Build a dedicated Audio PC

[Fran]

In other news: a few of the lads were over last night and we had a right good night listening to many tracks. I had been running the zuma (audiopc) with 3 supplies. As a last experiment I switched back to only one supple to the picoPSU. The downgrade in sound was immediately apparent to all there - everyone copped it right away with the first couple of bars.



Fran

[nige2000]

Now I'm conflicted!

One bit of me thinks that a box with 3 transformers (and maybe 4 to allow for powering ram separately) with a linear supply after each would be a neat solution. But then John's battery shunt would be a much neater solution, produce less heat, less power consumption. The big question is, as usual, what sounds best.


Fran

i feel the same

would a sea of capacitors close the gap on the linears

nige

[nige2000]

In other news: a few of the lads were over last night and we had a right good night listening to many tracks. I had been running the zuma (audiopc) with 3 supplies. As a last experiment I switched back to only one supple to the picoPSU. The downgrade in sound was immediately apparent to all there - everyone copped it right away with the first couple of bars.



Fran

bet you had some surprised faces, how did computer audio fair out on its evaluation then

[mick]

I was over with Fran last night. I must thank him for allowing us to avail of his hospitality and refreshments. It was a very enjoyable night and a very informative one. We listened to a wide range of music.( I am sorry I may have hogged it a little bit.) through Fran's system. He was using a valve pre and power amp into Eist speakers. Music was played using his pc set up with linear power supplies. Every piece of music played sounded superb. The Eist speakers were a revelation. They had a huge soundstage with great depth. The treble was sweet the midrange was crystal clear with no hint of harshness. The detail was amazing it brought the music to life. A Billie Holiday track was played and you could imagine the smoke in the club making her voice crack. The bass was tight and fast with great detail. The way the pc is set up also has a huge bearing on the quality of the overall sound. IMHO Fran's pc front end has overtaken cd as a music source . Depending on the recording quality it is at least the equal of and in most cases better than a reasonable turntable set up.
Every component in the set up has a bearing on the overall sound quality. What was really amazing was how the sound deteriorated when he took two of the power supplies out of the pc. The sound stage shrunk and there was a loss of detail. When Fran plugged the power supplies back in it restored the sound quality. This difference was not subtle and was clearly audible in the first few bars of music.
All in all a very interesting evening which has given me plenty to think about.
This hobby of ours never ceases to amaze me.
Thanks once again to Fran for a great evening of music.

[nige2000]

great stuff mick
Maybe all the madness isnt in vein
the esit speakers seem to have the ability to present a greater soundstage have a better acoustic ability and far faster than any speakers I've heard to date

Did ye listen to any other sources for comparison?

nige

[mick]

We really didn't get around to other sources. I don't think there was any point in trying a CD player as the sound would not be as good as the pc. We tried regular rips and hi-res downloads. What is clear is that the original recording has the largest influence on the final sound. Some cd rips sounded better than some hi res downloads. However when it all comes together, good recording,good music and proper 24/96 hi-res download the results,especially through Fran's system, can be magic. A track from ' The Unthanks Retrospective' was stunning.
We also tried a Unison research integrated valve hybrid amp which was excellent. At 80watts it was powerful and really add some umph to the sound.

[Fran]

Nope, we didn't use other sources - tbh I know already that the CA setup beats my CD playback and pretty much beats the vinyl set up too. Very different experience with both of those though - that the reason for my reluctance.

Maciej's unison amp (SR1 maybe?) was lovely too - that ticked a lot of my boxes sonically.


It was a great night though.


Fran

[nige2000]

wont there always be a difficulty in comparing digital playback (computer audio this time) to vinyl as the recording or mastering may not be the same

ive come to the conclusion that i prefer my system with the battery setup, even though i think it lacks some body as the detail is intriguing
so much so im googling lifepo4 batteries and trying to figure out a configuration and workable charging solution
if anyones got any ideas im all ears.

[jkeny]

Nige,
I'm away for the weekend but happy to chat with you early next week on batteries - drop me a PM then

[tony]

Getting an error message doing the instal of the intel drivers on a dual boot laptop. Windows 8 and windows server. Have followed all the instructions but when I use the pnputil command it throws up an error. I reckoned initially it was because the command had C: in it but I changed that to H: which is were the pro1000 files are located. Windows8 is booted from C: partition I resized the partition and called it H: for Windows server install.

Edit: Scratch that all working ok now. Reinstalled the intel drivers from the root directory ran the command again and magically it worked.The joys of software instals!