LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 Ahhh...I just Remembered the reason I chose not to go down the desktop route....it's the need to plug power to the wall. To me, stable power supply will impact the sound more than fans running on a laptop. Unless you could power a desktop with a battery. One of the strength is the ability to go off th grid and I can hear the difference when the power supply adaptor is switched off. Laptop power supplies are always noisy.
Furutechfan Posted October 25, 2012 Author Posted October 25, 2012 Totally agree with you there but the biggest benefit of a laptop is that you have the option of going Battery powered and low cost of course.
Furutechfan Posted October 25, 2012 Author Posted October 25, 2012 Once you got jkenny mk3 and laptop, your source is totally off the power grid. Where a desk top will still need to be plugged into the wall. Not many people have done comparisons Btwn the two for music delivery though.
peacewise Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 If the power from the wall is all thats holding ya back, there are uninteruptable power supplies that could serve as a battery for a desktop pc if one so desired.
Furutechfan Posted October 25, 2012 Author Posted October 25, 2012 I suppose in the case of using a pc as a transport, the power supply is not as critical as say in a dac or an amp, latency is the bigger issue???
LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 Once you got jkenny mk3 and laptop, your source is totally off the power grid. Where a desk top will still need to be plugged into the wall. Not many people have done comparisons Btwn the two for music delivery though. I ran a desktop off car batteries about 10 years ago, I think it was just after the first LCDs came out. That little Shuttle I linked to further up would be a candidate for it, or a large Lithium cell.
Jventer Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 The OP referred to a certain group of guys and jplay and I have now read all 24 pages there relating to this issue. My head is spinning! But in summary I interpret the recommendations as follows: Build a PC for music only Use windows 7 or 8 Operating system on a USB stick or on an SSD drive. It appears that the best results are obtained by having this SSD drive externally and connecting via usb to the pc with a USB/optical cable or via an "Adnaco USB hub" the external drive and or USB hub shuold have a good quality power supply The music can be on a normal hard drive or on another SSD or on a NAS Even better results can be obtained by using software called Total Commander. It appears that you lose a lot of functionality, but have better music. (There are variations to this where they use special SATA cables to connect drives to the motherboards etc.) According to them the operating system (and not necessarily the music) should ideally be on media externally and isolated from the computer. This makes sense because I have a 1 TB of music which I cant afford to put on SSD drives. I do find this topic extremely interesting. More views?
Furutechfan Posted October 25, 2012 Author Posted October 25, 2012 I believe connecting a ssd via USB sort of defeats the purpose of having an ssd in the first place. My understanding USB connection is no where as fast as say a sata connection. I was just really quite shocked by how much improvement I got....now I am greedy. The beauty of pc audio is everything is scalable and modifications are very modestly priced compared to hifi component upgrades. It's a market size thing at the end of the day.
DoggieHowser Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 It's interesting that there is now an MSATA form factor and it even does away with external power and SATA cables, and supported on newer motherboards. It basically plugs directly onto the motherboard similar to the MacBook Air SSD. A guy in another forum recently said this made an improvement in his system. And this is a guy who's tinkered with self braided SATA cables and power filters to the SSD.
TP1 Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 (edited) The OP referred to a certain group of guys and jplay and I have now read all 24 pages there relating to this issue. My head is spinning! But in summary I interpret the recommendations as follows: Build a PC for music only Use windows 7 or 8 Operating system on a USB stick or on an SSD drive. It appears that the best results are obtained by having this SSD drive externally and connecting via usb to the pc with a USB/optical cable or via an "Adnaco USB hub" the external drive and or USB hub shuold have a good quality power supply The music can be on a normal hard drive or on another SSD or on a NAS Even better results can be obtained by using software called Total Commander. It appears that you lose a lot of functionality, but have better music. (There are variations to this where they use special SATA cables to connect drives to the motherboards etc.) According to them the operating system (and not necessarily the music) should ideally be on media externally and isolated from the computer. This makes sense because I have a 1 TB of music which I cant afford to put on SSD drives. I do find this topic extremely interesting. More views? Yes, why bother with a PC at all given their noisy power supplies and that they are not optimised for audio? I would suggest a dedicated music server as a front and and either use the inbuilt DAC or use your choice of external DAC. The following have audio standard power supplies and built from the ground up with audio quality in mind. And I haven't seen too many PC's with the choice of a valve output. http://www.opera-con...l/D-linear7.htm http://www.meixingau...nglish/HDD.html http://www.china-hif...work-p-496.html And this is the one I use. I bought it as an interface only but the DAC's are so good I use it as a stand alone player as well. http://www.opera-con.../Reference7.htm Edited October 25, 2012 by Tasso
TP1 Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 (edited) I believe connecting a ssd via USB sort of defeats the purpose of having an ssd in the first place. My understanding USB connection is no where as fast as say a sata connection. I was just really quite shocked by how much improvement I got....now I am greedy. The beauty of pc audio is everything is scalable and modifications are very modestly priced compared to hifi component upgrades. It's a market size thing at the end of the day. USB can transmit high bit rate video - it certainly won't be a barrier for audio. Anyway, there is only one way to find out! Edited October 25, 2012 by Tasso
LogicprObe 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.
Batty Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 LP, is it worth getting a SATA3 PCIE card to run an SSD over just a SATA2 connection
LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 (edited) LP, is it worth getting a SATA3 PCIE card to run an SSD over just a SATA2 connection Your board has no SATA connections? Edit - sorry............just got out of a really hot bath and can't read! No. If it is SATA 2, it won't make any difference. Edited October 25, 2012 by LogicprObe
LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 (edited) only SATA2 Sorry, I made an edit above. The SSD will only run as fast as the onboard controller in the drive. Mostly the ports on the mobo can handle more speed but the drives can't keep up. edit - these are the ants pants at the moment...............and have been since the first series came out! http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodrive-3-pci-express-ssd.html Edited October 25, 2012 by LogicprObe
LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 (edited) SSD is SATA3 2.5" OCZ MoBo is SATA2 Oh...........in that case, I noticed a marked difference. It was almost like going from a spinner to an SSD...................all those years ago! Yeah.............about two! edit - I always buy those cards but always end up upgrading the mobo not too long after! I have a drawer full of firewire, USB, USB2, probably a USB 3 here somewhere. eSATA, serial and parallel ports, (you can get USB adapters for them now)...........gawd! I'm too afraid to see what else is in there! Edited October 25, 2012 by LogicprObe
Batty Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 OK so the question is... Will I see an improvement in speed by connecting a SATA3 SSD to a PCIE to SATA3 card over connecting the same drive to a SATA2 connector on the mobo.
LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 (edited) OK so the question is... Will I see an improvement in speed by connecting a SATA3 SSD to a PCIE to SATA3 card over connecting the same drive to a SATA2 connector on the mobo. Yes. Fair range of prices for those and not many specs! http://ijk.com.au/branch/ijk/index.php?cPath=211_454 Edited October 25, 2012 by LogicprObe
Jventer Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 At the Melbourne show I had a usb drive with high res flac files from HD tracks - Jazz at the Pawnshop and Cantate Domino. The latter is actually used by Greg Osborn to demonstrate his systems. He had Cantate Domino on CD. We compared his Cd on the Audio Aero La Fontaine to the flac files through the Linear 7 and the Cd was miles ahead. Not a fair comparison? the La Fontaine is more than 10 times the price of the Linear 7? Let's leave that at that. I have an old Audio Aero Capitole that has been upgraded which I use as a Cd player and a Dac. I added a laptop with Foobar and jplay - hiface from usb into dac - and it is very good. The convenience factor does a lot, but the sound is really nice. So I am working on making this better. And hence my interest in this post. However, what I am trying to say to you al is that the jplay guys are saying the operating system should be external to the PC. It looks like most of the members reading this don't get it, but that is what they are saying.
Jventer Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 To continue: Operating system should be on SSD - preferably externally, despite the speed issues and then music could be on SSD, normal HD, or whatever. The jplay guys are not worried about speed or convenience, they are trying to get the best sound possible.
LogicprObe Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 I fail to see how software affects hardware............especially having the OS externally. More stuff on the USB causes more problems. I thought everybody knew that?
Jventer Posted October 25, 2012 Posted October 25, 2012 I dont know logicprobe, but that is what they are saying.
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