Build a dedicated Audio PC

[nige2000]

[quote="Sligolate="nige2000"]
what options are you choosing on Phil's optimiser[/quote]
Been using 1B for the past few weeks Nige but was tempted to try 1D which from some feedback seems to tame some of the added edge to some poorly recorded sibilant tracks.

I have been quiet here for a while as after all my upgrades I started to notice sibilance on some recordings which I had not heard before and it seems it is just down to the greater resolving power you get the further you go with PC audio.

Re-valved my power amps and Pre and tried loads of buffer and registry changes to try and tame it too no effect.
Was about to change motherboard until I loaned my audio PC with all the power supplies to Seb as he has been auditioning speakers in his place with a bigger room.

Spent 2 days down with him listening to his trial Zingali horn hybrid speakers, the Dubh's and my Quads, the bigger room removed my concerns that I had gone too far with the audio PC as the Quads sounded excellent in his place.
Sibilance is still there but not as noticeable on the Quads or Dubh's and the Zingali's were much more tolerant of poor recording's and have a lovely character but the set Seb is demoing seem a bit too big even for his room.

The Dubs are getting a little lost in the big room but still have the excellent resolving power and the Quads seem to come to life in there so Seb has a tough choice to make in the coming weeks.

Seb was running his big PC with MQN against my optimised 2012 R2 with JPlay 5.2 and Linear's and it was very easy to hear the big improvement particularly with the Quads and Dubh's, The Zingali's were more forgiving and the difference not as noticeable.

He has definitely been converted from headphones to speakers and I need a bigger room!!
Cheers, Pearse.[/quote]


Betterment seems to show up the next problem in line
would have thought separation of power supplies should have helped the sibilance in poor recording's
think rfi/emi is showing up as well but I think that's the harshness (5100s sheet under mobo helped)

did you do anything with the b85 board or was that a flop

Sebs room must be massive, I thought the Dubh's did ok in biggish rooms but I haven't done a comparison

optimiser settings are a bit of a pain too many options and they seem to all make a good difference

Strange that I couldnt listen to mqn the native optimised R2 without the c++ update

Was down in Frans the other day with the latest audio pc variation

we did a quick MQn vs Jplay 5.2, pretty sure we both thought MQn was a nice bit ahead

[jesuscheung]

Don't usually have much trouble making up my mind which tweaks I like
I don't mind making a few tweaks but when it goes above 10 or so it's a huge pain
Prefer to leave it standard with a few tweaks and leave it at that

I don't find a whole lot of difference between 5-5-5-9 and 6-6-6-11 to be honest
but I do recheck my tweaks now and again to be sure I'm comfortable

I find its a lot easier to make SQ worse with tweaks than better

tweak is supposed to do nothing. 1 tweak adds 0.1% SQ on average. you need 10 correct to add 1% SQ. 1 incorrect tweak -1% SQ. better do nothing haha
100 correct tweaks = 10%. 10 incorrect tweaks = -10%.
overall = 0% SQ change

[nige2000]

Don't usually have much trouble making up my mind which tweaks I like
I don't mind making a few tweaks but when it goes above 10 or so it's a huge pain
Prefer to leave it standard with a few tweaks and leave it at that

I don't find a whole lot of difference between 5-5-5-9 and 6-6-6-11 to be honest
but I do recheck my tweaks now and again to be sure I'm comfortable

I find its a lot easier to make SQ worse with tweaks than better

tweak is supposed to do nothing. 1 tweak adds 0.1% SQ on average. you need 10 correct to add 1% SQ. 1 incorrect tweak -1% SQ. better do nothing haha
100 correct tweaks = 10%. 10 incorrect tweaks = -10%.
overall = 0% SQ change

thats what i meant
its much easier to make worse than make better

[tony]

Got a photo from Sima66 (Adam) of the insides of his zuma while conversing on the values of stacked 57's and supertweeters. I am sure somebody posted a how to upload a photo to this site somewhere but can't find it. The inside of this zuma is worth looking at. All areas are divided up with copper panels. I kinda like that approach as it is physical and visually understandable compared to some of the registry tweaks currenlty doing the rounds which just send me straight to the drinks cabinet.

[nige2000]

Got a photo from Sima66 (Adam) of the insides of his zuma while conversing on the values of stacked 57's and supertweeters. I am sure somebody posted a how to upload a photo to this site somewhere but can't find it. The inside of this zuma is worth looking at. All areas are divided up with copper panels. I kinda like that approach as it is physical and visually understandable compared to some of the registry tweaks currenlty doing the rounds which just send me straight to the drinks cabinet.

easiest way is to upload to the likes of flickr then right click copy url
then place this in your thread [ img ] the url [/ img] without the spaces

Anyway
great work Adam i especially like the copper grid i might try that myself

[tony]

Thanks Nigel. The frames for the 57's to me are kinda a work of art if one had the space but not surprisingly Anne doesn't agree!

I have a bit of copper left over from a roofing job at some stage I might as well cut it up and stick it in zuma for storage!
Hopefully it works out Adam advised it was very worthwhile.

[nige2000]

Didn't notice it before but is that a 3M sheet under the mobo

[jkeny]

Something of interest on CA - check out the thread "Why a linear Power Supply"
Looks like John Swenson has teamed up with Superdad (real name?) for some commercial offerings in the computer audio field.
Could be very interesting as JS is quiet an accomplished EE who also is open to thinking outside the box.

[nige2000]

Something of interest on CA - check out the thread "Why a linear Power Supply"
Looks like John Swenson has teamed up with Superdad (real name?) for some commercial offerings in the computer audio field.
Could be very interesting as JS is quiet an accomplished EE who also is open to thinking outside the box.

im going over

[tony]

Didn't notice it before but is that a 3M sheet under the mobo

I think so and there is also a brass chunk or cover over the cpu and comes highly recommended. There is some funny looking electronic stuff in there to will have to recheck the info I got. I suppose it is a Ken Ishiwata KI Sig Zuma!

The work on the 57's deserves it's own thread. Looks like the restorers in the US go the extra mile. Serious work in those speakers