PCI supply rail noise

[PeterSt]

So, anyone with latest findings regarding the board ?

[juanpmar]

So, anyone with latest findings regarding the board ?

The last time I checked the sound with and without the card I realized that the soundstage is bigger, the sound is clearer and with more detail with it installed.

Hey Peter, I am prepared to receive a totally opposite opinion to mine, jeje 

Best regards,
Juan

[CoenP]

I just recently inserted the pro card in the pc. I used the pci slot nearest to the processor.
My first impressions are that bass quality improved significantly as well that the sound seemed clearer and slightly better (more naturally) organised. Another good sign is that there is no shrinking of sound "image size".
Otoh on the downside I've got some sharp silibants on some recordings. These are fortunately rendered very fine and less obtrusive than those of a regular cd player for instance. Maybe some burn in will make a difference later.

For now I consider the card a worthwile addition in my system.

Regards, Coen

[Stanray]

I ordered mine on April 13 and haven't received it yet 
Probably lost in the noise?

Stanley

[Scroobius]

Nothing more to add about my card it sounds better with it installed so it has remained.

P

[boleary]

My card started out sounding better but then something happened and it sounds terrible. Am pretty sure it malfunctioned and never recovered.

[manisandher]

I've just quickly skimmed through this thread and would like to try the card myself. But the original eBay link is no longer current, and a general Google search isn't very helpful. So, where can one acquire such a card nowadays?

Cheers, Mani.

[ed linssen]

I've just quickly skimmed through this thread and would like to try the card myself. But the original eBay link is no longer current, and a general Google search isn't very helpful. So, where can one acquire such a card nowadays?

Cheers, Mani.

Hi Mani,

I ordered mine at: buychina.com.
Deliverytime about four weeks, Good price!
Succes,

Ed

This one should be easier, could not find it anymore!

http://www.buychina.com/products?keyword=%22Assi%22+rainbow+sugar&cid=11 

[manisandher]

Thanks Ed. I'll see if I can order one from them.

Cheers, Mani.

[SeVeReD]

I ordered and received the card from one of the links in Peter's post (the pro one) a while ago on a whim, but no, I haven't installed it yet.  I've got some time coming up in June when I can be more attentive.  also, to tell the truth Bolery  got me a bit worried and I was hanging back waiting for more feedback, but I'll make the leap as soon as I have time.

[PeterSt]

I installed mine (one of them) in one of my PCs yesterday. And ... Will report after (or in the middle of) the listening session tonight.

At this moment it's in the PC for 24 hours and it has been on all the time.

[PeterSt]

All right ...

Well, if this isn't doing anything I'll eat something which is bad for my health;

What I didn't tell is that I bought mine explicitly for the W8 PC (a "XXHighEnd PC") to see whether it would do what IMO should be done : getting rid of (for W8 too much) profound noise (and I bought two so the other one can be in my W7 audio PC).

The result is actually unbelievable, unless I suddenly need ear surgery.

The remainder is layed out in our famous W8 topic : Re: My first Windows 8 experience - Nailed it !?

One thing to add : While the card is in the PCI buss, this PC further has nothing in there. Only in the PCIe buss there's a video card. That's all.

Peter

[boleary]

Peter, I've been patiently waiting for your post here and, of course, what i expected doesn't come close to your findings! Anyway, am wondering what your opinion of the card's effect is with W7?

Looks like i'll be ordering a new one today.

[Nick]

All right ...

Well, if this isn't doing anything I'll eat something which is bad for my health;

What I didn't tell is that I bought mine explicitly for the W8 PC (a "XXHighEnd PC") to see whether it would do what IMO should be done : getting rid of (for W8 too much) profound noise (and I bought two so the other one can be in my W7 audio PC).

The result is actually unbelievable, unless I suddenly need ear surgery.

The remainder is layed out in our famous W8 topic : Re: My first Windows 8 experience - Nailed it !?

One thing to add : While the card is in the PCI buss, this PC further has nothing in there. Only in the PCIe buss there's a video card. That's all.

Peter

Peter hi,

Great !

The card is not subtle in what it does that's for sure. Personally I think there may just be the slightest loss of air in the presentation, as others have mentioned as well but the positive effects are overwhelminging worth the very very small trade off. The card is a key part of my setup now with a spare standing buy just in case :-)

EDIT - now that i have read Peters W8 update.

Very good to hear also that W8 is so much improved, i can't wait might have to give that a go again !

Cheers nick.

Ps sound WILL improve with burn in over the next week or so.

[PeterSt]

Now I don't know anymore where tho post this; in here or in the Windows 8 topic ...

Actually it's odd. So with reference to the W8 topic (see link in my previous post in here) and with the emphasis on me talking about Windows 8 only (which you can't do really because of XXHighEnd W8 improvements I am using), there seemed to be no way I could receive the sound from the earlier two days (which summarizes to very refined highs and no "hard" dynamics at all anymore for W8 - finally);

Yesterday - I don't know what happened - the sound was totally different again. No such thing as refined highs was left of it. However, as I remarked in the W8 topic "a gap between good mid and highs" ... this has totally shifted. So, the refined top end moved down towards the mid and "refined" changed into more rough mid-high with the emphasis on "rough". A mere on-off sound noticeable in cymbals.
Fact is : net I like this much better.

The effect of it is that cymbals are less in the back (which they were the first two ays). Now they are merely overly profound. Also, the general colour of them more resembles reality.
But actually I can't describe this sound, probably because it is right in a strange way;

The general consensus from last night is that the sound was dominated by cymbals. But, in reality this is no different (acoustical performance assumed). Also, for 4 hours in a row it didn't disturb. It was sort of the other way around : each 5 minutes it slipped to my mind how it was possible that this was not disturbing. And each time the kind of answer was "yea, but this is the same with a live performance".
The most noticable, though, was that while this was the same W8 I never could stand at louder levels at all, the "anomalies" from before were not there at all. *If* they were there they were in the inherent sound of cymbals; their power at sustained level (vs. the hurting of the attacks from earlier "W8").

I think I have to say that the sound changed as dramatically as what I talked about from the first impression at day 1 (day 2 the sound did not change).
We (like Nick) tend to call this "burn in". But guys, please trust me, what happens is nothing less like I described earlier in this topic : a changed resonance behavior of the capacitors and will will never get in our control. Maybe nice if you want a different sound each day.

I'm afraid boleary is right : this can happen to everyone, or it *will* happen to everyone at some stage. Only with a large dose of luck it all may end up in a stable fashion (each day the same) *and* with performance you like. But just as well it can end up in a stable fashion you don't like at all (say in my case it can revert to the sound of the first 2 days, and I would be less happy).

Quite another thing is that apparantly this is a super tweak in the base. Undoubtedly it is one of the largest sound influencers imaginable. But how to get it under control ?

Here's a small annecdotical story, which right away confirms why I can "know" a bit of this appliance. Maybe Nick can judge it well, him being in the similar field of tweaking regarding the NOS1. So I will address Nick explicitly, meaning that not everybody should open their NOS1 :

Nick, look again at the gain stage of the NOS1; You will see two input capacitors, one for each channel. Might you remember ... compare this to the old gain stage of the original NOS1; there you could detect 6 of these caps. Actually these 6 (3x 2) were further down the line on the PCB for the three "electrical stages" on there, and with the NOS1-USB we changed that into one only (removed a regulator and such). This, while the PCB could stay the same. Now :

Because this sequence of 3 caps per channel were actually in parallel with eachother (but not stacked), and so all contributed to the their respective parts (theoretically), after removing these two electrical parts I could still decide to have the other 2 caps (for the channel) in there. The beauty of this "stage" is that it is directly measurable at the outputs (because the gain stage is the output) and so I just measured;
THD+N for 3 caps was way worse than for 2. 2 was still worse than 1.
And so 1 only remained.

For the PC card this won't work exactly the same (because of the most indirect path towards the outputs at the DAC which are way at the other end of the line), but the story above tells us how the mutual influence is, once the appliance is similar. And in this case it is 100% the same; just apply a bunch of caps onto power lines and they will do something. So, this is not because they are nicely used as input caps, but because they are used in parallel to those doing that job already. They don't smoothen, but add extra noise. But the worst thing : that extra noise can be wanted. Call it extra smoothening now. And might it be not clear : this extra noise / smoothening emerges from the loading from the same power lines as used further down the line for the whatever (in-PC-job, while they next also feed that powerlines themselves. On/Off, On/Off, On/Off. And that for 6 (or 4) of them together, depending on the voltage used - and never in the same sequence also depending on the current needed.

Do we think this can ever work in a sustained same fashion ?
I don't. And I think I just heard it yesterday, compared to the days before. It sure can be called burn-in, but because of two caps running into eachother at least (the official one somewhere and the one we add in parallel (see annecdotical story) - but which in this case are 6 (or 4), it is one pile of resonating sh*t which WILL change its resonance over time. Depending of the wear (which will not be equal per cap) at one stage and for maybe a week long you may have the worst sound ever. Or the best.

Also see next post.
Peter