[krohm]

does the continual usb 5v power to dac feature on some of the higher end 2011-3 motherboards, what is that about.
 
if i had fibre optic cable out of mobo to a seperate dac, powered seperately, than at that point it doesnt matter how the audio came out, if it comes out via fibre optic than it is however the dac and then amp/receiver than speakers bottle necks it all way down the chain. but that chain is not existent if getting the audio via fibre optic from a pc, right?
 
if thats the case and im using the fibre optic from a mobo, then there is no point getting a soundcard, or using this 5v constant dac power usb port. what am i misunderstanding?
 
i have a decision between a high end NUC or high end desktop pc to run as a media server. On the future NUCs, with skylake and ddr4 processors, they will be powerful enough to run 4k at 30/60 fps, and you could run display port for video and run hdmi into an av receiver/amp and there would be no loss of the sound via hdm right?
 
I could have that fibre optic /hdmi hooked up to a $2-3k amp/receiver and 2-3k of speakers and the only beginnings of loss would be the quality of the amp and then the speakers, not from the signal?
 
cheers

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krohm /img/forum/go_quote.gif

 

does the continual usb 5v power to dac feature on some of the higher end 2011-3 motherboards, what is that about.

 

if i had fibre optic cable out of mobo to a separate dac, powered separately, than at that point it doesnt matter how the audio came out, if it comes out via fibre optic than it is however the dac and then amp/receiver than speakers bottle necks it all way down the chain. but that chain is not existent if getting the audio via fibre optic from a pc, right?

 

Some DACs use USB not just for digital audio transmission but also to power it. Some at minimum use the USB power to light up the indicator lamp for the USB input, others use the USB power to run the USB chip and automatically trigger the selection for USB input, some power the entire digital section, and finally some like the UDAC and E10K use the USB power to run the headphone amplifier section as well.

 

If you're using SPDIF then USB port power delivery doesn't matter.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by krohm /img/forum/go_quote.gif

 

if thats the case and im using the fibre optic from a mobo, then there is no point getting a soundcard, or using this 5v constant dac power usb port. what am i misunderstanding?

 

That depends on what features you require. If it's a gaming computer and you want surround simulation on headphones then you need the DSP chip somewhere in the chain, which will either be on a soundcard or on the audio section of the motherboard. The processed signal coming out of a DSP chip goes through SPDIF, but it depends on which SPDIF output (ie if the DSP is on the mobo then it comes out of the mobo's SPDIF, it it's on an expansion slot soundcard then it comes out of its own SPDIF port, if it's an external USB soundcard then you need to use the SPDIF port built into it). Regardless, as long as it's done properly, then the processed signal goes into the DAC and then through the amp and then the headphones.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by krohm /img/forum/go_quote.gif

 

i have a decision between a high end NUC or high end desktop pc to run as a media server. On the future NUCs, with skylake and ddr4 processors, they will be powerful enough to run 4k at 30/60 fps, and you could run display port for video and run hdmi into an av receiver/amp and there would be no loss of the sound via hdm right?

 

I could have that fibre optic /hdmi hooked up to a $2-3k amp/receiver and 2-3k of speakers and the only beginnings of loss would be the quality of the amp and then the speakers, not from the signal?

 

OK, first off, the price of the components doesn't matter, the particular features are - it could be worth $10,000 ten years ago and then by this time some new format came out (ie you hae an old receiver with HDMI, but now there's HDMI1.4 on entry level receivers). And in this case it depends on how you can configure the NUC, as well as what formats and resolution it can stream out of HDMI or SPDIF. You need to check the particular specs on whether the NUC can send out the formats you want to use (ie some surround sound formats on some movie copies might not work), although this is more likely to be an issue on computers that have the GPU in an expansion slot. Usually however this is more of a driver issue.

 

As for video then that depends on the GPU. You might not be running a game with extreme 3D rendering but it still matters even with movies. Again, you need to check the NUC on what it can do, especially if it can even use HDMI and the display port simultaneously as you plan on doing (ie audio out only on HDMI). Check the receiver/processor specs also. It would still be best if you can find a NUC that can do the resolution and refresh rate.

 

[krohm]

 

Originally Posted by ProtegeManiac /img/forum/go_quote.gif

If you're using SPDIF then USB port power delivery doesn't matter.
 
The processed signal coming out of a DSP chip goes through SPDIF, but it depends on which SPDIF output (ie if the DSP is on the mobo then it comes out of the mobo's SPDIF, it it's on an expansion slot soundcard then it comes out of its own SPDIF port, if it's an external USB soundcard then you need to use the SPDIF port built into it). Regardless, as long as it's done properly, then the processed signal goes into the DAC and then through the amp and then the headphones.

 
Regardless, as long as it's done properly, then the processed signal goes into the DAC and then through the amp and then the headphones

 
 
So does it matter how the sound comes out of the system through spdif, whether it comes out of a mobo's spdif or a soundcards? or if i use hdmi for sound out of a nuc?
 
 

Originally Posted by ProtegeManiac /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 

 check the NUC on what it can do, especially if it can even use HDMI and the display port simultaneously as you plan on doing (ie audio out only on HDMI).

 

 

im going to wait for the new skylake nucs, so it should have more processing power in general and hopefully should be able to do 4k no problems via display port and hdmi for sound. i guess we'll have to wait and see
 
 

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 

 

So does it matter how the sound comes out of the system through spdif, whether it comes out of a mobo's spdif or a soundcards? or if i use hdmi for sound out of a nuc?

 
Assuming all are functioning properly - there is no noise from the components, USB does 5v consistently or the DAC doesn't need power from USB - then no, it doesn't matter.The reality is though unless someone else has used the exact same components there's no guarantee there won't be any issues. However if you get a NUC then all you need to do is wait for someone to use the same one, rather than a custom PC for example with a lot of different parts from different manufacturers.
 
One other thing aside from that is the DSP, but if you don't need this, then it won't matter. If it's straight out 2ch audio you might as well just use SPDIF or USB from the mobo/NUC. 
 
 
 

 

im going to wait for the new skylake nucs, so it should have more processing power in general and hopefully should be able to do 4k no problems via display port and hdmi for sound. i guess we'll have to wait and see

 
 
Note that apart from HT receivers there are only a handful of high-end DACs that use HDMI (some geared for DSD, which is why they use HDMI).