[lag0a]

I think its best to lower the PC noise as much as possible if you use open headphones (I don't know how well closed headphones block out external noise) as it is a distraction for me so I use some kind of hardware to connect to the case fans to lower their voltage which in turn lowers their RPM and lower their noise that can't be controlled by software like speedfan. I also try to find case fans within my budget that have good CFM/RPM ratio like yate loons. I don't know if those case fans are still the best at price/performance. I also use western digital blue hard drives as they are quiet but without sacrificing performance with 7200rpm vs. wd green that are 5400 rpm. There are a lot of things you can do if you use a pc, but want to minimize the noise when playing your music. You can maybe use a special PC Case like Antec or other brands that have hard drive vibration slots to lower hard drive noise even furthur and a quiet powersupply like maybe from Seasonic. AMD and Intel have their own software to lower your cpu clock when your computer is not in use so in turn you can lower the cpu's fan speed. I hated pc noise for a while so I went and researched all this stuff. This is a good site to read reviews about silent hardware too. http://www.silentpcreview.com/

 

[bobsmith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edselfordfong /img/forum/go_quote.gif EDIT: Anyone else compared computer to CD transport with the REF 1? I know currawong has a little USB device, and bobsmith has his rigged up to a sound card. Any thoughts, guys?

I have not compared against a CD-transport, because I don't have one, but the soundcard route has been absolutely fine for me. Originally I had the Ref-1 hooked up to my X-Prelude, and it sounded great. However, my X-prelude seems to have a problem in which every few hours it emits incredibly loud static for about a second (this problem existed before I got the Ref-1). With all the expensive gear attached to it, I got worried that it might cause damage, not to mention that the sudden loud static would deafen me while wearing headphones. As a result, I switched to my motherboard's onboard sound card. I have not been able to hear any difference in sound quality between the X-prelude and onboard sound with the Ref1.

 

[bobsmith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edselfordfong /img/forum/go_quote.gif EDIT: Anyone else compared computer to CD transport with the REF 1? I know currawong has a little USB device, and bobsmith has his rigged up to a sound card. Any thoughts, guys?

I have not compared against a CD-transport, because I don't have one, but the soundcard route has been absolutely fine for me. Originally I had the Ref-1 hooked up to my X-Prelude, and it sounded great. However, my X-prelude seems to have a problem in which every few hours it emits incredibly loud static for about a second (this problem existed before I got the Ref-1). With all the expensive gear attached to it, I got worried that it might cause damage, not to mention that the sudden loud static would deafen me while wearing headphones. As a result, I switched to my motherboard's onboard coax out. I have not been able to hear any difference in sound quality between the coax out of the X-prelude and onboard sound card with the Ref1.

 

[edselfordfong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten /img/forum/go_quote.gif Course if you are really tied to the NIX philosophically and wanted the pinnacle of desktop NIX development, you would be OSX... Might solve your problems. .

the only mac I have is an old PPC iMac. Seems like going forward all the new developments require the intel chip and 10.5. There were hardly even any alternatives to iTunes with my iLamp when I looked.

Anyway, last thing I want is another OS in my life.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobsmith /img/forum/go_quote.gif I switched to my motherboard's onboard sound card. I have not been able to hear any difference in sound quality between the X-prelude and onboard sound with the Ref1.

thanks bob.

Do you know if you're getting hi-rez out with your mobo's coax out?

What's the deal with onboard digital out? Is one more likely to get noise from a mobo than a sound card? Do they just usually lack drivers?

 

[bobsmith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edselfordfong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Do you know if you're getting hi-rez out with your mobo's coax out? What's the deal with onboard digital out? Is one more likely to get noise from a mobo than a sound card? Do they just usually lack drivers?

My mobo can't do as high resolution as my X-prelude. Currently I have it set at 44.1hz, 16-bit, which is fine for me because I have no source files that are higher than that. I do plan on getting some 96/24 files in the future, in which case I will probably replace the X-prelude with something else that isn't broken.

With respect to noise, since the coax out is digital I would not expect there would be any machine noise with either the mobo or sound card. I certainly have not heard any machine noise with either. It seems to me that if both are set as bit perfect, there shouldn't be any difference in sound quality between the two (except possibly for jitter or sample rate differences).

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobsmith /img/forum/go_quote.gif My mobo can't do as high resolution as my X-prelude. Currently I have it set at 44.1hz, 16-bit, which is fine for me because I have no source files that are higher than that. I do plan on getting some 96/24 files in the future, in which case I will probably replace the X-prelude with something else that isn't broken. With respect to noise, since the coax out is digital I would not expect there would be any machine noise with either the mobo or sound card. I certainly have not heard any machine noise with either. It seems to me that if both are set as bit perfect, there shouldn't be any difference in sound quality between the two (except possibly for jitter or sample rate differences).

Your Logic is impeccable here. I had given up on my On Board sound because the Analog was unusable. Never dawned on me to revisit the digital out.

.

 

[edselfordfong]

Well, I'll give it a shot when my Compass comes and I go back to LA. I have a lot of thinking to do about sources before I would get into the ref 1.

 

[edselfordfong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten /img/forum/go_quote.gif Heh, I have 6 Terrabytes of HDD space with ...

Well, that's just an invitation to commit copyright infringement right there. The temptation would be brutal.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edselfordfong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, that's just an invitation to commit copyright infringement right there. The temptation would be brutal.

Or hold an aweful lot of Spread Sheets!

.

 

[gevorg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pricklely Peete /img/forum/go_quote.gif AFAIK that is what he'll be using gevorg. Peete.

I hope it works out, since this will create a killer bargain in the highend range. Highend computer transport (Centrance/TI), highend dac (DAC-19MK3) and highend amp (C-2C), all for ~$1000.

Everything else will be ultra high end for the last 1% in audio.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Hi Les,

Good job on the BNC panel....I finally got around to pulling the RE1 and trying it with the Computer/C2C head fi system (RCA COAX from the Prelude dig out, I'm thinking about doing the same thing you did as the header for SDPIF out on the Auzen PCI card is easy to get at) but my main issue with comp listening is background noise...the fans etc...it simply is way way too loud to enjoy without cranking the vol on the C-2C which I don't like to do. The comp noise is unacceptable for late night low vol listening...kills the soft and delicate passages with ther excessive fan noise...plus I know it's there which in itself is enough for me to reach for the main rig silent system. So it looks like I'll need to build a silent music server at some point down the road...I certainly have enough parts laying around to build one. I just need the proper case (like an ATX full size desktop type that could slide into the hifi rack).

Having this first go around with the C2C being fed by the RE1 it's easy to hear the big jump in quality over the Compass DAC section, OTOH the Compass DAC section does a really good job. That being said the RE1 is clearly in another league than the Compass DAC and so it should be.

Anyway I now just have a little under 1K hours on the RE1 and for this particular evenings Comp listening I set it back to 8X over sample (stock settings). I just love this dac and can't imagine other dac's bringing much more to the table than this one does (price be damned).

I'll test it with the BNC ---> BNC Vanguard Transport a little later one this evening or tomorrow since it's getting a little late here ATM.

Zanth : Wow that's good news about the unit shipping early in May...your in for a treat that is for sure.

Les : Any thoughts on the RE1/DV337SE combination ?

Peete.

 

[gregdee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by les_garten /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi EFF! Yeah as a Crazy as it sounds, it is dedicated PC. I don't have a CD transport any longer. I went thru some SCs though. I play only FLACs, a lot of them 24/96. I can't see how my setup would sound better with a CD though, it is superb. But I haven't listened to a CD input. Handling the discs is not my thing. I don't think I'm totally tone deaf though! I look at people who listen to iPods and wonder how the digital stuff in that DAC doesn't drive them crazy. .

To be honest I can understand an advantage and massive saving when you are using just Flacs ,but there is no comparison between top class transport matched to top class dac really .Files supplied from server are usually affected with wireless noise and they sound awfully digital for my ears.
Good enough for background listening.
I play from NAS in my work and this is nice as a background as well as saving space keeping discs off and getting you whole library to carry whenever you go .I like an idea and use it as well.
But for serious listening a good transport is still you must.

That's like it's looking like this days.
Hope that there will be future format which will help to eliminate transport with his tracking errors ,but also noiseless in the case of transmission.

But it still do not exist

 

[bobsmith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregdee /img/forum/go_quote.gif To be honest I can understand an advantage and massive saving when you are using just Flacs ,but there is no comparison between top class transport matched to top class dac really .Files supplied from server are usually affected with wireless noise and they sound awfully digital for my ears.

I can't think of any reason why there would be a difference in sound quality between a transport and a computer sound card that is set to bit perfect mode (except for differences in amount of jitter potentially). Both should do exactly one thing, output a digital stream of bits that are identical to the bits on the disc (or in the flac, which should be identical to the bits on a disc). If you are getting worse sound from your computer, that indicates to me one of four possibilities: 1) the flac files are not in fact identical to the disc, which could happen if some sort of digital processing was applied when the files were ripped from the disc, 2) your media player is applying digital processing to the files before outputting it to the sound card, 3) the sound card is not set to bit perfect mode, and is doing some sort of processing on the signal, or 4) the sound card is faulty. Just my 2c.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregdee /img/forum/go_quote.gif To be honest I can understand an advantage and massive saving when you are using just Flacs ,but there is no comparison between top class transport matched to top class dac really .Files supplied from server are usually affected with wireless noise and they sound awfully digital for my ears. Good enough for background listening. I play from NAS in my work and this is nice as a background as well as saving space keeping discs off and getting you whole library to carry whenever you go .I like an idea and use it as well. But for serious listening a good transport is still you must. That's like it's looking like this days. Hope that there will be future format which will help to eliminate transport with his tracking errors ,but also noiseless in the case of transmission. But it still do not exist

I don't listen with my REF1 across a network. It is BNC off the SC.

So my Path is HDD(FLAC/APE) >> MotherBoard >> SC Transport >> BNC/SPDIF >> REF1 >> DV 337SE

and I'm believing if you heard it you would have no complaints.

.

 

[tosehee]

Which SC Transport has BNC? Or is it something that you have to solder in yourself?

http://www.audio-magus.com/SndScape_...k_p/sndpci.htm

Or is above sufficient?