I built a CAPS 2.0 audio pc back in summer of 2011. The design was by Chris from Computer Audiophile. I upgraded from the standard laptop psu to a bench PSU and noticed immediately how much quieter the music sounded, less distortion etc. However being just a small atom processor it would sometimes buffer when starting up high res tracks and the album artwork was not that clear. Late last year the founder of Item Audio (.com) kindly shared the design of his latest audio computer referred as the ‘T1 transport’ on the sites forum. I knew I had to build this pc as I was not enjoying listening to music on what was now nearly a 2 year old motherboard. While the sound was clear it just was a little cold and uninspiring. As a benchmark and depending on the quality of the recording listening to BBC Radio 2 on my SKY box was more enjoyable.
My SKY satellite receiver and audio PC are both connected into my Wyred4Sound DAC 2. This amazing DAC is pretty transparent. Each time I make an upgrade to the rest of my system I hear the benefits. I use the quality (red) Wireworld Starlight cables from my SKY and computer. (SPDIF and USB)
I will share with you my thoughts on why I selected the parts I did and hope this is of interest to other forum members considering building a dedicated computer for playing music.
Power Supply Unit ‘PSU’ - As I really only listen to music for about five hours per week I opted to not buy a large triple bench PSU nor create my own ATX wiring loom. Instead I bought the ‘large’ Pico psu 160 ATX module for £40 on EBay. While this is convenient it is considered to be electrically a little noisy. In hindsight I would maybe go for the smaller version unless you’re prepared like me to start bending the Streacom copper cooler pipes. I was OK about doing this as I have the view that a bigger capacity PSU is generally a better sounding one. Paid of this time ;-). Note the black heatshrink tube insulating PSU from copper pipe. Worth knowing that the 12 vdc jack fits the hole in the rear of the Streamcom chassis perfectly.
I may look for a larger capacity single bench PSU next year as the Pico 160 can handle 8 amps easily. My current old TTI one has a max output of 4A, however the PC only uses 2A max.
Motherboard – Buy an Intel DH61 board if you see one as I’m sure I read that Intel (Foxconn) are going to stop making small motherboards. Came with driver DVD and two SATA cables. This Intel board has a basic bios settings menu compared to say one from Gigabyte.
I would have liked to have purchased an Intel i3 processor however the cost put me off and I opted for the budget G550T CPU. I won’t be using this pc for video so it’s fine. Make sure you get the T version like Item recommend.
Case – I was using a large Origan S10 case which was a bit too big. Note the build quality of these cases is amazing. Mine will be on EBay soon as I need the cash. Because I had to have passive CPU cooling I opted for the new Streacom FC8 EVO. Nice quality cases with clear instructions and all the parts you need. I would say though that you may need an extra 2 grams of thermal paste.
Chipset – I want to upgrade the std aluminium chipset cooler however I could not find a quality copper chipset cooler anywhere on the internet, anyone have any suggestions please? There is no room on the Intel board to screw one on, just the clip method
HDD – I installed my Samsung 840 (PRO) SSD from my ‘old’ pc. What I realised is that this new motherboard could not boot from this. Using the repair process did not work so ended up wiping the operating system partition and reinstalling windows 7 and JRiver 18. Which of course meant I lost my play lists and JRiver settings! All my music and cover art was on the ‘D drive’ partition. I did manage with the help of some kind forum JRiver forum member to find the CM Library file and restored all playlists.
Building – I wore a cheap anti static wrist strap while handling the mobo and processor. I ended up putting a tiny amount of grease on each of the small chassis screws which may be make the screw threads last longer if you find yourself having to make changes later on.
One upgrade I want to make already is to a shorter SATA lad from SSD to Mobo. Has anyone bought one of these SoTM hard drive filters and noticed it sounded better? £50 SOtM - Ultimate High Performance Audio
Other upgrades maybe a shielded (not braided) cable from PSU to dc plug.
Sound Quality – Please bear in mind I can only try and explain in writing what my forty year old ears can hear ;-). Compared to the Atom based CAPS pc and using the same bench PSU, this pc sounds much warmer and clearer. It can certainly play the bass notes better. It gives me the sense that I’m sitting closer to the musicians playing.
Prior to me starting this second audio pc I had just finished building a 25W, Nelson Pass designed F5 power amp. Special thanks to 6L6 for helping me getting it built and working. It sounds lovely and I would encourage you all to buy the boards from the site shop and start building.
Bill of materials includes prices and suppliers for the T1 inspired music server
Next steps for me:
1, connect T1 transport to network router via Ethernet cable and purchase a small handheld tablet. Install the application JRemote – The iOS remote for JRiver Media Center and configure.
2, XTZ sound test. Based on results adjust JRiver 18 equaliser and speaker position. Room Analyzer II Pro
Any question feels free to ask.
3, Try out JPlay application and compare SQ to JRiver
Best of luck with your PC build and happy listening
My SKY satellite receiver and audio PC are both connected into my Wyred4Sound DAC 2. This amazing DAC is pretty transparent. Each time I make an upgrade to the rest of my system I hear the benefits. I use the quality (red) Wireworld Starlight cables from my SKY and computer. (SPDIF and USB)
I will share with you my thoughts on why I selected the parts I did and hope this is of interest to other forum members considering building a dedicated computer for playing music.
Power Supply Unit ‘PSU’ - As I really only listen to music for about five hours per week I opted to not buy a large triple bench PSU nor create my own ATX wiring loom. Instead I bought the ‘large’ Pico psu 160 ATX module for £40 on EBay. While this is convenient it is considered to be electrically a little noisy. In hindsight I would maybe go for the smaller version unless you’re prepared like me to start bending the Streacom copper cooler pipes. I was OK about doing this as I have the view that a bigger capacity PSU is generally a better sounding one. Paid of this time ;-). Note the black heatshrink tube insulating PSU from copper pipe. Worth knowing that the 12 vdc jack fits the hole in the rear of the Streamcom chassis perfectly.
I may look for a larger capacity single bench PSU next year as the Pico 160 can handle 8 amps easily. My current old TTI one has a max output of 4A, however the PC only uses 2A max.
Motherboard – Buy an Intel DH61 board if you see one as I’m sure I read that Intel (Foxconn) are going to stop making small motherboards. Came with driver DVD and two SATA cables. This Intel board has a basic bios settings menu compared to say one from Gigabyte.
I would have liked to have purchased an Intel i3 processor however the cost put me off and I opted for the budget G550T CPU. I won’t be using this pc for video so it’s fine. Make sure you get the T version like Item recommend.
Case – I was using a large Origan S10 case which was a bit too big. Note the build quality of these cases is amazing. Mine will be on EBay soon as I need the cash. Because I had to have passive CPU cooling I opted for the new Streacom FC8 EVO. Nice quality cases with clear instructions and all the parts you need. I would say though that you may need an extra 2 grams of thermal paste.
Chipset – I want to upgrade the std aluminium chipset cooler however I could not find a quality copper chipset cooler anywhere on the internet, anyone have any suggestions please? There is no room on the Intel board to screw one on, just the clip method
HDD – I installed my Samsung 840 (PRO) SSD from my ‘old’ pc. What I realised is that this new motherboard could not boot from this. Using the repair process did not work so ended up wiping the operating system partition and reinstalling windows 7 and JRiver 18. Which of course meant I lost my play lists and JRiver settings! All my music and cover art was on the ‘D drive’ partition. I did manage with the help of some kind forum JRiver forum member to find the CM Library file and restored all playlists.
Building – I wore a cheap anti static wrist strap while handling the mobo and processor. I ended up putting a tiny amount of grease on each of the small chassis screws which may be make the screw threads last longer if you find yourself having to make changes later on.
One upgrade I want to make already is to a shorter SATA lad from SSD to Mobo. Has anyone bought one of these SoTM hard drive filters and noticed it sounded better? £50 SOtM - Ultimate High Performance Audio
Other upgrades maybe a shielded (not braided) cable from PSU to dc plug.
Sound Quality – Please bear in mind I can only try and explain in writing what my forty year old ears can hear ;-). Compared to the Atom based CAPS pc and using the same bench PSU, this pc sounds much warmer and clearer. It can certainly play the bass notes better. It gives me the sense that I’m sitting closer to the musicians playing.
Prior to me starting this second audio pc I had just finished building a 25W, Nelson Pass designed F5 power amp. Special thanks to 6L6 for helping me getting it built and working. It sounds lovely and I would encourage you all to buy the boards from the site shop and start building.
Bill of materials includes prices and suppliers for the T1 inspired music server
Next steps for me:
1, connect T1 transport to network router via Ethernet cable and purchase a small handheld tablet. Install the application JRemote – The iOS remote for JRiver Media Center and configure.
2, XTZ sound test. Based on results adjust JRiver 18 equaliser and speaker position. Room Analyzer II Pro
Any question feels free to ask.
3, Try out JPlay application and compare SQ to JRiver
Best of luck with your PC build and happy listening
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Last edited:
Nice sharing.
I have positive result after adding a PCI-e USB-3 card (Renesas/NEC chipset) to my Atom DN2800MT build and connect to the DAC from there. It sounds better than onboard USB ports. The card only costs about 10 - 15$. Perhaps the SOTM card is better, but the cost is too much for me.
I have positive result after adding a PCI-e USB-3 card (Renesas/NEC chipset) to my Atom DN2800MT build and connect to the DAC from there. It sounds better than onboard USB ports. The card only costs about 10 - 15$. Perhaps the SOTM card is better, but the cost is too much for me.
Hi Here is the second photo of the Streacom case containing PC (T1)
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Enable the HPET timer in BIOS and windows. It should reduce DPC latency and improve system responsiveness. DPC latency is more of a concern in pro audio recording, but it can't hurt for playback. The DH61 uses a Nuvoton Super IO controller which should handle HPET well. Hit it up on google, it is a simple tweak. As for the SOtM products: a waste of money, there has been a long discussion about it elsewhere, I won't recap it here. Save your money and invest it somewhere else.
High Precision Event Timer
Hi, thanks for the tip on HPET settings, unfortunately I can't locate that feature in BIOS or Windows Services menus, is it something I can download or can you spell out for me where I can find it please?
Thanks for sharing your views on Sotm (filter/clock) products.
Hi, thanks for the tip on HPET settings, unfortunately I can't locate that feature in BIOS or Windows Services menus, is it something I can download or can you spell out for me where I can find it please?
Thanks for sharing your views on Sotm (filter/clock) products.
It's possible your board doesn't support this feature. I would check every last menu in BIOS, HPET is also known as High Precision Event Timer, most modern boards should have it. Microsoft has been pushing for HPET with every successive generation of windows.
Brief summary: There are two components, BIOS side, and Windows side. If you cannot enable HPET in BIOS, DO NOT enable HPET in Windows. It will provide no benefit, and will increase latency due to mixed clocking schemes.
For the Windows side of things, go to Start -> Search programs and files "cmd.exe" -> right click cmd.exe and "Run as Administrator" -> you should be in command prompt, paste in bcdedit /set useplatformclock true -> Reboot. As mentioned before, only do this step when you know you can enable HPET in BIOS, the order you do this does not matter, it only matters that it is enabled in both BIOS and Windows.
If you can't enable HPET, don't worry about it. It's nice to have, but relatively inconsequential.
Brief summary: There are two components, BIOS side, and Windows side. If you cannot enable HPET in BIOS, DO NOT enable HPET in Windows. It will provide no benefit, and will increase latency due to mixed clocking schemes.
For the Windows side of things, go to Start -> Search programs and files "cmd.exe" -> right click cmd.exe and "Run as Administrator" -> you should be in command prompt, paste in bcdedit /set useplatformclock true -> Reboot. As mentioned before, only do this step when you know you can enable HPET in BIOS, the order you do this does not matter, it only matters that it is enabled in both BIOS and Windows.
If you can't enable HPET, don't worry about it. It's nice to have, but relatively inconsequential.
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