iFi iPurifier 2

[ellisdj]

Some parts of that are fine but there can be some big improvements there if you want to go for it. It's easiest if the pc is dedicated to audio if it's gaming also down clocking the cpu will be a definite nono for example. Too much compromise doing both.

Stuff for you to think about the pc needs to be optimised a huge amount to be a competitive digital source to even an average cd player

 

[abacus]

Forget the nonsense that eillsdj is talking, (He must really go on some cloud cuckoo sites) as you will be spending money on things that will be worse than a standard Desktop PC from Curry’s.

Go to a builder who knows about audio computer systems such as http://www.music-pc.com/ (There are many more) and you will get a far better music computer than the one ellisdj has for a fraction of the price.

Bill

 

[Dom]

Forget the nonsense that eillsdj is talking, (He must really go on some cloud cuckoo sites) as you will be spending money on things that will be worse than a standard Desktop PC from Curry’s.

Go to a builder who knows about audio computer systems such as http://www.music-pc.com/ (There are many more) and you will get a far better music computer than the one ellisdj has for a fraction of the price.

Bill

Thanks for the link, I do look into music computers. They should provide a good base. Saying that I have a motherboard brand that I like. Gigabyte have DAC-UP usb ports which have 2x lower noise . Its something to look into when I upgrade.

 

[Dom]

Hi, your quite dedicated, I should expect that.

I use the Superflower Leadex Gold 650w, its the lowest ripple/noise PSU on the market and it has a switch to turn off the fan at low/medium temps so it never spins. Its also modular. I hoped it would help SQ.

My PC is open on a non-conductive work bench that is static and ESD free. It has one fan thats cooling the CPU, its being upgraded with a fan filter/purifier. There's a GTX 960 GPU there too but the fans never spin up when listening to music or watching video. They do twitch though.

There's one SSD 120GB and one HDD 4TB, The SATA cables are transparent silver ones.

The USB ports I use is important to me, so I have a two port adapter that fits directly onto the pins on the motherboard. The Jitter Bug sits there by its self, the USB 3 cable leads to the iPurifier 2 into the DAC.

I don't modify the O/S since I want complete compatibilty however Foobar2000 is tweaked a little, WASAPI, High worker process priority, Pro Audio MMCSS.

I think thats it so far.

 

[ellisdj]

The negative comments have started no surprise.

If your not clued up with computers you can buy them all done but you then have no control over what goes in and it's important.
Just like building your own pc or buying one from pc wold. The one you build yourself will always perform better have much better bits in it, last longer and allow for upgrades.

People think it's nonsense. If they heard my audio pc in my system it would silence them as the performance is very obvious .

 

[abacus]

The negative comments have started no surprise.

If your not clued up with computers you can buy them all done but you then have no control over what goes in and it's important. Just like building your own pc or buying one from pc wold. The one you build yourself will always perform better have much better bits in it, last longer and allow for upgrades.

People think it's nonsense. If they heard my audio pc in my system it would silence them as the performance is very obvious .

Well ellisdj your lack of even basic knowledge of what you are talking about, is sometimes quite frightening.

All the top custom PC manufactures tell you exactly what components they use in their builds, they also allow you to change parts if you have personal favourites, which they will then optimise for best performance for the type of system you want. (If you had done even basic research you would know this)

Don’t assume that you are the only one on this site that has knowledge of computers (I’ve worked on them for over 35 years) or that you’re the only one that uses them for music, as you’re not, (I use mine as a DAW with my keyboards etc. and have done so for many years) thus you will be easily caught out by your serious lack of knowledge. (To be quite honest I have seen people that have just used Wikipedia for their knowledge, have a way better understanding about computers then you)

Post about you experiences on site by all means, (That’s what forums are for) but don’t post or reply as if you are an expert, when it is quite obvious that you aren’t.

Bill

 

[ellisdj]

There are some companies that in my mind put the right bits in audio pcs for pure sound quality - I checked out your link - its not that company, I would not buy any of what they sell to use as a complete package.

If you want one pre built ones that I would consider would be this (Long wait on these though) or maybe this or maybe this there are others also but I have not been shopping, just know of these ones.

However you dont have to be a computer expert (as you have pointed that I am not) to be able to build and advise on putting together an outstanding sounding audio PC - luckily people far more clever than me have done all the clever and hard work. Its just a case of knowing that these clever people exist and what they have advised / sell / done.

All I have given is part of a formula, no different to a cooking recipe that I have followed that I know will give excellent repeated results over not following it.

I said you would only have to hear it to agree.

Luckily CAD often demo at the Bristol show so you can go and hear their setup - year before last it sounded so clean compared to everything else IMO

 

[BigH]

I started using a sound card Asus Essence ST and progressed from there - My system is leaps and bounds from where it started - its a long way on from 12 months ago with most of the work going into the system front end - Audio PC

If you keep your soundcard these are a few suggestions - sorry if you have already done or know these, sorry if you are not interested, just in case you are.

1. Dedicate the PC - move the PC to a fanless Chassis like a streacom case or similar quite a few about. The slimine streacom cases are appealing but limit your options due to space - you will to have to use a PCIE riser card for the soundcard for example - these are generally not great but they are cheap and readily availabble

Get all the fans out reduces noise in the mobo, having just the hard drives in there you will use - def use a seperate HD for storage to Operating System - dont put your music on the OS Drive. If you have to have a fan you can by fan filters

Then line the case as best you can with this non conductive product for emi / rfi absopbsption and reflection loss (lots of details on another forum of how best to use this stuff)

2. Power - using these types of cases limits your options anyway but you really want to power the computer from a Linear Supply - something like this is ideal ( I was the first person to have one of these, it was designed for me, Sean has then made it available to buy, mine has worked perectly for years now) - but spec'd to your needs i.e. rails and voltages. He can help you, he helped me and we did it from scratch.

This powers the CPU directly into the CPU 4 Pin on the mobo and into a Pico PSU - I would buy this unit for that

You can have this Linear Power Supply be multi rail - I have one 12 v rail for cpu, one 12v rail for the pico psu (this plugs into the motherboard atx 12 pin slot) I then have a dual rail of 12v and 5v as the Asus Essence ST Sound card needed both. The more rails the price increases but its neat powering the whole computer from the same supply. Mine is a beast with Massive Kendeil Capacitors - about 22000 UF of capacitance more than a lot of power amps - it will run my I7 based pc pretty much full power but its never had to

3. Use an SSD as your OS Hard Drive - smaller the better. Also using one to store your music is better also than a normal HD

These are worth the small price tag for your SSD amazingly

3.1 - Power to your SSD Drives - I strongly advise to power your SSD's Especially the OS SSD from its own 5V Power supply - cheaply from something like a terdak linear power supply from ebay, another Linear from Custom HiFI Cables - or from a battery based supply. JCat Batteries are great but no longer available I dont think I have 2 of them.

4. Music playing software - everyone has their favourite - for me there is no going back from JPlay using Ultrastream - with JPlay 6.2 and Minimserver as the library JPLay stands on its own- the timing improvement of the music is addictive - free demo avilabe for this and very clear and easy instructions to set it up

5. Bios optimisations - you want to run the computer using as least power as possible so underclocking the cpu etc, and disabling a lot of options etc You can find info on this on another forum.

6. Operating System optmisations - I dont know what OS you are running - Computer Audio Design has some free scripts for win 8 and 8.1 you run to shut down many windows or mac services so Windows runs purely barebones. These are free and the difference they make is huge - I had to undo these the other day and my system was unlistenable until I had run the script again. This works because the PC is purely dedicated to audio. There is an undo script to put everything back to how it was but once you have done it most things dont work so bear that in mind.

Two Others Fidelizer and Prosess Lasso - I would consider these now - each on their brings a benefit but all 3 for me is where its at.

7. Cables Usb and Sata - I wont go into this but once you have done the above this is the next thing to try. I personally would stay clear of the usual cable suspect Chord QED etc. There are some boutique sellers like PPA and Pachanko that you can buy from here also that put a lot of work into these, all hand made, to me much better

There are lots of other things you can do as well - this is just some very basics - you can get a lot of really useful info on other forums where people really well document what they have done. This is all long before the signal gets to upgrades on the USB Interface.

If you think what you have done i.e. Ifi and JitterBug has been an improvement wait until you do some of the above.

There will be a lot of negative comments on all this there always is but if you try these let us know how you get on. All the best

Thanks for all that but thats way too much for me, I use the computer for other tasks but not gaming, but I use Photoshop CS6 for photos. How much would all that cost?

 

[ellisdj]

Thats why I said no 1 dedicate the computer because it opens up more options you cant have when its not. If this is not for you fine, doesnt hurt to consider it.

Prossess lasso especially and Fidelizer might be of interest to you - these work by optimising the computer to your needs Prossess lasso does this on the fly - Fidelizer you select a level of optimisation based on your needs for the computer - this might shut down a bit much for you - depends but its worth a look. Neither are expensive. There are countless reviews of Fidelizer, Process lasso not sure on reviews, its not an audio product its a general pc optimisation software that has good uses for audio.

JPlay is worth looking at and demoing for free. Its Jplay that made me sell ££££ worth of Meridian streaming kit and go over to Audio PC's and I love Meridian stuff generally. The JPLay forum is a vault of useful info as well.

It has cost me a lot overall to put together what I have - but its been bit by bit rather than huge chunks of money

The best thing about it to me is that its an on going project and you get to hear what each individual element does and how some are more powerful than others etc - learning curve and fun

Also doing it this way to get an upgrade its doesnt have to cost thousands each time as it would if you were buying new complete boxes.

But you do need patience - things dont always go smoothly and to plan.

 

[ellisdj]

I have thought of a solution if you wanted to try some of the above - my cousin does this he has a dual boot config - one is his normal pc and the other his audio PC.

He uses a different SSD for his Audio PC OS so that he can do all the opitimisations etc without affecting his normal PC. However to go the whole hog you would need bios profiles low power and high power etc and to keep changing them is a pain I appreciate, but its just a suggestion.

 

[The_Lhc]

I can't help thinking it would be an awful lot easier, and probably cheaper, if you just didn't use a PC for music at all, there really is no need to in this day and age when every dedicated streamer will give a bit perfect output out of the box.

 

[TrevC]

All this faffing about is comletely unnecessary. You don't need a special PC, soundcards or foo filters, all you need is a Behringer USB DAC costing around £25. Fantastic sound quality. I run the audio all round the room using 10 metre phono leads from ebay that cost £6.

 

[ellisdj]

I can't help thinking it would be an awful lot easier, and probably cheaper, if you just didn't use a PC for music at all, there really is no need to in this day and age when every dedicated streamer will give a bit perfect output out of the box.

Its quite funny you mention this becuase if you look inside most streamers what are they? A lot of the bits look quite familiar actually.

I have done that previously as I mentioned and why its fine and maybe for some ideal and you can get great results from them no doubt - my pal recently bought a Pioneer N30 and its a great unit for the money. Look inside it, it has a Linear Supply for the dac analogue out and I am pretty sure one for the digital board seperate to each other- Sound Familiar?

Using a PC has appeal to the more DIY serial tweaker audiophile than someone who wants set and forget.

I personally have managed to get much better results from going the audio PC route than I did with my previous streaming setup. I am personally yet to hear anything I think is better but admit I have not heard a lot of high end CD spinners - these could all trump the pc I am using.

 

[Dom]

I thought i would let anyone reading know that Foobar2000 has been set back to DS sound and defaulted the advanced options. Since it sounds better that way.

​For me PC's are cooler than streamers.

 

[The_Lhc]

​For me PC's are cooler than streamers. 

Forgetting about streamers, have you considered getting out more? Using the terms "PC" and "cool" in the same sentence is about the saddest thing I've ever heard. As someone who's worked with the poxy things for over twenty years there is NOTHING cool about PCs!

 

[Dom]

​For me PC's are cooler than streamers.

Forgetting about streamers, have you considered getting out more? Using the terms "PC" and "cool" in the same sentence is about the saddest thing I've ever heard. As someone who's worked with the poxy things for over twenty years there is NOTHING cool about PCs!

Been there done that, so I should get out more just too get drunk and break all my stuff stumbling about, no thanks.

Look man if someone thinks somethings cool you gonna have to live with it.

I've had some bad relationships, mental problems and smoking problems, although I don't drink a drop. Right now I can concentrate on thinking PC's are cool.

 

[The_Lhc]

​For me PC's are cooler than streamers. 

Forgetting about streamers, have you considered getting out more? Using the terms "PC" and "cool" in the same sentence is about the saddest thing I've ever heard. As someone who's worked with the poxy things for over twenty years there is NOTHING cool about PCs!

Been there done that, so I should get out more just too get drunk and break all my stuff stumbling about, no thanks.

Look man if someone thinks somethings cool you gonna have to live with it.

I've had some bad relationships, mental problems and smoking problems, although I don't drink a drop. Right now I can concentrate on thinking PC's are cool.

Who said anything about getting drunk? That's a pretty sad state of affairs if that's the first thing that comes into your mind.

There's a whole world out there waiting to be explored man and a lot of it is covered in golf courses, Huzzah!

 

[ellisdj]

Also a whole world of upgrades to your digital front end to discover - dont need to leave the house for these and no boring golfers in site - win win and triple win

 

[Dom]

Yep, its alright!

Just tried the inateck PCIe to USB3 card, but its no good for audio. Better sound from the USB ports, so im trying to send it back.

 

[The_Lhc]

Also a whole world of upgrades to your digital front end to discover - dont need to leave the house for these and no boring golfers in site - win win and triple win

Yeah, cos who'd ever want to leave their house?

 

[Dom]

I admit, I can't stay at home for too long so I head over to my bro's for afternoon coffee and Hearthstone, have a brisk walk by the sea and eat an breakfast bap.*i-m_so_happy*

 

[ellisdj]

Also a whole world of upgrades to your digital front end to discover - dont need to leave the house for these and no boring golfers in site - win win and triple win

Yeah, cos who'd ever want to leave their house?

Depends on how good your system sounds as to how long you can listen for...

sometimes a little light hearted / humoured comment gets taken as serious.

 

[The_Lhc]

Also a whole world of upgrades to your digital front end to discover - dont need to leave the house for these and no boring golfers in site - win win and triple win

Yeah, cos who'd ever want to leave their house?

Depends on how good your system sounds as to how long you can listen for...

sometimes a little light hearted / humoured comment gets taken as serious.

Yeah, doesn't it just...

 

[The_Lhc]

I admit, I can't stay at home for too long so I head over to my bro's for afternoon coffee and Hearthstone, have a brisk walk by the sea and eat an breakfast bap.*i-m_so_happy*

That sounds pretty good to me, although I don't know what hearthstone is?

 

[chebby]

I admit, I can't stay at home for too long so I head over to my bro's for afternoon coffee and Hearthstone, have a brisk walk by the sea and eat an breakfast bap.*i-m_so_happy*

That sounds pretty good to me, although I don't know what hearthstone is?

It's a game...

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/