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Lexcom Neo with CN700V board
12V dc power, no need for offboard PS running slimmed XP only 226 threads.
In the picture the 8G DOM IDE drive has been updated to a 16G SLC DOM (more responsive).
The 500G music ssd is powered by separate 5V dc input and can also be powered by a 12V MB t 5V regulated DC supply.
There is only one short shielded Sata cable.
Plays 24 7 with no heat issue and consumes about 10W.
Sounds very good with resolution below that of my tweaked DH61 Core2 duo audio PC running Server 2012R2 slimmed. Musically, this has frimer bass and better sound staging/instrument/vocal placement.
Server 2012 will not run on this but I shall try W8.1 or w7. The latter will probably be a dead loss soundwise.
Follow Ups:
Fred ultimately a question but 1st some background. I now use Foobar feeding a Benchmark 2.0 HGC dac. I use the Benchmark usb driver to deliver DOP dsd. Foobar requires the use of their Foo_dsd_asio driver as a proxy driver with which you can assign your own driver (Benchmark DAC2 Audio 2.0 Output). Once I settled on this I used this for non dsd playback too. However while just goofing around I tried DS:Benchmark DAC2 Audio 2.0 Output driver which showed up in the preferences drop down list as a driver for wav files .... it was way better. I assume the DS stands for Direct Sound. It is no problem switching drivers in Preferences which is what I do now going back and forth between dsd and wav. However this brings up the question:
Is there a better driver (vs Foo_dsd_asio) that one can use for dsd?
I have been googling for several days now and cant seem to find one. The DS driver is so much better than the Foo_dsd_asio driver for wav that
I almost prefer listening to wav files now. But I am projecting that a better dsd proxy driver for dsd has to exist somewhere. Anyway to sum up I know you use FB and listen to dsd so I thought you may have some insight.
You are in a complex area. As you say Foo ASIO is a proxy used with the DACs ASIO driver. The question to me is: what is the culprit, Foo_ASIO or the DAC ASIO driver?
I too get the best sound quality out of the W4S2DSD in PCM using the KS driver and DSD converted to PCM sounds good too.
When the ASIO string is used for DSD, processing increases in low power PCs and I find a degree of 'warmth' which may or may not be right. But with ASIO, one loses the ability to define bit depth and buffer size in some drivers and I reckon that it may be a significant factor in the resultant sound. Thus I have commented elsewhere: ''there are ASIO and ASO drivers.
My answer to you is:
Try KS with lowest possible buffer as opposed to DS
Make sure that the PC is not overtaxed with loads going on in the background with your computer when you are using the Foo_ASIO string. Try to disable or delete all those unnecessary things in Foobar and most important do not use DSP and Regain. Diable the fancy spectrograms and so on.s
We are in an area where there are so many variables that one needs to stop when one hits a 'right' button!
"We are in an area where there are so many variables that one needs to stop when one hits a 'right' button!"
Since you have used both low power and higher power systems also, what are your feelings of the comparisons, trade-offs? I run both also and have mixed feelings. I have currently been running my low powered "Atom" system a Marshalltown board with server 2012 AO and Jplay which does allot of things so well.
There is a new more powerful Marshalltown replacement which might be worth checking out.
BTW: I like your system... except for the scotch tape. ;)
regards
Bob
The answer to your question is that I have not tried to 'optimise' a high power system for my best audio rigs. I use these for screening hardware and software and for AV purposes and they are sufficiently revealing for these purposes, and for background listening. To 'slim' these down as much as my low power systems would mean too many compromises in performance and usability. Also it is difficult in high power boxes to arrange for the best position of hardware and the elimination of messy cabling as I strive to do in my Lexcom and DH61 boxes.
My feeling on the use of the most powerful i7 cpus?
It seems to me that many users as in computer audiophile) are trying to get the best media and remote functions, whether they are needed in high audio use or not.
The Streacom boxes are too compromised in height and size to be a development vehicle and when the cpu position and spec changes, the heat pipe assemblies become useless. I know, because I have 2 boxes to my right doing nothing. Also using these for linear ATX\power requires a LOT of messing.
As for Scotch tape? No these are high temperature tapes that take up to 150 C, and is excellent for vibration decoupling! They have never melted or become detached on me.
You said
'Try KS with lowest possible buffer as opposed to DS'
Absolutely gorgeous. Thanks
I may have answered my own question: yes there is an updated Foo_dsd_asio driver on Soundforge. I was using whatever the foobar website gave me which was 0.06.03 or something like this. The new one is 07.01.03 or something. Anyway for any foobar users reading this just do a search for Foo_dsd_asio. After preliminary listening the .07 driver is better but I still switch to the DS driver for non dsd.
Edits: 11/02/14
Hi !
very nice system
Which "slimmed XP" version have you loaded ?
What SW do you use to play audio files ?
Thanks
Kind regards,
bg
As many of the CICS and Steppe steps that sound good. Some CICS steps don't and not necessary as one is disabling things that are disabled.
I use Foobar with lowest latency and KS. JRiver is too complex for this simple setup and doesn't sound better.
A SOTM filter to the music ssd still helps, presumably to stop feedback into the MB. Sound is even more refined.
I have to say that XP slimmed is a damned nuisance without any fault or misstep tolerance. The SSD partitions also have to be aligned away from the XP boundary.
Hi ! thank you sincerely for your very valuable advice
I am a beginner with pc audio, and also quite ignorant in the matter
I understand that both HW and SW contribute to the final sound
But i have read many messages about OS and SW and my feeling is that the Software side is very fundamental, maybe even more than the HW side
So i am still wondering which is the best OS to use for audio
I am using Win 7 now
But I would be very willing to try a slimmed XP, Windows Server or Linus in case these would be better for audio
Then moving on to the HW, that depends i guess on the OS selected
From your very in depth advice i understand i have still a lot to learn
Thanks again sincerely
Kind regards,
bg
Edits: 10/31/14
that Win7 sounds less good than W8.1 or Server 2012.Win 7 has a hell of a lot of features that are useless for audio and I find it to be less tolerant than W8.1 when it comes to misteps or hardware migration. Just go to control panel and count the amount of 'bloat'. XP can be stripped down to very little but you have to be careful with mistakes or missteps.
Every time I recover with Acronis, I find that W7 gets deactivated!
In my book, the effect of hardware is at least as important as that of software.
Edits: 10/31/14
Hi and thank you so much again
Time to migrate i am afraid
I will study the system requirements for both W8.1 and Server 2012 just to see what kind of pc is needed
Maybe they will stop writing drivers for XP
I would like a future proof system
Thanks a lot !
Kind regards,
bg
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