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cMP^2 and USB – a different approach

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Posted on November 4, 2009 at 04:55:29
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 Please find below the introduction to some notes I've written on using an Atom-based Fit-PC2 PC in headless mode to run cMP^2. cics has very kindly added the complete text to his web site – see link (which includes links to the useful references at the end of this post).

I'd greatly welcome constructive criticism and comment. That said, I’d ask that those who regularly claim special insight into (and feel the need to comment on) my and others' mental processes or to declaim our general competence hold their fire just this once or, if that’s too much, to start a separate thread.

This post is aimed at anyone who might be interested in experimenting with the likes of cMP^2 in a slightly different way. It’s comments related to this, if any, that I’d value. Hopefully, cMP^2's sceptics might have wider points to make about the general configuration.

They speak in a strange and mysterious tongue but my debt to AA's Linux posse is clear. My enthusiasm for the cMP^2 project has been expressed at (tiresome) length already. Now's the time to thank those who helped off-list. Fact-wise, this replaces previous posts of mine on the topic.

Dave

+++++

The Guide to the cics Memory Player (cMP²) project describes assembly of a computer transport running bespoke software on a tightly-configured, stand-alone PC with high-end components including data storage, a built-in monitor and so on.

This note outlines how the project can be implemented to suit USB-interfaced DACs and provide first-rate sound at significantly lower cost. It is especially suited to low-end devices.

The chosen platform is the Fit-PC2, a miniature, Atom-based computer featuring a low-power, ‘embedded-grade’ motherboard in an aluminium case-cum-heatsink. As it is small and features very low RF emission, it is practicable, despite caveats in reference 3 below, to locate it close to DACs and amplifiers.

In this scenario, it is run ‘headless’, i.e. it has neither KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) nor, optionally, local data storage and is instead controlled from another computer on a LAN. Typically, this will be the music ‘server’ but any VNC-capable device will cope.

Headless mode trades KVM’s electrical noise and OS overhead for that of a LAN. Effectively, it reduces the audio PC’s role to that of a peripheral passing data from a host on a LAN via cPlay to an output device (a bit like the embedded processor in a laserprinter).

Audio-over-USB is often derided by audiophiles. There are valid reasons for treating it with caution (as the name implies, USB is not optimised for audio) but there are equally valid reasons for dismissing some of the criticism as poorly informed.

If USB hardware is well designed and suitably configured, it can present high-quality audio data although, inevitably (and reasonably), at the expense of flexibility. Given the different way in which USB transfers audio compared to other data, it is baffling that even ‘tweak-happy’ audiophiles dismiss it because it is not at its audio best ‘straight out the box’.

For good results, the DAC should be the only visible USB device (strictly, the only output device) on an audio-dedicated PC, a notion key to cMP².

Discussion of USB in audio circles often focuses on the benefits of asynchronous protocols. Users report excellent sound quality but, as yet, few products implement the technique and those that do can be expensive. The many USB DACs that do not use it are likely to benefit most from the approach described here.

Users and reviewers alike also vigorously debate USB cables. Many are reasonably priced and demonstrably effective but some cost over £1,000 for a one-metre length. Conspicuous consumption is beyond the scope of this note but spending large sums of money on one stage – and one stage only – of the process of preserving the timing of a real-time signal while making little or no effort to ensure its prior integrity seems a poor way to allocate resources.

Meaningful measurements are beyond the reach of most hobbyists but competent commentators regularly report that a well-designed, low-power computer configured with care makes for good sound. Certainly, on trial, the difference between a conventional (ITX-format) setup and a headless Fit-PC2 where each was driving the same USB DAC with all else as equal as feasible was dramatic.

To put it all in context, a Fit-PC2 without KVM costs less than a suitable micro-ITX computer with KVM but typically performs better with USB devices; a complete system based on the Fit-PC2 (i.e. PC, HDD, mid-priced DAC and even an after-market cable) will cost significantly less than some USB ‘super cables’.

What follows are notes on how it can be done. Hopefully, some will find them helpful. (Thanks to cics and other AA members for technical advice and support.)

References:

1. The Well Tempered Computer – useful background material.

2. USB and noise; USB Myths and Misconceptions; USB cables and sound – three good explanations by an AA member of USB-audio issues.

3. A personal memoir of engineering heartache and triumph (Analog Devices) – the entertaining story of the PCM2702 USB-audio chip as told by its designer.

4. Switching in USB Consumer Applications (Analog Devices) – useful points on PCB layout and allied topics though not explicitly audio-related.

5. Power Delivery Design Issues for Hi-Speed USB on Motherboards (Intel) – all USB ports are equal but some are more equal than others.

6. The Fit-PC – not the only choice in this scenario but certainly a good one.

7. The State of USB Audio (The Absolute Sound, issue 194) – to finish on a lighter note, some Absolute Tosh.
excellent write-up, posted on November 5, 2009 at 11:04:47
Old Listener
Audiophile

Posts: 693
Location: SF Bay area
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 Thanks for documenting your findings and for responding to the many posts in this thread. Even if I don't go the cics route, you writeup will be quite useful to me in making decisions.

I think I read in your early posts that you had some issues with device drivers in your Fit-PC2 project. Do you have any additional pointers on finding and selecting drivers or on the process of getting XP running on the Fit-PC2?

Bill
RE: excellent write-up, posted on November 5, 2009 at 11:43:59
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 . . . you had some issues with device drivers in your Fit-PC2 project. Do you have any additional pointers on finding and selecting drivers or on the process of getting XP running on the Fit-PC2?

1. I had no trouble installing XP on the Fit. It went fine.

2. There was an issue with the video driver when trying to run headless. The cure is to use a driver since issued by the manufacturer for the purpose and to follow a simple install routine described in the notes on cics's web site.

3. I fixed the issue I had with certain albums freezing the computer if they were pulled over the LAN when running cPlay in the cMP shell by re-ripping the 'guilty' CDs.

They seem to be ones I processed when I was still learning my way round EAC but I've no idea what (if anything) I did wrong. The same files work fine if stored locally, when cPlay running in the Explorer shell and when using other players.

In short, it's an obscure problem. I was wrong when I suggested it was an issue with Fit-PC drivers - I managed to reproduce it on a cMP^2 setup on a different box with different drivers.

Hope that answers your points,

Dave

RE: excellent write-up, posted on November 5, 2009 at 18:10:33
Old Listener
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Posts: 693
Location: SF Bay area
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 Yes, you answered my questions quite well. Your post and the write-up are the sort of material that makes reading this forum worthwhile to me. Thanks for making the effort.

Bill
Would be interesting to see (hear) LAN vs. internal storage (SSD?) comparison., posted on November 4, 2009 at 09:17:27
carcass93
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Posts: 2634
Location: NJ
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 However, if Fit PC is controlled over WiFi using PDA or whatever as remote, it can be pointless - network support still would have to be enabled.
RE: Would be interesting to see (hear) LAN vs. internal storage (SSD?) comparison., posted on November 4, 2009 at 10:24:50
aljordan
Audiophile

Posts: 819
Location: Southern Maine
Joined: November 4, 2003
 That would be an interesting comparison. At least from my tests, I don't hear any reduction in sound quality when using a small SSD drive in the player. However, the idea of an SSD big enough to hold a large music collection goes a bit against the low cost spirit of Ryelands' build. Still though, you are not trading networking for just the internal music drives, you are also getting rid of the mouse, keyboard and monitor in the deal.

As an aside, I have tested an operating system on internal SSD vs an operating system loaded off of a USB stick, but my test wasn't really valid because I used USB DACs at the time, and I wasn't running the entire OS running in RAM when booting off the USB stick. So. the external stick was still being accessed, and the sound quality was not as good as the internal SSD. I'll try the test again using Puppy Linux on the USB stick so I can get the entire OS into a RAM disk.

Alan
Please report back on RAMdisk vs. SSD - my money is on..., posted on November 4, 2009 at 11:10:40
carcass93
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Posts: 2634
Location: NJ
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 ... SSD.

Just a hunch.

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 09:12:44
Roseval
Audiophile

Posts: 506
Joined: March 31, 2008
 >> Manufacturer claims that ‘Remote Desktop Control is so fast and comfortable that you might even forget that you are working on a remote computer!’<<

If you have XP Pro, you can try the Windows remote desktop.
TightVNC or Teamviewer might be an alternative too
I believe TightVNC can run as a service, no user action on the headless machine required.
The Well Tempered Computer
RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 10:09:23
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 Roseval wrote:

If you have XP Pro, you can try the Windows remote desktop.

I spent several hours trying to get MS's Remote Desktop to work but there are only so many semi-literate error messages one can take. I never found out what I was doing wrong but gazillions of forum posts suggested I wasn't alone. And that was before loading it onto a machine stripped of all but essential services, which promised even more fun.

I suspect that much of the sluggishness is down to transmitting display data over the LAN so I'm not sure if MS's product would have been any quicker. VNC programmers pull tricks to trade off quality vs speed and, to be honest, speed-wise they're OK.

BTW, every VNC product I tried (and there were several) took a matter of minutes to load, configure and test. All of them usually run as a service on the controlled device and, obviously, must if it is to run headless (otherwise you'd need KVM to launch the facility, which rather defeats the purpose).

TightVNC or Teamviewer might be an alternative too

I tried TightVNC but it had a habit every now and then of rendering the display in a variety of shades of pink. Very attractive it was too but not what I was after. I think I tried Teamviewer but I can't remember. Once I found that RDC worked fine, I quit looking.

+++++

DBB wrote:

Is there any advantage to this if I want to run JRiver from the server?
Also, are you restricted to 16/44 files?

I don't know JRiver so I can't really comment. If you have an old computer lying around (alas, who doesn't?), I'd suggest you do what I did and just rig it up and give it a try. It'll tell you far more than I ever could. Any machine can run headless as I'm sure you know.

The 1.1GHz Fit-PC2 running cPlay and driving a NOS DAC has CPU usage at about 20 per cent. I haven't tested over-sampling but I suspect the 1.6 GHz model would cope at least to 96KHz if not more.

Dave

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 10:31:58
Roseval
Audiophile

Posts: 506
Joined: March 31, 2008
 >>I suspect that much of the sluggishness is down to transmitting display data over the LAN <<
I often use RDP (Vista) over my 100 Mbits LAN
I have no performance problems.
It is as crisp as working on the remote machine.
If I open the network monitor I hardly see any I/O at all
The Well Tempered Computer
RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 10:30:26
aljordan
Audiophile

Posts: 819
Location: Southern Maine
Joined: November 4, 2003
 Ryelands said: "The 1.1GHz Fit-PC2 running cPlay and driving a NOS DAC has CPU usage at about 20 per cent. I haven't tested over-sampling but I suspect the 1.6 GHz model would cope at least to 96KHz if not more."

To me, this seems to be a high CPU usage statistic. When I run a similar headless network player under Linux on the Fit-PC Slim, using a variety of different players (local MPD, remote MPD, Squeezeslave, or Netjack), my CPU usage hovers between 3 and 6 percent. If so many services are shutdown on XP, why are the CPU figures so high, given that the Fit 2 is more powerful than the Slim?

Alan

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 5, 2009 at 04:10:06
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 4100
Joined: June 1, 2002
 An ME6000 plays high res at 60%. There is a 'rosy' tinge to the sound - quite pleasant. Only 15VA though.

An Atom 330 uses 0-2%! About 25VA.

Two questions . . ., posted on November 4, 2009 at 08:53:31
DBB
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Posts: 460
Location: NYC, USA
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 Is there any advantage to this if I want to run JRiver from the server?
Also, are you restricted to 16/44 files?

RE: Two questions . . ., posted on November 4, 2009 at 10:06:32
aljordan
Audiophile

Posts: 819
Location: Southern Maine
Joined: November 4, 2003
 Hi DBB,

I recently posted something about Netjack in a thread on the digital asylum. I was hoping Ryelands would see it so he could try out stuff out with his networked CMP2 box. Netjack would allow you to use a low powered CMP box as a client, and any program you wanted on the server as long as it supported an ASIO output (J River included).

I'll repost below because it has at least something to do with the current discussion.

---- original post below ----

Why would someone want to use Netjack? Similar to Squeezecenter, it allows a person to keep a very small, headless device (no keyboard, mouse, nor monitor) in the listening room, without having to have the music library stored on large local hard drives. There are other means of doing this, such as Squeezecenter streaming to a Squeezebox, Squeezecenter streaming to a PC running Squeezeslave, or Music Player Daemon accessing a library on networked remote shares. Squeezecenter / Squeezebox devices are limited to a max 96k sampling rate. Netjack and Music Player Daemon are limited by the sampling rate of your DAC. Music Player Daemon is only stable on Linux. Netjack works on Linux, Windows, and I think on a MAC. Another benefit, possibly only applicable to a low processing power player like mine, is that I keep my library in FLAC format, and the Netjacked server will take care of decompressing FLAC back to WAV before it is sent across the network to the player. Squeezecenter server also has the ability to decompress FLAC on the server before it is sent across the network to the player, and doing so has a positive effect on the Squeezebox clients, but the server has to be specifically configured to do this.

My Netjack player is implemented as a Fit-PC Slim with a small SSD running a stripped down version of Linux. The Fit-PC feeds either an asynch Wavelength USB DAC or an asynch E-mu USB DAC. I will eventually try running a Netjack player on my networked CMP-like box feeding either the above USB DACs or a Lynx 2B sound card. I've implemented the Netjack server on both Linux and Windows.

What I've gleaned so far is that a player running on a server feeding Netjack makes a positive difference compared to MPD running on the player accessing a file-system over a mapped network drive. Given that the Fit-PC Slim is a "processing-power-challenged" device, its possible that using the Netjack transport makes more of difference in this case than it would on a more powerful computer. I haven't yet tested it on a more powerful computer. While my tests are subjective listening tests, I hear more extended frequency extremes and more depth in the soundstage using the Netjack setup.

Please note, at least in the case of feeding my USB DACs, that I hear more differences between differing computer hardware solutions on the player end compared to the various software tweaks I've played with. In other words, my Fit-PC Slim with an aftermarket power supply running normal media player software sounds better feeding my USB DACs than a standard quiet PC or AC powered laptop running all the software tweaks I can throw at it. In this regards, I think John Swenson's idea of an FPGA based player would have benefits.

The architecture here is that the player computer only needs to run the Netjack daemon (it can be Windows, Linux and maybe a MAC). The server also runs the Netjack daemon, and it can be Windows or Linux or maybe a MAC). On the server, you can use any media player that supports a Jack output on Linux, or any media player that supports an ASIO output on Windows. Do you like to use Foobar, Winamp, JRiver Media Center, CPlay, Music Player Daemon, XMMS, Aqualung, or Alsaplayer? They will all work. If you have a USB DAC, you can get that big noisy monster PC and monitor out of the listening room and replace it with an itsy bitsy teenie weenie PC.

Ryelands, I'd be particularly interested if you would try this on your networked CMP solution. I haven't played around much with different players on the server side, but in theory they should sound pretty much the same. Imagine, using a responsive media player on the server with a good interface and great metadata tagging capabilities like J-River, instead of that archaic, boring CPlayListEditor crud that is available for CPlay. I don't think it would be terribly difficult for you to set up, and I'd be glad to help.

Alan

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:38:10
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 4100
Joined: June 1, 2002

'As it is small and features very low RF emission'


This statement has been made; it is not claimed by Fit. Can you please provide the evidence?

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 09:26:05
Ryelands
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Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 "As it is small and features very low RF emission". This statement has been made; it is not claimed by Fit. Can you please provide the evidence?

To clarify the fine print, there is no such entity as "Fit" - the name Fit-PC refers to a product line from a manufacturer called CompuLab.

I assume that the "statement" that the device is small is not disputed. That leaves the issue of RFI. Although I noted that "Meaningful measurements are beyond the reach of most hobbyists" there are occasional exceptions and this is one of them. A month or two back, John Swenson posted a brief comparative review of two Fit-PC devices, the 2 and the Slim. He noted inter alia that:

There is one other advantage, both the slim and the 2 produce very low RFI, WAY, WAY lower than any of the laptops or desktops I tested. This might wind up being significant in some systems.
Asked if he had measurements to back his claim, he replied that:
Yes I do have an older HP spectrum analyzer (it weighs 90 pounds!) that I use for the tests. I connect a probe with a 1 inch piece of wire sticking out the end and move it around the device under test, around the PS, wire from PS to device, power cord to PS etc.

This very simple test has been quite effective at getting a rough idea of RFI from devices. Its completely uncalibrated so I'm not going to give any numbers, but it is useful at finding differences between devices.

Both the slim and 2 actually had lower fields near the box than the general fields out in free space, probably due to the shielding from the case.

Their cases are designed to be fairly well sealed, primarily I think for environmental issues, but they also do a very good job of electrical shielding.

In the light of that evidence and having no reason to dispute it, my (incidental) point seemed a fair one.

Dave

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 10:48:57
fmak
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Posts: 4100
Joined: June 1, 2002
 I accept John's statement about emissions from the box; but this has no bearing on RF and noise modulations inside the box and how this may corrupts/modulates the power supply as well as signals coming out of it and into the sudio stream.

John also noted that the slim version sounds better than the 2.
RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 14:22:25
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 I accept John's statement about emissions from the box; but this has no bearing on RF and noise modulations inside the box and how this may corrupts/modulates the power supply as well as signals coming out of it and into the audio stream.

I said that it would be OK to put a Fit-PC2 near to other kit because of low RF emissions. You asked for evidence to back my claim. I provided some and you say you accept it.

You then suggest that his statement has no bearing on a different (though related) matter. You could well be right – but I never said it did. What’s your point?

John also noted that the slim version sounds better than the 2.

Not exactly. He reported that his setup (Netjack and stuff with cryptic names) sounded better on the Fit-PC Slim than on the Fit-PC2 but he was (rightly) hesitant about extrapolating to an XP scenario.

Whatever, it mattered little to me as I don’t have a Fit-PC Slim and couldn’t test his hypothesis. I did do trials on cMP^2 using what I had and have just reported them.

Comparing the results with those from a Fit-PC Slim might have confirmed John’s hypothesis but OTOH the Fit-PC Slim is unlikely to cope with upsampling, something which every man and his dog tells me is key to audio reproduction. Again, what’s your point?

Dave

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 5, 2009 at 02:24:25
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 4100
Joined: June 1, 2002
 My point is simple and I am not in this forum to pick on a word or two.

Please don't try to make causual insinuations that lower emi signals emitted means better audio reproduction quality. This is not necessarilly related to it, but has a direct link to modulations inside the PC. As you said, lower stray signals can mean a 'better' box.
RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 5, 2009 at 04:43:24
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 My point is simple and I am not in this forum to pick on a word or two.

Unfortunately, your custom is to make terse, aphoristic statements and to claim at intervals that basic points that you (and, by implication, only you) have been making for years fall on ears that are deaf because they are untutored. It’s irritating.

You also imply that posters you happen not to agree with (especially, for some reason, those from the industry) act from suspect motives though you never offer evidence to back the point. That's improper.

One result is that your posts come across as if you are eager to score points at the expense of those deemed less ethical or “expert” than you are. They would irritate less were it more apparent that you were open to debate and willing to inform and assist others in what is, after all, meant to be a hobby.

There are experts on this list who do that (from the audio industry, even) and I’m grateful for their efforts. That said, you are not the worst in this regard and I do find some of your posts useful if short on detail.

+++

Please don't try to make causual insinuations that lower emi signals emitted means better audio reproduction quality. This is not necessarilly related to it, but has a direct link to modulations inside the PC. As you said, lower stray signals can mean a 'better' box.

I didn’t "insinuate" anything. OK, I don't know if you meant "casual" or "causal" but your suggestion that my point was devious is, well, unhelpful.

The full sentence from which you pulled "As it is small and features very low RF emission" reads

As [the Fit-PC2] is small and features very low RF emission, it is practicable, despite caveats in reference 3 below, to locate it close to DACs and amplifiers.
I did not claim that “lower emi signals emitted means better audio reproduction quality”. (BTW, I don’t understand your second sentence.) If you’d looked at the reference before jumping down my throat, you’d have found the caveat in the first of the posts listed. It reads
The single biggest effect on sound has nothing to do with jitter etc, it’s EMI emitted by the computer which gets picked up by the stereo system. If the computer is sitting next to the stereo system this is a FAR greater effect than anything mentioned above. Different computers spew out different amounts of EMI so it's hard to make absolute pronouncements but I would not put any computer right next to a stereo system. When using the USB DAC, my computer is 25 feet away from the system with the long optical USB cable. If the computer is only a few feet away its audible effects are quite noticeable. Laptops tend to have lower emissions than other types but even they can be heard. The ultra quiet computers are no better than anything else in this regard. I would seriously think twice about putting ANY computer in the rack with your other stereo components. Ultra low EMI computers can certainly be built but almost everything on the market is shielded just to the point of meeting the FCC regs and no better. [Emphases added]
John is far from the first to make the point but I have found his posts on things USB over the years particularly useful and I've filed some of them. I used this one because (a) it’s well written and (b) I was, as a guest on someone else’s web site, conscious of space.

It said that putting a computer next to other kit is not on. All I suggested, based on evidence you "accepted", was that the Fit-PC2 could be considered an “ultra low EMI computer” and thus be safely sited next to other kit.

That’s all. If you feel I'm actually suggesting that "lower emi signals emitted means better audio reproduction quality", I'm afraid that that's as good as I can write (it took me long enough) and I'm sorry if it's confusing.

If OTOH you feel that John’s proposition is outrageous (or that he is insinuating things he has no business to), it might be better to take up the point with him. Incidentally, there’s an RF engineer on the list who might be persuaded to comment if he thinks I'm way off beam here.

Dave

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 5, 2009 at 06:35:22
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 4100
Joined: June 1, 2002
 You have no right to dictate how I post.

You write a dictionary if you like; I have better things to do.

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 5, 2009 at 08:02:40
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 You have no right to dictate how I post.

Nonsense - you misquote me (OK, that happens) and you impugn my motive (which is quite unnecessary). Instead of offering even the most partial of apologies, you throw your toys out the pram.

I have every right to reply to such nonsense and I shall exercise it as necessary. The patience of others who are the butt of your boorish behaviour is exemplary but, for my part, I'm heartily sick of it.

I have better things to do.

Then why not go and do them?

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 5, 2009 at 09:15:16
Tony Lauck
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Posts: 3048
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Contributor
  Since: February 24, 2009
 No point in arguing with Fred. His personality is his personality. As you pointed out, he does make valuable posts, for which I am thankful. He occasionally puts forth his opinions, but it is clear when he is doing so and he is certainly entitled to do so. Like all of us, on occasion he misunderstands the intent of various posts or the main gist of a thread, but he does not spread mis-information, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Tony Lauck

"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 5, 2009 at 11:02:52
Ryelands
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Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 He occasionally puts forth his opinions . . . and he is certainly entitled to do so

And, with equal certainty, so am I.

He does not spread mis-information, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Yes he does and that's why I'm getting hot under the collar. It's not the mis-quoting that bothers me - he often writes before he reads and it's usually pretty obvious. It's the regular suggestions that some forum members act from, at best, questionable motives that I object to. The most obvious examples are cics and Gordon Rankin. I'm just an also-ran. He has no evidence for his points and that makes them, well, mis-information.

That some here find it acceptable (and even do the same) doesn't make it OK for me and, I'm sure, most others. It's tricky for trade members to answer back and others obviously choose not to. It isn't tricky for me and I choose to.

I worked hard to prepare those notes on the Fit-PC. I'm delighted that some at least found them interesting. I'd welcome either comment, robust criticism even, on the substantive points or, well, silence. It seems a reasonable request.

I certainly didn't want this crap. Trust me, if I really wanted to make insinuations (casual, causal or whatever), they'd be on racier topics than the RFI characteristics of a friggin' itzy-bitzy computer.

Dave

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:48:54
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 This statement has been made

If you tell me which statement you're referring to, I'll try to answer your question.

D

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 08:18:05
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 4100
Joined: June 1, 2002
 Pl see edit

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 06:08:44
fmak
Audiophile

Posts: 4100
Joined: June 1, 2002
 'I'd greatly welcome constructive criticism and comment. That said, I’d ask that those who regularly claim special insight into (and feel the need to comment on) my and others' mental processes or to declaim our general competence hold their fire just this once or, if that’s too much, to start a separate thread. '

You should do the same and respect other people's threads.
RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 07:43:21
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 You should do the same and respect other people's threads

When I noted that "cMP^2's sceptics might have wider points to make about the general configuration" and that the Fit-PC2 was "not the only choice in this scenario" your reports on a different Atom-based board were partly what I had in mind. You would, I'm sure, have made useful points.

I can only apologise if you feel I should have included you instead among the wannabee psychologists.

Dave

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 05:45:54
aljordan
Audiophile

Posts: 819
Location: Southern Maine
Joined: November 4, 2003
 Hi Dave,

I can't find the link you refer to in your post. Am I blind?

Alan

RE: cMP^2 and USB – a different approach, posted on November 4, 2009 at 06:11:13
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 299
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 I can't find the link you refer to in your post. Am I blind?

Not as far as I can tell but, were you to call me dumb, I'd be hard pressed to argue.

Sorted - with apologies. See below. (Main post now corrected. Not sure what I did wrong.)

D

advanced section, posted on November 4, 2009 at 06:09:52
ecir38
Audiophile

Posts: 262
Location: New Orleans
Joined: May 9, 2007
 It's in the advanced section.

Awesome work guys!!!!!

Brad

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