Build a dedicated Audio PC

[nige2000]

right i have it running
sound has improved alright.

have to do more listening to figure out what the differences are
not a huge amount in it for me, as i had to listen back and forth on it before i noticed

fran i had a look under the hood of the ps didnt have a clue what i was looking at, decided to chance it, but im sure it cant be good.

can you make sense of this i thought there would be a dial / knob or something


id be able to fit the contents of the powersupply into my case if it came to it.

car batteries with jump leads hanging out off them would be a little mad alright
well im just experimenting see what makers the difference

[nige2000]

The wide input picopsu is only a max of 120w I think, so might be a bit low for a zuma. Also a car battery is gonna cost 50 quid, plus a charger, so not worth it I think.

Things have settled a bit, in that the pcs are built and we've had a bit of time to tweak them. How would a meet up next week suit?

Fran

sooner the better maybe it will stop me buying parts

[Fran]

Nige2000: I wouldn't run the 13.8V into the pcioPSU for long - you might damage it easily enough.

See the pot down towards the bottom left of your pic, looks kinda like this:



Make a note of where that is set right now, then attach your multimeter to the outputs and try turning it one way or another. See if the voltage changes and set it to 12V.

If turning it makes no difference, put it back to where it was and try the other one up a bit higher in your pic.

Fran

[Sligolad]

Tony the Teddy Pardo is just a really clean Linear Power Supply (no batteries) which is one of the best available, maybe a Paul Hynes linear supply may be a tad better but they are very hard to get at the moment with long waiting lists for the mans work.
I am a bit concerned the TP supply may not have enough juice in 4 amps but will take the gamble for clean power!!

Talking about clean power this whole digital lark is getting weirder by the week, spent the evening stripping the Meitner right back so as to screen the inner case of the big Switch Mode Power Supply with some of the 3M EMI/RFI sheets I had and the result has me shaking my head in disbelief.

Next outing of the Meitner I will have to look for a sanity check from yourself or others who heard it to see if anyone can hear a difference as it sounds very different after powering it up once the job was done...and all in a very good way.

Next project to try what I have left in the Zuma and see if it makes any difference.

[Sligolad]

Things have settled a bit, in that the pcs are built and we've had a bit of time to tweak them. How would a meet up next week suit?

Fran

I am good for next week Fran, could do with some sanity checks on recent changes!!

[Fran]

Tony:


You still need the picoPSU - and most likely the 160XT one.

What we are talking about is the "brick" that supplies that picoPSU. This bit is somewhat like the charger for your laptop.

So what I have done is instead of using a type of power supply called a SMPS (switch mode power supply), which are cheap, very efficient, but tend to affect SQ negatively, is use a much less efficent different older type of supply, normally called a linear supply. This is bigger, heavier, uglier and generates a bit of heat to boot. But tends to sound better.

Fran

[Fran]

All good for next week.

The story here is that there's some painting being done here this week, to be finished by the weekend, then on Sat we have a kids birthday party, followed by a clean up and recovery on Sunday!! So then from Monday of that week on I should be OK to host a night, or if people want we can wait until the following Sat if people want to do it during daylight.

Once we fix a date maybe we could draw up exactly what we want to do...

Fran

[Fran]

Came across this tonight (linked from jplay) and thought it might be useful for anyone using an SSD

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/opti ... n-guide-2/


FRan

[nige2000]

Thanks fran try that tomorrow
I'm out in a bar been subjected to terrible sound

[jkeny]

I came across this to add to the information stack - optimising the Zuma http://ppastudio.blogspot.com.au/2013/0 ... ocket.html