Hi Thanks for reading A few years ago i purchased an asus stx II soundcard as part of a new htpc build. When the htpc was completed the audio was full of noises, buzzing, clicking, very disappointing.
Now i have a soundblaster ae-9 soundcard. Which motherboard do you think will work well with this soundcard to get me away from all the problems i suffered from my last build, which cpu and ram should I buy, which power supply. Which components will allow this card to work at its best? I want to take the audio out from the card's analogue outputs into separate stereo power amps for multichannel sound. I've looked at external dacs but they cost £thousands for the quality ones
Now i have a soundblaster ae-9 soundcard. Which motherboard do you think will work well with this soundcard to get me away from all the problems i suffered from my last build, which cpu and ram should I buy, which power supply. Which components will allow this card to work at its best? I want to take the audio out from the card's analogue outputs into separate stereo power amps for multichannel sound. I've looked at external dacs but they cost £thousands for the quality ones
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In my view any single-ended output soundcard fed from a PC power supply is going to have compromises. Much better to do the D/A conversion in an electrically quiet environment if SQ is really a high priority.
I'm curious - why would you consider external DACs in the thousands of pounds price range against a soundcard of a few hundred pounds? If your aim is to match the measurements (120dB+ DNR) of that Soundblaster it isn't anywhere near that costly nowadays to do so. The tricky part I suspect would be getting a multi-channel USB interface to connect the PC to your DAC(s).
I'm curious - why would you consider external DACs in the thousands of pounds price range against a soundcard of a few hundred pounds? If your aim is to match the measurements (120dB+ DNR) of that Soundblaster it isn't anywhere near that costly nowadays to do so. The tricky part I suspect would be getting a multi-channel USB interface to connect the PC to your DAC(s).
Thanks!
Good point, i agree. Trying out the asus stx II soundcard proved that pc audio can be tricky. Some people have reported the asus is a good card, unfortunatly others like me have all kinds of problems. Which dac would you recommend as an alternative to the ae-9
I have tried a dac, i have a geffen tv dac, which has hdmi input and then hdmi output connected to a screen for the picture, and 7.1 analogue rca jacks for the audio. The thing is the geffen has recognised that the screen is two channel stereo and will only output 2 channel stereo through the analogue jacks. I've been fiddiling with it all day but can't get past this problem, the dac will not output multichannel. Is this the way dacs work, they only listen to what the hdmi is telling them
Good point, i agree. Trying out the asus stx II soundcard proved that pc audio can be tricky. Some people have reported the asus is a good card, unfortunatly others like me have all kinds of problems. Which dac would you recommend as an alternative to the ae-9
I have tried a dac, i have a geffen tv dac, which has hdmi input and then hdmi output connected to a screen for the picture, and 7.1 analogue rca jacks for the audio. The thing is the geffen has recognised that the screen is two channel stereo and will only output 2 channel stereo through the analogue jacks. I've been fiddiling with it all day but can't get past this problem, the dac will not output multichannel. Is this the way dacs work, they only listen to what the hdmi is telling them
Thanks! Good points. I’m thinking about a receiver as a possible soundcard alternative. What is putting me off is that about 10 years ago I used to have an audiolab preamp, hooked up to a couple of quad power amps for 5.1 sound.
I compared this against a pioneer sclx83 receiver which at the time was highly rated, and my separates sounded much better, I mean the pioneer got destroyed. There is a general consensus on the web that separates are better than a receiver. But what about nowadays, have receivers improved enough to approach separates, what is the latest.
I compared this against a pioneer sclx83 receiver which at the time was highly rated, and my separates sounded much better, I mean the pioneer got destroyed. There is a general consensus on the web that separates are better than a receiver. But what about nowadays, have receivers improved enough to approach separates, what is the latest.
IMO for internal cards the safest way is using an amp with balanced inputs which can always be used even for SE outputs in quasi-balanced connection. IME works fine as the input common-mode rejection supresses the noise - connected like this https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/adding-an-amp-into-thin-client-pc.320812/
Just to jump in as defender of the Xonars. I have never had an STX II, but I am using a Xonar D2X as only player for my music, which is flac files, stored on an 1tb ssd. As the D2X is a 7.1 card, I have got to reroute the side and back channels, which I'm doing with EQ Apo. So I have 6 channels stereo, 1 channel for the subwoofer, and 1 channel is not used atm. The crossovers are made with rePhase, and integrated in the EQ Apo setup via the convolver.
As crossover for the subwoofer, I'm using the "flexbass"-feature of the Xonar driver, which takes the sub out at 80hz with 36db/oct. . I made several attempts to let this task also be done by EQ Apo, but I always find myself back using the Asus-tool. The woofer Chassis is a 12" Mivoc AW 3000, which is not the perfect sw, because as it was constructed, it was defined, as a woofer, which can also be used as a sub. In simulation, a not very expensive GRS 8" HE lets the Mivoc bite the dust in -3db frequency, as well as in amplitude, and that not by the width of a hair. So this will be my next construction site (I'm fine with the Mivoc, it's driven by the EQ Apo settings and a 250W class-D amp to where no Mivoc was meant to go, but I know I could have a lot more possibilities in reproducing lowest bass, by just using two of the 8" GRS instead of the 12" AW 3000.
Stereo goes to 2.5-way floorstanders with 2x 5.25" midbass from sw up to 600hz, then taken out with 48db/oct. Another 5.25" goes from sw up to 1900hz, where it hits in a brickwall, from where the ringradiator tweeter takes care of the leftover frequencies. These four chassis are powered with 4 LM3886 Chipamps.
Back to the start: all this is driven by an Asus Xonar D2X. I'm not satisfied with this situation, because I'm never satisfied, but I should be.
As long as I use this soundcard (and I know it's a less than sub optimal task trying to reproduce HiFi in the environment which the inner of a pc case is) I had and have none of the problems mentioned above. My speakers got some hiss, but to hear it I have to put my ear less than 1"/2.5cm to the speaker.
So, it's not the material, it's not impossible, even for an amateur like me, to get some serious sound out of a pc.
I've found the linked YT video just a week or so ago. I've no possibility to do the measurements the guy in the vid does just by the lack of equipment, but the results show the same, my ears tell me.
Focusrite Scarlett vs Sound Blaster AE-9 vs Xonar D2X
As crossover for the subwoofer, I'm using the "flexbass"-feature of the Xonar driver, which takes the sub out at 80hz with 36db/oct. . I made several attempts to let this task also be done by EQ Apo, but I always find myself back using the Asus-tool. The woofer Chassis is a 12" Mivoc AW 3000, which is not the perfect sw, because as it was constructed, it was defined, as a woofer, which can also be used as a sub. In simulation, a not very expensive GRS 8" HE lets the Mivoc bite the dust in -3db frequency, as well as in amplitude, and that not by the width of a hair. So this will be my next construction site (I'm fine with the Mivoc, it's driven by the EQ Apo settings and a 250W class-D amp to where no Mivoc was meant to go, but I know I could have a lot more possibilities in reproducing lowest bass, by just using two of the 8" GRS instead of the 12" AW 3000.
Stereo goes to 2.5-way floorstanders with 2x 5.25" midbass from sw up to 600hz, then taken out with 48db/oct. Another 5.25" goes from sw up to 1900hz, where it hits in a brickwall, from where the ringradiator tweeter takes care of the leftover frequencies. These four chassis are powered with 4 LM3886 Chipamps.
Back to the start: all this is driven by an Asus Xonar D2X. I'm not satisfied with this situation, because I'm never satisfied, but I should be.
As long as I use this soundcard (and I know it's a less than sub optimal task trying to reproduce HiFi in the environment which the inner of a pc case is) I had and have none of the problems mentioned above. My speakers got some hiss, but to hear it I have to put my ear less than 1"/2.5cm to the speaker.
So, it's not the material, it's not impossible, even for an amateur like me, to get some serious sound out of a pc.
I've found the linked YT video just a week or so ago. I've no possibility to do the measurements the guy in the vid does just by the lack of equipment, but the results show the same, my ears tell me.
Focusrite Scarlett vs Sound Blaster AE-9 vs Xonar D2X
For multichannel, you could use an 8-channel dac as the ESS9027PRO, or, as the D2X does it, use four 2-channel dacs (the D2X uses Ti/BurrBrown PCM1796, the STX II even the PCM1792).
I'm a noob, but the last time I'm doing much time with EasyEDA (couldn't use Kicad cause I was still using Win7, and Kicad wanted Win10) to make schematics and pcb's for my own out of the pc case dac experience. Atm. I'm going for the AK4490 or AK4493 with modules for 4x1chip. These dacs are not new, but compared to the Ti pcm179x, they are many years ahead, and there are a lot of schematics flying around in the net. For I could never create a dac on my own, I'm a mechanic, but I'm good at gathering information and finding out, where to borrow which part of which schematic to create something for me
.I would be inclined to buy a very cheap fanless PC. I recently got some refurb Dell/Wyse PCs that are completely fanless, much faster than an RPi, and run Linux and FreeBSD just fine from the internal SSDs. They were about 60 quid each on eBay. That might leave you with budget for a better external DAC. One will run my hifi, and one is in the garage as 'offsite backup'. Internal storage is enough for an operating system but they have USB3 and a disk enclosure and drive is inexpensive.
There's not much choice if you want to use unbalanced connections but more choice if you can go balanced, with proaudio gear, and (say) the Topping DM7. I have a really cheap 8-channel USB from ESI and its OK, I'm trying to figure out if its actually better than accepting theoretical jitter issues over HDMI into a processor.
The Octo Research unit looks nice too, a bit more expensive to be fair and balanced but not silly money like Exasound. Octo is probably less than your HTPC budget though. If I could justify binning my existing amps in favour of new Purifi/Nilai then I'd get in the queue.
I have an old Audiolab, which is just a processor and has unbalanced inputs and outputs with straight-through-just-volume for SACD/DVDA - and a beefy Arcam that also has the same inputs and outputs with amps: you need to go for old ones that have the inputs for SACD etc unless you are happy that modern HDMI chips will deal with the reclocking. I suspect that actually they are pretty good and we get mugged by audiophile BS because jitter seems relatively easy to measure. Let's ignore the way that expensive dedicated transports communicate with DACs, eh?
Interesting take on jitter here. Everything is a compromise - but if jitter isn't so much of a thing, then a PC source and an HDMI link to a decent receiver becomes very cost effective for playing with 3-way stereo plus subwoofer - DAC, volume control, amps - all in one. Oh, and a display for UI. What's not to like?
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I wouldn't like the speaker cables. PC with flac-audio & EQ Apo (channel rerouting, crossovers, DSP, all VST plugins you can eat, Eq), USB out- Isolator (ADuM4160) > DAC (not to expensive, not hi end but good quality dual out chips like AK4493EQ, ES9038Q2M or CS43131each on it's own pcb, each DAC board connectors for 2-3x LT3042 psu's. Also on own pcb's interchangeable I/V-stages for balanced (OPA1612) or single ended (ADA4627) out (each powered by it's own LT3045/LT3094 psu), to make it not to expensive, powered by Li-Ion cells (or more expensive super caps) with external charger > as output I'd take 1/4" stereo phone connectors, which are, in my eyes, more elegant than the ever&always XLR connectors. And off to the Speakers (each chassis it's own balanced in composite LM3886 or TDA7293 chipamp).
I started first layout tries. I start with the less complicated psu's and hope to level up soon to more complex schematics
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