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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:02:30 GMT
I also agree that there cannot be anything great about the SOtM PCI USB card. As already said the components used are no great shakes. Probably the best feature is the power cut switch prior to the USB sockets! At the bottom I've pasted in the block diagram, many of the devices used to achieve "fantasticness" are the very same ones we've been removing and replacing with HQ linear supplies to improve our standard USB outputs. In another thread I proposed that BASIC PCI(e), to my limited thinking, should be superior to BASIC USB sonically. I was quickly put down by those now saying the PCI is better. Screwey As Alex suggested, the only way I can see that USB is superior is the simple fact that power enhancements are simpler to implement and physically more possible than with PCI. Attachments:
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:03:19 GMT
But we all have not much money to toss out at the moment. I guess, it will have to wait. I'm afraid so.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:10:20 GMT
Alex, you can buy a PCI or PCIe ->USB 3.0 card for less than 10€. They get the extra power needed for USB 3.0 spec from a 4 pin Molex.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:15:06 GMT
Alex, you can buy a PCI or PCIe ->USB 3.0 card for less than 10€. They get the extra power needed for USB 3.0 spec from a 4 pin Molex. Hi Javier I have already checked them out, but I don't need one yet. I recently installed an IDE to SATA card to gain an extra SATA port. Regards Alex.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:21:10 GMT
You can even get pcmcia to usb3 cards which an external 5vdc feed to boost the proceedings. So even old banger laptops like mine can enjoy USB3!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:37:57 GMT
Firstly, almost everything done wrong is your personal opinion. As for being a rip off price wise, perhaps if it was mass produced it wouldn't be ? It takes the PC's +12V supply and regulates it down to a very clean +5V. The card also permits the +5V supply over the USB cable to be switched off where the external device can take advantage of this.Quite a few C.A. members have also used the SOtM products in other areas and posted their findings. For the vast majority of people,using these cards would be an easy, but not cheap, alternative to external DIY Linear PSUs. C.A. has >130,000 members. Quite a few of these members are involved in the industry and many are designers/manufacturers of highly regarded commercial products. Demian Martin , as an example is very highly regarded in this area, as is Gordon Rankin and many others. If the number of registered members would be a real indicator of knowledge, you should have a look at Facebook (plus 900 million users). If every tenth of their member would buy a SOtM card, it would be easily to go for a mass product. The card also doesn't look like a small batch. You haven't even tried the card. And your are judging it. According to your description, it's used to overcome some USB power issues which are related to noise PSU. But instead of using a cleaner (linear or toroid) power source, they use a questionable overprice USB PCI card which costs more than a handmade Little Pinkie from Mike. Before I'd toss out money for the SOtM stuff, I'd order an appropriate LittlePinkie for that computer from Mike. Instead of treating only the symptoms, it would cure the origin of the problem. Many U.S. C.A. members are appliance operators only.( think sleek looking Apple laptops with the overpowering Apple logo brilliantly lit in various shades of gaudy ;D ) That is why Australia has per capita a far better DIY representation than either the Yanks or the Poms.(no offence intended) We also have a huge chain of Jaycar stores and the other major suppliers are also represented, and a world class electronics magazine whose projects are now syndicated to a U.K. publication . ( Everyday Practical Electronics) It would be news to Mike that he can supply a suitable Little Pinkie. Mike's Little Pinkies are excellent PSUs, but do not incorporate ultra low noise voltage regulation/filtering.To do so would make the price prohibitive , especially as they are made to order, and hand made. Mike more than likely has yet to recover his costs from supplying these quality PSUs ! Perhaps you should further polish your soldering skills and dip your toes further into the DIY water by building a nice little DAC such as the PK designed by Will ? It is capable, if properly implemented , of easily outperforming the analogue output from a decent soundcard.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:47:01 GMT
You can even get pcmcia to usb3 cards which an external 5vdc feed to boost the proceedings. So even old banger laptops like mine can enjoy USB3! Hi Chris Where do you get decent quality USB 3.0 sockets that we could fit to a +5V JLH PSU ? I use the ones shown in my photo elsewhere because they are robust and should last a long time, and many insertions/removals.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 0:59:44 GMT
Hi Chris Where do you get decent quality USB 3.0 sockets that we could fit to a +5V JLH PSU ? I use the ones shown in my photo elsewhere because they are robust and should last a long time, and many insertions/removals. You have a photo of USB3 sockets you've used? Or did I understand that wrong... I was thinking, with said pcmcia adaptor, to simply disconnect the bus 5dvc inside that, pump in a healthy, clean 5vdc 1a supply and run twin cables out (Data and voltage) and splicing at the other end. I haven't even looked for USB3 plugs and sockets yet!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 1:11:17 GMT
Hi Chris Where do you get decent quality USB 3.0 sockets that we could fit to a +5V JLH PSU ? I use the ones shown in my photo elsewhere because they are robust and should last a long time, and many insertions/removals. You have a photo of USB3 sockets you've used? Or did I understand that wrong... I was thinking, with said pcmcia adaptor, to simply disconnect the bus 5dvc inside that, pump in a healthy, clean 5vdc 1a supply and run twin cables out (Data and voltage) and splicing at the other end. I haven't even looked for USB3 plugs and sockets yet! Hi Chris Presently I am using USB 2.0 PS0782 and PS0783 from Jaycar. Modifying the adaptor may be easier said than done. Kind Regards Alex www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=PS0782www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=PS0783
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elysion
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Post by elysion on Jul 30, 2012 1:23:17 GMT
I'd still go a LittlePinkie instead of buying any SOtM snake oil products. Even without ultra low noise voltage regulation/filtering a Pinkie would be a way better solution that would cure the problem and not only treat the symptoms.
As for improving DIY skills: Yes. That's definitely on my list. But I have not everything need at home at the moment. I've ordered some of the needed stuff two days ago, but I still wait on the reply from Mike for my order. Last time, my mail was stuck in his SPAM filter. Perhaps, I'll have to resend it in a couple of days. I have not intention to stress Mike though. He has a few more important things going on at the moment.
DAC's are not on my to do list at the moment. But we'll see. I'll probably go for simpler things until I have enough practice.
IMO a better idea to save the money and to get rid of your old mainboard. IDE to SATA converter? What a really performant and reliable solution (YUK!)... ;D
I'd suggest you to have a look on some ASRock motherboards. Years ago, ASRock had a bad reputation for making cheap crap motherboards. But this has changed almost completely. Today, they sell mainboards which give you very good value for the money. I wouldn't go for their entry level boards though, but the midrange and high-end boards are really well made. They are often cheaper as for example ASUS, but offer a similar quality. Sometimes, they are even better (for example all their BIOS/UEFI updates are flawless, something I can't say for some ASUS mainboards; the updating process isn't a problem with both, but ASUS has managed to offer a few updates which have caused troubles; I still like ASUS mainboards, but you have always to check how the feedback for some UEFI/BIOS updates is). Forget intel mainboards. Those are really plain-vanilla and nothing more.
I'm no fan of Gigabyte or MSI mainboards though. They make some good mainboards, but they're not my taste.
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XTRProf
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Post by XTRProf on Jul 30, 2012 6:57:25 GMT
Actually as what Dale had written, the RAM is more important than than SSD as that's where the music is buffered before being played. Just set the media player to play from memory. That memory is not SSD, btw, to be clear about things. For me, I will max out that RAM and have only a 250 to 500 GB SSD for the OS and apps. Also, do we need to have super fast RAMs. I don't think so for AV, at least, as we are just talking of the highest at about 20 Mbs (real situation measurement) for hirez 384-24 stereo files and less than 100 Mbs for 3D Full HD video files. All DDR RAMs of whatever vintage will already overdo many many times above that requirement. I dare to write that even the coming 4k video in 3D, the DDR RAMs will again many many times overdo the requirement. I'm not too sure for gaming. But if the RAM is max out, I firmly believe that that will not be a problem for gaming too. Anyway, DDR3 RAMs are cheap. So why argue over this? Yeah, only argue when you wanted DDR5 RAMs. But as anything related to audio especially, different brands of RAMs can sound different. I have not compared different RAM sound as I'm just starting to build up my computer AV with gaming now. Really, that will be interesting for the club of OCDs. So anyone intending to do the last statement?
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pagan
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Post by pagan on Jul 30, 2012 7:43:12 GMT
Which Ram? Edited fo Alex,--- all the memory speeds are MHz, ie 2000Mhz " mrmaia 10-14-2011 at 06:21:36 PM Best answer To put it on simple maths: The frequency is expressed in Hertz, which means "cycles per second". So, the DDR3 2000 will perform 2000 cycles a second while the DDR3 1600 will do, well, 1600. The CAS latency is given in cycles. So, a CAS9 RAM will take 9 cycles to respond and the CAS6, 6 cycles. Now putting it together: the DDR3 2000 CAS9 will take 9/2000 seconds, which is equal to 0,0045 seconds, to respond while the DDR3 1600 CAS 6 will take 6/1600, which is equal to 0,0038 seconds, to respond. Thus, the 1600 one is faster. Less RAM sticks generally means less load to the memory controller. So, 2x4GB is better than 4x2GB." Quoted from here www.tomshardware.com/forum/299012-30-latency-speed
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 8:27:46 GMT
Allan Sounds Mega slow to me. Alex P.S. Off topic posts that would have been better made as PMs have been removed. Alex
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 9:46:33 GMT
What is it about audio fora and hi-fi enthusiasts that makes it so bloody easy to fall out with each other? Sometimes I bloody despair and want to remove myself from the 'battlefield' . Maybe I am alone in this but I think of RG as a community of friends - one of the characteristics of friends is that they can disagree without falling out, IMO. I've had some real 'ding-dongs' with my friends, particularly when we've all had a jar or two of 'pop' , but next morning the underlying relationship remains as it has 'always' been, friendly. RG is a broad church and there should be room for firmly held differences of opinion without any accompanying animosity. Most of the guys on here are very intelligent and knowledgeable about the aspects of hi-fi which have interested them for years so why do others have to denigrate their beliefs - it's school playground stuff IMO - if you don't play my version of the game I'm going to remove myself (or you) from the game - jeeez!!! There, I think I've upset you all in equal measure so I'll leave it there but there's much more that I could say if prompted further . Dave.
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pagan
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Post by pagan on Jul 30, 2012 12:47:43 GMT
Allan Sounds Mega slow to me. Alex Well maybe MHz But still faster than your old clunker ;D Allan
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Post by dalethorn on Jul 30, 2012 13:56:23 GMT
It's bad enough I think to have to consider that different RAM installs may sound different, but the Windows cache isn't a done deal either. My current PC has 16 gb of RAM, and while most of the time the computer just scoops the data it's reading off the media into that RAM cache smoothly and without glitches, there comes those points where some of the old cache has to be dumped to make room for new data. I know the algorithms are really great for database work etc., but they weren't intended for hi-fi reproduction. So I still think if your computer is connected to the Internet normally you should expect some minor loss of quality on that alone, but when there's any background process accessing media besides the current music track being played, the potential for sonic degradation is higher. In other words, the very smooth streaming of the music track data into large contiguous blocks of available RAM will probably occur without a major negative sonic impact, but anything less is bound to exact a toll.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2012 21:50:04 GMT
But still faster than your Media PC ?
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pagan
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Post by pagan on Jul 31, 2012 7:43:57 GMT
But still faster than your Media PC ? Yep I've seen watches quicker than my Media PC ;D
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XTRProf
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Post by XTRProf on Jul 31, 2012 12:19:40 GMT
Wow, same as my Pentium 3 or even 4?
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