Who’s the go-to company to build a computer?

[::: :::]

Why do people always mistake redundancy for backup?

Sounds redundant

[stuckathuntermtn]

You're not going to gain anything building your own PC to just have a juke box. A small tower you can add a card to is all you need. You're not asking for much processing power. The only thing building your own might get you is a better power supply and maybe a better MoBo. Most bloateware can be deactivated or uninstalled and it's nice to have a factory recovery partition sometimes. Since a better MoBo, discreet graphics, and more watts won't really do anything for you, you basically just need something you can add a discreet sound card and more storage too. You might not even need the discreet sound card if it comes with enough outputs which means you can go small form factor and they usually have space for another m.2 drive.
I haven't paid very close attention to hardware in years. It's pointless. It changes too fast, and tbh, you're not asking for very much from your PC and there's a chip shortage, so just buy a prebuilt and add what you need storage-wise. You can probably also add just about any connection through a USB C hub.
ETA: you can easily spec most computers with Bluetooth and HDMI. Not sure what optical would gain you. Is it still used a lot in AV applications? Seems like HDMI is otherwise available on everything and it can do pretty long cable runs, switches, amps, etc. I was under the impression that it's been pretty pervasive for decades now and handles everything very well.

[highangle]

Sounds redundant

Over the last 20 or so years building a professional technical organization, I've replaced a bunch of failed disks, but I don't recall ever having to, perforce, reinstall from the [block-level encrypted] backups we spend so much to make and maintain. Drive redundancy for the win.

And for those here still stuck on generic computers...Digital audio files are a collection of 1s and 0s, but sound reaches your ears in waves. 1s and 0s are only capable of on/off type shit. The way on/off looks on an oscilloscope is a spike, get a bunch of on/offs over an exact period of time [frequency], and you can make a square wave on the scope and a signal that a speaker can render as an audio tone of a given frequency. This is, very simplistically, how your computer converts the 1s and 0s stored in it to the Justin Bieber classics that make you cry like a bitch. Computers approximate the beautiful round sine waves produced by musical instruments and vocal chords with a bunch of intensities & durations.

A Digital [1s & 0s] to Analog [sine wave] converter [DAC] is a discrete circuit that converts digital on/off signals to an analog waveform similar to that produced by an electric guitar pickup, or phono cartridge, or that an amp sends to speakers. A DAC does this with a quartz crystal something like a digital watch uses, to get those durations exact, and a precise power output, to get those intensities just right. The better the power regulation and clock are, the better a DAC will convert jagged steps of duration and intensity values to the smooth round analog signal those vintage Macintosh amps crave.

Trouble is, computer motherboard ["mobo"] manufacturers are constrained in how good a DAC they can put on a motherboard. The main constraint is that the DAC shares the same power supply as the CPU and board slots and hence has voltage fluctuations every time there's a conflict with any other higher-priority circuit. There's also RF flying around in there from capacitors and mosfets and other circuits, and RF interference can fuck up a quartz clock crystal. Old handloaders can prob tell you about flourescent light bulbs fucking up digital scales, for the same reasons.

Anyway, it all adds up to lower fidelity, and the same DAC circuit could achieve higher fidelity if it wasn't on a shared [mother]board. Hence USB DACs separate from the computer.


High Fidelity. It means highly faithful reproduction of what the recording artist recorded. At the end of the day, high fidelity is the highest aspiration of a home jukebox. The best way to hear music is the way the artists intended, the way they heard it when they created it in a special sound studio and then spent hours and weeks adding, subtracting, and mixing it down to its final form.
Rostropovich spent over a million dollars of his own money to buy the Stradivarius violincello he wanted to record with, and played it on a custom built spruce and mahogany soundboard pedestal. I want to hear those recordings of the finest cellist that ever was on the finest cello that ever was with the highest fidelity I can. I'd be shorting everybody if I didn't. Owsley's Wall of Sound, anyone?

[Mustonen]

And for those here still stuck on generic computers...Digital audio files are a collection of 1s and 0s, but sound reaches your ears in waves. 1s and 0s are only capable of on/off type shit. The way on/off looks on an oscilloscope is a spike, get a bunch of on/offs over an exact period of time [frequency], and you can make a square wave on the scope and a signal that a speaker can render as an audio tone of a given frequency. This is, very simplistically, how your computer converts the 1s and 0s stored in it to the Justin Bieber classics that make you cry like a bitch. Computers approximate the beautiful round sine waves produced by musical instruments and vocal chords with a bunch of intensities & durations.

Thanks for that. I’m not an audiophile nor is this something I ever really wondered about, but it’s definitely something that I didn’t understand well, particularly in retrospect, until I read your post.

[Flyoverland Captive]

Great overview, highangle; thanks.

USB DACs get their power from the USB port (thus the same power supply as the motherboard); is this bad?

[tgapp]

Great overview, highangle; thanks.

USB DACs get their power from the USB port (thus the same power supply as the motherboard); is this bad?

That problem is easily solved by getting a USB isolator like this one:

https://hifimediy.com/product/usb-isolator/

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

[highangle]

Audio sources: Garbage in, Garbage out

File formats matter: Lossless is always better.

Signal transport to amplifier matters. Some hardware types and protocols are better than others. Some are so different from everything else they must occupy entirely discrete circuits. My usb DAC uses its own separate linear power supply and different chips and circuits for optical coax and USB inputs, and a 3rd for Bluetooth. USB is the highest fidelity/least sound color, optical coax is decidedly warmer, bluetooth is for mp3s, although flac sounds a bit better.

The least audio processing that your computer has to do, the better. There's an amazing amount of processing going on with most audio players, and most of it is bullshit that lowers fidelity. My audio files get fed bit-perfect to my DAC, on the principle that my lossless audio files can't be rendered with high fidelity by my DAC and analog amps and speakers if DAC/amp/speakers never get a faithful copy of the lossless file in the first place.

My basement setup:
lossless file [on NAS via windows share]:i3 NUC running Daphile realtime kernel [Linux, bit-perfect, and free]:Cambridge DAC:Schiit Freya preamp with rolled tubes [balanced xlr outs]:no-name xlr analog equalizer with manual sliders: pair of 8" powered Maudio reference monitors, krk 12" powered monitor sub. I use a hires pink noise and a $35 calibrated mic on my phone to equalize to the room manually by bringing the observed sound spectrum on my phone to the standard power graph of pink noise [a combination of all frequencies].

Benefit: It sounds like $17,000, which is nice. Costs less than $2k [because you don't necessarily need a speccy dac and balanced preamp like I might], because engineers don't have much time for Gushing Audiophile Bullshit, and buy mostly specs anyway.

[riser4]

Get a TK421

[RShea]

Great overview, highangle; thanks.

USB DACs get their power from the USB port (thus the same power supply as the motherboard); is this bad?

The USB power is pretty much always 5 Volts for 2.0 and earlier devices. USB 3.0 ports deliver 4.5-7 watts of power with 900 mA of current, which is slightly two times more than USB 2.0 that delivers 2.5 watts power with 500 mA current. USB 3.0 and now USB 3.1 standards have high power ratings when in charging mode, high power rated devices and future hardware. You can do USB powered hubs (that have their own power source to a wall outlet) if you really wanted to. But usually it is not necessary. Even low end systems smaller footprint desktop PC's have maybe something like a 200 watt power supplies. That power supply is providing 12 Volt and 5 Volt to devices like the system board, drives, etc. (and sometimes other voltages like 3.3 volt stepped down also...) Unless you are really loading up a large number of hard drives, and a big power hungry video card (that has an auxiliary power plug on it) you are not going to usually have an issue driving a few USB devices. (Unless it is a cheap consumer POS disposable computer to begin with that is under powered from the start.)

[Mustonen]

Get a TK421

Really a fan of the T-800 model 101, myself.

[highangle]

That problem is easily solved by getting a USB isolator like this one:

https://hifimediy.com/product/usb-isolator/

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

Should take care of ground loops, but a purpose-built usb dac should have better voltage regulation [and clock] than a mobo manufacturer will necessarily include for the audio package on a workstation board.

@RShea -

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...for-dacs.7021/

[highangle]

Get a TK421

TK-421 was the designation of a male stormtrooper who was stationed on the Death Star. Initially working in the Sector AA-345 Maintenance Unit alongside the MSE-6 series repair droid MSE-6-G735Y, he soon caught the attention of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin with an accidental holorecording displayed by the droid. TK-421 died with the Death Star.

[Flyoverland Captive]

My files are mostly ALAC / FLAC. I plan to stream from the PC to an Emotiva MC-700 processor (or whatever they’re replacing it with), then to an Emotiva BasX A4 amp to power my mains (Infinity R253) and surrounds (Pioneer SPF 551), with the preamp also feeding two Infinity subs. My main concern is how to get the signal out of the PC and into the preamp with the best sound possible, thus my desire for lots of PC output options so I can experiment.

What I’m hearing is that an external DAC is the way to go? With a USB connection to the preamp?

[JimmyCarter]

My files are mostly ALAC / FLAC. I plan to stream from the PC to an Emotiva MC-700 processor (or whatever they’re replacing it with), then to an Emotiva BasX A4 amp to power my mains (Infinity R253) and surrounds (Pioneer SPF 551), with the preamp also feeding two Infinity subs. My main concern is how to get the signal out of the PC and into the preamp with the best sound possible, thus my desire for lots of PC output options so I can experiment.

What I’m hearing is that an external DAC is the way to go? With a USB connection to the preamp?

Go USB to DAC. Dont use internal sound card/dont wire out using audio outputs.

https://www.schiit.com/products/modius

Sent from my SM-G935P using TGR Forums mobile app

[Flyoverland Captive]

I’m currently using a Yamaha RX-V371 receiver to power the same speakers, but I’ve never been happy with it. Lots of issues specific to my layout (for example, if I use the toslink input, none of the RCA line-level outs work, and I need them to feed two outdoor amps. So I have a toslink-to-RCA converter so I can use RCA analog inputs, so the RCA outs work. Not ideal, and I have no idea how much this converter degrades sound.)

[riser4]

Really a fan of the T-800 model 101, myself.

Should take care of ground loops, but a purpose-built usb dac should have better voltage regulation [and clock] than a mobo manufacturer will necessarily include for the audio package on a workstation board.

@RShea -

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...for-dacs.7021/

Oh FFS, Boogie Nights? Nobody?




Oh I think you need all that bass.

[Flyoverland Captive]

Go USB to DAC. Dont use internal sound card/dont wire out using audio outputs.

https://www.schiit.com/products/modius

Sent from my SM-G935P using TGR Forums mobile app

If my preamp has a USB input and an internal DAC (tbd, the new model isn’t out yet), do I need the Schiit in the middle? Can I feed the usb signal directly?

[JimmyCarter]

If my preamp has a USB input and an internal DAC (tbd, the new model isn’t out yet), do I need the Schiit in the middle? Can I feed the usb signal directly?

If preamp has a DAC then no need for another.

[RShea]

Should take care of ground loops, but a purpose-built usb dac should have better voltage regulation [and clock] than a mobo manufacturer will necessarily include for the audio package on a workstation board.

@RShea -

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...for-dacs.7021/

9 pages of Audio geeks tech arguing, not sure if the first conclusion is right or wrong as I am not going to read through a 9 page discussion. "It is clear that whether you use the USB power, or the supplied switching power supply, there is absolutely no audible improvement in the output of the DAC with linear power supplies."

[highangle]

9 pages of Audio geeks tech arguing, not sure if the first conclusion is right or wrong as I am not going to read through a 9 page discussion. "It is clear that whether you use the USB power, or the supplied switching power supply, there is absolutely no audible improvement in the output of the DAC with linear power supplies."

Seems like he started with that conclusion and works to end there....But anyway, it's a fucking can of worms. Wouldn't you agree?

[johnnyg82]

https://pcpartpicker.com

They show all the prices, and you can use some of their spec’ed systems too as a template.

[Timberridge]

Fugaku. Or if you don't quite need the power of that my go-to source has been Cray.

[skaredshtles]

Over the last 20 or so years building a professional technical organization, I've replaced a bunch of failed disks, but I don't recall ever having to, perforce, reinstall from the [block-level encrypted] backups we spend so much to make and maintain. Drive redundancy for the win.

Ahhh... the old "backups are a waste of time and $$ discussion."

[XXX-er]

When i told them the HD was gone and said you got a BU right ? I've had a few people say " No, but you can get it back right ? "

another tech told me about the call he did where the guy writing a book literaly cried

[riser4]

Ahhh... the old "backups are a waste of time and $$ discussion."

I have massive anecdotes to the contrary. We replace a lot of redundant disks AND have the need for all levels of restore for all kinds of reasons on a frequent basis. Plus periodic disaster recovery exercises at the recovery site.