nVidia ION, Asus Xonar as active XO, DAC and source

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Hi, I have seen a fair few threads about pc based active crossovers but none seem to answer my requirements.

I want to create a low cost primarily one source PC based active XO. I am currently using the Behringer DCX2496, it is great, however as i am in the process of building new speakers i would love to keep both systems active.

I bought my DCX b-stock for £120, but would be happy enough to spend £200 on the new media server with DAC capabilities that on spec beat the Cambridge Audio dacmagic, and for essentially less money, will be digital source, DAC and active XO. Fed direct to stereo gainclones power amps.

Components:

A silent, fanless nVidia ION motherboard, computeraudiophile.com uses the Intel D945GSEJT. No fans, PCI slot, can handle HD video.
Intel Desktop Board D945GSEJT - Overview


Asus Xonar D2 7.1 very highly rated soundcard with software to output up to 4channels of split crossover frequencies, would output to 2.5way.
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

Either a good very quite power supply, in separate enclosure or a switching one

Maximum RAM

A keyboard and mouse, iPhone as itunes remote

An old 17" monitor for itunes/Songbird or other options, HDMI or DVI out to projector with XMBC

2.5" drive with music, or wifi connect to my Netgear Duo nas for movie collection

Utilise gainclones as the amplifier modules, lm3886 or lm3875. 3xStereo or 6 overall channels.

It seeems very achievable, and for a low price under £250 excluding gainclones, and on paper sounds good.

Thoughts much appreciated.
 
i've been working with an ION based pc. keep in mind those are really slow computers, so if you plan to use 64bit linearphase eq or similars that rely on cpu it can be a problem unless checked... it will not have any problem with full-hd hometheatering for it has hardware acceleration

also i'm not sure the sound card will drop in the slot of the intel motherboard, just doublecheck it before you buy

indeed those computers are very silent, but their different cpu architecture is largely slower than comparable clock pentium architecture, i repeat, give it a check if you can.

i'm curious what softare will you be using for XO purpose? bundled with asus drivers? will it be system wide? allowing you to use itunes and watch movies? (on a matter of output channels also the ION built-in will be doing 7.1 or 5.1 at least via spdif to external dac solution)


anyway i really like the idea and i'm looking after something similar, it's time to gather opinions and understand which would be the best-cost-effective solution... i'm more after something like the miniDSP at the moment, maybe following a good usb dac or maybe with their digital input when it will come out
 
I was reading a thread last night, but kinda find it for the life of me. Found it:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/161768-violet-dsp-evolution-open-baffle-project.html

There are a few recommendations for software. They do mention its CPU intensive.
Asus offer a PCI and PCI-e miniexpress version. Full PCI seems easier that is if it physically fits.

Here is the link to computer audiophiles C.A.P.S itx computer.
Computer Audiophile Pocket Server - C.A.P.S. | Computer Audiophile

At the moment my main source is my macbook, I have a dab tuner and dvd player used for the odd cd. If I was to add a DAC there would be 5 elements in the chain.
MacBook - DAC - Pre - DCX - 6ch power amp. Seems kinda noisy at the moment.

I would like to have an almost self contained system with less components for my workshop.

All ideas welcome.
 
i think the biggest part for you to understand is if the software you'll be using will operate system wide, passing anything that is playing to the XO...

really only a test can judge if the atom dual core (atom 330) will suffice in computational power, if you use asus software that operates trough the audiocard it will for sure. for example i don't find my 64bit equalize to be cpu hungry on my macbook at all... atom architecture is just different so comparison based on cpu clock is useless.
 
If you want to reconsider Atom Processor and you want Really no noise Computing, You can go to NO-HD config with external USB Mem Modules in RAID 0, 0+1, or 5 Array For your OS and run a Faster CPU "Underclocked" with a Heatsink and heatpipes with the fan disconnected.
That way no Sound at all.

That's what I did but with a real HD in an isolated encolsure.

REgards,
MArc
 
That motherboard (D945GSEJT) isn't an nVida ION board, it's a plain old Atom board.

If it was me, I'd get a true ION or ION2 board, skip the additional sound card and use the HDMI out either to a suitable receiver or HDMI DAC. Look up the CUDA based FIR xover, this way your CPU isn't burdened with the xover task, and you can get a much steeper xover slope.

If you want to cut down on noise, SSDs are nice provided you can get the size you need within your budget.
 
@trd1587, did you use usb flash drives as your boot disk? in raid aswell, any good?
I did a little research into those SATA compact flash adapters, they don't seem very fast, most are slower than 2.5" 7200rpm drives but i could load on windows 7 or xp perhaps a lite version and stream all my music from the NAS. No moving parts and fairly cheap.

@human.bin what is the 64bit equalizer you use, recommended?

From what I have read, the soundcard specs are so much better than most budget DAC's, better chips, noise floor, sampling rates etc.... The CUDA FIR looks interesting, ill have to read through tomorrow, doesn't seem the most intuitive though.

Any apple software to split up audio signals. Mac minis i believe can output 5.1 through the optical. This would be a really elegant solution, but then you have to have multichannel preamps or overly techy recievers, and it all seems to get too complex again. Still in love with Stereo 2.0
 
i'm using this: AiXcoustic Creations: Electri-Q - posihfopit it was suggested on this forum in a foobar related diythread, it really cuts the job for me with foobar and vst wrapper plugin

the CUDA thing is pretty impressive... and intel has already announced its 256 parallel cores gpu with x86 instructions! thing are really going to get better and better soon!

when it comes to a DAC how important are the specs? and how much the components? i fear it is like judging a speaker over it's watt and exstension specs...
 
@trd1587, did you use usb flash drives as your boot disk? in raid aswell, any good?
I did a little research into those SATA compact flash adapters, they don't seem very fast, most are slower than 2.5" 7200rpm drives but i could load on windows 7 or xp perhaps a lite version and stream all my music from the NAS. No moving parts and fairly cheap.

For my first rig I...:
Well What I did is..... I took a piece of ¾" plywood (beceifer) and screwed a motherboard to it (socket A) having beforehand put a sonopan board piece under. I Used a 160Gig PATA drive that was pretty big at that time.
Closed the box with white cedar , all walls coverred with sonopan. Made a heat canal in the box so that the air entering the casing passes throught the cpu heatsink then close to the HD then out via the power supply. PS was equiped with 5" low noise fan. CPU ran hot so I had to underclock it to 1.4 Ghz.

I started to plan my second rig but my second baby cut hobby time alot so parts are there lying waiting to be tested..
3ware 9550SXU-4LP CARD (up to 4 drives)
2 x Intel X25-E SATA SSD HD
ATI HD card (4xxxHD)
Creative X-FI Xtreme AUDIO
1X SATA 320 GIG 7200 RPM
CPU AND Mainboard not yet bought
CPU will be corei5 or i7 low power on a fat heatpipes sink with no fan, like most tubes in a tube amp, will be out of the box.
<


I would love to test SSD HD in real hardware Raid 0 and compare to raid 0 5400 notebooks HD. (very quiet) but SSD HD becoming cheap for a true silent setup would be my choice taking in consideration the performance bottleneck of such devices.

Please tell us what you decide and how it turns out.

Regards
Marc
 
Last edited:
There is a PC based Xover program that should work on your system. The latency is near zero and does not use very many resources from the PC. I think your system would do it. The link is on this page.

There are a bunch of other help pages related to what you are talking about as well. I forget the name of the program but I know it is on that site somewhere.
 
Does anyone know if you can setup active crossovers completely automatically with a pc (spdiff input) and a mic, kinda like the way the behringher DEQ8000 auto calibrates the eq speakers to give a flat response?

Would be really nice to plug in speakers and have software optimise everything for the best, most accurate sound.
 
Not that I know of.... I don't think it would work because tastes vary so much. You should use a measurement program get it as flat as possible with that and then tweak it to your tastes. It doesn't take very long to do. Couple hours maybe.

The nice thing is you will make changes and then listen to it the next time and notice something else that needs adjusting. That happened to me several times over the course of months until I got it just the way I liked it. Keep adjusting until the music sounds real to you. Just make sure you have some other sources as a reference like real music.
 
It would be great to draw up a list of software or combinations that would allow this to function fully. I wish it to operate as a standalone unit, one source simply digital. Although it can handle two digital inputs, which in future may be utilised.

Although linux may has some benefits i can't the way in which it operates and simply cannot use it, so windows and mac software only.

I hear good things about Foobar.
The link a few posts above recommends Thuneau Transient Perfect loudspeaker DSP tools . Windows DSP speaker crossovers.
Any other recommendations?
 
It would be great to draw up a list of software or combinations that would allow this to function fully. I wish it to operate as a standalone unit, one source simply digital. Although it can handle two digital inputs, which in future may be utilised.

Although linux may has some benefits i can't the way in which it operates and simply cannot use it, so windows and mac software only.

I hear good things about Foobar.
The link a few posts above recommends Thuneau Transient Perfect loudspeaker DSP tools . Windows DSP speaker crossovers.
Any other recommendations?

The behringer 96/24 crossover unit does some automated sweeps. (I think) But it still is not fully automated. From what I've heard though it is really easy to use. Might be what you are looking for. But it's not PC.
 
thanks Mikal, I have one already, but it is used in my main setup, it is great and easy.

For an entirely separate setup I don't however want to buy another £250rrp 24/96(£120 i paid for B-Stock), and a £200+ DAC and source, computer, airport express etc, not to mention the cables and space.

If I can accomplish £600+ hardware of different boxes, power supplies, plugs mess cables etc for a one box unit (itx pc and amp) for under £200. I will be happy.
 
(I have a few old computers lying around, and although not completely silent would do, also have some eBay Class T amps, and an old Sony 5.1 receiver)

So a completely new DAC active XO Source etc can be accomplished for the price of a Asus Xonar, or £85.

£85 vs £600. I should stop posting and buy it and see!
 
Sounds like you are well on your way. Just need an ASIO sondcard to play with. They are all over the place on price.

I use a firewire device -the Maudio 410. It sounds good but has some reliability problems. Locks my PC up sometimes. It's a known driver issue with the device so I'm now looking at the ECHO 12 12 firewire.

Let me know how your project goes.
 
what you need to keep in mind when wanting to utilize an atom based system is not all movies (read pirate) will be decodable by hardware. dont know what sort of collection you'v got but consider yourself warned. used to have an opteron 140, 1.8 single core that would barely pull 720p, and the atom is slower.
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.