Furutechfan Posted October 25, 2012 Author Posted October 25, 2012 Yeah...shorter path signals are the way to go surely. I don't get the logic of running the ops system externally....doesn't make much sense. Surely that will slow response time down and increase latency ?? Isn't the whole idea to get the system as fast and as responsive as possible so it can spit out the digital signals as accurately to the spdif converter as possible? Unless we are talking about segregation of task which will reduce latency that is the ops system running off one drive then the software or music residing on another drive for quicker access. We need to understand the process but if many people are getting positive results then I would be more inclined that there is probably some merit in experimenting.
GregWormald Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 Prices of SSD are going to have drop more before I purchase 1TB+ for my music files! Has anyone compared whether SSD makes a difference when the files are read into memory and then fed to the DAC from memory? Greg
TP1 Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 The SATA 3 SSD drives plugged into the SATA 3 interface are unbelievably fast. I fail to see the point of plonking it into the USB. The more stuff you have on the USB, the more chance you have of things going south. I would compare it to powering a Ford Falcon with a lawn mower motor. How is SATA 3 going to improve the sound quality when the bitrate for a lossless wav file is1411 kb/s? I am all for supercharging everything but I would like to know that there would be an audible improvement in sound - unless the device is being used for purposes other than audio.
Batty Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 I am just running the OS and a few programs off the SSD
Jventer Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 Yeah...shorter path signals are the way to go surely. I don't get the logic of running the ops system externally....doesn't make much sense. Surely that will slow response time down and increase latency ?? Isn't the whole idea to get the system as fast and as responsive as possible so it can spit out the digital signals as accurately to the spdif converter as possible? Unless we are talking about segregation of task which will reduce latency that is the ops system running off one drive then the software or music residing on another drive for quicker access. We need to understand the process but if many people are getting positive results then I would be more inclined that there is probably some merit in experimenting. I dont know, but you started the topic with reference to them ... read the posts on that forum and that is what they say: " I'd say that isolating SSD with OS on it is even more important. I've just placed my SSD instead of HDD in SATA-to-USB docking station... powered by Kingrex PSUII and connected to PC with SotM 7N silver streamed USB cable.." I have no doubt that your initial post has benefits , I am actually going to try it myself. I am trying to get more info from SNA members and learn from you/them.
LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 How is SATA 3 going to improve the sound quality when the bitrate for a lossless wav file is1411 kb/s? I am all for supercharging everything but I would like to know that there would be an audible improvement in sound - unless the device is being used for purposes other than audio. It's all about taking turns at the CPU. That is why loading up the USB is folly. For audio, I would recommend one device per chip.
gavtron Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 Prices of SSD are going to have drop more before I purchase 1TB+ for my music files! Has anyone compared whether SSD makes a difference when the files are read into memory and then fed to the DAC from memory? Greg Hi Greg, In my experience the storage medium plays a part on the sq of memory based playback. I am unsure why this is the case - however I can hear subtle differences between ssd's, memory sticks, hdd's, loading from NAS, loading from USB hdds. The cause of this is beyond me as it is well outside any understanding I have of how computers work, but I have to trust what my ears tell me. I agree with logic probe 100% that the more devices plugged into USB the worse the system sounds. This is why I use an Adnaco s3 fibre optic usb hub for my USB converter and am currently using a netgear stora NAS - thinking about loading it up with some SSD's - however the cost is also prohibitive for me Check out the JPlay forum for a lot more info and discussion on this. gav. 1
Jventer Posted October 26, 2012 Posted October 26, 2012 Hi Gavtron Glad you joined the discussion. I saw your posts on the jplay forum. Most of it is way above my head (and budget), but I am learning and that is good.
Jventer Posted October 26, 2012 Posted October 26, 2012 It's all about taking turns at the CPU. That is why loading up the USB is folly. For audio, I would recommend one device per chip. logicprobe - please help. What do you mean with one device per chip? i dont understand the terminology. Thanks
gavtron Posted October 26, 2012 Posted October 26, 2012 Hi Gavtron Glad you joined the discussion. I saw your posts on the jplay forum. Most of it is way above my head (and budget), but I am learning and that is good. Hi JVenter, Mostly the JPlay consensus seems to be that the least amount of activity happening in or around the PC while either loading the file to ram or when a file is playing back is beneficial to sq. This is why people suggest tweaks such as disabling the video card in device manager (obviously best used in a headless media server!) or removing the windows explorer shell. Also perhaps why they recommend loading the files from a NAS as there is less chance of interference (RFI and such) being generated in the PC. I have just gathered this from reading their posts - but have no real evidence as to why this is - but I have lots of time to experiment and am slowly finding what works best for me. Some of the changes are very subtle, some of them, like shutting down extra processes don't seem to do much at all I have noticed on my setup that when I used a usb wifi adapter that there was a tiny bit of noise in the mid range that was not there when I unplugged the adapter - or put it into the adnaco hub. So I think certain usb devices can insert subtle noise into the system, but I'm not an expert on this and don't understand all the theory I have read on the subject. I think logic probe may be referring to the fact that motherboards have USB hubs built in and even though your computer may have 4 ports on the back they are just connected to the one usb controller. (please correct if I am wrong, lp
LogicprObe Posted October 26, 2012 Posted October 26, 2012 (edited) logicprobe - please help. What do you mean with one device per chip? i dont understand the terminology. Thanks Each USB chip has it's own channel into the controller to the CPU. It's a serial bus...........which means all devices have to take their turn. Therefore, the the more people in the gangbang, the longer you have to wait. Clearly, there could be interruptions in the stream. Say........there are three USB chips on the mobo........you have three channels into the CPU via the chipset. Most old mobos only have one or two .....................load them up? You got divisional.............or is it multiplicational problems! edit - the easiest thing at the moment is that most current motherboards have one USB 2.0 chip and one USB 3.0 chip. So at least you can run two devices with confidence! Edited October 29, 2012 by LogicprObe
drez Posted October 29, 2012 Posted October 29, 2012 I wouldn't worry too much about RFI in the computer, most of it is probably coming from the motherboard itself with all the onboard voltage regulation, high frequency clocks etc. My current theories about computer audio tend to concern latency, OS performance and minimising sources of jitter. SSD seems to help the system work more efficiently, which IMO is also about minimisng latency or provinding a more even flow of data between components. i have just recently installed Windows 8 on a new intel 520 SSD and the improvements over Windows 7 on my OCZ Vertex 3 were substantial, not sure how much of that is down to the OS and how much down the the intel SSD. Also just out of curiousity have you treid the "bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes" command? Seems to revert back to a fixed system timer from the dynamic system timer that Windows 8 uses. Might be worth a shot as long as it is reversible (sorry this is probaby a bit off-topic) 1
LogicprObe Posted October 29, 2012 Posted October 29, 2012 Damn you drez! I just got a SATA 3 SSD back from a warranty return and now I'll HAVE to try Win 8 now!
Nada Posted October 29, 2012 Posted October 29, 2012 Just swap my hdd in my laptop with an 120gb intel 520 hdd. I am absolutely and totally blown away by the improvement across the board. Immediacy, impact, detail and darker background...more stable soundstage.....but the increased immediacy and impact......wow.... Did you hear this difference using your Jkenny mk3 USB to spdif converter? I use an Audiophilleo which seems to give great isolation and design specs. It sounds the same to me in my system with WIN7 vs WIN8 / spinning vs solid state HD / notebooks plugged in or running on battery. I can hear differences plainly between JRIver and Foobar or with the AP2 running on or off battery so it would seem theres plenty of transparency in the system. Maybe a great USB transport can give such good isolation and timing control to make all those computer tweaks almost irrelevant?
drez Posted October 29, 2012 Posted October 29, 2012 Damn you drez! I just got a SATA 3 SSD back from a warranty return and now I'll HAVE to try Win 8 now! It's worth a try IMO - if you find the sound worse you can always try that command to revert the dynamictick settings and still have better performance than Windows 7. Just try not to let the Modern UI drive you mad (I'm used to it now so no longer raging at it) On a sort of related note I tried changing the HPET setting - seems 64bit HPET setting has the fastest attack/decay and cleaner transients, but 32bit sounds more open/smooth but with lesser PRAT. I guess it kind of makes sense:http://www.techarp.com/showfreebog.aspx?lang=0&bogno=415 1
gavtron Posted October 29, 2012 Posted October 29, 2012 (edited) Maybe a great USB transport can give such good isolation and timing control to make all those computer tweaks almost irrelevant? Hi Nada, Maybe if the usb transport was connected to a dedicated music server, lite the SOtM server. Any machine running windows can benefit from software will benefit from software tweaks. I have used both ap2 (pure power) and JKMk3 SPDIF am continuing to hear improvements with software tweaks in my setup. It would seem that the less amount of I/O and processing activity, when tracks are loaded & playing back is beneficial for SQ, which is why people recommend using minimal processes and services in windows. gav. Edited October 29, 2012 by gavtron 1
gavtron Posted October 29, 2012 Posted October 29, 2012 (edited) Also just out of curiousity have you treid the "bcdedit /set disabledynamictick yes" command? Seems to revert back to a fixed system timer from the dynamic system timer that Windows 8 uses. Might be worth a shot as long as it is reversible (sorry this is probaby a bit off-topic) Thanks Drez will try it out Does it reset on reboot? Edited October 30, 2012 by gavtron
drez Posted October 30, 2012 Posted October 30, 2012 Thanks Drez will try it out Does it reset on reboot? I think it keeps the setting on reboot - I guess you can check with dplat.exe to ensure that the change has been made http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml apparently you can revert back to the dynamictick by entering the same command with a value of "No" instead of Yes.
hochopeper Posted October 30, 2012 Posted October 30, 2012 (edited) Maybe a great USB transport can give such good isolation and timing control to make all those computer tweaks almost irrelevant? With regards to well isolated and transparent usb transport making the computer tweaks irrelevant, I have plans to test exactly this in a few months with my DIY DAC, I hope that I can contribute some experiments and evaluations for other locals to enjoy. My plan there is that I will have the following in my digital chain: XMOS usb->i2s NVE isolator FIFO i2s buffer More isolators (still to decide which yet) Reclocked i2s pcb with low noise power supply isolated from computer and FIFO FPGA chip noise DAC In theory this will separate all noise sources from the DAC and produce an i2s signal with minimal jitter. All of the above has been tested as bit perfect in lab by designers of each project pcb. With clocks chosen to have lowest phase noise there should be no need for tweaking on the computer side. That's the plan, waiting to see what the results are after testing Edited October 30, 2012 by zman 2
gavtron Posted October 30, 2012 Posted October 30, 2012 cheers - will try it tonight and look at the HPET setting too. Thanks Drez.
Gee Emm Posted October 30, 2012 Posted October 30, 2012 Have any of you guys tried this stuff on the Microsoft Windows Embedded OS; rather than cripple other Microsoft OS's? Doesn't Windows Embedded as an OS lend itself more to these types of applications? Could be wrong, often am. Graham
thesnodger Posted October 30, 2012 Posted October 30, 2012 Have any of you guys tried this stuff on the Microsoft Windows Embedded OS; rather than cripple other Microsoft OS's? Doesn't Windows Embedded as an OS lend itself more to these types of applications? The Windows embedded editions are pretty much exactly what the guys are trying to achieve here - a cut down OS with the unnecessary bits removed. It's exactly the same code underneath, the only difference is they are made to have a smaller footprint (by removing the bits you don't really need) and configured to run off a read-only disk. Pretty much the same thing can be achieved using Win7Lite or similar tools.
TP1 Posted October 30, 2012 Posted October 30, 2012 Maybe a great USB transport can give such good isolation and timing control to make all those computer tweaks almost irrelevant? Maybe if the usb transport was connected to a dedicated music server, lite the SOtM server. I have a dedicated music server - The Opera Consonance Reference 7 which can access music from a USB storage device or network device. it has its own excellent DAC's as well as digital output. My initial impressions have been that the audio quality using this as a digital source was better than a Mac Pro both feeding into Accuphase DP-77 24 bit DAC's. But I have not fully eliminated all other variables from the equation by optimising the computer so I would have to do so at some point to be definitive. My primary reasons for getting the dedicated Music player/ server were : a. Relative cost - I wanted a dedicated unit and calculated that a decent computer with an equivalent stand alone DAC would cost more than the server and would have inherent problems that would compromise sound quality. b. The Music player is built from the ground up as a top quality audio device. It has audio quality power supplies with large dual toroidal transformers ( no switch-mode here), and there are no extraneous peripherals or CPU activities to detract from performance It accepts balanced inputs and outputs and even has a choice of valve or solid state output. The Accuphase DAC's still sound a bit better, but there is a big price differential there. c. Ease of use. I like using computers but when listening to music I prefer not to have a computer screen, mouse or keyboard in my music room. The Reference 7 can be controlled by iphone/ android device, its own remote control or touch screen. Simply turn on an play your selection. I know some software programs can do this too but you still have to get into the program unless its set up as a dedicated server. There are a number of decent quality and reasonably priced dedicated "digital transports" that are now on the market designed to eliminate the inherent problems of computers as a digital source.
davm Posted October 30, 2012 Posted October 30, 2012 Personally, I find it hard to understand how a SSD could make much difference over conventional HD. Most music playback software uses some form of memory buffering rather than reading directly from hard disk. That is, data is read from disk into computer memory where it is held until the software needs it. This means that you are already getting the benefit of the software reading from fast silicon. It would be a very slow, or very busy, computer that couldn't keep the memory buffer filled...even with hires music files. SSD or conventional HD, the data in the music files will be read from there in to the same memory buffer.
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