[dougms3]

https://www.sotm-audio.com/sotmwp/english/portfolio-item/smb-q370/

Theres this audiophile motherboard but the problem with this is to find out if it makes a difference you're out $1500 for a mobo that supports only up 9th gen intel cpus lol.

I agree with chesebert that linux is the goto for anything audio or video related, Microsoft does not care about high quality audio.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Some of us have a great success making PC audio work flawlessly on off the shelf MBs and Windows OS without resorting to any sort of exotics.
Don't even have to try hard optimizing on any mid to highish end grade gaming PC with multicore modern CPU.
It's just so easy nowadays comparing to 2000s, PCs got much more powerful, USB DACs more resilient with own clock for USB transfer control, inbuilt galvanic isolation, jitter rejection, etc.

 

[chesebert]

We all obviously have different definitions for “success”.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Success is success, doesn't mean that everyone is capable of getting there the same way, for a variety of reasons, everyone's situation is different.

 

[dougms3]

Come on, lets not start the pissing contest thing.

We can all disagree like civilized adults. None of us have tried everything, the variables within a setup are infinite, thats why its good to discuss these things and share ideas and experiences.

 

[Whazzzup]

There’s always ways to save doe and avoid quality music servers from digital eq to jitterbugs to other fanless type pi’s. They all do something but as I commented to Robb watts before mscaler launch, what the heck is antipodes doing? It never had TT sound so fantastic. Well he went silent, I guess the scaler launch was afoot, no need to talk of other solutions, lol

 

[ferorake]

My windows main PC has noise, and I couldn't get it away. Crackling sound every 10 seconds, regardless of what I could do. Maybe some registry problems, but I can't reinstall windows.
My solution was a simple raspberry pi with moode installed, controlled with dlna\upnp or jriver from the main PC.
I don't know if is "better sounding", at least I don't have sound crackling and in the night I can listen the music at full silence, without the boing with 10 fans spinning.

 

[gregorio]

I, personally wouldn't put anything audio related into a noisy PC

Too late. All commercial audio, music or Film/TV sound is created on standard PCs/Macs. So whatever you do with the that audio after you’ve purchased/downloaded it, it’s ALREADY been “put into a noisy PC” and ALREADY contains whatever noise or faults you think putting it through a noisy PC causes.

I will say that special audio-focused linux distribution is step 1 in getting the computer audio correct.

So you’re saying that despite all the expertise and millions of dollars the top commercial recording studios spend, they don’t get step 1 right?

However, you will also need to design and implement linear power supplies for supplying different parts of the computer, shield away multiple sections of the motherboard (i.e., different sections of the mobo will need to be on different PCBs), build special BIOS as timing will be all messed up and many I/Os and other functionalities are no longer needed, have speciality built motherboards that separates processing from I/O and build on special PCB that's constructed and laid out and built to reduce noise.

No, pretty much all commercial studios use standard PCs/Macs (running Windows or MacOS) and as above, if that created all the noise/issues you seem to believe, then that noise/issues must already be in the recordings you are reproducing!

G

 

[Whazzzup]

It’s not what went in, it’s what comes out, in this case. What went in is what went in, what comes out matters, and yes there differences. Oops had to check this isn’t sound science so we’re good with impressions….

 

[gregorio]

It’s not what went in, it’s what comes out, in this case. What went in is what went in, what comes out matters …

What comes out of an audio reproduction system is what went in, plus any noise/distortion of the playback system. And what went in was a recording produced on a standard PC, apparently with all that noise/issues!

G

 

[Whazzzup]

What comes out of an audio reproduction system is what went in, plus any noise/distortion of the playback system. And what went in was a recording produced on a standard PC, apparently with all that noise/issues!

G

So what you want out is more noise, a Worse playback system. Got it

 

[gregorio]

So what you want out is more noise, a Worse playback system. Got it

You’re always going to have at least marginally more noise, due to the speakers/HPs. But what you want is not to have the PC noise you claim exists, even though commercial audio recordings have already gone through at least 2 different PCs and sometimes 5 or more.

G

 

[Whazzzup]

Ok so we agree then, cool .

 

[gregorio]

Ok so we agree then, cool .

Yes! Proving of course you agree that standard PCs running Windows or MacOS don’t have to add all sorts of noise from the bios, standard power supplies, etc. because otherwise the audio you’re reproducing would be swamped by noise from having already passed through several such PCs.

G

 

[Whazzzup]

Well whether they don’t have to add noise is another question.