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RE: Break-in report: Atom + Juli@ analog is stunning for the price

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erin

In Reply to: RE: Break-in report: Atom + Juli@ analog is stunning for the price posted by AstroD on May 14, 2010 at 14:46:11

In replay to your question if anyone else has tried the D510MO.

I tried the D510MO motherboard with some kingston value ram and the OS installed on a CF card. I use a USB to i2s converter to my DAC.
I ran this board for about 5 hours and listened a few times, I found that the sound quality using the USB to i2s converter was very poor. XP was optimised according to the instructions. I was disappointed with the USB sound quality.

My other CMP computer uses the GA-G31M-ES2L motherboard which provides excellent sonic results using the same USB to i2s converter.

Does anyone have an idea why the D510MO sounds so bad when using USB.
I would like to persist with this ITX board, but I dont think there is anywhere for me to go with it. I did turn off Hyperthreading in the bios which made some sonic improvement, but not enough for me to say this board is good when using USB. I'm sure AstroD is correct saying that it sounds good with the Juli@ card, but I dont use that card.

Should I try to "run in" the motherboard for longer. How long is enough?
Can anyone else try testing the USB sound quality on this board?

Thanks
Erin

Follow Ups:

RE: Break-in report: Atom + Juli@ analog is stunning for the price - AstroD 10:56:23 05/29/10 (2)
Did you make sure the USB port used for the DAC has its own IRQ? It's cumbersome to find out, but when isolated, it really helps.
- RE: Break-in report: Atom + Juli@ analog is stunning for the price - erin 18:19:13 05/29/10 (0)
  Hi, I did check the IRQ and I'm fairly sure that they had separate IRQ's but I will have to double check that and get back to you. But It will be a few days as I have to reinstall the OS.
  
  I also did disconnect all other USB devices when listening and did not notice any improvement. Do I still need a separate IRQ even if not using any other devices? I also tried various BIOS settings as well as even turning of PCI devices in the BIOS.
  
  I even tried running the D510MO off my big Seasonic S2 power supply. This did make a just noticeable improvement, but it was still no good.
  
  Of course, I am not disputing anyone else's findings with this board and the Juli@, just reporting my observations with USB.
  Thanks.
- I wouldn't recommend Atom for heavy duty upsampling - cics 12:20:09 05/29/10 (0)
  Your point on IRQ is important and will have impact on SQ.
  
  Atom processors + NM10 chipset has large appeal for audio due to low power consumption and display interface is from CPU. But it lacks SSE4.1 and 2MB L2 cache. There are other limitations like "in-order execution" making computationally intensive tasks less efficient. This suggests Atom based solutions are best for non-upsampling. This leaves upsampling to the DAC which is not ideal. Atom processors using 32nm + DDR3 technology may improve this situation.
  
  Core i3 + H55 is superior when upsampling and power consumption comes very close. NM10 uses 2.5 watts vs H55's 3.5 watts. Only downside on Core i3 based solutions is the display interface which is from the chipset.

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