C.A.P.S v4 music server.

[completeluxury]

here is an example of what HQ player can be used for

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-gen...post450152

note the differences between no upsampling to dsd and the noise floor.

[hk6230]

hk6230 if you are going to install 6.1 you should be downloading 6.2.

the alternate version is supposed to be even better.

Thanks.

[octaviars]

After reading this that is posted hear and on other forums I think I am not the kind of hifi entusiast that want to fidle around with computers more than I am today. I think I will keep my Aries and maybe tweek some things around it and wait for what ROON is planing for Aries.

Right now I am thinking of maybe getting a Uptone Regen and a nice LPSU to power my NAS, router and my vinylplayer and the Regen if I get one of those.
Looking att a Hdplex PSU because I need 19V 1.6A for my router, 12V 6A for my NAS, 12V 0.1A for my vinylplayer and 7.5V for the Regen but is the Hdplex going to fixt that, maybe it is a little smal, the NAS is a Synology DS213+. The amps after the voltage is what the smps is marked with, so maybe the consumption is smaler.

[Antoine]

<cut>

I am also pretty sure that there is a vast amount of b/s about this terrible electrical noise that PC's generate as if you apply this to the limit your Devialet cannot sound any good as they have switch mode PSU as well, but they are the quietest amps I have ever not heard, so someone some where is wrong.

I suppose I could be deaf but don't think so.

First I'm not trying to "convert" you in to a "believer" however your logic is a bit flawed IMHO. Devialet has designed it's own SMPS inside the Devialets. I'm quite sure they've done their best to minimize the effects of any noise into adjacent circuits through filtering and shielding. Anyone can see the shielding btw, the SMPS is encased in the black "tin" you see in pictures of the innards of a Devialet. Regular computers otoh are general purpose devices that only need to meet certain international EMI/RFI standards and these are of course no where near as high as those common in HiFi. I'm quite sure you have many times seen the ferrite beads in cables connected to computers and other devices like plasma TV's. These are mere band-aids to lower RFI emissions.

I have both an IT and EE background (not practicing EE) and while I used to be very skeptic about these kind of things I have actually learned a lot and also experienced the impact of RFI/EMI mitigating measures. The best examples of great pieces of engineering that combat the computer generated noise seeping in to our DAC/amplifier for me at the moment are the USB Regen and TotalDAC D1 USB Cable filter. I'd encourage any skeptic to try them if they use USB.

Ethernet AIR seems less susceptible to noise (I think mostly due to it's default galvanic isolation properties which is not there in USB). I've written before that IMO a standard PC with AIR sounds better than USB but one can get better SQ (with quite a wide margin) out of USB after optimizing the PC and USB output. You can't really explain this with pure computer science arguments alone. Most theorize it must be related to differences in the noise and distortion inducing properties of different hardware and even "software jitter". A recent theory for USB is that the amount of noise is of influence on the circuits guarding signal integrity. These circuits when fed more noise have to work harder to do their work creating more noise in the ground planes of the receiver. That noise is coupled into other parts of the receiving DAC and in our case amp.

Let's hope that new technologies/designer best practices will take away the need of a careful mitigation of noise and that we can tie our DAC's/amps to a computer just as "mindlessly" as a printer. Right now, computer audio is 'bleeding edge' at least for us audiophiles using consumer gear.

[Antoine]

Oh and anyone who want to hears an extreme example of RFI noise generated inside our Devialets. Enable the WiFi input of your Devialet but don't associate with any WiFi accesspoint and then start listening to the phono input.

(Of course Devialet has already created a workaround for this by giving us the option to disable WiFi when the phono input is active. )

[NickB]

<cut>

I am also pretty sure that there is a vast amount of b/s about this terrible electrical noise that PC's generate as if you apply this to the limit your Devialet cannot sound any good as they have switch mode PSU as well, but they are the quietest amps I have ever not heard, so someone some where is wrong.

I suppose I could be deaf but don't think so.

First I'm not trying to "convert" you in to a "believer" however your logic is a bit flawed IMHO. Devialet has designed it's own SMPS inside the Devialets. I'm quite sure they've done their best to minimize the effects of any noise into adjacent circuits through filtering and shielding. Anyone can see the shielding btw, the SMPS is encased in the black "tin" you see in pictures of the innards of a Devialet. Regular computers otoh are general purpose devices that only need to meet certain international EMI/RFI standards and these are of course no where near as high as those common in HiFi. I'm quite sure you have many times seen the ferrite beads in cables connected to computers and other devices like plasma TV's. These are mere band-aids to lower RFI emissions.

I have both an IT and EE background (not practicing EE) and while I used to be very skeptic about these kind of things I have actually learned a lot and also experienced the impact of RFI/EMI mitigating measures. The best examples of great pieces of engineering that combat the computer generated noise seeping in to our DAC/amplifier for me at the moment are the USB Regen and TotalDAC D1 USB Cable filter. I'd encourage any skeptic to try them if they use USB.

Ethernet AIR seems less susceptible to noise (I think mostly due to it's default galvanic isolation properties which is not there in USB). I've written before that IMO a standard PC with AIR sounds better than USB but one can get better SQ (with quite a wide margin) out of USB after optimizing the PC and USB output. You can't really explain this with pure computer science arguments alone. Most theorize it must be related to differences in the noise and distortion inducing properties of different hardware and even "software jitter". A recent theory for USB is that the amount of noise is of influence on the circuits guarding signal integrity. These circuits when fed more noise have to work harder to do their work creating more noise in the ground planes of the receiver. That noise is coupled into other parts of the receiving DAC and in our case amp.

Let's hope that new technologies/designer best practices will take away the need of a careful mitigation of noise and that we can tie our DAC's/amps to a computer just as "mindlessly" as a printer. Right now, computer audio is 'bleeding edge' at least for us audiophiles using consumer gear.

I am afraid you misunderstand me. If you believe the hair shirt brigade the mere fact that your Devialert has an SMPS PSU means that all the mains it is connected to is polluted with the awfulness of it and nothing plugged into the same CU can sound correct.

[GuillaumeB]

I am also pretty sure that there is a vast amount of b/s about this terrible electrical noise that PC's generate as if you apply this to the limit your Devialet cannot sound any good as they have switch mode PSU as well, but they are the quietest amps I have ever not heard, so someone some where is wrong.

Hi Nick I think Paul Miller has measured the effect that PC/Mac noise can have on a DAC (with a USB connection).

In particular he noted that switching from a dedicated PC/Mac setup to the Melco improved the noise floor of the DACs he tested. Some pretty juicy figures including improved jitter (August issue of Hifi News if you're interested).

Now whether you can hear these improvements is a different matter, but I think it was clear at the OAC demo that something was happening to the sound when we changed streamers. I suspect that the improvements that we are hearing with dedicated streamers are somehow related to these observations as opposed to changes in the audio data itself (which should be bit perfect).

Finally regarding the switch mode PSU in the Devialet myself and Rufus have measured these with an Audioprism Noise Sniffer. We were staggered by how much noise was being dumped on the mains, it was literally off the chart! Once again whether this really matters is anyone's guess but you can't blame people for conjecturing.

Guillaume

[NickB]

I agree that there can be lots of noise on the mains not only from inside but outside the house. My point is that no noise should make it through a properly designed PSU of any variety into your equipment.

So if you sell mains conditioners and other treatments you would like people to see the noise but a properly designed PSU should not let it through.

[Antoine]

Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. Noise, if it's there, can only be attenuated and never be fully eliminated. There's no designer/EE in this world who would dare to say his PSU won't let in/pass through or generate any noise. There are of course those that say noise levels are at such low levels they shouldn't be discernable. Unfortunately they're not always right.