[Siigari]

Hey everybody! I'm new here. I'm totally happy to be a part of your group, and as such I just want to dig into the nitty gritty right at the start!

Some short background, I've been a DJ for close to fifteen years, and have been doing audio engineering for about half that, six to seven years. I also help out at my local church with some equipment suggestions/advice but I'm not sure I want to step anywhere near their boards/equipment! To be fair, they really have a great setup and I might help em out but anyway.

Oh, I'm also a streamer at https://www.twitch.tv/siigari. I'll be using my headphones daily, so be sure to come say hey!

Today I just purchased some Focal Utopia headphones brand new. They're on the way and should be here in a couple of weeks (yey shipping.) I also ordered a Gungnir Multibit and a Mjolnir 2.

Alright, that's all out of the way. Now enter my issues: PC coil whine. My coil whine is about 14-16 dB above the noise floor (-60) and it is most noticeable while gaming, where it screams up by another 10 dB.

I'm running a Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card, running unbal RCA into my Mackie 8-channel USB mixer via TS. So we're running fully unbal from that source. My DJ equipment is balanced in (XLR/TRS), my mic is XLR-> XLR Audient id22, then out TRS->TRS FMR RNC (compressor) then TRS->Insert TRS and finally audio out is balanced XLR to monitors. Headphones are TRS out to tiny nobsound NS-08E headphone amp (it's cute!) and then out to my cans via mini TRS.

My video card is an EVGA 1080 Ti, and my power supply is an EVGA 1500W Classified PSU (Gold+ rated, had it from back in my folding days.)

Alright. Setup out of the way. So I've got coil whine from something. I'd like to isolate and remove it.

Some people have suggested I use an optical USB cable hooked into a powered USB hub, then plug my Gungnir into it via USB?

I'm not sure. I just want balanced outs from my PC so I have a clean, crisp audio experience.

Thanks so much, and I look forward to speaking with you guys more!

Here are some pictures of my setup.

 

[Siigari]

Did I ask my question wrong

 

[buke9]

Not sure what your doing but wait till you get the Gumby and MJ2 and hook up to a USB out and see if the whine is still there first. It's not optical USB by the way but spdif which can be optical and coaxial. If you have a lot of noise with USB then this shoul elevate that. Well with all that audio equipment you should unplug it all after you get the Gumby and then plug each one at a time and listen if the noise returns as your whine could likely be a ground loop or some emi that will be hard to track down with everything connected. What I would do first is hook up the amp and dac first as a stand alone setup and see if everything is good and go from there. With that much stuff hooked together it could be anything. Just my two cents.

 

[Siigari]

Is the third connection from the left not optical?

 

[buke9]

Is the third connection from the left not optical?

Yes and the other spdif is the rca connector.

 

[Siigari]

Yes and the other spdif is the rca connector.

Okay. So should optical filter out the noise or would it carry it because it's actually being sent to the DAC in the PC?

Somebody else suggested getting an optical USB cable to isolate the whine and remove it because it's non-galvanic. Not sure what to think of it but I'm willing to make it happen to get good quality. When I get the cans we'll see.

 

[buke9]

Okay. So should optical filter out the noise or would it carry it because it's actually being sent to the DAC in the PC?

Somebody else suggested getting an optical USB cable to isolate the whine and remove it because it's non-galvanic. Not sure what to think of it but I'm willing to make it happen to get good quality. When I get the cans we'll see.

I have not heard of a optical USB but there seems to be such a thing. I don't know anything that supports it if you find one let me know. I just saw a 100 foot cable for $309 not sure what it's for but there you go.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I just want balanced outs from my PC so I have a clean, crisp audio experience.

You can't have "balanced" output from the PC using optical and USB. The only way to get balanced output direct from the computer is to use a soundcard with AES/EBU digital output or balanced analogue output. Which is more trouble than its worth considering you're getting a DAC with balanced output anyway, just feed it any digital signal from the PC.

As for the coil whine...well, there's one reason why I use a separate media server and I just don't use my reference system on my computer. Even with quiet operation on a basically idling computer, it's a PITA to have to take my graphics card into account when it comes to audio.

You'll either have to try to find a 1080Ti without coil whine or honestly just make do with the coil whine with a headphone driven right out of the soundcard and use a different miniPC as a music server for serious listening. I mean, it's not like the Mjolnir's lower distortion and high output will make MP3 explosions and clashing steel sound that much better when your attention is on the visuals and fragging (or whatever objectives you have, like hostages not getting fragged) anyway.

 

[Siigari]

You can't have "balanced" output from the PC using optical and USB. The only way to get balanced output direct from the computer is to use a soundcard with AES/EBU digital output or balanced analogue output. Which is more trouble than its worth considering you're getting a DAC with balanced output anyway, just feed it any digital signal from the PC.

As for the coil whine...well, there's one reason why I use a separate media server and I just don't use my reference system on my computer. Even with quiet operation on a basically idling computer, it's a PITA to have to take my graphics card into account when it comes to audio.

You'll either have to try to find a 1080Ti without coil whine or honestly just make do with the coil whine with a headphone driven right out of the soundcard and use a different miniPC as a music server for serious listening. I mean, it's not like the Mjolnir's lower distortion and high output will make MP3 explosions and clashing steel sound that much better when your attention is on the visuals and fragging (or whatever objectives you have, like hostages not getting fragged) anyway.

Alright so question. You mention the DAC has balanced outs, right? But what does it matter if the signal the DAC is being fed is tainted? This is detectable, recordable noise.

I understand your point about the media server, though. I do have a separate machine that I use for my movies, but it's not rigged for audio right now.

 

[headpfizer]

If coild whine is coming from case fans, replace with Noctua fans. If you are getting noise while using your PC sound card then an external amp & dac should solve that issue. For coil whine from your graphics card, try a custom fan curve to stop/slow fans more when not doing graphically intense applications like listening to music. If this is not possible then moving your music set up to your movie PC is likely the best option.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Alright so question. You mention the DAC has balanced outs, right? But what does it matter if the signal the DAC is being fed is tainted? This is detectable, recordable noise.

You mean by "recordable" and "tainted" the noise is already in the recording? If it is then there's nothing you can do about it.

If you just mean really loud then it won't matter if the DAC can feed a balanced signal to the amp. The noise rejection on a balanced circuit can't remove coil whine if that's what it is.

I understand your point about the media server, though. I do have a separate machine that I use for my movies, but it's not rigged for audio right now.

You can hook up the Mjolnir and Gungnir to that if you can't find a solution to the coil whine.