[mxs1030]

setup:

XP 2500 @ 2.3 ghz

windows XP

m-audio rev

nvidia soundstorm integrated

audio:

CD-780 --> m-audio rev with foobar k/s

HD-570 --> nvidia soundstorm for gaming

 

[mjg]

heres me setup


audiophile 24/96 -> signal cable digital -> benchmark dac1 -> voodoo reference IC - > prehead - > hd600's

Sounds pretty good to me : ]


i dual boot XP and debian.

 

[UberNewb]

Quote:

Originally posted by lan Radeon 9800 has a fan. I may replace it with some passive large copper heatsink.

Be very, very careful. I've never seen a 9800 Pro run without a fan. You might get by with a very large heatsink, but I think you would need a fan blowing directly at it (like the Zalman video card cooler setup) in order to keep the card happy.

I have seen a GeForce Ti4xxx (can't remember, I think it was a 4200) that you could buy without a fan, but it was very expensive, and not nearly the card that the 9800 Pro is.

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

Radeon 9800 has a fan. I may replace it with some passive large copper heatsink.

Why would you want to do that?

If it's loud...attach a quieter heatsink+fan on it with thermal epoxy. Older intel sinks from the p3 era works great and is whisper quiet.

You are asking for trouble even if you go with zalman without a fan.

 

[lan]

No fans = quieter

The Zalman heatpipe has to be effective enough as in it won't light things on fire. The reviews show it is about on par with stock cooling or maybe a little bit higher temp. My video card isn't overclocked. I may just add a large slow fan nearby.

thanks for the concern.

 

[loafier]

Here's my computer:
Spacious Antec mid tower, with Antec 300watt PSU
MSI KT600 Mobo
512MB ddr 3200 Kingston Value Ram
Athlon XP at roughly 1495Mhz
Quiet thermaltake Heatsink/fan
ATI Radeon 9200 (heatsink only)
No case fans for silent running
40mb of local storage, 300+ gb of remote network storage

Sound cards:
RME Digi 96/8 PAD
Audiophile 24/96
Audigy
Builtin AC '97 audio

These are all running with drivers installed, save the builtin audio, which has been disabled

Headphone/sound stuff:
JMT Meta
Sony CD3000
HD280
Ebay glass toslink 10'
Outlaw PCA 0.5m


Satisfaction:
Somewhat satsified. I really enjoy the CD3000's. I don't intend to get rid of them anytime soon. The computer runs very quietly, except for this damn WD Caviar drive, which makes a damned high-pitched sound. After a lot of listening, I've been turned off by the somewhat dry and analtical sound of the RME. I'll keep it for a while longer though. I hope it makes for a good transport.


Improvement:
- Too many low bit rate MP3's in my collection. They need to be weeded out and replaced with lossless rips.
- a Bel Canto DAC2 and a Singlepower MPX3 should be ariving soon to expiriment with
- I intend to dump the WD CAviar drive for something quieter. I may go to a diskless setup.
- Experiment with power related items. Conditioners, coords, etc.
- Quiet Cooling needs to be improved before the hot SoCal Summer.

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

Originally posted by lan No fans = quieter

True but chances are your cpu and psu fans are louder.

I cant even hear the dual fans on my gf4.

 

[Asmo]

System:
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
Asus A7V266-E
1 GIG Crucial PC2100 DDR
2 80 GIG Seagate Baracuda IV
Nvidia Geforce 4 ti4400 128MB
Enlight case w/300 W PSU
2 Case fans

Audio:
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
Zu Pivot mini->rca
NAD c320BEE int. Amp
Audioquest Type-2 Cables
Paradigm Monitor 5v2 Speakers w/stands
Sennheiser HD590 w/Equinox Cable

Upcoming Improvements:
Graduated college finally, should have a lot of extra money soon with work etc, lots of planned upgrades all around

RME DigiPad or another higher end soundcard, will probably try a few.

Definetly buying a new CPU fan and Case with quiter fans, also going to buy or build something custom to house my case, either sound insulated or just a better hutch for my desk.

Will probably spend a lot on whatever else becomes popular on these boards

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

The Heart
Lian-Li PC60 w/3x Panaflo 80MM L1A
Athlon XP 2500+ (OC to 2.0-2.5GHz, depending on useage) cooled by Alpha PAL8045 w/Panaflo 120MM L1A
EPoX 8RDA+ w/512MB Twinmos PC3200
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510

The Cards
Matrox P650
RME Digi 96/8 PAD
Compro TVmate Gold+
LSI Logic U160
Linksys 10/100 NIC (for univ. connection)
Encore 56K Modem (for home connection)

The HDDs
Fujitsu MAS3184 (18.4GB 15K RPM)
Samsung SP1614N (160GB 7.2K RPM 8MB)
IBM 180GXP (123GB 7.2K RPM)

The Opticals (Stealthed)
Plextor 16X CD-RW
Optowrite 48X CD-RW
Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM
Generic 56X CD-ROM

The Rest
Samsung 900NF (19" Apeture Grill CRT)
Logitech Cordless Desktop Pro (ergonomic keyboard)
Klipsch Promedia 2.1

Samsung ML1210 (Laser Printer)
Samsung FDD (stealthed)
Windows 2000 Pro


I'm very happy with my current system, the oinly possible improvements would be an external optical DAC, but that would have to wait untill I have much better financials. If I get bored sometime this semester I might try playing aroung with it to get better cooling and/or lower noise. My CPU temp (at full load) is about 40C at 2GHz, and 55 at 2.5GHz. The system is pretty quiet, much moreso than my roommate's 1 year old HP laptop, but not even close to silent.

 

[Edwood]

Experimental Setup:

Windows 2000 (installing XP Pro now)
Lippert Thunderbird Mini-ITX motherboard
1.3GHz Pentium M "Banias" CPU
Corsair XMS 512MB PC2700
Seagate Barracuda ATA V 120GB 8MB Cache
on board Video and Sound
RME digi96/8 PAD.
Crammed into a tiny case with external 120watt PSU.


Original Setup:

Windows XP Pro
Asus P4S8X motherboard
2.4GHz P4 "Northwood" CPU (With Thermaltake SLK-947U)
Corsair XMS 1GB PC2700
IBM 60GXP 60GB (temporary, will put Seagate in here)
MSI GF4 Ti4200 (modded with Zalman HP-80)
Audigy 2
(RME digi96/8 PAD will go back in here probably)

RME digi96/8 PAD does not work with Windows 2000 in the experimental setup. I keep getting STOP errors. So I am trying to install XP Pro. This motherboard is meant for my server, but I'm just playing around to see if it sounds any better (and lower noise floor) hooked up to my PS Audio P300. (Yes, you're reading that right, I have a computer powered by my P300)

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

Nevermind. Experimental setup is a bust.

Same stop errors with Win XP Pro. I guess the Lippert doesn't play nice with the RME digi96/8 PAD.

Oh, well. I'll try it again with an old Shuttle FV25 mobo later. Maybe an Epia mobo.

-Ed

 

[Pepzhez]

Hmmm. Am I the only one with a Mac set-up here?

Dedicated computer as music server:

- Apple imac DVSE (slot-loading G3 500mhz). Advantages:

1. Looks fabulous. Compact.
2. Fanless design! Near silent operation! (This is essential!!!)

- Running OS 10.3.2

- 1 GB RAM

- Switched out the original internal 5400 30 GB HD for a 100 GB 7200 rpm

- Added additional 120 GB Firewire drive (I plan to add another or two and chain them)

- External Plextor Firewire burner for secure ripping and burning.

- Roland/Edirol UA-30 USB soundcard (digital/analog ins and outs)

- Analog out from the Edirol going directly to main stereo (Van Alstine preamp/power amp, B&W 302's)

[The UA-30, though serviceable, is the relative weak link here. I'm looking into an upgrade solution - probably the M-Audio Firewire unit.]

Software:

- MacFLAC
- Missing Media Burner (cdda2wav, etc. - libparanoia ripping)
- itunes (player and QT AAC encoding)
- Toast 6/Jam 5
- Peak 3.1 (audio editor)
- Deck 3.5 (multitrack recording)
- etc.

I'm very pleased with this set-up. I also like certain features of itunes as a player (especially the album cover art option). I wish that itunes would support direct FLAC playback and gapless AAC/mp3, but I'm coping.

My plan is to upgrade the audio interface and invest in more firewire HD storage.

I don't know why more people aren't looking into buying used fanless G3 imacs for this purpose! 1 or 2 gigahertz of any processor type is overkill for music archive/playback purposes.

 

[loafier]

Quote:

Originally posted by Pepzhez 1 or 2 gigahertz of any processor type is overkill for music archive/playback purposes.

1 ghz is almost a minimum if you want to use software upsampling (at least on intel architecture)

 

[Pepzhez]

Quote:

Originally posted by loafier 1 ghz is almost a minimum if you want to use software upsampling (at least on intel architecture)

I'll give you that one. My limited experience with upsampling (hardware only) leaves me with doubts about its alleged benefits, but to each his/her own. I know nothing about software upsampling on Mac or its requirements. Is there even any Mac software that does this? Just curious.

 

[realityclouded]

Well, after ugprades (the M-Audio card)..

What I have:

File server / router:
Antec 1000AMG case
Antec TRU550 PSU
Epox 8KHA+
Athlon XP1700+
1G memory
Linux 2.4
600G RAID1 storage (not RAID0)
All Vantec Stealth 80mm fans
Thermalright SK7 heatsink
Matrox G550
No audio cards, yet all PCI slots full

Blue cold cathode lighting

I wrote a quick Perl script which pulls together several tools to automate my CD ripping: cdparanoia, oggenc, lame, flac, cddb. Wave files are not saved. Automatically rips my cds, meta tags 'em, and sorts/moves all files into properly named directories in my CD/mp3 directories.

Entertainment box:
Kingwin 436S case
Antec TRU380 PSU
Epox 8KHA+
Athlon XP1900+
Thermalright SK7 heatsink
1G memory
Windows XP
Seagate SATA 160G
All Vantec Stealth 80mm fans
All pci slots full.

ATI Radeon 9800 AIW
Canopus ADVC100
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496
Sound Blaster Live
Red & UV cold cathode lighting, separate switches

Audio Path:
M-Audio Delta -> Earmax Pro -> HD650

Satisfaction:

The M-Audio is MUCH better than the SB live. I can turn up the volume and not hear a thing when nothing's playing. This setup is tons better than using my Sony dvd player as a source. My HD650 has finally come alive. Slight improvement on my SR80. Definitely satisfied, for now.

I realize I'd have about 1.2TB of storage if I was using RAID0, but I've seen too many hard drives fail, and actually had two in the same system fail on me at once, so I'll only ever use RAID1 for my stuff. The extra cost for storage is worthwhile to me for peace of mind.

Audio Improvements:

When the bank account recovers and my wallet likes me again:
RME Digi 96/8 PAD
Scott Nixon TubeDac
Benchmark DAC1

Or something like that. I haven't really decided yet. Still trying to figure out how to improve my audio with minimal to no processing and without using over/upsampling/filtering. I'll probably end up A/B'ing the TubeDac & DAC1.

Computer Improvements:
Aside from the RME card, no computer upgrades planned. I'm going to use what I've got until they're unusable. I can see the Linux box lasting about 5 years before it'll need an upgrade, and the Windows box going about 2-3 more years before the next version of Windows will force me to upgrade.


Overall, very satisfied with my current audio setup & the convenience of my music library.