[fzman]

i've jumped in with both feet for playing cds stored on my hd on my xp box. i've added 2 gigs, another 500 gig hd, a pc power & cooling 500w ps and an audiotrak prodigy hd2 soundcard, and changed out its opamps. i listen to this stuff in my home 'office' exclusively thru headphones and a diy headphone amp that sounds really good. analog from the sound card to the headphone amp is shunyata antares i/c , btw.

now the REAL fun can begin!!

what tweaks have you guys found to work well inside the box, to make the sound better?

ers cloth, carbon fibre wraps, shakti onlines/stones, marigo dots, ferrite clamps etc???? along with comments on how the sound improved -- i'm willing to get my hands dirty, but thought i'd see what others have found to work well for them.

if all this pans out, i may try an assault on the cics style of dedicated machine and put it in the big rig.

 

[QQQ]

Repaint with a green magic marker.

 

[Agnostic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by QQQ /img/forum/go_quote.gif Repaint with a green magic marker.

The whole computer? That's a new one to me

 

[panda]

get some 24k gold flakes and sprinkle all inside, it'll make it drastic improvements! more bass and soundstage!

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

um...huh?

 

[1Time]

I mostly listen to streaming music from SHOUTcast with WinAmp and Stereo Tool 3.30. It's free and sounds good. I will continue to use it as my free source for music until I find something better. Hopefully someone more up to speed on this will share their superior PC audio solution.

 

[aphinity]

import/convert to high quality audio files:

wav.

 

[japc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aphinity /img/forum/go_quote.gif import/convert to high quality audio files: wav.

Converting wouldn't do any good. Really.

 

[myinitialsaredac]

I think hes talking about the physical nature inside the box, IE wrapping the wires in teflon or EFI rejecting materials or the life.
Personally my wires are all wrapped in the cable management plastic nonsense, whilst i doubt it rejects EFI it makes the inside much neater and allows it to run cooler so I can turn the fans down which makes the room quieter.
I also switched out the fans to vantec stealths and they run fairly quietly. Makes listening through open cans more enjoyable.
I also added in a fancontrol unit for the same above reasons.

Hope that helps,
Dave

 

[Pushifer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by panda /img/forum/go_quote.gif get some 24k gold flakes and sprinkle all inside, it'll make it drastic improvements! more bass and soundstage!

Funny panda made me laugh

 

[gattler]

It never hurts to do the following:

- exchange stock cpu heatsink to passive or semi passive heatsink. I found Thermalright to be excellent. More here (sorry not english, but good links)
CPU-Kühler Empfehlungen - SilentHardware & Dirkvader Forum

- then while you at it, buy and implement anti vibration rubbers between fan and your new giant heatsink.

- to the same to your power supply unit.

- while you at it exchange the PSU to a very stable and quiet one from seasonic. also exchange the fan on the PSU and Thermalright to a YATE LOON D12SL. The most silent 120mm Fan known to earth.

-mod your fans to 3V (very easy task), now they spin slower and thus more silently.

- enclose your HDD, the loudest unit of every pc, in a hdd silencer

After that mods you wont hear anything from your computer even if in a totally silent room at night hours.

I guess this would benfit any sound produced by a PCI Card inside the PC.

cheers

 

[HeadLover]

amm, also use the new SSD discs
They need like 30% only of the power of an HD, and they put much less heat, and no noise at all!
Also
Use a nice case with damping on the sided so it will be much quieter in the room
Use a passive cooled down GPU

 

[[L]es]

use a gigabyte energy saver board - the one with ferrite chokes and solid caps.

active pfc psu...

as mentioned, less fans !

 

[TheMarchingMule]

You aren't related to patrick82 by chance, are you?

 

[XSAlliN]

Yep, you definitely need a silent system to improve computer sound. Maybe not with headphones but some systems are really noisy and don't go along with quality speakers at low volume.

Here's what I did - but that's just the beginning.