C.A.P.S v4 music server.

[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