XXHighEnd

Now I have my NOS1a there is no reason to play inside my DAC anymore, Peter has just nailed it haha  ;)

So feeling the need to play about today, I finally got round to changing the main clock on my audio PC's mobo. I did loads of research on this about a year ago and bought parts to make up a higher spec clock but just never got round to applying it. Well it went in today without any problems and the heart of my PC now beats on LifePo4 battery power.

Carnot say much about sound quality yet as my little one was in bed when the system went back together, but I can say that sound quality at XX vol of -45db (normally play at -30db) sounded extremely good. Will post more when the vol can be wound up. Fingers crossed for good things.

Regards,

Nick.

I've spent this morning listening to the Mobo clock. It's very interesting listening. Mid range and highs have never sounded so good here in fact for clarity detail and tone beautiful is the word I would use. There is a smoothness (in the sense of real instruments and voices) that was not possible to fine with settings before. It's difficult to imagine the sound is coming from a digital recording.

I think the NOS1a is instrumental in letting these changes shine through there is so little (any ?) digital sound to it, so changes upstream just pass through it. Nice....

So now for the steps backwards. Well this is about energy and slam and definition in the bass. I had managed to get a great sound going after a lot of work on settings and tweaks throughout my system. The mobo clock is holding back a little of this energy and slam and bass resolution. My toe is not tapping quite so much at the moment as before. BUT I've heard this balance in the bass before, it was when using the same type of module oscillator I've lashed up the mobo with when working on USB clocks some time ago. It's the same signature in the lows and there was a straight forward fix for that....

So summary not a 100% hit first time, but this was not expected with the clock module used. However a very very significant improvement in SQ, and enough to make it worth working on the bass, but might have to spend some cash on a better clock or mod a 24.5mz clock this is unused at the moment.

Final observation clock multiplier setting in bios has very little impact on sound now. That's possibly pointing at the general way the improved improved master clock may work in the system.

 
Nick.

:blink:

Nick, could you post some pictures of your mobo clock? I'm very curious about that... although in the future I'd first like to add a good clock to a PCI usb board... Thanks!

Hi,

Quick update. The lash up cheap module clock and LifePo4 battery are out of the PC now. It's been replaced by a spare dexa I modified to work with the motherboard.

My little one is in bed again so I've been listening at -60db and it sounds really good, full sound and disconnected from the speakers   :dntknw: defiantly improved on the lash up clock even at these stupid volume levels. Bass so far as I can tell is better but need to turn up the wick to be sure it might be a couple of days before I can do this. Very frustrating.....

I think I may have a  way to produce clocks for USB, and Mobo with -95db phase noise at 10hz and femto second jitter levels, at significantly lower cost than the dexas. Need to buy some parts and have a play.

Fralippo hi, sure will post some pics.

Nick.

Nick, give look at following link for a low phase noise jitter oscillator:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/261651-well-tempered-master-clock-building-low-phase-noise-jitter-crystal-oscillator.html

Also give a look on ebay about used OCXO. These have great performances but are almost never used in audio due to high cost (about 500Eur each). Cost apart you will not find usual "audio" frequencies (11.2896 MHz and so on) and they have to be custom ordered.... minimum production batch is 5 pieces to complicate things even more.
Maybe for usb and mobo freqs. you'd find something!
 

Hi,

My opinion ?
This won't be of much use. There's a "million" re-clocks behind the master clock (think "clock tree") and they will determine the final jitter/skew etc. It shouldn't do a thing when the master is better, because it is about the proper timing and that things keep on running.

That's all.
Peter

Peter hi,

I agree with you there, I am also thinking "clock tree" and also about what this tree "drives". The base frequency for instance is multiplied upto 120 times to generate the cpu clock. If the trunk of this tree is not functioning well for audio, then it is sure  that the "branches" are effected at some level. The impact cascades up the tree and is likely to be felt differently in different branches.

What is known at the moment is that there is "influance", I simply report that subjectively there is a very large change in sound quality with each of the three clocks listened to so far. Setting aside for now if the change heard is better or worse, the mere fact that there is a big change shows that this clock through some linkage mechanisum is closley coupled to sound quality. We don't yet understand how and why, but it just is.

The change is so large it should easy to work out if this a "no brainer" or an interesting diversion. I should get to listen at high volume levels tomorrow so I'll feed back more on sound qualty good bad or mixed however it turns out.

Best regards,

Nick.

Hi,

Well there has been chance to listen to the Mobo clock upgrade today at normal volume. It doesn’t take two bars of music to realise this upgrade is a forklift sized upgrade to sound quality in my system. The synergy of the modified PC with the NOS1a is just absolutely superb.

Let’s not get too hooked on the hows and whys. I have plenty of thoughts about how the clock might be impacting the PC and music reproduction, but this definatly is not one to get too tied up on theory... it just works and how it works !!!  :wacko:

I will post more details of what has happened to sound quality with the Mobo clock upgrade. For now I can say with no doubts at all that the ASrock Extreme 4M mobo has become a device in a different league for playing music.  :blob8:

Nick.

ps two more locations in on the Mobo are on the shortlist for treatment  ;)

You f...  :) :)

Of course I don't believe it until after 5 days of this of several hours you say the same. So that bring a bit of (weeks of) waiting with your children not being used so some SPL. Haha.

That there's a difference I will believe upfront. And that it coincidentally can be better, too.

For fun : now change the CPU speed and see what happens. Could be a warm surprise ...

Btw, what is your net speed at this moment ? I mean, how it shows in TaskManager ?

Peter

Where in the taskManager is the speed to be found. Can't find it.

Stanley

HI,

have a look under "Performance" and then scroll to the bottom where you see "Ethernet"

Joachim

Ah, thanks Joachim.

My i7 - 2600s @ 2800GHz runs at 1,6 GHz, so at 400MHz per core.

Stanley

Peter

My PC  systm is running at a processor speed of 430mhz with max of 1.2gb. I'm in quiet time again so cannot try faster cpu just now, however when Itried high cpu clock ratios a couple of days ago sound was more consistent than before. Will give it a go. I'm expecting that faster cpu may be possible with good sound.

Thought a pic of the PC might be fun. Poor thing has its guts all over but the SOUND haha

Best,

Nick.

Smiling ! ...

Hi Stanley - It does not work like that. Just what TaskManager shows, but if you want to know per core, divide by two when Hyperthreading is active. And "our" 430MHz does not even take that into account.
Or I am wrong. Haha.

Regards,
Peter

Fralippo,

Thanks it's a very interesting post. Some real designer's working there.

I've looked at OCXOs but as you say they are expensive. There are some very good module oscillators about now at low cost. I think as mentioned before that there is a lower cost approach for USB and mob clocks that should give very good results without the cost of the dexas I have used.

kind regards,

Nick.

Nick, if you're lucky enough to find the right frequency on a used industrial OCXO on ebay price will be very low (20 or 30 USD range). Unfortunately most of them are 10MHz. Anyway other freqs. are available.

Project at link I sent you is about getting much similar to a OCXO performances at a fraction of the price.

Hey Nick,

Interesting stuff. I happen to have a spare Dexa here(can't imagine why :) ) anyway where did you get the replacement oscillator for the Dexa and exactly what frequency are you using? Also, was there any fine tuning that you had to do on the Dexa adjustment trim pot or any other modifications?

Thanks,
Todd

A little note.

Motherboards are NOT, NOT, NOT made to be modified!

Risks to damage them are VERY VERY HIGH!

Their reliability would be MUCH compromized even if you'd succesfully be able to replace a o/b x-tal with a external oscillator.
Fitting a coaxial cable would be very tricky and, again, reliability would be MUCH lower than before.

Furthermore, maybe Nick could add something on this matter, output voltages from "audio" clocks might NOT be optimal for mobos. Where even 1.2V rails are used...

In two words: be ready to get a NEW motherboard!

Hi Fralippo,

Thank for the warning, but a possible $270 to replace a motherboard is a small price to pay if we can give a separate opinion on whether there is merit to Nick's experiment in a different system. I assure you after some costly screw ups to my NOS1, which will never see any mods after the NOS1a upgrade!! I am not at all scared of modifying a computer. I already have a Dexa clock on my PCI Usb3 board, plus separate 12, 5 and 3.3 linear power supply's running the motherboard as it is.

Todd

Fralippo hi,

It's just a clock replacement nothing to get too worried about if approched correctly. I have test equipment to work out what is needed and all the relevant research done before hand. From my point of view the only risk I was concerned about was if the clock power-on timing sequence was important but it seems not. If the change had failed then the plan would be to revert back to standard or buy any replacement parts needed. Voltages etc are all fine.

I would not recommend doing this if you don't understand what you are doing or are bothered by the cost of replacement kit, but I'm fine with that.

Regards Nick.

Bit off topic, but seeing the guts of my PC is standard here. Putting the PS and HD outside the case on vibration damping footers provided a nice boost to SQ:

YOU ARE ALL  :grazy: :grazy: :grazy: :grazy:( in a positive sense :veryhappy:)

Joachim

Of course we're all crazy, that's why we hang out with you!  :)

I just wondered what those tissues are doing there, Brian.
:cry:

Tissue box is simply a convenient cable riser that came with the upside down juice pitcher in a special AudiogoN auction.  :)

Hi,

I said I would post some more detailed impressions of the sound quality that the mobo clock upgrade produces. First before the sound impressions a couple of quick notes to bring the clock install up to date.

First on clock speed. I don’t have a way (for now) to quantitatively measure clock speed so I cannot say if the set "sweat spot" speed described is the exact nominal frequency of the PCs master oscillator, however trimming the clock speed on the replacement now fitted shows that clock speed is extremely important to sound quality. The magic in performance can be dialled in or out by moving the absolute clock speed just a few 10s or hundreds of cycles per second. The range of sound characteristics that are heard as the sweet spot is approached include booming bass but clear mids, poor dynamics but reasonable balance across the frequency range, generally good but sharp highs, in short a range of “problems” that in my system I have frustratingly suffered at different times. Its very easy to trim speed by ear I really knew when the sweat spot was reached !!

Next point is that with the replacement clock the PC boot cycle can be erratic. The PC may try to start multiple times before the POST process completes. It retries automatically so I just let it get on with it. Once it has booted it’s completely stable and I would swear that things like screen redraws are snappier than before (might be imagining it). If the boot becomes a problem, I think I know what may be happening and have some ideas about how to address it.

So the sound.

First thing to say is that once the sweet spot is found that this in IMHO is an absolutely all upside change in sound quality. Everything improves by very significant step.

Some items that stand out are:

Evenness balance tone and detail across the whole frequency. Ever had that experience where say mids are well projected but highs are slight sharp and bass powerful but slightly boomy  or for that mater many combinations of some parts the music playing well but one or two being recessed or having hash problems and letting the show down ? Well the evenness and balance that come with upgraded and tuned clock result in all frequency ranges work together in harmony without so many incorrectly "highlighted", reassessed, boomy or sharp elements in the balance.

Having said that, what does stand out is that all elements of the music stand out equally, by this I mean each instrument, voice and synthesised effect or spatial reference etc etc are given the right amount prominence and lime light to play in. Everything is writ large like it would be in live music and because things are not getting lost or highlighted the effect is that you hear musicians playing off each other and together. The energy in the music is again more convincing, snap in bass, dynamics and substance of voices, the distribution of energy in the overtones coming from a guitar or piano sound realistic and just easy on the ear to listen to.

Final major point I wanted to mention is rhythm. When the sweet spot is hit (with the clock speed), then the music seems to really speed up. The speed is the effect of the rhythm being portrayed to great effect. Before the mobo clock maybe one or two instruments or a voice would be marking out and really driving rhythm and then not always in an entirely  life like way. I guess I was just used to this and good tracks would bound along and compel my toe to tap. Now all the instrument voices and sounds are equally participating and with the right energy attack and tone, the result is that as you expect from a live performance, everyone is playing their part to drive the music forwards. The results is that the music boles along like the musicians are having bags more fun playing together. This last quality of the sound comes together only with the last fine tweak of clock speed, but you really know when its there !

Having a NOS1a is a great privilege; it is so transparent that the improved PC performance is absolutely made available by the NOS1a to listen to. All of the observations above are only possible because the NOS1a is so stupendously good and the description applies to the sound quality of the NOS1a as much as to the PC with clock mod. It may be that in other peoples systems the audio “mileage” from this change may not be so great, but for me there  is absolutely chance at all of going back.

Final thought is that I have read about others on the net replacing mobo master clocks with OCXOs and other fixed speed clocks. My experiment here leads me to believe that using a clock with the ability to trim its speed is very important. By having this facility it possible to improve the odds that you will hit the "magic" spot (speed). Otherwise it’s Clock Audio Roulette as to whether your lucks is in and the speed of the fixed speed replacement clock happens to exactly hit the sweet spot speed for your system.

Happy to provide more information if anyone wants.

Nick.

Hey Nick, thanks for sharing. For me, the mere fact that the sound changes with varying mobo clock speed is just incredible. It just goes to show that the 'computer audio rabbit hole' is so much deeper than anyone could have imagined.

As an aside, I've been really interested in the ADC side of things for a while now. Most (all?) studios use DAWs and I wonder how much SQ could be gained from the sorts of things we (I mean the pioneers on this forum, not me) are doing.

Mani.

Mani hi,


I think we have all experienced the frustration of getting settings that are good at many things only to find that there always seem to be some highlight or low light in the sound cannot be overcome. So start tuning again and get a slightly different combination of good and bad points.

Listening here now it feels like there IS a solid floor at the bottom of the rabbit hole after all. I say that with a real sense of relief.

I'm looking forwards to seeing what you and Paul make of my PC over the Christmas break. Also listening to this PC play through Orelinos is genuinely a mouth watering prospect.

Regards,

Nick.

Peter hi,


You were right. I've been using a clock ratio of 12, the comments on sound above are based on this. I doubled the ratio to 24 today and the result was a more solid and expansive sound with richer tone. There is a slight loss of dynamic but still miles and miles ahead of where things were without the clock. Not a touch of hash at the faster speed which is what I would have got before at higher ratios. A very nice sound indeed.

Another interesting point. I use 10hz to 20khz sweeps to setup my subs by ear in room. Today when setting up the subs what before I had assumed were a series of very nasty room nodes though out the sweep were just gone. It's now more or less a smooth continuous sweep,  massively different to what was happening before. This I guess ties in with the notes above about the evenness of the sound presentation with equal emphasis across all aspects of the sound.

Kind regards,

Nick.

A further sound quality update.

When the second high quality clock was fitted to my PC motherboard, I could not find my spare SMB 50 ohm coax connectors so I soldered the coax to the lugs on the back of the clock pcb's SMB plug in order to get going.

Today a proper SMB 50ohm connector was installed to the coax to connect to the clock. Sound quality took another BIG, BIG step forwards. I expected things might improve but this is much more than expected. Every thing describe in posts above about sound quality improved again !! Could not be more pleased.

This is the upgrade that just keeps giving  :)

I'm happy to provide details of the upgrade to those who would like them, it's just a complete "no brainier" form a sound quality point of view.

Regards,

Nick.

Ps higher spec crystals arrived yesterday, wonder what they might do   :)

So this has been interesting and again points at how critical this mobo clock is. With the replacement crystal, sound is still massively better than without the upgraded clock. However the sound is changed. Right now bass is super taught and tuneful. Highs are clear and sparkle, there is richer tone but voices have an ever so slight halo making them not quite so madly detailed as before. The crystal has been in for 24hours and voices are improving quickly. It takes about a week for these crystals to run in and for jitter / phase noise to settle down so we will see. The interesting thing is that you can just hear the changes and that they are similar to problem elements of sound in the past.

I was refreshing on some research reading last night and the next mobo clock mod is well and truly on, if the idea is right (linked to the audio roulette thread) the next change might also be a big one.

Will post back.

Regards,

Nick.

Hi Nick,

(OT comment)
The halo surrounding voices describes exactly what I heard when I massively changed my standard AC cables in my audio chain (preamp, power amp, dac, even the PC) for "audiophile" ones... It took at least a few months for this behavior to disappear...
(end of OT)

So thanks to Nick, and the convenience of having a spare Dexa in hand, I put the Dexa in place of the standard motherboard clock yesterday.
This is after having the Blaxius and B75 mod in for about a week.

My listening yesterday and today confirm Nick's observations. To me it is like Blaxius and B75 Plus. Everything in perfect balance, detail in spades but not artificial, broader & deeper soundstage. Where the clock mod really made a difference, I would call "drive", more power and body to each instrument but especially percussion. Just more like how you feel more air movement from live instruments. You feel the music more in your body. And even more texture is fleshed out than the Blaxius mod alone.

I am definitely impressed and nicely surprised. To me I often gauge changes to my system in terms of would ever want or revert to the premodified mode. And both the Blaxius B75 mod and the motherboard mod fall in the category of keepers. I can't imagine going back!

I'm sure most of you are like me, you have multiple music "standards" that you know extremely well, and you use those to assess a change. I've got quite a few go to's but they usually include. Rebecca Pidgon "Raven"', Cowboy Junkies "Trinity Revisited", Natalie Merchant  "Leave Your Sleep", some Norah Jones, Lyle Lovett, Ben Harper, Black Crows, and various classical recordings. There wasn't a single one where I was thinking something is not quite right, they all were notably improved.

Todd

Todd hi,

I'm really pleased the mobo clock change has gone in well. And on a different mob type which is great. Nice to chat ealier it sounds as though your going to be catching up one some more live sounding favorite tunes  :)

Will post if tonight's experiments here work.

King regards,

Nick.

Hi,

The next clock was fitted to the Mobo today. To recap my PC now has the first upgraded master clock (for CPU memory etc etc) the second targeted clock to be fitted today that has just gone in is the PCIe signalling clock that runs timing as data moved from the south bridge to the PCIe USB card over the PCIe bus. The PCIe clock fitted today is actually one of my cheap clock modules as a lash up.

When I first listened to the PC with the second clock fitted it was immediately obvious that some aspects of the sound were now "super real" but that in the mids and highs all was not well, a bit of hash.

So going on the theory of relative clock speeds that is in part driving this whole process of upgrades to the PC, the CPU clock and the PCIe were tuned to the same speed (they were a long way out). The result was quite honestly a revelation..... 

:wtf: followed by  :NY01::NY01::NY01:

I will listen more before a more considered post on sound quality. For now I would describe the sound as EXTREME REALISUM : energy, detail, presence, tone etc etc, IMHO this is how to sort the PC as a music server. And this is with a quite low quality clock driving the PCIe sub-system, god knows what will happen when a dexa goes in.

More to come on sound soon :)

Nick.

ps Todd hi, I think you will need to get your master clock running at 25mhz. Matching this CPU clock to the PCIe clock is very important to get the music singing.
 

Hey Nick, really exciting stuff. I'm looking forward to meeting up with you in a week's time at Paul's place. Should be fun!

Cheers, Mani.

Hey Nick, a quick question: How many of your 'original tweaks' do you still have in place? I'm referring to these (I've stated what I've done in red):


I'm interested because I'm going to be playing around with my 'Le Monster' PC over the holidays and just wanted to get a steer on what others are doing.

I'm tempted to go for a single, 'small' SSD with nothing but virgin Win8  and XX installed, and use remote desktop for control (I use this already and really love it). All music would be stored on a NAS. I'm currently very close to this config but use a single 2TB HDD, with Win8 and XX on a separate partition and all the music on the rest. But all of my music doesn't fit onto the 2TB HDD. The NAS has 10TB of storage, with about 4TB or so currently used. Should be fine for quite a while.

Why SSD? Just because it would be so much faster. But I'll only do this is there is absolutely no deterioration in SQ. Anyone checked with a NOS1a lately?

Mani.

Mani hi,

Still have many of the list applied here. I've put notes in below.


Generally I'm still using a single drive, I can still hear USB connected drives in the system. I find Peters signature XX settings play best give or take some small variations. Same for Peters XXPC bios settings all seem to work together very nicely. For me the software and bios settings are still important in generating the magic, default bios and no OS optimisations in XX sound better since the NOS1a but the optimised settings work best here for SQ.

I bought an SSD a few years ago and could not get the OS to boot properly from it and actually wasn't a fan of the sound so went back to a spinning disk.

The PC mods are interesting they change the sensitivity to bios settings and clock speeds. I think with time I'll try to work through some bios and XX settings but I generally have kept coming back to Peters give or take a bit.

Really looking forwards meeting up at Paul's next weeks to catch up.

Kind regards,

Nick.

So,
 Do the upgraded clocks have their own power supply?
Thanks,
VJ

VJ hi,

Yes the clocks being used here have their own psu. IMO this a one of a small number of factors that play into this area. Think the power environment of the standard PC clock feeds back and strongly influences the clock quality that a standard crystal set up can achive. It's proberbly not the only effect of a poor ATx supply or other sources of power rail noise in the PC but understanding now how closely linked clock quality and speed are to music quality I would bet money that cr*p in power rails is feeding in to the PC's timing.

So yes separate supplies on the clocks are being used.

Best regards,

Nick.

An update on the PCIe clock.

The fireworks in my earlier post when the PCIe clock was fitted were just a small amount premature. .... BUT....

The lash test clock shows that the clock impacts music quality which is what it's intended to do. Overall some of the life and fun in the music took a small step backwards, although details were coming through and there was even less hash about in the sound. It's similar to using these "test" clocks in other locations, there is a well worn solution to shape up the sound however  :) yet another good quality clock and psu were ordered before Christmas. I'm confident that this will push things along a large amount when it arrives.

The real reason for this post is that having the PCIe test clock behave in this way has posed the question why ? This lead to some testing and further experimentation, which in turn lead to a work around which recovered sound quality and that appears to further support the theory of clock speed and quality linkage to music quality. The work around has also started to link into the picture the clock quality used to way transferred data into the CPU from the hard drive.

I have my fingers crossed that the new clock and psu arrive before I see Paul and Mani early this week. If not sound will not be quite as good as it has been but there are some very interesting demonstrations possible swapping master and PCIe clocks with one another and listening to the impact on sound.

Regards,

Nick.

So a further update and to say its good news is somewhat of an understatement  :)

The high quality clock was put into by PC to replace the lashup clock that I reported on above. The result are spellbinding and the [fireworks]


 :NY01: :NY01: :NY01: :NY01: :NY01: :NY01:


are now official with bells and whistles on haha.

The new clock has only a couple of hours on it so it will significantly improve as it runs in but this is a no brainer of the first degree.

I will post more considered notes again when the clock has run in and I have had chance to properly setup the system [there is tuning to do that has not even been applied yet]. I’ve been researching what might be going wrong in the PC for a long time now and with all of the experiments over the last months can now target areas of the architecture that need to be "fixed", apply the fix and predict the results before hand with reasonable accuracy. In addition this is meaning that time is not getting wasted on stuff with limited payback potential. Parts for the next round of developments are on order but coming from China so frustratingly slow.

I just cannot believe how utterly broken a PC is for high quality music replay until it is "fixed". There is so much more to come I’m sure of more gains just need those dammed parts !

Mani and Paul are over this weekend so it will be interesting to see what they make of the sound..

Very very very  :) .... and more to come.

Nick.

Well, just playing around with PCIe/PCI USB cards over the weekend (and USB cables over the holidays), it's obvious to me that there's still so much to be done. And you're at the vanguard of it all!


Yep, really looking forward to it.

Cheers, Mani.

Hi Nick,

the conclusion will be, that we have to select an appropriate/suitable motherboard (for all of us) and send this to you to implement your sophisticated modifications.

Joachim

So its looking like various clocks within the PC interact with sound quality and that improving these clocks significantly improves sound.

I thought to run the clock waveform of the high quality clock through a basic mask test on my scope.

What the test does is first record a continuous waveform of the CPU source clock into the oscilloscope's memory for about 1/1000th of a second so in total about 25,000 clock waves are recorded. It is then possible to apply a test "mask" (see the blue area in the trace below which is incidentally a massive deviation for a clock signal)  to all of these waveforms so that the analysis captures each time a wave form shape deviates from unshaded area into the blue mask.

The wave form of a clock should be rock solid and not deviate all. When the clock being tested is captured without the PC turned on, sure enough the clock always stays within the mask and no errors are recorded.

With the PC turned in it is a very different story. The trace shows the capture analysis. The red circle shows one of the wave form errors picked up by the mask. In clock terms the wave form disruption is very large. That is really going to add jitter and phase noise.

Look now at the blue and red dotted lines at the bottom of the trace (see the lines between the white "1" and "2" in the image at the bottom). The trace from 1 to 2 in total represents about 1/1000th of a second in time. Every red dot on that line represents an error wave form that has strayed into the blue mask. This capture which is a typical one shows 444 errors in 1/1000 of a second. This equates to an average error rate just under 2 clock beats in every 100 !!

(Just as a note the trace shape shows reflections, due to the measurement point of the signal the wave form injected to the PC mobo is better.)

So this is driving thinking on further modification to the PC along another direction that I had hoped would not be necessary. I guess it is a case of how far you want to go, the sound quality so far achieved is very very nice, its just when you see this it points towards the possibility of more improvements.


Nick.

Great stuff Nick. And thank you for sharing of course !

There's a word of caution though ...

With the clear notice that you announced part of it yourself already, I would be not so sure that you're looking at a signal decent enough to apply this analysis. This is two-folded :

1. The bandwidth of the analyser looks as if not high enough;
2. The grounding is the probe possibly is not in good fahsion.

Ad 1.
This is how you won't receive a square, which is the signal coming from the clock.

Ad 2.
This is how ground bounce may be injected in your analyser's signal.

In my view it can still be possible to observe as you do if only #1 is in order but #2 requires thorough real-time looking at the way the signal changes (when detected as error).

Of course, the "ground bounce" I'm talking about can be there internally (MoBo) just the same and this is how it requires real-time observation which I can't do (not being next to you I mean). So what it would require is "knowing" what can do it (from the MoBo's point of view) like for example a timer going on. Could be the Clock Resolution as we apply it in the software, but even with that in mind I don't think I would be able to do this because too indirect and complicated.
What I'm saying is that this wouldn't go for one such a "static" analysis, and that it merely requires a few different setups and then draw conclusions out of those. So like you suggested "one clock is better than the other". So, how ? And how does it show in the wave form ? And didn't you see already that by only changing the probes (detach and reconnect) changes the wave form ? I think you did.

Back to the bandwidth, I think you can also see how the shape of the individual cycles are (or can be) repetitive. Now this relates to the sampling rate of the analyser and here too, it requires real time observation. So think the analyser running on some clock rate and once in the xxx cycles all is the same again. Sadly the xxx can be millions, so again a tough thing to do (quite impossible, depending on what you see).

An example of what I mean could be the down-going slope in the first cycle in the rad circle, where the up-going peak will be detected as out of bounds. But now watch the remainder of the down-doing slope which is steeper than the others and now also runs out of bounds (near the bottom). And again in the middle of the dip where the next sample is now relatively higher because the previous one was captured too low. Just think that the average signal is represented, but the granularity of the X-axis (= time) is not high enough. How to combine this ? well, if the sampling rate (bandwidth) is not high enough, you'd get exactly this. First this peak is captured and because of that being at a too high level, the next one is additionally low (level). So because of the too low bandwidth the analyser detects an error here (could even be three for this one cycle) and you are happy with that ...

Of course you solve this by making the mask broader, as you btw already have done and now end up with 444 errors for the captured time period.
In the end you could be fooling yourself.
Additionally I'm pretty sure that if you set the mask broad enough, there will be no errors and then what. However, you could hope for a few per million which could be real error.

Lastly, I think I can tell you that no such thing as jitter can be observed from a wave form so deteriorated as this on one hand, and a time scale of 10ns (/div) on the other. Of course, you expressed it by means of error against the mask, but it is the same thing. However, still a bit dangerous to talk like this because such a "clock" can have 10s of ns of peak-peak jitter easily. But will depend on the specs for this (depicted by the MoBo) and you might know. Anyway the headroom you gave it looks to be ~5ns (black areas) and assumed the middle of that to be your target, any error implies 2.5ns deviation. And because it will happen at both sides of the set boundaries (other side for another cycle), it will be 5ns again, and more depending on the excursions.


Enough food for thought I think, and I can tell you that making a few comparisons like I suggested to make some better sense out of it, will require so much time (I think) that nobody is going to ask you to do it. But when you do I think we will be digesting it with much interest.

Regards,
Peter

PS, hints :
a. Always pick the very closest ground point you can find, near the signal (solder a small wire if needed).
b. Make the ground of the probe wire as short as you can. This means : wrap it right around the prope itself until left just enough for making the ground connection.
c. If you can incur for less/more error just because of changing b. somewhat, draw the conclusion that you can never get there (because it can always be better though up till physical constraints).

Peter hi,

Thanks for the comments, they are very helpful.


I think the band width its fine for what the trace is highlighting. The scope used is just just a general 200mhz scope so it cannot get anywhere near the resolution needed to look at clock rise cycle jitter in the range of you super fast analoge sope. What is highlighting though is that the wave form distortions with the PC switched on that I’m seeing are so severe that they are easily picked up even on a scope of this type.

Even the basic mask function of the scope is easily triggered. As a note to exceed the mask shown in the trace the amplitude error has to be > +- 200mv or the time axis by > +-3 ns. That's bad repeating momentory external noise distortion on what is a low phase noise clock wave form.


We are thinking the same thing, to be honest I was a bit embarrassed to show the a clock wave form as messy as the attached. I am measuring at the clock’s output before coax to the mobo but at the injection point on the Mobo it’s much better.

I had opened an edit on the post straight after submitting it and started to write an addition to say that there is a possibility that scope’s probe ground set up might influence the observed wave form, but I did not update in the end.  The probes are ground referenced to PE which isn’t good with so much SMPS noise about becuase of the PE loop between the scope and mobo PE wiring. It would be nice to use a differential probe set up for this measurement.  I do have a second basic scope that has a floating probe ground (it can be battery powered) so I’ll take a look with this and also probe at the Mobo.

It’s a shame I cannot show the real time trace being displayed. The scope has digital phosphor persistence to show wave intensity and 50k refresh per second rate. When looking at the trace in real time, the main wave is solid but when the PC is running there is a constant flicker deviation of the wave form momentarily visible traces around the main wave. Looking at the real time trace switch mode noise seems likely, I was sort of expecting to see this but the noise source need to be proven if possible. It would be great if it were then possible addressed it.

Best regards,

Nick.


EDIT

I just looked at the trace and can see now why you mentioned ground bounce. The frame I have selected happens to break the mask just after the wave dropes to zero. I should have mentioned that when paging through the captured frames the mask errors occur througout the clock cycle. At the top the bottom and rise and fall phases of the clock cycle. This is why i'm thinking PC SMPS noise might be the source. The reason to for doing the frame analysis was to try to get a feel for the error frequency and to see if it had a pattern. I could use a decent FFT  :) 

I have identified a correlation of the clock distortion with supply rail noise within the PC now. In addition to this another mobo (not the same as mine but with the same ATx supply) I was working on over the weekend showed only small fraction of the clock distortion.
This is becoming very interesting.....

Listening opportunity was very limited on the second PC, but it did sound exceptionally good immediately. There could well be a link here.

Nick.

Hi,

nothing to report from the meeting?

Joachim

Joachim hi,

It was a great meet up, Paul and Mani had chance to listen to what is happening here and I think got a good sense how these changes are moving the PC forwards. The listening included a number of problem tracks which have in the past seen my system really struggle to portray the music enjoyably.  I had spent a lot of last week adding some new components into the PC and tweaking the clock setup but as always seems to be the case, the sound was however significantly better on Sunday (the day after), more on this in a moment.

There was a very long session applying the upgrades to a PC which happened to be based on a mobo that is in current production, which is great. The results were very good indead, possibly better than on the ASRock Extreme 4M that I'm using. There were some measureable differences between the two boards in a key area. Performing the upgrades I spotted possible changes to my configuration regards how the clocks are connected. I tried these changes on Sunday and things improved significantly. I wish Paul and Mani had had the chance to hear this config, but that's the fun of these sessions, by trying things out you learn more.

Paul and Mani may want to post on what they heard here and also what has happened in their own systems since the visit  :)

Best regards,

Nick.

I just don't know where to start really...

Well firstly, Nick's system. I'd never heard it before and when he put it on it sounded very good to me. A bit heavy in the upper bass, and not enough top-end sparkle for my liking, but the dynamics were very good. Bass really thumped out, energizing the whole room. Listening position was important, and I ended up standing for most of the time as it sounded better to me. Paul and (obviously) Nick had heard previous iterations of Nick's system and apparently it is now a quantum leap over where it was previously. And most of this down to the NOS1a and Nick's latest mobo mods.

We then proceeded to modify my mobo. We (Nick, actually) replaced two mobo clocks with high-quality clocks (with linear PSUs). Once everything was done, we put the PC back together and hooked it up to Nick's system. And... very, very nice. Even better than Nick's PC, we all thought.

It was very late once I got back to my place, so no real listening done immediately. But I played with things over the weekend and now have a sound that I'm pretty happy with. The main difference that the mobo mods have made is to the 'smoothness' of the sound. It's still incredibly detailed, but right now there is no way anyone would think it's digital. There is an 'organic', 'wooden' (as opposed to metallic) quality to the sound.

I have a record dealer (hopefully) coming to my place on Monday to collect most of my LPs (I bought an Opera collection of about 3500 LPs a few years ago with the aim of getting into it... let's just say it hasn't turned out too well). This dealer ONLY listens to vinyl and hates digital. It'll be interesting to hear what he thinks of my system. I've been toying with the idea of putting a turntable in the room and pretending to play an LP when I'm actually playing a needle drop through the NOS1a... but I think this is a bit too sneaky and underhanded.

Right now I'm so happy with the sound I'm getting that I'd settle for it indefinitely if I had to. There is only one thing that I would change and that is the lack of deep, deep bass. But I'm now pretty convinced that this is due to the room, and nothing else. Who knows, maybe getting rid of 3500 LPs from the back wall with fix this?

Overall, it was a great day with Nick and Paul. My feeling is that Nick is definitely onto something here. But translating it into something feasible for most computer audio users is going to present a LOT of challenges. I mean, there's always the distinct possibility of screwing up the mobo, and even if everything works as planned, shipping mobos around with sensitive clock parts attached to then doesn't seem very practical to me. But I really hope Nick can 'commercialize' this in some way because it definitely works.

I'd like to say is a big thank you to Nick (and Paul) for implementing these mobo mods for me.

Mani.

Hi Nick and Mani,

thank you to comment your impressions.
Let's see what is practicable for us non-electricians. (mobo + a kit + manual?)

kind regards

Joachim

I wanted to do more listening before posting but here goes. I will post again after these first impressions.

As Mani says we had a good day on Saturday at Nick's implementing mods to Mani's server. Nick wielded the soldering iron and me the drill and screwdriver. On Sunday back at home I set to on on my server. Not much fun with the lack of room in the Silverstone case. Last night I sat down for the first listen and I have to say this is a very significant improvement. In fact I would say one of the most significant improvements to my system (but I suspect it  would need all the previous mods i.e NOS1a and Blaxius  to work as well as it does). I will keep the best to last but from the very first note (a trumpet) smoother but with more detail - very noticeable.

Strings, wind instruments etc all now have a "bell like" clarity. More detail for sure but just soooo easy to listen to. Ultra clear you just want to keep listening and keep listening.

The "holy grail" for me is decent reproduction of massed strings. Good though they have been via NOS1a and Orelino's I had written off hearing decent strings through any hi-fi. Massed strings are really improved now. And I would say for the first time over the threshold of acceptability (for me anyway). Very easy to listen to (I have to leave some room here because there will be more mods to come ha ha).

But I kept the best to last. The biggest and most satisfying improvement is with poor recordings. I bought an album recently by Kara - "We Are Shining". Dance music with African rhythms. A mighty fine album to those of us that like to "boogie". But the sound is typical poor modern electronic there is a wall of hash / noise with the music. So much so I thought it was just part of the recording. Anyway it was bad enough to prevent me listening to it on the Orelino's (it actually even sounds bad on my study system and even in the car). After the server mods (rather incredibly) the "hash" has pretty much completely disappeared. And wow does it sound good now (relatively to how it sounded before!). I can properly sit down and listen to the album now. Or even better stand up and rock around to mighty fine dance music.

Now on to another bad recording that Peter knows very well. Elvis Costello - Wise Up Ghost. This is also transformed. I can now happily sit down and enjoy it properly. The dreadful SQ on vocals has all but been transformed with the slurring and lisping pretty much removed from Elvis's voice. And so it goes on with bad recording after bad recording turned in to recordings that can be enjoyed. Don't get me wrong bad recordings will never be good recordings but to be able to listen to them and they sound half decent is some result.

That is why this particular improvement is probably the most important I have heard in my system. BUT I reckon you need the "open window" of NOS1a and Orelino's to really hear the difference. That really is a testament to the quality of this system IMHO.

My ears tell me that these mods reduce "noise" not just change it. I have heard the mod in Nicks system with his server, Nick's system with Mani's modified server, my system with my server and my system with Nick's server. The character of the change is always the same, always entirely predictable.

IMHO this is a fundamental improvement not just a change to the SQ.

A word of warning though I was really reluctant to make these changes as it involves soldering the mobo. That is not for the faint hearted - but I am really glad I did!!!

By the way I have started experimenting making changes to the settings in XX (SFS etc) and I have to say it really does sound as though I can hear changes again (I could not before this mod and with NOS1a). I want to do more testing and will report on this in a subsequent post.

Cheers

Paul


Postscript - OMG I have just listened to Doll by Doll - Gypsy Blood. Another fine album but one that I had long ago consigned to the "cr*p SQ bin". It sounds really quite listenable now. Transformed from how it used to sound.

What a result!!!

Oh - I forgot to mention bass watch this space!!!

When you guys meet up, are you always bringing whiskey for the host ?
Is there a way to join ? subscription maybe ?

What Paul describes here, actually would deserve its own topic, but alas, I think it would die because of no context then. So like often, just let's put it right in tne middle of that context, while actually it could be THE subject of all. But it can't because it's just a resulting phenomenon.

What I like to put forward, or make clear to *everybody* if possible, is what Paul means by this "hash" or "no noise".



With the clear notice "Who the heck is PeterSt then ?!" I like to emphasize that for a first time I see someone write about the real essentials which show to me that "he" has now achieved a system which shoud perform like my own. This sounds snobbish perhaps, but really what I like to put forward is all over praise about Paul, who now can do what I can do myself. Of course, this takes this well behaving system, but it also takes the minute observations which may take years and years to learn. But once you can do that, you can see (or will see) that it is a communication means. So in this case Paul communicates at least with me, but oh boy, how difficult is that for others. "Noise is reduced". Yeah, nice. But I understand and I'd like so much to bring that across to others. Thus my attempt :

It was only 5 weeks or so ago, that I could show this very phenomonon of "no noise" to someone who came over for an audition and who brought his fine Weiss;
Played through that for 45 minutes and random tracks were played. Most I did not know, but we ended with something I recognized, before we switched to the NOS1. Yes, "1" and not "1a".

We planned to play in reverse order and since the person had also brought his own PC, I had to ask him what that last track was. Oh, it was a track from Yello - Touch. Huh ? Ok, I carefully selected the album in question because 3 versions of it exist, so I was sure it was the same one. This already with the idea to be very careful because I would never have guessed it was that Yello album in the first place. Still I gues I have played the album 20-30 times. So I should know it.

Remark in between the lines : This album is one of the toughest to get going well. I am sure nobody really recognizes this as such, but it has something in it that enables the possibility that you wouldn't dare to play it, were it for showing off your system. When you don't know what is going on with it, you can feel that it has to be something about high resolution, never mind it is 16/44.1 (though one of the versions is 24/48). So there's very granular (silk though nicely sharp) highs in it, and I'd say that because this "high resolution" is in there throughout (so also the lower frequencies) something goes wrong. Today I can say "when not rendered well", but back in 2009 (when it was new) I thought that Yello had lost it and the recording was bad. I mean, their other albums are just fine.

And so we played the same track through the NOS1 and right from the start we both said that this couldn't be the same track. I added : but at least now I recognize it !
haha
All what this track is (and I should have remembered the track name) is a very cosy sound produced by synthesizers, mostly in the more lower frequencies and you could say it ain't nothing much (for listening to). Well, through the Weiss the sound was supported by one big hail storm and when I say "supported" this is wrongly put, because the hail storm was supported by some bass lines. Now whether Costello or Kara or (perceived) worse, we all (you all) must think in terms of more heavy rain or hail in the background to understand what I mean - what Paul means. Don't tell yourself the "oh sure", but envision that that rain.

Through the NOS1 that rain had almost vanished but do notice that especially with such a comparison, both versions will come across to you as "belongs to it". ONLY because you hear both versions and can compare, you can start to think about which is the real one. Nice ...
but neither.
So we then compared with the NOS1a (yes, "a" now) and it was to-tal-ly not there. And so it doesn't belong in there at all.

This is what's often described as "black background" but which won't tell you a thing unless you can (accidentally) compare in such extreme fashion. And really, when such HASH is in there, it makes a track completely unrecognizable if you are used to it not being there.

Because we accidentally found these extreme differences, I could play with different filter settings (XXHighEnd) and it really was seconds work (per trial) to perceive the difference and rank it. So say it took 2 minutes all together to find the best filter setting, just by listening to this amount of hash. If that isn't crazy then I don't know what is.

---

The things I quoted from Paul's fine post is all about how a better system too, can sneak in. So if our latest NOS1a tells me graduately that all sounds better as it seems, it can be all about such a simple phenomenon only. So, I do know that the "a" is way better to this aspect, but then I play "electronic" music for maybe this reason; it shows fairly easily (for better or for worse).

But what's that hash actually ? I think that depends, but let's look at this :


This was my description and assumed Paul didn't copy my words (would be difficuilt anyway because of the slightly differerent context -> ) I described the transformation to the Blaxius as "all sounds as bells" because I could not find a better description. The bells are literally there as well, but otherwise I think what we try to describe is the harmonics in all. So mind you, "crystal clear" doesn't carry harmonics. Bells do and very many of them. And at high frequencies. And low. Sometimes our brain is very creative, unconsciously. Anyway :

What I have seen (and described) is that a rush of hash - al so normal to you, especially when you are used to the track for decades, can transform to a simple hit on a bell, when rendered well. In my case ? oh, NOS1a was OK, software is fine, amps are on par and speakers no problem. But the Blaxius wasn't in yet. So hash (or rain and hail and what misery not) turns into a bell. Yes.

When you read this, it testifies that you could still hold on to my Dutch (and thank you for that), but a message could be : when you see these things happening so clearly, you will start to see that we will never be ultimately there. I myself am in the stage of sheer reality, but I also already have heard Beatles tracks with a dozen or so African washboard players (or scratchers or better : dancers) while not any washboard is there in my normal system. We just have NO CLUE what's all in there, and of which recording engineers back at the time "and still today) will have thought "oh well". And I sm sooo serious you know. Just complete new instruments, only because that not-so-black background appears to be something that's an instrument while without the knowledge it only comes across as a "poor recording". But how long and how many times haven't I said it already : poor recordings do hardly exist. But for some it takes so much to reproduce them well. And if I survive it - let's look after ten years from now where we are. And I bet you ...

---

So guys, I wasn't telling that my system can do what these MoBo mods do. Not at all. Only that it is clear to me that when descriptions are like that from Paul, it most clearly shows an improvement which is for very real. We all will have "this" better than you, while you have "that" better than he. If this is all brought together we might get there. Whether 10 years is enough ? probably not. But let's continue and try. Our goal ? when something sounds nasty, there's more behind it and it has to be dug out. I'm telling you !

Great thanks, Nick.
Peter

Peter - its by invitation only  :)  a bunch of flowers or chocolates usually suffices.

Yes, but ...
:swoon:

Great post Peter.

I spent the whole evening last night listening to string quartets why? because I could not stop listening, the more I listen the better it gets. I will post more later when I have some time.

 :NY02: :NY02:

Hi,

to be precise, you modified the "Audio PC" (with XXH) not the "server" ?!!?

Joachim

Hi Peter,

you remember the "Yello" track you played with your "WEISS" visitor?

Joachim

Just a quick comment from my side...

Everything now matters here (again?). Small changes in XX are reflected in the sound. If I change SFS by just 0.2, I hear it. If I change the 'Nervous Rate' in XTweaks, I hear it. I'm using an SSD for the OS and XX at the moment - changing 'copy to XX folder' on/off totally changes the sound. As before, USB cables change the sound. And of course, this is with a NOS1a 'B75'.

There's a lot of tuning to do here now... Argh!

Mani.

Well (Mani), didn't I predict that this would happen. All it required was more steps ahead. And I guess you (guys) just reached that threshold.

I should not be too fast with my confirmations but at least I will refrain from denials just the same. Haha. But might someone like to know :

It was only yesterday that I changed my SFS to 60 (always being at 4) just to test something very else : I felt that my audio PC needed a reboot after a month or more without it (couldn't get to the best SQ any more). Instead though - and very deliberately -, I changed the SFS. Et voilá ...

But there is more to this, which I will save for another topic.

Peter

Nah Joachim - As I already told, I forgot. Maybe if I play the album I will recognize it. Can try tonight if my mood is right.

Peter

Dear all,

Please take note : this may come across as a strange act, but I promise you, it is not at all. It is only that I don't know really what to do or what's expected from Phasure in this realm. Foremost : I want to be with full respect to all involved (is this English ?) but I must be in time before strange things might happen.
Also, please notice that this time no single private email was spent about this clock thing, and thus the more we should feel this expressed respect. So please keep this in mind, especially for Nick. So Nick, respond to this as you feel because I only like to offer our help. And this is because it could be really that, while I can only know when this is out to the public. So here goes :

Obviously we can apply these mods. As obviously, and in close co-operation with Nick as how things went previously, it can be so that something which has been worked out or pre-cooked if you like, can be applied for real by us. "For real" does not mean "for the better", but it can easily mean that some sh*tload of work implied is taken out of someone's hands while we are easily used to that. Also, and as always, this does NOT mean earn some $$, but it could just as well mean that someone (like Nick) thinks to earn those. So this is #1 to explicitly take into account : if it is so that Nick likes to earn some $$ over this, then this is very OK of course and we can all stop reading.

Still there ?

The sheer reason - apart from that something could be expected from us (even by Nick himself) - is that there's a possibly unexpected little advantage on our side : we still have 20 or so of the Extreme4-M MoBos laying around - those used by Nick for the working out of this all.

Of course there's also the relation with the "XXHighEnd PC" and what these MoBos are meant for, so far away I'd have to think about that too; people order such a PC and how can they (now) go without such mods. I know, a bit of a different subject, but thus highly related.

It can very well be that I am too soon with this proposal, with the notice that I did not hear a thing of it myself (I mean for SQ and obviously). However, it should be clear by now that I trust this, so we must assume that it will be OK (and I say it again : who the heck is PeterSt, so mind that I can take distance when needed, which is what I am doing right now).
What's involved (for parts and labor) I also don't know, but one way or the other that will be fine.

I started thinking about this when Joachim asked about / implied "the upgrade kit", of which I am sure you must forget about this. So rather think about receiving a modded MoBo and then still you must replace that which already isn't for everyone.

All combined, we have the MoBos and for those who are not sure they ever replaced a MoBo, we have a whole PC around it, of course (but now $$ rises).
If you can replace the MoBo yourself, do notice that whatever it is you have currently, the Extreme4-M will fit (uATX).

Before you have forgotten it, no strange act. Only the offer to help out where it can be expected (as how I think) that the offer should be there in the first place. That's why the "en public" before even asking Nick. Meanwhile Nick is allowed to read this as an offer just the same, which should express some appreciation.

Best regards,
Peter

My PC is a home made "XXHighend PC clone" using the Silverstone case and Extreme4-M mobo. I will post a photo tonight that will give an idea of how I modified it later tonight. I will also let you know the pain I had to go through to get it to work as a "Headless" PC.

What I can say is that the mods will take longer than you would imagine. But the second time is always faster.


Hi Joachim - yes its a "fair cop" I should call it a "music PC".

Cheers

Paul

:offtopic:


When you're at this anyway ... The problem I have myself is that my XXHighEnd PC won't reboot without monitor connected (video card is still in). So next version of XXHighEnd contains nice reboot options when controlled from a remote, but in my case it doesn't work out; PC keeps on rebooting until I plug in the monitor.
Normal shutdown works though. haha

Peter

I have not properly tidied this up - the internal wiring needs sorting not done yet because there is another tweak to go in this weekend Below is a picture of my XXHighEnd "clone" with 3 Dexa's installed. I must say Dexa's are overkill. With enough time it would be possible to produce something much smaller for this application. I use a separate water cooling tower (as do Nick and Mani) and so I do not have the cooler inside that the XXHighEnd PC does, so there is more room. The internal DVD rewriter is removed so there is now space for 3 Dexa's and their power supplies. A USB DVD rewriter is my lot now.

The video card is removed and it is worthwhile doing because it helps improve SQ quality - especially with these mods in place. Everything now seems to make a difference with these mods in.

Mani and Nick both had video cards, they were able to remove them and re-boot without problems. I could not get mine to complete the POST without the video card. We all had the same mobo the Z79 extreme4-m at that time although Mani had to change his subsequently (see his recent post). For me the problem was that I used a 4T spinning disc and I had formatted my disc as GPT so that W8 could recognise the full 4T. With GPT I had to boot into full UEFI (that took a while to work out). After scratching my head for some time and trying a few things I eventually decided to reformat a smaller 2T disc in MBR and reload W8. It now means my PC is using BIOS. In this mode the so called UEFI interface comes up but it actually sits on top of BIOS so it is not true UEFI. Now I can boot without the video card.

I suspect that the XXHighEnd PC is actually using BIOS in the same way mine is now - it is easy to check in disc manager hover over the right had side of disc in question and right click - look at the drop down menu if you are offered the option to convert to GPT then you know it is MBR (or vice versa). If your OS HDD is MBR you should be able to remove that video card.

Cheers

Paul

Whooo Paul. That looks serious *and* neat.
Thanks for posting ...


I know you like to be ahead of all, but ... X79.
:bye:

Peter

Joachim, it is the track "Vertical Vision" - track 10 on the (I think) normal 14 track album (16/44.1).

Now I hear it again I recall there can also be huge differentiation in the flute (the air through it).

Especially the beginning should be totally "black". But even when not, you won't recognize what's added so to speak. So anyone will say it is black anyway.
Or get a Weiss perhaps. ;)
Anyway, the NOS1a took all the remainder out what the NOS1 left.
And possibly MoBo mods will take out even more which I think is normal to be there ...

Regards,
Peter

Hi,

Turn my back for a day and wow this has gone a bit mad  :), so many posts. So to catch up on a few points....




Mani,

Thanks for having the faith to commit to trying this out blind. It certainly works and takes transparency and musicality to a new level IMHO. I am very pleased that you are so happy with the outcome but to be honest knew that it could work it is in the no-brainer camp I think.

The point above is not one to be to be overly concerned about  I took my time with your PC. This would always have to be the case but if you understand what your doing these changes can be applied reliably and shipped safely without problem.

I like the idea that you may play digital music to your vinyl dealer when he comes round I can see how that would go unnoticed ! To your vinyl loving friend, the sound of your changed system could be as tempting as a bacon sandwich is to a vegetarian haha.




Joachim hi,

This is not quite the way that it might work but having given this some serious thought for significant period and doing work that has not been mentioned in these posts geared to this. There are a number of options that might be offered. Given my thinking I did smile when I saw this you will find out why in a later post.



Peter hi,

I actually think you absolutely right, your system does somehow do some of what my PC modifications do. It's funny you should mention this, my visit to yours some time ago got me thinking afterwards about a number of things, and the low hash quality of your system was one of them. How come your system had less of a hash problem than the others I had listened to ? Why did the USB clocks I bought along not work as expected, and bloody hell ,I never wanted to listen to those Patty Grffith  tracks again  :( 
Thinking about the possible reasons there was less hash in your system, solving the USB clocks performance and focusing for long time on what the common characteristics of my previously rather large library of “problem tracks” all helped point the way to think about the PC.

I honestly don’t really have many “problem tracks left now and since changing the PC for some time have been actively selecting really difficult stuff to reproduce. The reason is because often its these performances that are seat of your pants raw and complex and on the edge in some way and this makes them riveting if they can be reproduced well.



Mani hi,

All setting matter again  :( but also  :), I would say more so in some ways, even down to 0.1SFS and all of the other settings. This is consistent with the theory that is driving the modifications to the PC hardware.  Now the good thing is that it is no longer a case of having to used the XX software settings to “match” with the PCs hash signature to give the least offensive overall sound.  It is possible to find XX settings that just don’t have anything like to level of “compromise” . Previously I would be tweaking at XX settings almost every track in the hope of getting it right somehow, not now.

As we discussed I would really suggest that you start with Peter's BIOS settings and Peter's W8 software settings as a start point. I don’t think it is coincidence that in the comment above I mentioned that Peters system exhibited some of the qualities of the modified PC and that Peter settings hit a sweet spot with these XX Settings.

Happy tweaking this time, yes time to tweak again but this time I think you may get a satisfying sound at the end of it and not really need to adjust very often after this.



Paul,

I agree the match of the NOS1a and the modified PC is supper supper sweet however as I mentioned much earlier in the thread the modification to the PC should improve any system using Firewire, USB or PCIe interfaces to a DAC. On a case by case basis it is very likely that the relative change in sound quality the modified PC delivers with some DACs will be much greater than with the NOS1a. My view is that Peters 1a upgrade actually significantly reduced the susceptibility of the NOS to the PC's  "sound signature". In the back of my mind the objective has been to address the "signature" of the PC that we have all been listening to for years. I honestly remember the same hash signature, and as Mani puts it metallic quality, in pc sound when I first started with PC audio and moding M-Audio Transit Cards. so its very nice to see it leaving the sound at last  :)




Regards to all,

Nick.

I hear my words being used here Paul. The Dexas have some unique features which may mean they may remain the gold standard for what has to be done to the PC. The rest should remain a private conversation for now please.

Nick.

Before things kick off too fast, I wanted to provide a update on where I think the PC upgrades are at right now.

Mani and Pauls systems have been updated with the first two modifications (well three if you include the USB clocks already applied). In addition headless configuration and a storage options for OS and XX are being used which IMHO also help (thanks Mani for pointing out the video card less configuration, one of those happy coincidences given what I was working on at the time :) )

There is however much more to do to prove the overall concept and finish this, already there are mods to Mani and Pauls configs I have in mind to test (I will apply these guys for you if they work here).

Given the interest I will try to accelerate the work.

Finally I would like to productise this approach, both as a retrofit and as a very high end music server. There is a very large amount of work to do to establish the complete spec beyond what was listened to last week end, already some promising results in other areas. Work has already begun on how this all can be practically implemented with some very neat solutions being considered.

Peter I'll drop you a note to discuss how I should handle updates or not were this to become a slightly more commercial endeavour.

Best regards,

Nick.

No problem I'll stick with the music reviews!!  :smile:

.......................... by the way a small package due for delivery today - more work to do this weekend!!! will let you know how I get on.

Thank you Peter,

with the Blaxius this tune sounds super. More/better details (the air through it) than before.

Joachim

Hey ...


With this as the small reminder of the last thing that officially happened ...

I feel that people too much think that I am all for this, while I am not at all. Whatever what's done, I have seen no proof of anything that really works or can work for the better. Things will undoubtedly change, yes.
And I didn't say I am plain against it either. But to be honest ?


If we all don't mind, then this is the strange thing. Why ? because it still did not happen (see first quote above);

People expect me to agree, co-oporate and even work on it myself (for example here : Re: Best Vinyl Rig (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3046.msg34048#msg34048)) ... but no.

So please, I receive PM's about it too, and I don't know what to say. But I now say it in here, which is, well, nothing much other than take out some expectations and at least I don't need to answer behind someone's back (which I don't like at all).

Otherwise it still is so that I hope that this forum is and remains about objective testing and expressing, contrary to about everywhere else.
Maybe I see it wrongly, but I didn't see the "die hard" objectiveness of either in this topic. Of course, attempts have been made, but ...
But supposed (for now !) that I am excluded from this, then all I can say is that I know nothing and that people must be aware that some things cost a LOT of money, which is now nothing different from me always protecting against that. Or ?
Yes.

And thus for this moment nobody is allowed to think that I am a real supporter of this. But that can change !
A few things can happen :

- Technical data is provided so it can be judged better for real merits;
- Expression of SQ changes is done such that it isn't subjective;
- Something is provided to me so I can judge myself (and then everybody will need to surrender to my so-called objective listening (haha)).

Or nothing of this happens, which is also fine. But then please count me in as being neutral on this, although I'll keep on "protesting" where I see things which don't look for the better to me, and which I already did here and there.
But of course something will happen, because it would be in the spirit of this forum and how we deal with audio. :grazy:

Regards,
Peter