AUDIO PC: Direct power to motherboad 24 and 4pin (picoless)

[tony]

Anyway ramdisk with speakers at the new height I think is best sound I have managed yet.

not convinced the clocks are giving good sq?

they might be a pita now and again
so worth it or not?

btw raising speakers made a good difference too, was a easily noticeable change

Q? Was there clocks fitted I don't remember that happening!

I might not have mentioned clocks above but all comments refer to the new set up. The fears raised above seems to be are they stable, well I think they are very much so. IMHO clocks are an essential I always thought so from the moment I heard them in your place. Sound is sublime.
Zero harshness, Everything is liquid magic.

[sima66]

All still ticking over here. I know Adam is chomping at the bit and probably biting his nails.

What nails?! They are all gone!
The hardest were the ones from my toes........I'm not that flexible any more!!!

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

For the first time in years I'm extremely happy with the sounds my system is producing.
A couple of photos:



I use DC connectors attached to the PC chassis to wire the PSUs. The 3.3V for the Nige2000 USB card goes to the card round connector.
There's 1 manual bipolar switch for each voltage and it switches 2 battery packs.



All the grounds and COM signals are soldered to the copper bar.

Latest additions were:
- Nige2000 USB card
- Audiophile Optimizer
- OS in RAM
- REW room correction and Foobar convolver. Next step will be to call a convolver in MQn.bat.

But there's a problem. I wired 6 A123 packs and 3 manual bipolar switches in parallel with the linear PSUs (2 x 12V, 2 x 5V and 2 x 3.3V). When I switch the batteries in the circuit, I notice improvements in noise reduction, sound stage, focus and bass, but the music looses sparkle, gets too dark, details get swallowed and the overall musical experience degrades. I experience similar effect if I switch any of the battery groups separately.
The battery packs are connected to the DC connectors by 2 feet of teflon silver plate 16 gauge wire for 12V and 22 gauge for the others.
I wish the forum battery wizards could point out possible causes for this.
Thanks.

[tony]

Looks complicated Adolfo and well built, I am afraid Nigel is the expert, my guess would be maybe room correction if that is new.
Not sure how you use Foobar with MQn that is a new one on me. Hard to understand how it could sound dark and lack sparkle unless all this work has just got rid of noise that was there previously and perceived as sparkle?

[nige2000]

thats a lot of wire

can you do a wiring diagram please? its just a little hard to see

have you got full voltage 12v,5v,3.3v at the device inputs or is there voltage droop :)

at a guess maybe an impedance/resistance issue

how many batteries in the packs?

reduced dynamics, poorer handling of fast transients a symptom too?

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

No voltage drop.

12V: 4 batteries with 3V
5V: 2 batteries with 2.5V
3.3V: 1 battery

All batteries are balanced and the battery packs charged at the desired voltage.

Yes, I hear reduced dynamics and poorer handling of fast transients with batteries.

[nige2000]

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id prefer a config like this as i would have tested your method first because it was simpler its quite a while ago but all i know is i use the above method now i must have had substandard results with the simple method
i would guess its to do with the flow of current because the wire with the switch on it would have current going in and out at the same time it will be best to keep the current one direction only

it may be beneficial to bring the cpu 4pin gnd to your gnd bar that will need to be tested though
also have you gnded all 24pin gnd wires as gnd is important and you cant have different gnd values gnd needs to be 0 it is the reference

also try to shorten up the wires especially the ones between the batteries and the pc

i guess you were trying to do a linear vs batteries test but the batteries are very compromised in this config

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

Thanks, Nigel2000.
With my configuration, you'd have current in only one direction if you turn off the PSU.
I have found an issue in the 5V battery pack for the mobo. It charges to 5V and then discharges to 4.4V in a few seconds, so I think these A123s are dead and will have to replace them.
With 12V and 3.3V from the batteries and 5V from the LPSU, the sound is superb.

[sima66]

That sounds the same as we experienced in my battery PS with the 5v packs, right Nigel?

[nige2000]

Thanks, Nigel2000.
With my configuration, you'd have current in only one direction if you turn off the PSU.
I have found an issue in the 5V battery pack for the mobo. It charges to 5V and then discharges to 4.4V in a few seconds, so I think these A123s are dead and will have to replace them.
With 12V and 3.3V from the batteries and 5V from the LPSU, the sound is superb.

ok the issue is with your 5v battery packs is that each cell is at 2.5 v which is fully drained and will deplete rapidly unless been maintained by their power supply
so the cells are likely ok

ssd and usb card/dac are the best devices to work from battery id try to get the 5v rails working