well but pops, clicks and ocasionally white noise still an issue so 32 is what works very well for me!

Great, Pearse, I must try that.
I tried low US setting on Mac Air but still no go - US of >200 still needed.
I'll run Latmon on the Macbook Air later to check it's latency figures & post them here.

[nige2000]

Nige, i got my system runing great by changing bitstream in Jplay to 32 from native....guess the extra bits added as padding help with errors, syncronisation, network transfers, who knows but it has taken nothing away from the sound at Ultra 20.
Tried bitstream at 24 as well but pops, clicks and ocasionally white noise still an issue so 32 is what works very well for me!

where do you adjust the bit stream Pearse?

i have to set any of my pc's to at least us=30 to make absolutely sure no clicks or pops at all,even though alot of the time it will play hi res at 28 with out issue but its annoying if it does.

sotm card making any difference for you?

[nige2000]

silly me bitstream staring me in the face, its not surprising i spent a half hour one day looking for a tool that was in my pocket!!!!

my current dac doesn't support bitstream 32 so i cant test it.

will that change from 24 to 32 not have a similar affect as rising the ultrasize?

[Sligolad]

I can never remember if i used the right term or not Nige, it is on the JPlay Settings panel a couple down on the left...could be slightly different name!!

Can't say the SOTM card makes much difference, a couple of us listened with and without at Tony's one night and did not hear any real difference so we all concluded it was not worth the money!
I now have put the iUSB power supply on the line out of the SOTM and I believe it improves the sound but again have not really had time to do AB on this. I expect this would work just as well on normal usb out.