Improving digital sound

StreamFidelity

Well-Known Member
Jun 30, 2020
110
121
115
Rostock, Germany
griggaudio.de
Fans are ok if they are low noise and driven from an external fixed supply. My server is in the garage, where only the spiders hear the noise of fans .

I really like your sense of humor. :D

I don't care about the fan noise itself. I experimented with 140mm case fans and let them spin at 200 rpm. Absolutely noiseless. It's about the micro-housing resonance that such a fan always causes. Sensitive electronic components are given a massage. The PWM control ensures that the current is regularly switched on and off in the high-frequency range in order to maintain the rotation. Last but not least, a fan causes dust to be blown up. If you make it long enough you can make a winter blanket out of it.



Your server looks good, but needs a metal top and wire to bond it to the rest of the case

Thanks for this and the tip. I think about that. :)
 

Onepoint5

Well-Known Member
Sep 23, 2011
47
13
913
I really like your sense of humor. :D

I don't care about the fan noise itself. I experimented with 140mm case fans and let them spin at 200 rpm. Absolutely noiseless. It's about the micro-housing resonance that such a fan always causes. Sensitive electronic components are given a massage. The PWM control ensures that the current is regularly switched on and off in the high-frequency range in order to maintain the rotation. Last but not least, a fan causes dust to be blown up. If you make it long enough you can make a winter blanket out of it.





Thanks for this and the tip. I think about that. :)
Fair enough about the fan vibration, thought there is so much rubbish from the processing the fan vibration wouldn't be noticed.

I can't recall if the mobo fan PWM controllers can be disabled, if left to full, they will be active at all times making noise.

There is much to optimise in the server, the most difficult are the mobos and the power supplies. On the latter, high frequency switching in the MHz takes it out of the audio band, but creates more harmonics and higher freq conducted noise in the 30MHz region. You would have to switch higher than this to stop conducted noise, but designing power transformers at this speed is certainly a challenge....

On LPS, the use of tight regulation supplies may not be needed for devices like the EtherRegen since it will accept 7-12V, or the JCAT cards 4.x to 5.1V are acceptable, so they can be simple transformer, diode, cap combos without regulator contributing noise.

For a single 12V rail mobos, I need to check the tolerance on the mini ATX mobos, since on board regulation takes care of the rest, so a simple LPS is all that is needed.
 

Nikko

Member
Feb 25, 2021
26
50
13
63
If anyone is using/considering the EtherRegen, then I can't recommend highly enough using an external precision clock with it. I bought this one and its LPSU from AfterDark and it has made a huge improvement to my music reproduction: https://www.adark.co/products/after...eference-master-clock-audiophilestyle-edition

I bought the entry level Queen version with 75ohm and square wave. They gave me 10% off and thew in a free interconnect. It takes about a week to settle down during which the music improves with increased soundstage and precision. Downstream I connect it to a Sonore UltraRendu and then a Lampi Baltic 3 DAC.
 

Onepoint5

Well-Known Member
Sep 23, 2011
47
13
913
If anyone is using/considering the EtherRegen, then I can't recommend highly enough using an external precision clock with it. I bought this one and its LPSU from AfterDark and it has made a huge improvement to my music reproduction: https://www.adark.co/products/after...eference-master-clock-audiophilestyle-edition

I bought the entry level Queen version with 75ohm and square wave. They gave me 10% off and thew in a free interconnect. It takes about a week to settle down during which the music improves with increased soundstage and precision. Downstream I connect it to a Sonore UltraRendu and then a Lampi Baltic 3 DAC.
The EtherRegen from new needs two weeks of solid traffic and no interruption to this process to make it sound good. It does cut out the noise from the switches and routers, allowing the soundstage to open up. Selection of cables on the A and B side is a trial and error at the moment. I find that high treble and fine detail definition suffers if the A and B side has STP somewhere in the chain. Yesterday made the connection from Switch to Router direct -> STP -> Baaske Filter -> Music Server -> UTP -> ER A | ER B -> STP -> Lumin and noticed this straight away. The ground of the audio system is different to the IT network, so possible some leakage through that.

Take on board the recommendation for the external clock.
 

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