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In Reply to: RE: Is it possible that high system latency is the culprit - usually the main case of dropouts? posted by carcass93 on February 16, 2015 at 06:02:17
What, in your opinion, are the questionable choices of the Caps design?
Thanks,
Alan
Follow Ups:
Compared to the DAC and components downstream from the DAC, the PC shouldn't be something that people get hung up on with endless tweaks.There's a small group of people here that focus mostly on the PC and if they enjoy it, why not? But you will find that many off the shelf PCs w/o much tweaking is all that is needed for outstanding results.
This page from the MusicScope website pretty much summarizes what I and many others have been saying for quite some time. Notice where they rank the computer on the list relative to the DAC and downstream components.
We've been discussing MusicScope here in the Asylum quite a bit in recent days with screenshots and such.
Edits: 02/16/15
Since original post mentions CAPS V3 server, let's take Zuma model as an example - linked below. Here are the relevant components:************************************************************************
CAPS v3 ZumaCase: Streacom FC5WS EVO Price: $272.00 Link
Motherboard: Intel DH77EB / BOXDH77EB Price: $100.00 Link
Processor: Intel Core i7 i3770S Price: $305 Link
Memory: Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600 (CT2KIT51264BA160B) Price: $45.00 Link
SSD: MZ-7PD064BW Price: $100.00 Link
Power Supply: picoPSU-150-XT + 102W Adapter Power Kit Price: $76.00 Link
OS: Win 8 Pro 64-bit Price: $140.00Link
Playback App: JRMC v18 Price: $50.00 Link
************************************************************************Questionable - IMO and IME - choices are:
1. JRiver - it just doesn't sound good, unless used in conjunction with JPlay. Business relations between CA and JRiver are much-publicized lately, so this choice has probably nothing to do with actual sound quality. Not really an essential component of the system, of course, but a bit expensive to be treated as bloatware.
2. RAM - too much, and wrong brand, based purely on my experience comparing memory from different manufacturers. 2 different models from Crucial - not this particular one though - were audibly inferior to Kingston HyperX, which is what I use (LoVo model). Regarding quantity - 2 Gb is more than sufficient, and such reduction would be beneficial to SQ, unless there's some crazy upsampling going on in JRiver.
3. CPU - a needless overkill, if not necessarily affecting sound quality.
4. Switching power brick to feed PicoPSU - that's just flat out wrong, and tells me, together with choice of memory and playback software, that the author is not necessarily a skilled critical listener.
Edits: 02/16/15
I've gained quite a nice improvement in sq using a haswell cpu and the avx 256 integer instructions
http://mqnplayer.blogspot.co.uk/
The code has to be able to utilize it, either explicitly, or through compiler optimizations.I'm still using CPU with only AVX (not AVX2), but step up from SSE4 was very audible.
Try to explain that to numbnuts, who pollute this forum with "choice of PC is not critical" garbage.
PS: What I called "overkill" is the choice of Core i7 - roughly $200 wasted for nothing.
Edits: 02/17/15
Are you doing any audio DSP on your computer? Also, can you relate improvements in processor loading or power consumption?
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Thanks for the tip on the Kingston HyperX.
Regarding the CPU power, I agree that not many would use nearly that much power, but it is handy if one does convolution. Now that I think of it, it is probably overkill for that too.
Regarding RAM, memory play used to be a big thing here. Is that no longer the case?
I personally don't like it or use it much as it 'colours' SQ in systems where I have used it.
I prefer very low latency, very clean computer audio setups with no unnecessary web access, graphics, tags, or fancy remotes and displays.
Since power requirements in poor smps powered computers and since fan speed and frequency of modulation are factors in small form factor computers, there is no reason to have 16G Ram that is unnecessary. I would surmise, as others have said, that SQ can actually decrease with the wrong amount and type of Ram.
they tend to overdo PCs at Computer audiophile.
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