I have noticed that sound cards, no matter what they cost, are easily affected by the computer power supply and the motherboard power circuit as well, which is really a large mess of noise not actually intended for audio.
The day I noticed was the same day I plugged in a cheap little chip player module (to 5v regulated power, a chip with music on it, and a good audio amp), and this easily beat the X-Fi and M-Audio sound cards.
From what I can see, the chip player's means to beat the finer sound cards is a significant power circuit difference, specifically, the difference must have come from the chip player running from simple clean regulated power, which is surely better quality.
I wonder what options are available in chip players?
Do you have a favorite chip player?
The day I noticed was the same day I plugged in a cheap little chip player module (to 5v regulated power, a chip with music on it, and a good audio amp), and this easily beat the X-Fi and M-Audio sound cards.
From what I can see, the chip player's means to beat the finer sound cards is a significant power circuit difference, specifically, the difference must have come from the chip player running from simple clean regulated power, which is surely better quality.
I wonder what options are available in chip players?
Do you have a favorite chip player?
I dont understand what you mean by chip player?
Do you mean a media player?
What are you using perhaps you can provide a link?
Competent media players which are good for audio are the Popcorn hour, the Patriot box office, and the Netgear EVA series.
They all sound good. I still find that playback from the PC using CMP cPlay sounds better than all of these, all of them including the PC are bit perfect, the difference in sound is small, and comes down to the matter of dynamics and presentation. Choose which one sounds best to you...
I use a Niles Audio DA on the analog output of my Gigabyte mobo with a Realtek ALC889 codec. The Niles feeds 2 Technics receivers, one for speakers and the other for a pair of Koss ESP-9 electrostatic phones. I sometimes run a pretty high SPL in the phones and the noise level is extremely low. No, I haven't measured it but I do audio alignment for a living and safely guess it at better than 85 dB down. The mobo manufacturer claims 108.
If analog noise is a problem for you you could try a differential input even on an unbalanced source. Tie the '-' inputs to the to the RCA shields and the signal to the '+' inputs. I've used this technique in my car for a portable CD player to the input of the 'receiver'. There was no trace of alternator, ignition or CD servo noise. The Analog Devices SSM2141 or TI/Burr Brown INA134 make this very simple to build with excellent common mode rejection as the critical components are laser trimmed at the factory.
G²
Hi Pano and Erin
I can't find my favorite, but I did find one with the same tuner chip on a very similar looking big red board. The tuner isn't built into the mp3 player chip. The tuner is on its own chip and the audio quality of the tuner is astonishing. Hooked up to the Yagi, I got 44 stations clear, which was rather remarkable, especially considering the quality.
The device also does a decent job with mp3, and it isn't victimized by a computer's complex power circuit (muddy). It beats the computer so easily.
My favorite, which seems to be discontinued, had an inductor and an additional chip on the power circuit. Without those parts, the device is able to amplify hf power noise and thus problematic for SMPS (causes noise) or even regulator (doesn't stop noise) operation. There's a fix for this: Teddy's 'Regulator booster' adds HF filtering to the 7805. Perhaps there are other similar solutions too?
On a lark, I plugged it into my netbook's USB port for 5v. This didn't work. The netbook gave it 5.19v which freaked it out. SO, I connected a 1n5819 series to v+ and it all ran just fine, but it sounds better on regs instead.
Remote USB-SD AUX Mp3 FM Radio Player Module -B | eBay
This type of chip player varies by each production run and those with more features have more errata. From what I can see, the technology is excellent but the manufacturers have witless zero attention span, so don't expect any upcoming refinements.
The question is, where is something better? It is a hard question because they did raise the bar slightly. It seems that the main advantage is being able to run from an excellent power supply rather than a mess.
I can't find my favorite, but I did find one with the same tuner chip on a very similar looking big red board. The tuner isn't built into the mp3 player chip. The tuner is on its own chip and the audio quality of the tuner is astonishing. Hooked up to the Yagi, I got 44 stations clear, which was rather remarkable, especially considering the quality.
The device also does a decent job with mp3, and it isn't victimized by a computer's complex power circuit (muddy). It beats the computer so easily.
My favorite, which seems to be discontinued, had an inductor and an additional chip on the power circuit. Without those parts, the device is able to amplify hf power noise and thus problematic for SMPS (causes noise) or even regulator (doesn't stop noise) operation. There's a fix for this: Teddy's 'Regulator booster' adds HF filtering to the 7805. Perhaps there are other similar solutions too?
On a lark, I plugged it into my netbook's USB port for 5v. This didn't work. The netbook gave it 5.19v which freaked it out. SO, I connected a 1n5819 series to v+ and it all ran just fine, but it sounds better on regs instead.
Remote USB-SD AUX Mp3 FM Radio Player Module -B | eBay
This type of chip player varies by each production run and those with more features have more errata. From what I can see, the technology is excellent but the manufacturers have witless zero attention span, so don't expect any upcoming refinements.
The question is, where is something better? It is a hard question because they did raise the bar slightly. It seems that the main advantage is being able to run from an excellent power supply rather than a mess.
I do have a nice CD player, but chasing discs every day is not my thing. I also have a variety of sound cards, and of these, the M-audio is a bit more tolerant to PC power. The Revo in particular is better than most. The little stand-alone players do beat the x-fi though, since I can't quite give super clean power to an x-fi with the caveat of it being stuck in a computer. 
For Mp3, I use Nero MP3pro with the MP3pro feature shut off so as to make high definition standard MP3 that anything can play. In comparison to this, LAME lives up to its name.
And I do have a Sony HD radio, which is a super tuner with a super awful af section that makes the audio considerably less useful. It sits atop an awesome sounding Technics with excellent audio quality but such limited reception that static defeats it. These are both unplugged.
For Mp3, I use Nero MP3pro with the MP3pro feature shut off so as to make high definition standard MP3 that anything can play. In comparison to this, LAME lives up to its name.
And I do have a Sony HD radio, which is a super tuner with a super awful af section that makes the audio considerably less useful. It sits atop an awesome sounding Technics with excellent audio quality but such limited reception that static defeats it. These are both unplugged.
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well my suggestion to you is to get yourself a usb spdif converter and a dac and build a silent pc and playback music from your pc. The usb spdif will isolate the dac from the pc electrical noise and you can also stream radio from the internet. This will 100% give you much better sound than cheap mp3 players, although it will also come down to your choice of dac / playback software and usb spdif converter.
Despite my perrsonal search for the same thing as you, a stand alone hdd/cf/usb player of audiophile quality, none of the available options sound quite as good as the pc setup I mention above. And all of them still involve the use of a pc to transfer the files either over the network , or copying fles to a usb stick or cf card. Using the pc for playback seems like a more simple and pure approach.
I know that other people use external linear power supplies for their pc soundcard. Perhaps this is an option for you?
Despite my perrsonal search for the same thing as you, a stand alone hdd/cf/usb player of audiophile quality, none of the available options sound quite as good as the pc setup I mention above. And all of them still involve the use of a pc to transfer the files either over the network , or copying fles to a usb stick or cf card. Using the pc for playback seems like a more simple and pure approach.
I know that other people use external linear power supplies for their pc soundcard. Perhaps this is an option for you?
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Hello erin
Can you tell more about it; which brand and model, where did you buy it, etc... ?
Thank
Gaetan
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Well, I learned how to fix this:
Remote USB-SD AUX Mp3 FM Radio Player Module -A | eBay
This picture shows the problem
At about the bottom center, see that zero ohm resistor (on the Big solder pads) where an inductor used to be?
Well, it is possible to install an SMPS or motherboard inductor at that spot. And then the treble is tame. Size of the inductor controls the timbre of the treble. A capmulti (gyrator) should also work. Actually it likes 4vdc. Three rechargable AA is about right. After that it has a fairly good open sound.
Remote USB-SD AUX Mp3 FM Radio Player Module -A | eBay
This picture shows the problem
At about the bottom center, see that zero ohm resistor (on the Big solder pads) where an inductor used to be?
Well, it is possible to install an SMPS or motherboard inductor at that spot. And then the treble is tame. Size of the inductor controls the timbre of the treble. A capmulti (gyrator) should also work. Actually it likes 4vdc. Three rechargable AA is about right. After that it has a fairly good open sound.
First let me apologise for knowing next to nothing with regards to electronics. Secondly do you have a picture of the PCB with the inductor in place (you say use to be, does this imply a design change?). I am planning to make a small system for my kitchen and am debating between this as a source and a Raspberry Pi running XBMC, so how good is fairly good? Sorry for all the questions but my interest was piqued.
There's a few flaws that I could spot. . . in two groups.
1
Slightly sibilant if without the inductor and it curiously wants 4v. This sibilance is NOT as severe as a typical USB dac. The circuit to eq for Dolby B would be more than enough to damp the problem.
Perhaps one could install an ordinary silicon diode instead of that resistor. It makes a CRC (actually CDC) with a reliable 0.7v drop instead of a resistor (your 5v supply would reduce to 4.3v that way). For example, a nice 470uF cap at the output of the diode (you already found the hot--cable the ground over a half inch to the nearby smoothing cap's ground plane), and a nice 1500uF (or so--whatever nice biggie you can get off an old PC motherboard) can be put at the power input tap (vias). Also an RC (or just a really lossy polyester dip cap) at the power input tap. Use a magnet choke or tie knots in the cord of the 5v power supply. SO, in this method, it looks possible to replace the inductor with a more simple passive filter while simultaneously getting the voltage to ballpark centerpoint optimum, with just 4 used/recycled parts.
SO, the fix is in 3 parts: Provide right voltage, filter at the power side, and lastly filter off the rest of the sibilance. For filter the concept is not different than a turntable amp or a super high pitched tone control or Dolby B. A speaker made during the introduction of CD technology won't require any filtering and neither does a 3" tweeter, a full range, etc. . . since the problem is not severe.
2
The very lowest bass is not present. There's two caps and two resistors at the output of the DSP chip, right directly at the audio output taps (vias). It wouldn't be any more difficult to solder some 1/4w resistors (flux, tin, flux, tin to make it easy) of the same value as the SMD resistors. After that, you can use their output to connect whatever output caps you like instead of using the SMD output caps and parts (some Panasonic FC 10uF perhaps or some Elna Cerafine 4.7uF). At this point you can treat it just like a radio and filter the output as necessary to kill the rest of the sibilance or "re-analog" the signal. SO, big caps to probably get more bass (maybe Nichicon ES 10u) and a miniature tone control (much higher pitch than a regular tone control--so very much like a good RC RF filter) to scrape off the remaining treble errata. The good news is that the treble is loud enough, pretty close and plenty clear and that is a rather easy head start.
As far as #2 actually being a flaw, it is not really a flaw. This is purpose made for portables. It is efficiency tuning for portable devices that wouldn't have speakers able for lower than 65hz. This would match perfectly with CD era Bookshelf speakers and most approximately 4" full range. It is also not a problem for FM radio since most commercial FM transmitters don't broadcast extra low bass at the expense of either killing the broadcast range or severely clipping the transmitter. Professional FM stations use psycho-acoustic bass processing that gives you the extra low bass harmonics but omits the fundamental and so if you wanted to use just the FM radio then you would not need to change the output caps. Basically the SMD output caps are sized for supporting small systems, like a PAM or a T-amp with modest speakers. Given such efficiency tuning used properly, you can play a heck of a lot louder without clipping.
Conflict: The MP3 section would be a disappointment if used with large speakers. . . unless you upsize the output caps.
I wish they had built a psychoacoustic harmonic bass processor into the MP3 eq since having that selectable would have the frequency response match up same as the radio (so they would not be so different). And of course then everyone would want one for portable projects. Unfortunately, the radio and MP3 sections don't quite match for tone. . . although both are pretty good and clear.
I think that we could find a better MP3 player (probably at considerably more expense) but a better sounding radio would be really hard to find. After providing the approximately 4v, then the flaws do not affect the radio.
P.S.
Some of these devices specify 3.8v, in which case, simply use 1 silicon diode and 1 fast silicon diode for voltage drops (to adapt your 5v power source). These diodes supplant (are instead of) the Resistor in a CRC power supply. Instead of CRC you have CDC (D for diode) and is the super easy solution for audio enhancement via the power side. SO, one diode for the 5v units or 2 diodes for the ~3.8v units. And, that works.
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