[MikoLayer]

NeilPert, I know this might be a tough one to answer, but would I see a noticeable difference going from http://global.aopen.com.tw/products/...P250-60GTV.htm <-- this to say, S12-430? I am mainly concerned if this modest PSU I am using now is supplying adequate power to my EMU-1212M with 3 HDD i am using.

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by uzziah this thead just emphasisis the main pitfall of pc-audio; that being the non audio-friendly components in your average pc. your pc is a jumbled mess of electrical interference and nasty switching power supply i'm a tad paranoid about this, i must admit; to the point where i don't think i'll use anything less than an external dac ever again;

SPDIF isn't exactly audio friendly either. It has it's own sonic pitfalls. In the end, nothing is perfect and you must choose whatever is best to your eears.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed the few extra £s are going on a superior motherboard.

The motherboard matter also.

Yes it's give or take.



Quote:

Originally Posted by gevorg thought that it won't make a difference too, but wanted to confirm with someone who actually tried it. Does the RME card makes any audible difference over EMU for digital out? Assume it is used in a sensitive high end equipment. Or I can just downgrade to another soundcard, like AV710, which won't make any audible difference?

Well at least to me it makes a difference and I've tried it also.

In my experiences emu's digital out was a tad little better than the RME digi 96/8's. Nearly negligible really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikoLayer NeilPert, I know this might be a tough one to answer, but would I see a noticeable difference going from http://global.aopen.com.tw/products/...P250-60GTV.htm <-- this to say, S12-430? I am mainly concerned if this modest PSU I am using now is supplying adequate power to my EMU-1212M with 3 HDD i am using.

I believe that is a Fortron PSU. I had an improvement when I went from fortron to antec then to seasonic.

 

[Tachikoma]

Could you possibly get an AES (something something) digital out from a computer?

 

[igy137]

Hello All,
I'm thinking about getting an FSP Zen. Anybody has any experience with that one?
igy137

 

[NeilPeart]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tachikoma Could you possibly get an AES (something something) digital out from a computer?

That depends on the soundcard - my RME Digi96/8 PAD outputs via AES XLR Digital (basically a 110ohm XLR cable) and I prefer it to Coax SPDIF and TOSLINK from the same card (the Benchmark DAC1 has all three inputs so the comparison was easy, though I doubt the differences would be measurable and therefore my preference may be placebically-affected). While Lan prefers the 1212M for digital output, I prefer the RME Digi96/8 PAD (though for analog output I'll take the 1212M).

 

[mjg]

power supply is so important... must people used to laugh at me when i spent $150 bux on my pc power and cooling 350 watt unit for my dell, and my 425 atx, yet i still own these, and yea they are still running for nearly 4 years running...


it's a great thing when a power supply is good enough it can last more then a few systems (in my case both of those units lastest through 5 systems i've owned).

I also own an enermax unit, and it's pretty solid as well.

 

[saturnine]

Yep, it is a shame that many "geeks" think that the stock power supply that came with their case (Deer for an example) is good enough for even general use. Those power supplies were designed and built by satan himself to wreck havoc upon the unknowing masses. IMO PCP&C is the absolute best brand out there for those looking for a stable, long lasting power supply. It's so good, it could be considered milspec. Only caveat is that most of them are quite loud... Seasonic is the best if you want good quality power with lower sound volume and an almost unreal efficiency rating. As mentioned earlier, the [H]ardforum PSU forum is full of knowledgeable people

 

[MikeW]

Seasonic has had a bad run lately, lots of failed units, apparantly some pretty lousy QC, might be good.. when it works. Reminds me of the old IBM 75gxp, praised to death, until they starting failing like crazy, now known as deathstar

 

[MikoLayer]

Yep, it definitely is fortron. Thanks for your input.

Quote:

Originally Posted by igy137 Hello All, I'm thinking about getting an FSP Zen. Anybody has any experience with that one? igy137

it probably depends on what kinda setup you have, but SPCR liked the antec better when it comes to fanless PSUs. S12 series is probably a better bet tho. www.silentpcreview.com

 

[dolle]

don't forget mainboards either.
Like the new Asus mobos with 8-Phase powersupply and overall quality components. It will surely be an impovement over the cheapest mainboards which tend to use the cheapest(and worst) electronic parts available.

 

[Tachikoma]

Lol, sooner or later someone's going to come up with a way to modify motherboard power filters

 

[madman2003]

I have an antec phantom 350, really nice psu, but on expensive side, but that's inherent to all passively cooled psu's.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dolle don't forget mainboards either. Like the new Asus mobos with 8-Phase powersupply and overall quality components. It will surely be an impovement over the cheapest mainboards which tend to use the cheapest(and worst) electronic parts available.

This mobo will be in my currently 'being-built' PC. I guess the 8 refers to the 8-phase PSU, although it has 8 USB ports...

Asus A8N-SLI, nForce4 SLI, Socket-939 ATX, S-ATA, GbLAN,
Firewire,DDR,PCI-Ex16

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed This mobo will be in my currently 'being-built' PC. I guess the 8 refers to the 8-phase PSU, although it has 8 USB ports... Asus A8N-SLI, nForce4 SLI, Socket-939 ATX, S-ATA, GbLAN, Firewire,DDR,PCI-Ex16

All Asus socket 939 boards are named A8... (socket 754 stuff is K8...). K8 was the codename for the Hammer core (Opteron, Athlon64), as the original Athlon was the K7. That board has got a tiny high-rpm northbridge howler, do you really want this? It probably wouldn't be very audible if you were using two 7800GTX cards or whatnot, but since you stated you don't need much graphics power anyway and I guess you could use quiet operation, one of those boards with a heatpipe conducting heat away from the northbridge would be better. (BTW, stay away from the plain NF4, this still had some kind of PCI issues, which are fixed in NF4 Ultra or SLI.)

BTW: If you're not a gamer, why get such an oversized rig? I mean, hey, I've got a dual 500 MHz Coppermine PIII system with 704 megs of oldschool SDRAM and a Deskstar T7K250 attached to a Promise Ultra100TX2 here, and the only thing that really is dog slow is MP3 encoding and such. If I weren't insisting on staying with dual-core in the future (plus a new system should be yet quieter and no more power hungry at that - very tough requirements, mind you), a lowly socket 754 Sempron 3000+ or such based system would do fine. The money saved could go towards quiet associated components, and a good sound card in your case.

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tachikoma Could you possibly get an AES (something something) digital out from a computer?

Yes, there are soundcards with balanced digital output.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tachikoma Lol, sooner or later someone's going to come up with a way to modify motherboard power filters

I changed to Sanyo OSCON caps on my mobo. This can get clostly as they can to get to be as much or more than the mobo itself.

On the really good video cards, you see those as the purple caps. That's one of the reasons they cost $.