Build a dedicated Audio PC

[nige2000]

It looks like you are using the stuff instead of wallpaper!

Fran grand I can do that. Adam is suggesting cutting the sheets in half for safer postage. Nigel/Fran are you guys ok with that?

how may 5100S sheets are there,
theres no doubt there are certain sweet spots to place this stuff, i can see a double layer useful too
outside of these sweet spots its more difficult to determine their advantage
putting on ram is very effective as is underneath the mobo

i put my ps box under the tv and the sound got harsh, put a sheet in between and problem was mostly solved
tv must be releasing something nasty

pisses me off, this emi/rfi 5h1t is hard to beat

J kenny was more or less suggesting a while back that we should have as little wires etc as possible that can pick up this stuff
and go out of our way to make it so, think attenuation was the other reason.
maybe he can confirm

[jkeny]

pisses me off, this emi/rfi 5h1t is hard to beat

J kenny was more or less suggesting a while back that we should have as little wires etc as possible that can pick up this stuff
and go out of our way to make it so, think attenuation was the other reason.
maybe he can confirm

I agree, Nige - to deal with EMI/RFI effectively needs measuring equipment. I know little enough about the whole area as it is a specialist field of study in itself & once you get into high speed signals, the electrical behaviour is not the same as low speed signalling i.e return currents, reflections, etc.
Any high-speed signalling can give rise to this noise so MHz/GHz chips & any wire/traces that carry these signals can be a source of this noise. On the other side - any wire can act as an antennae & pick up stray RFI noise. It really gets very complicated when dealing with a computer that has many chips operating at GHz & Mhz speeds

I'm kinda with SBGK on this one - in that I think there is only so much that can be done with a PC as the obstacles to improving it further are beyond our capabilities.

[nige2000]

pisses me off, this emi/rfi 5h1t is hard to beat

J kenny was more or less suggesting a while back that we should have as little wires etc as possible that can pick up this stuff
and go out of our way to make it so, think attenuation was the other reason.
maybe he can confirm

I agree, Nige - to deal with EMI/RFI effectively needs measuring equipment. I know little enough about the whole area as it is a specialist field of study in itself & once you get into high speed signals, the electrical behaviour is not the same as low speed signalling i.e return currents, reflections, etc.
Any high-speed signalling can give rise to this noise so MHz/GHz chips & any wire/traces that carry these signals can be a source of this noise. On the other side - any wire can act as an antennae & pick up stray RFI noise. It really gets very complicated when dealing with a computer that has many chips operating at GHz & Mhz speeds

I'm kinda with SBGK on this one - in that I think there is only so much that can be done with a PC as the obstacles to improving it further are beyond our capabilities.

I'm sure there's a cap on what we can do with a PC sq wise, think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the SQ coming out of these heavily modified pcs
We're certainly a long way ahead of our last meet up

We're sort of putting a plaster over a wound with the 3m sheets, we need to minimise the wounds themselves

[sima66]

I agree that the best way in the battle against EMI RFI is to prevent them from happening in the first place, or stop them at the source. The question is how to find the polluters and then is how to stop them!
The only thing I know is with grounding and with EMI absorbers.

When I built my audio stand, the bottom layer of each shelf, is half inch aluminum tick, which I (again) ground it. In this way I'm trying to prevent interference between the components on the differ shelf. The difference with and without ground is very audible.
I might be now out of topic, but maybe it might be useful. In the end it's all to achieve the same goal..........best sound!

Cheers,
Adam

[nige2000]

Adam
you said you treated the transformers in your amp with the 3m absorbers

where exactly did you place them I'm considering an amp rearrange at some stage

[jkeny]

I'm sure there's a cap on what we can do with a PC sq wise, think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the SQ coming out of these heavily modified pcs
We're certainly a long way ahead of our last meet up

I know we have come a long way SQ-wise since we first started on the PC optimisation route & the sound that I last heard at a meet-up was very, very good. It's encouraging that you have squeezed SQ more out of this config - look forward to hearing the results.

We're sort of putting a plaster over a wound with the 3m sheets, we need to minimise the wounds themselves

I agree that the best way in the battle against EMI RFI is to prevent them from happening in the first place, or stop them at the source. The question is how to find the polluters and then is how to stop them!
The only thing I know is with grounding and with EMI absorbers.

Yea, but I feel we are like blind plumbers trying to fix leaks by listening out for the sound of trickling water!

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the experimenting - just my random/rambling thoughts.

[sima66]

Nigel, on my amps I don't have much choices. I just put them on top, the same way I had Shakti before (I sent you PM).

John, I like the "like blind plumbers trying to fix leaks by listening out for the sound of trickling water!". That is exactly what it is, but since I don't know any other way, it's still better that nothing. :)
In my country we say "Sometimes even the blind chicken finds the grain"! ;-)

[tony]

Nigel, on my amps I don't have much choices. I just put them on top, the same way I had Shakti before (I sent you PM).

John, I like the "like blind plumbers trying to fix leaks by listening out for the sound of trickling water!". That is exactly what it is, but since I don't know any other way, it's still better that nothing. :)
In my country we say "Sometimes even the blind chicken finds the grain"! ;-)

Yeah we all use to think John did everything by measurements and double blind tests but now the cat is out of the bag.
Just a plumber looking down a toilet with a rubber ducky in hand!

[sima66]

Nigel, on my amps I don't have much choices. I just put them on top, the same way I had Shakti before (I sent you PM).

John, I like the "like blind plumbers trying to fix leaks by listening out for the sound of trickling water!". That is exactly what it is, but since I don't know any other way, it's still better that nothing. :)
In my country we say "Sometimes even the blind chicken finds the grain"! ;-)

Yeah we all use to think John did everything by measurements and double blind tests but now the cat is out of the bag.
Just a plumber looking down a toilet with a rubber ducky in hand!

I hope that you don't mean that there is no big difference between John's "double blind testing" and "blind chicken finds the grain"! ;-)

[jkeny]

OK, I'll come clean - how I design & test my DACs is with rubber ducky in one hand & blind chicken in another - I call it DAC divining as it works much the same as water divining - I pass both hands over the various DACs lined up in front of me & when the blind chicken & rubber ducky start fighting, I know that is the best sounding DAC. I then turn it on & listen to it & expectation bias works it's magic.