Build a dedicated Audio PC

[nige2000]

Definitely loose fit the cooler before you sit the motherboard into the case

[highstream]

The silver cable from elijah made a big, positive difference in my mac/jkdac system.

Anyone using the Cu version or have a sense of the difference between the two?

[markof]

The silver cable from elijah made a big, positive difference in my mac/jkdac system.

Anyone using the Cu version or have a sense of the difference between the two?

I tested both cu and ag cables in my system for a month.
Both are about 10cm long, have data and gnd connections but the live has been isolated. This suits the battery-powered JKDAC32 very well.
I found that both cables were a big improvement over my previous Chord cable and direct connection using USB adapters.
The difference between the Ag and Cu came down to a more refined and laid back sound with the Ag, which suited my personal preferences. The Cu is more foreward and was a little harsh at times in combination with the Audirvana player. The Ag has a different braiding pattern (tighter braid) and the cable is slightly thinner than the Cu and both are very well built.
Michael at Elijah can send both cables for audition, you can choose and send the other back.

Keep the cables short if possible - you can see my set-up in the Computer Audio for dullards forum. The JKDAC 32 is to the left and back of the mac mini.


Mark.

[nige2000]

The silver cable from elijah made a big, positive difference in my mac/jkdac system.

Anyone using the Cu version or have a sense of the difference between the two?

I tested both cu and ag cables in my system for a month.
Both have data and gnd connections but the live has been isolated. This suits the battery powered JKDAC32.
I found that both cables were a big improvement over my previous Chord cable and direct connection using USB adapters.
The difference between the ag and cu came down to a more refined and laid back sound with the ag over the cu, which suited my preferences. The cu is more foreward and was a bit harsh at times in combination with the Audirvana player. The ag has a slightly different braiding pattern (tighter braid) and the cable is slightly thinner than the cu and both are very well built.
Michael at Elijah will send both cables for audition, you can choose and send the other back.

Mark.

i dont know about Eliijah cables, but i agree on the comparison between cu and ag, actually has a similar effect as ag and cu interconnects.
i prefer silver too
its not difficult to improve on your run of the mill usb a to b cable

[tony]

Thanks to Pearse got over the ethernet direct connection set up. For anybody else who gets caught by it 192.168.1.1 and one pc and 192.168.1.2. The mistake I made was assigning any old addresses which were not recognised.
Now have to check my us settings and see how low I can get! Ok still 170. Any lower no joy. From talking with Fran awhile ago feeling is dac drivers require us in a certain range and getting lower aint necessary any better or failure to get lower isnt a problem.
Now that might be wishful thinking on all our parts.Pearse can get very low it would be interesting to see if expensive dacs can all get lower us settings or are settings all over the place for all.

[Fran]

Pearse can get it low on the meitner, but not on the jkdac/ciunas (err, I think, correct me if I'm wrong). Different drivers.....

I really don't think that lower US values are to be chased after. Josef has said this repeatedly, and I'm inclined to believe him. I have mine up around the 400 mark for the last good while.

I have to catch up on other stuff around the house, but the next job after that is to run that script from CAD on the jplay forum. It seems to get to bits of the registry that would take a long time to work through.....

The cable from ebay came in on thursday, and it works AOK. I haven't tried to isolate the 5v yet - another job and I need to do these one at a time! I think I'll fit a switch in place so I can swap from mobo 5V to external 5V and see if there is a difference. Depending on what I find out, the next step might be to switch back to the SSD powered from the external 5V supply and see if the ground between it and the USB stick is down to power supply only (ie SSD pulls more current than the USB stick, and maybe this is the reason for the stick sounding better).

Fran


EDIT:

heres the link I posted earlier on how to set up a direct connection:

http://www.networking.windowsreinstall. ... onnetwork/

[tony]

Never saw that link Fran would have saved a few hours today!
Re the CAD settings had a little look at that not in any hurry to jump into that. I suppose if there is a restore point it is easy to revert back that would be my only concern.

[nige2000]

Thanks to Pearse got over the ethernet direct connection set up. For anybody else who gets caught by it 192.168.1.1 and one pc and 192.168.1.2. The mistake I made was assigning any old addresses which were not recognised.
Now have to check my us settings and see how low I can get! Ok still 170. Any lower no joy. From talking with Fran awhile ago feeling is dac drivers require us in a certain range and getting lower aint necessary any better or failure to get lower isnt a problem.
Now that might be wishful thinking on all our parts.Pearse can get very low it would be interesting to see if expensive dacs can all get lower us settings or are settings all over the place for all.

im running at 170 us as well, can go a bit lower but it works perfect every time at 170, think Frans right about the drivers requiring a certain range as with the ciunas it either works or it doesnt, on my old dac i was loosing sq under 30us and picking up errors.

the meitner uses the Thesycon drivers it goes down to 20 but i could not differentiate between us 20 and 250
but think it still makes a difference with other dacs and drivers

[Ken Moreland]

Well done ,Tony, very smooth build and working right away too. Low US is not the holy grail, my old POS P4 can reliably do US down to around 130 but Nige's i3 with a higher US 170 had a better sound with his linear power and USB3 ports etc.
I installed a PicoPSU + Maplins PS last week but couldn't get my PC to boot until I put the voltage up to around 12.8V. Suspecting the PS I brought the PC round to Tony's and it booted immediately on 12.1V, so PS back to Maplins(Blanch) and convinced the salesperson(Mohawk haircut, very helpful) that it was defective and brought the replacement home. Same problem. Turned out the flimsy little connecting cable was the problem. Working fine now.

[nige2000]

Well done ,Tony, very smooth build and working right away too. Low US is not the holy grail, my old POS P4 can reliably do US down to around 130 but Nige's i3 with a higher US 170 had a better sound with his linear power and USB3 ports etc.
I installed a PicoPSU + Maplins PS last week but couldn't get my PC to boot until I put the voltage up to around 12.8V. Suspecting the PS I brought the PC round to Tony's and it booted immediately on 12.1V, so PS back to Maplins(Blanch) and convinced the salesperson(Mohawk haircut, very helpful) that it was defective and brought the replacement home. Same problem. Turned out the flimsy little connecting cable was the problem. Working fine now.

The cable must not have been able to carry the required power. When there was a surge of cpu processing requirement (along with power requirement) went up and motherboard shut down when it didnt get it causing it to reboot
I hadnt thought of the cable been the issue, I was sure it was the ps