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Getting the best out of a Rega DAC (or any Dac)?

sq225917 what type of test tracks are you using when testing?
If I try any tests will do so for a period of time and while I might suggest to friends that I am getting positive results would wait until verified and tried by others generally in a group. The playback software and your system will all contribute to how much or little difference you hear. I have often heard no differences either but some changes especially linear supplies to a pc have made a very noticeable change for the better.

Any testing I do uses Jplay streaming from one laptop to a fanless pc. Can't afford the second fanless pc yet! IMHO a single laptop set up depending on what software you are using is not going to demonstrate a really large difference. Jplay maybe switching to hibernate and ultrastream yes that will be noticeable but basic players I think you will find it hard to detect anything.
On another site a discussion of this nature where some people are of the view that the pc makes no difference the software using to test this was VLC and was tested wirelessly. Point being there was very little chance that a set up like that would ever deliver an improved result.
 
Wait wait wait, dont tell me you use a fanless computer because you think it makes a difference in audio ouput.
 
No but the very idea that makes you think fanless systems make a difference looses all credibility of what you think sounds better.
 
Thats not very nice steven, dont tell me you believe in fanless systems too ?

Perhaps i shouldn't have judged your credibility tonerei, just feel a bit gobsmacked is all.
 
The Rega Apollo R CD player is fanless as all transports should be.

My pre has a fan built into it. Fortunately I can turn it off. It is a standby feature to prevent the valves from overheating. Despite super regs you can still hear it through the speakers. It is switched off when music is playing.
 
Daniel. said:
No but the very idea that makes you think fanless systems make a difference looses all credibility of what you think sounds better.
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Daniel,

Fanless is important, but maybe not mandatory. On an HP netbook the fan was flat out most of the time and audible when listening. My Intel NUC has a fan, but I've never heard it.

OTOH, given that tonerei hears what a Linear psu brings to his system, it's arguable that fanless will mean less unnecesssary draw on the psu, less voltage variations on the computer mobo, and, dare I risk it, better SQ. To be honest, no idea if fanless vs not fanless can be audible after a DAC.

Power issues in digital audio are not to be glossed over, I stilll remember how much better my CD player sounded when I first installed a dedicated mains for my hifi, much of the brightness/harshness associated with CD, in my opinion, stems from mains born noise. I don't expect it to be any different with a compuer as source.
 
Steven Toy said:
Maxflinn Mk II here we come! :rolleyes:
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:) Hopefully not I don't think so anyway. One is enough per CA thread.

Daniel no worries I will survive credibility or not intact. See the link below that is one place where the idea started. Was in the same space as you but got a good long loan of a fanless zuma from a hifi friend while he was away on work and got hooked on that route.

Maybe hold your judgement until you compare a system done like that and a normal pc or laptop with poor software,noisy fan etc.You maybe surprised if no, sure that is fine you have lost nothing. I could post lots of other links and threads the jplay forum has so much about this type of set up. Maybe the problem for you is CA is in it infancy I ain't too technical but IMHO the cdp is going to disappear. Progress will stop there and improvements/changes/ideas will come in the CA space simply because that is where the market is moving to. It is natural I think to try and put effort/money into a transport if it yields results.Don't forget if this those nothing I can always use it as a very nice high spec office pc that is quiet. But it does for me and I wouldn't be without it. Got rid of my 2 box cyrus cd8se because CA was ahead of it.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/497-computer-audiophile-pocket-server-c-p-s-v3-zuma/

One observation I am not aware of any dedicated transport for cdp's that would incorporate a fan. The more expensive the better the power supplies and components etc.Sure look at the cyrus one I think there are 4 boxes for that.
 
tonerei said:
:) Hopefully not I don't think so anyway. One is enough per CA thread.

Daniel no worries I will survive credibility or not intact. See the link below that is one place where the idea started. Was in the same space as you but got a good long loan of a fanless zuma from a hifi friend while he was away on work and got hooked on that route.

Maybe hold your judgement until you compare a system done like that and a normal pc or laptop with poor software,noisy fan etc.You maybe surprised if no, sure that is fine you have lost nothing. I could post lots of other links and threads the jplay forum has so much about this type of set up. Maybe the problem for you is CA is in it infancy I ain't too technical but IMHO the cdp is going to disappear. Progress will stop there and improvements/changes/ideas will come in the CA space simply because that is where the market is moving to. It is natural I think to try and put effort/money into a transport if it yields results.Don't forget if this those nothing I can always use it as a very nice high spec office pc that is quiet. But it does for me and I wouldn't be without it. Got rid of my 2 box cyrus cd8se because CA was ahead of it.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/497-computer-audiophile-pocket-server-c-p-s-v3-zuma/

One observation I am not aware of any dedicated transport for cdp's that would incorporate a fan. The more expensive the better the power supplies and components etc.Sure look at the cyrus one I think there are 4 boxes for that.
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Thanks for not taking things too harshly, that link you posted is interesting.
See i study digital and analog electronics along with on the side digital signal processing and i see the plausibility but not any real actual theory to confirm this.
As its been said jitter affects things considerably with transport, this is why it is important we use clock adjustment and correction systems like PLL and Asynchronous systems.

"CD players are optimised for playing CDs. You seem to be unable or unwilling to see the difference between that and being optimised for sp/dif (or usb) transmission. I am not convinced that (m)any of them are optimised for transmission of data to another device; in any event it's clearly not their primary purpose. Frankly the same goes for most dedicated transports, even if it is their purpose."
As Sq has stated CD transports are not optimised or fully design focused for transport configuration their main focus is of playing CD's, saying all or most competently designed CDP are better than computers is not entirely correct and misleading. It is how attractive it appears to the destination (dac) which defines the stability of the signal. Even if a system was designed for transport it may do no better or more poorly than a computer system depending how it interacts with the signal destination.
Someone comparing a CDP to a computer may make the fault of assuming there is a difference but not taking into consideration that the CDP used a optical connection and they connected it their computer via USB Async.

I own a Classe CDP 100 and own a computer that has 15 HDD 1 SSD i7 4.5ghz OC with tripple crossfire graphics and on top of that run about 8-10 fans. I notice no difference or little difference between them but can clearly prefer USB to optical on the M-dac when connected both to PC.
Hell i'm going to grab a old marantz cd player with optical and see if there is a difference, just for fun.
 
Daniel like Peter I have no idea if installing a fan instead of the route I took will make any noticeable negative difference. i.e same package but just leave the cpu fan in place and run another fan for the rest of the components. I went with the caps advice after hearing it. Mine is i7 low tdp, 16gb ram. Was spending the money only once and went with my gut instinct and the view that low power was best and avoid anything that is suggested can inject noise into the system. From a looks point of view the streacom fc5 case looks neat(almost could be an audio component). i7 and 16gb is probably far too much but the processor choice added £80 onto the cost and not much extra for 16 rather 8. I didn't want to be going back in 6 months changing again because Jplay upgraded and now required bigger processor/more ram etc.

All I can honestly tell you is that the set up streaming from laptop to laptop sounded thinner than the dedicated pc. Dedicated pc is just a big step up in harmonic richness especially with linear supply/usb operating system. It was still beaten in SQ comparing it to a Wadia 861se(I think) but that was before linear supplies. The wadia owner brought that tank over as he is at the point of considering ditching cd for CA.

If you check out various threads on the jplay forum you will see the extremes you can go to. Sata cables, SOTM usb cards,usb cables,Lan isolators,adnaco cards. As per any part of this hobby the sky is the limit. Whether all/any of that is worthwhile or just wasting money I will have to hear before dismissingSome of the more affordable tweaks I will waste some money on but a bit like Nordost Valhalla in speaker cable land it really doesn't matter to me if stuff priced at that high level works or not I don't have the budget for that and tbh would be loathe to part with my money for that type of stuff.

If you work on this type of stuff you are way ahead of me. John Kenny is the best lad to debate with on this. Sure he will be along at some point. I listen with my ears and over time if I prefer something that is how I judge. I know John has often said that there is no real way of measuring the results achieved yet. Again that is irrelevant to me as I have never purchased any hifi product based on performance charts. Just use the old lugs to decide.
 
tonerei said:
If you work on this type of stuff you are way ahead of me. John Kenny is the best lad to debate with on this. Sure he will be along at some point. I listen with my ears and over time if I prefer something that is how I judge. I know John has often said that there is no real way of measuring the results achieved yet. Again that is irrelevant to me as I have never purchased any hifi product based on performance charts. Just use the old lugs to decide.
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Likewise, if you have a real background in Digital & Analogue electronics, then I obviously cannot argue the theory (I have a degree in Elec Eng. , but I never, once, put it to any direct use and have forgotten most of it). I just let my ears guide me, some of the stuff I've tried over the years has made no difference or even made things worse.
 
Fair call and acceptable, no judgement from me how you decide about system setup.
What i find with people who do this without a little background on how things work can and do confuse themselves on what they think is happening and make the wrong assumptions.

Just food for thought but your a pretty ohnest guy and dont foo your beliefs :). I just cant believe because of what i know.
 
Daniel. said:
Fair call and acceptable, no judgement from me how you decide about system setup.
What i find with people who do this without a little background on how things work can and do confuse themselves on what they think is happening and make the wrong assumptions.

Just food for thought but your a pretty ohnest guy and dont foo your beliefs :). I just cant believe because of what i know.
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It is experience not theoretical knowledge that should win through else you are putting the cart before the horse. Experience from DAC designers as well as listeners seems to suggest that whilst noise on the digital signal path is unlikely to affect the data transfer itself it is likely to affect the conversion to analogue.
 
Steven Toy said:
It is experience not theoretical knowledge that should win through else you are putting the cart before the horse. Experience from DAC designers as well as listeners seems to suggest that whilst noise on the digital signal path is unlikely to affect the data transfer itself it is likely to affect the conversion to analogue.
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I feel a new myth gathering momentum:rolleyes:

Noise - whatever that means, cannot affect the digital data beyond causing a break-down of the data stream, which doesn't happen in reality unless something is broken. This isn't something that we know because DAC designers or listeners experience tells us, it's something we know because it's what the scientists that designed digital data tell us, it's common scientific knowledge.

Noise that may affect the conversion, I say may as unlikely as it may be, it is possible, apparently, does not necessarily cause any audible distortion, as is concluded by tests performed by the guy in Peter's link. And even if it did, it would indicate a problem with the DAC, not the method of transport used in the digital domain.

So there is still no actual evidence that various methods of digital transportation affect end sound quality, there is only speculation based on subjective listening and scaremongering from the likes of Jkeny, who unlike John Westlake - believes that digital cables affect sound quality - they do not, so it may be wise to take his advice with a healthy dose of sceptical salt..
 
I think he was referring to noise manifesting itself through electrical cables between transport and dac, however this not related i should think.
 
Daniel one thing in your reply suggests you prefer the sound coming from USB. I wonder those that square with my experience and many others using the operating system on USB. This happened when WTG sticks became available. One person used the operating system that way and reported it sounded better. Being sceptical I had no intention in implementing that.The hassle etc and I couldn't see any advantage. But running the operating system(minimal hence really only suitable for a dedicated audio pc) on USB on hearing did improve what one was hearing. You might try it if you are inclined. It would not affect your current set up but would allow you test it.Just boot from the usb stick. You can buy Sandisk Extreme 3.0 sticks for as little as £16.99 on Ebay. I would suggest trying jplay it is available on demo for free but has annoying silences(couple of seconds) to enusre if you like it in anyway you will purchase. Jplay operates by loading tracks into memory for playback and seems to prioritize audio playback. With extreme settings the PC cannot be used for anything else.Worth a try to see if these things bring improvements.

At least some of the above kinda offers suggestions to the poor rega op who has got forgotten about in the friendly exchanges on this thread
 
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