Build a dedicated Audio PC

[Gerry D]

denial is not just a river in Egypt

:)))))

[tony]

denial is not just a river in Egypt

:)))))

whatever those ))))))) things are I got the same experience

[nige2000]

mqn 2.35 vs jplay 5.1 streaming

well more like
mqn on single pc on a tri battery supply server with gui vs jplay 2pc streaming 6 batteries core server

mqn had more detail and clarity

whereas jplay had more body and soundstage, soundstage in this system flowed and filled every inch of the room, detail and clarity wasnt bad at about 92% of what mqn had

after listening to mqn previous to jplay you know straight away something is missing, but once you feel the soundstage and body of jplay streaming it more than makes up for it.

i still prefer jplay streaming (on this system) right now but im going to continue to use both

[tony]

Quickest delivery ever ordered at 2 yesterday arrived 9:30 this morning. 2 batteries to be connected up over the weekend.
To hell with MQN for the moment not enough time to try it out but will get back to it. Great strides by this guy if he has got it to this stage already.

[nige2000]

Quickest delivery ever ordered at 2 yesterday arrived 9:30 this morning. 2 batteries to be connected up over the weekend.
To hell with MQN for the moment not enough time to try it out but will get back to it. Great strides by this guy if he has got it to this stage already.

fast delivery,
didn't come from hong kong or china anyway

easiest way to trial mqn with an optimised system is to get a 16gb sandisk and put ws +gui on it and mqn and thats it.
otherwise just install on what you have win 7,8 etc

this mornings mqn is getting good reports, i try to limit myself to one every couple of days


Tony be careful with them batteries disconnect the pc first and check voltages before connecting,
theres been enough casualties in this war

[tony]

[fast delivery,
didn't come from hong kong or china anyway

easiest way to trial mqn with an optimised system is to get a 16gb sandisk and put ws +gui on it and mqn and thats it.
otherwise just install on what you have win 7,8 etc

this mornings mqn is getting good reports, i try to limit myself to one every couple of days


Tony be careful with them batteries disconnect the pc first and check voltages before connecting,
theres been enough casualties in this war

Came from glasnevin europower very good to deal with would recommend them. Whats the link for the mqn thread?

Thanks for the warning do I just connect in series with the maplins and then ensure 12volts registering on multimeter? I think Ken turned the maplins back up a shade further up the thread but wont do that initially.
Do I hold both vice grips when joining together?

[nige2000]

this is the way i did it


coming from the power supply to the battery terminals then on to the 4 pin plugs for cpu and pico




in series + to + and - to -
their just stopping off to recuperate before making your pc sound good :)

and no vice grips in sight!!!!!!

[Sligolad]

OK ran some AB tests this morning with TT against dual PC streaming.
Before my conclusion let me elaborate a bit on my audio PC changes since I last heard it.
Yesterday I added Paul Pangs best available SATA cable to the OS disk in the Audio PC....I have always resisted this as it did not make a lot of sense to me that the sata cable would make that much difference, the power cable made sense but Sata NO!!
Anyway with all the positive reports and people saying it made more impact than usb, etc. etc. I relented and....I think maybe they were right....scratch head time!

I also added Paul Pangs CF SATA drive with Server Core....a nightmare to get up and running but at 1am this morning I finally got there.
For those thinking about it I copied the OS from my SSD and had lots of issues trying to get a boot record to run and fire up the OS, needed to be set to IDE in Bios as well, well at least it worked with it set to IDE.
Finally added battery supply to the CF Sata drive.
Oh back up a bit...added latest b15 optimiser from audiophil and now both audio and control PCs on 4 + 4, I think this is important if you like a more analogue sound as in not tooooo strident and detailed to the nth degree.

Well listened to tracks on TT compared to streaming this morning and the lovely warm and engaging bass I heard with the TT last weekend is now present in streaming.
It seems what I was hearing last weekend was a very full bodied bass helped by smooth mids and treble, it turns out the TT is not presenting the extreme detail that PC setup is now delivering thus it sounds very warm and engaging.
It appears to be able to live with all the additional resolving power of dual PC setup you really need to spend on clean power and low noise components to get the full bodied mids and bass to make it as enjoyable as a good TT setup, not forgetting cables which still has me scratching my head.

Going for a couple of more changes over the weekend to see if there is any more to gain and we will see next week where we are at.
I am going to add my Teddy Pardo 5v supply from the SB Touch to the Audio PC for all the 5v stuff.
I am going to add all the 12v connections to the 12v Teddy Pardo and get some 12v auto relays wired back to the Pico (actually not a Pico but similar) to kick in the power from the PC button.
Finally I will try to install a Paul Pang v2 USB card in place of the SOTM card.

Lets hope I am not ordering another Mobo next week.
Cheers, Pearse.

[nige2000]

looks like youve blown the monthly budget there pearse.
i hope you did all those updates one at a time to hear what difference each component brings,
im particularly interested in the cf and the ppa usb card.

[tony]

looks like youve blown the monthly budget there pearse.
i hope you did all those updates one at a time to hear what difference each component brings,
im particularly interested in the cf and the ppa usb card.

Your a hard task master Nigel! Give us old men a break.Even getting the systems to this level is achievement. I can keep up with the changes you have made Pearse. You haven't put the USB card in yet?
Very poor would have expected that to go in first as I have a hunch that is going to potentially be the biggest improvement. Did you get one of the last ones from Audiophil? If so you beat me to it.

My more modest improvements today are installation of the batteries into the audiopc. Kinda went off fine but I would hate to be a beginner as I would try my hat at it. Various issues which I can't figure out what caused. The audiopc wouldn't boot initially got that sorted but then the controlpc lost network connectivity.
Had to re-enable services on core server and run the audiophile optimizer again to get it working. Briefly sound is great with this. Is it better than just linear supply on the zuma I think so. More bass and more harmonic richness. Unfortunately for the moment I failed on getting the anker to power the usb key on the control pc. Have ordered a longer cable but will try to get it connected tonight by moving the laptop very close to audiopc.