What is your configuration for Computer Audio?

[manniraj]

That is exactly what I'm doing. When the play list loads, it converts all tracks in the playlist to wav in a temp location and then plays those. The CPU in my rig is rather poor. So any decompression on the fly will cause trouble. Right now everytime a playlist loads, one has to wait a minute or two before everything is decompressed. So its a bit of a pain :lol:. However the patience is worth the effort.

Now a days my Win2012R2 + Audiophile Optimizer is on back burner and instead using the Daphile. One option that is superb is that you can load the playlist to RAM and playback and with my Celeron and 8GB RAM it takes about a min or 2 to load the list of around 30 to 40 songs and the playback is very nice and I can feel the difference :clapping:

One of the computeraudiophile guys recommended to upsample every song to the max capability as per the DAC and play but I tried till 384khz and my PC starts stuttering so unable to check this feature. But planning to upsample till 192khz / 24bit as most of the guys do this on the fly especially with HQ Player.

 

[keith_correa]

That is exactly what I'm doing. When the play list loads, it converts all tracks in the playlist to wav in a temp location and then plays those.

Brilliant!

The CPU in my rig is rather poor. So any decompression on the fly will cause trouble. Right now everytime a playlist loads, one has to wait a minute or two before everything is decompressed. So its a bit of a pain :lol:. However the patience is worth the effort.

How about spawning a thread say x seconds before the end of a track and that thread doing the decompression for the next track to be played - just in time. More efficient that way. Just a thought!

 

[keith_correa]

Music file storage:

WD external HDD connected via USB. Has it's own dedicated power socket and does not leech it from the USB.​

H/W:

HP EliteBook 2570p, 3rd gen i5 with 4 GB RAM. DAC connected over USB.​

Software:

Massively tweaked WS2012R2.
Windows services/drivers disabled at real time on every Windows start up.
Windows processes base priority and thread priorities boosted/lowered at real time on every Windows start up.​

Player:

JRMC running as Windows shell. Running on dedicated core with elevated base priority.​

 

[rikhav]

Slightly off topic, but I felt this the most apt thread to address people using computer as transport


All who are using any kind of usb Regen devices, try to power it with a 9 volt alkaline battery.

I tried it today and improvements are substantial

 

[Nikhil]

Rikhav,

Where did you get the wire harness for using the 9V battery?
Would definitely like to give it a shot.

Regards

Edit: Just found this "Battery Clip" on Amazon India
http://www.amazon.in/battery-power-...scsubtag=f72d1446-d453-4063-9a58-33e2b25928fe

 

[Beast_of_burden]

Slightly off topic, but I felt this the most apt thread to address people using computer as transport


All who are using any kind of usb Regen devices, try to power it with a 9 volt alkaline battery.

I tried it today and improvements are substantial

I am running a Korg DSD Dac which ships with Audiogate that converts FLAC, MP3 or WAV to DSD on the fly and sends it to the USB DAC. The DAC is also a headphone amp. The interface is terrible but it makes music, relaxed and non fatiguing.

This is a review of the bigger brother but similar.

https://www.audiostream.com/content/korg-audiogate-ds-dac-100-high-resolution-audio-playback-system

How do you power the device from a battery? Asking because it does sound better with the computer running on its battery compared to when it's running on mains.

 

[jls001]

Massively tweaked WS2012R2.
Windows services/drivers disabled at real time on every Windows start up.
Windows processes base priority and thread priorities boosted/lowered at real time on every Windows start up.

I'm also on WS2012R2 tweaked as per Keith's excellent tweak procedures.

I can't remember MB model (offhand) but processor is a Core i5 running at 3.2 GHz (I think) with 32 GB memory.

Players are Bughead (I'm happy with an older version) and tweaked foobar2000. I've tried many, many other players but not yet successful with Daphile

Conversion duties are performed by a PCI sound card (RME Hammerfall DSP 9632).

 

[rikhav]

Rikhav,

Where did you get the wire harness for using the 9V battery?
Would definitely like to give it a shot.

Regards

Edit: Just found this on Amazon India
9V battery snap power cable to DC 9V clip male line: Amazon.in: Electronics

I sacrificed a DC adapter having pin which can be used with uptone regen
Am very bad with diy, can't even solder
Now since it's successful I will get a good cable, probably used for internal wiring and make a harness and will get a good grade 9 volt alkaline battery to go with it

Actually this idea came from a thread in CA where a gentleman tested various power supplies in a lab for noise

According to him the IFI power supply worked best, better then a LPS but battery was not behind
I felt battery is pretty easy to try so gave it a shot

 

[rikhav]

I am running a Korg DSD Dac which ships with Audiogate that converts FLAC, MP3 or WAV to DSD on the fly and sends it to the USB DAC. The DAC is also a headphone amp. The interface is terrible but it makes music, relaxed and non fatiguing.

This is a review of the bigger brother but similar.

https://www.audiostream.com/content/korg-audiogate-ds-dac-100-high-resolution-audio-playback-system

How do you power the device from a battery? Asking because it does sound better with the computer running on its battery compared to when it's running on mains.

Since the USB Regen needed 9 volts it was easy to power with a 9 volt alkaline battery
Connected one end of cables to battery and other to adapter pin

Yours is a very unique and interesting PC audio implementation

 

[Nikhil]

...
Actually this idea came from a thread in CA where a gentleman tested various power supplies in a lab for noise

According to him the IFI power supply worked best, better then a LPS but battery was not behind
I felt battery is pretty easy to try so gave it a shot

It's hard to tell what works best until you just try it.
I'd like to try the battery and see what it sounds like.

 

[saikatbiswas82]

Good idea, Nikhil. Hope folks chip in with their setup details.

Here are mine:
Fanless Antec ISK110 cabinet
Asus J1800I-C board
Optimized Win7
4GB RAM
1 TB Samsung evo840 SSD
Foobar2k
HDPlex linear PSU
Audiocadabra dual head USB cable
M2Tech Evo converter (my DAC is old and does not have USB input)

IMHO this configuration should be a benchmark for an audio transport.

Congratulations!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

 

[doors666]

I am using the antique laptop IBM thinkpad T42 from 2003-2004 timeframe. It has some 1.5ghz processor and 2gb ram with 80gb hdd, running Lubuntu on it, win7 also worked ok on it.. These laptops were rock stars of its days, still going solid, just dont run too many apps at the same time. Using odac as sound card, runs on usb 1.1. Takes data from my desktop via foobar. Here on its all diy... preamps, amp, speakers, sub.

 

[Naturelover]

IMHO this configuration should be a benchmark for an audio transport.

Congratulations!

Thanks. Never thought it would impress so much.
Thanks entirely to FMs ranjeetrain, reignofchaos and Nikhil who suggested the components.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

The rigs in this thread are really impressive.

I use a simple setup: A Mac mini with 500 GB playing Audirvana, connected via Shunyata USB cable to a Northstar DAC. Audirvana runs independent of iTunes and the filter settings provide scope for a lot of tweaking. Using a remote keyboard and the Mac's screen magnification function allows me to control the music from a distance.

The fan in the Mac ( if any) is absolutely noiseless, but I am told there are some guys who can mod the Mac mini to accept an external PSU. Would love to try that. I also wonder if the monitor screen placed in the vicinity of the system causes any interference.

I'll be grateful for any recommendations.

Cheers!

 

[TCHeN]

A while back an i7 x64 running off an SSD, 16 GB RAM, Asus sound card connected via Toslink to an external DAC. OS was Windows running Foobar, and then AudiophileOptimizer. and finally Daphile. A lot of h/w and s/w tweaks based on inputs from Tom's Hardware.

These days it's a couple of NAS boxes (Synology and Pentium running OMV) housing my FLAC collection to streaming solutions like Chromecast Audio and Bluetooth Adapters... run via Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Also, Spotify Premium and Google Play Music again from Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

 

[Nikhil]

The fan in the Mac ( if any) is absolutely noiseless, but I am told there are some guys who can mod the Mac mini to accept an external PSU. Would love to try that. I also wonder if the monitor screen placed in the vicinity of the system causes any interference.

I'll be grateful for any recommendations.

I would recommend taking out the monitor from the Mac Mini and go headless.
Typically you can control the software playback via an ipad or phone app.

The Uptone Audio MMK kit is probably something you can look at,
https://uptoneaudio.com/products/mac-mini-dc-conversion-linear-fan-controller-kit-mmk

 

[Fiftyfifty]

I would recommend taking out the monitor from the Mac Mini and go headless.
Typically you can control the software playback via an ipad or phone app.

The Uptone Audio MMK kit is probably something you can look at,
https://uptoneaudio.com/products/mac-mini-dc-conversion-linear-fan-controller-kit-mmk

Thanks Nikhil,

Audirvana does not have a phone or iPad interface. But I could use the ipad as a monitor for the MacMini, so that it is by my side rather than near the audio components. The MMK kit looks interesting, decent price too. Need to see some user reviews first. Alternatively, switch from the MacMini to a fanless system

Cheers!

 

[Nikhil]

Thanks Nikhil,

Audirvana does not have a phone or iPad interface.

Just found "A+ remote" via Google search: https://audirvana.com/?page_id=3620

 

[rajesh srinivas]

hi,

since this thread is connected with computer audio.

Would like to knw hw to get loss less truehd (192khz,24bit) like dolby true hd,dts hd master from htpc without avr to be connected to multichannel amp.

possible way as far I read through.
1.using Asus zonar d2x sound card through its multichannel output to multichannel amp (pre/pro).
2.using bluray media player like tmt3 or mpc-hc with external audio decoder like ffdshow.

any idea its possible. .

thanks
rajesh.

 

[Nikhil]

hi,

since this thread is connected with computer audio.

Would like to knw hw to get loss less truehd (192khz,24bit) like dolby true hd,dts hd master from htpc without avr to be connected to multichannel amp.

Hello Rajesh,

Try starting a new thread and you will get your answer.
This discussion is for what computer configuration you have at the moment.

Regards.