The other end of the USB cable ...

sKiZo

Hates received: 92644 43.20°N 85.50°W
Happy owner of a Maverick TubeMagic D1+ ... performs well above it's price point. That said, there's always room for improvement.

When I built my HTPC, I had some noise issues right from the start. There's just too much competition for the available resources in today's computers. In my case, I tracked down some stuttering and weirdness to my wireless mouse and keyboard. Solution then was to use an addon card that created it's own dedicated USB channel and plugging just the DAC and ADC into that. Noise gone, solid playback with zero jitter ... me happy. The card I used also tapped power directly from the supply instead of the system buss for better isolation.

Just now went a step further and upgraded that USB addon card with a Paul Pang v2 "audiophile grade" card ...

paul-pang-usb.jpg



wOw ... MUCH improved definition and realism! I also added an Acopian power brick to supply the required 5 volts. Not sure how much good that does, but hey, long as I was in there. I found it highly recommended on a couple other forums.

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I DID have one magic moment when I booted the computer for the first time after doing the transplant and got a BIOS checksum error ... oh no's! About the time I started going oh shi ... it offered to try using the last known good configuration, and fired right up. Whew ... let's hear it for smart firmware! I did have to reconfigure jRiver Media Center to use the correct device but that was pretty much expected.
 
Careful with the additional power supply. When you power off the PC, that power supply needs to be powered off too, otherwise it might try to back-feed the whole 5V rail in the computer trough your new USB board (PCI-e connector 5V power pin). And that's not good.
 
Good point ... but I'd think Paul Pang was smart enough not to have a "hot" connection to the buss via the PCI/E connection. The card is built to draw power directly from the PC power supply using one of the standard plugs. Probably worth an email to PP to confirm that the PCI-E buss connection is dead though.

Not exactly breaking new ground here anyway ... I totally stole the idea ...
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=122520.0

My favorite quote from the thread about using the dedicated power supply ... "more resolution and increased micro and macro dynamics". Er ... right! Like they said! <G>

I did pop a note up to PP's techie types yesterday to see if they had any issues with leaving the card powered up 24/7 ... not all that worried about the Acopian, as that's basically just one among many wall warts already idling away in the system. I left it plugged in for a couple hours anyway after installation, and no significant heating, so the card doesn't seem to be drawing anything on standby either.

Worse comes to worse (assUming nothing explodes anyway ... ;-}) I may have to look into adding a relay to power it down when the computer shuts off. The soft switching feature didn't do me any favors there.

Oh. One advantage of the extra dedicated 5v source ... that can provide a full two amps to the card, so no worries about choking on demand, which I think has a LOT to do with the improvements I'm hearing. That's just a bonus feature though - the real advantage is improved isolation = lower noise = more smiles.

PS ... surprised to see the Acopian power supply had no specs on the case. You'd have thunk it would at least list the output power and amperage? Trusting soul that I am, I DID put the VOM on to check that before hooking it up in the case. Seemed prudent.
 
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I had a motherboard with fried USB port in the past because an external 5V power for a cheap USB hub. I assumed that the USB hub will de-couple the internal USB power when was fed from outside.

Now I know to verify versus assuming :)

In your case, since they assumed that the power is coming from the PC's power supply, it's worth asking the question.
 
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right now im dealing with USB noise in my system- my HTPC is an old gaming PC so even though I have a high quality gold rated seasonic power supply, the large graphics card and many fans with a powerful processor is obviously not ideal for sensitive audio equipment.. right now i use the mobo USB to a nuforce USB dac repurposed as a USB-SPDIF bridge feeding digital coax into my dac

I thought I would solve this by using a nice XMOS digital interface with its own ultra low noise power supply and complete decoupling from the mobo 5v

my research shows the gustard u12 and the breeze audio u8 both to be top notch "giant killers" for under $200

http://www.amazon.com/GUSTARD-U12-384KHz-Digital-Interface/dp/B00PU4IXA0

I'm interested in your take on my situation, and maybe using this decoupled PCI-E USB card would be the same or better?

what were your results like between the PC's PSU molex and the outboard acopian one?
 
Couple updates here ... the Acopian didn't work out. Something about my "smart" motherboard would get confused and the Paul Pang card would fire up maybe half the time. I popped the hood and did a quickie check on the Acopian, and it was putting out power and feeding the card, just for whatever reason the PC wouldn't recognize it. Hooked the card directly to the PC's power supply via a spare molex, and no problems since. It's a fairly current Gigabyte MB if anyone's taking notes.

I also got an email back from PP and as expected, they verifyied that there's no physical power connection between the card and PCI-E buss slot, so the only power it gets is via the molex connection. Truth be told, I haven't really noticed any drawbacks to just using it as is. Maybe a bit of bass punch, but I didn't really have it hooked up long enough to get a good A/B comparison.

The Gustard looks like an interesting beast, but ... correct me if I'm wrong, it still uses your PC's stock USB channel? Not sure what that would accomplish as far as cleaning up your noise issues. Also more expensive than the PP card I used, and WAY more expensive than the Vantec UGT-PC341 card that the PP replaced.

15-287-016-TS


That also creates it's own unique USB channel, and pulls power directly from the power supply instead of the buss. Plug just your audio equipment into that to minimize crosstalk with all your other USB devices. Actually worked quite well and eliminated ALL noise and stutter for $20 at Amazon. If you're happy with the "sound" itself, AND you have a PCI-E slot available, I'd maybe give that a try first.

Oh. PP's techies also verified there's no problem keeping the card powered up 24/7 if I ever do figure out what the scoop is with the Acopian and the "where's waldo" scenario when it comes to my HTPC finding the card using that power supply. That's a puzzler, it is.
 
@sKiZo correct, it still uses the PC stock USB, but its not powered by the 5v.

the theory of the gustard/similar digital interfaces is that it has its own inline USB filtering with its own low noise power supply, so theres no way the dirty 5v from the PC USB reaches the digital stream outbound from the interface.

that vantec card looks great, and I'll definitely pick it up for that price

looking to get the gustard u12 soon, will report back
I have been waiting for the breeze audio U8 to come back in stock but its been a long time...
 
Looking forward to your results.

Still working hard on getting the PP card broken in ... that's supposed to take around 200 hours. Settle back and enjoy some marathon listening sessions!

Oh. One concern I'd have with the Gustard is that it apparently uses ASIO drivers. Not a fan, but to each his own. Well implemented, they're OK, but therein lies the crux ... lots of hardware suffers from poorly written software. Either the PP or Vantec use generic native windows drivers - one less complication to have to deal with.
 
Looking forward to your results.

Still working hard on getting the PP card broken in ... that's supposed to take around 200 hours. Settle back and enjoy some marathon listening sessions!

Oh. One concern I'd have with the Gustard is that it apparently uses ASIO drivers. Not a fan, but to each his own. Well implemented, they're OK, but therein lies the crux ... lots of hardware suffers from poorly written software. Either the PP or Vantec use generic native windows drivers - one less complication to have to deal with.

im a diy guy and have equal frustrations when it comes to usb proprietary drivers and not just audio... luckily ASIO hasn't given me issues though, even on sketchy chinese dacs.

community support for the gustard is also strong, many make their own drivers
 
You running this from Windows 10?

Windows 8.1 Pro right now. This is strictly a music server, and I've seen no need to upgrade as last I heard, there were few (if any) changes in the sound environment. WASAPI since W7 is the sh!t, already rated as the next best thing to bit perfect.

One thing I keep seeing is the need to keep the bitrate conversions in the data stream to the minimum to reduce stress on the system and minimize any possible artifacts. Makes sense. My DAC runs native at 96/24, so that's my target. That's also where WASAPI shines, as it bypasses the Windows internal mixer completely.

And yes, break in on the PP card is gradual - there's already been a couple "magic moments" when I'll be listening and all of a sudden there's ... much more muchness. Can't wait to see (and hear!) where it goes from here as I get closer to the magic number of 200 hours. Only real concern on the PP hardware is that it does require a good bit of power (1 amp) compared to other USB options, so make sure your power supply can handle it. Mine is rated at 24A so I've got plenty to work with. I imagine any dedicated gamer can handle most anything you can throw at it, especially if it's rated for SLI or Crossfire. I do know my ITX motherboard has a 60w APU with integrated video and makes minimal demands on the system with 8 gigs of fast memory. Green hard drives for data and an SSD drive for the OS don't need much power either.

community support for the gustard is also strong, many make their own drivers

Writing your own drivers ... that's HARDCORE! :bowdown:

One thing I DO know is to avoid the "one size fits all" ASIO options. ASIO4ALL is one evil package. It may work fine with one peripheral, yet make most everything else misbehave. Worse, it's almost impossible to kill completely without some serious registry hacks, as it puts it's hooks into everything, has a really poor uninstall, and can come back to life and hijack your system if any bit of it finds a live internet connection. Takes perseverance and a good bit of luck to finally put a silicon stake through it's heart. All bets are off it there's a full moon ... :-0
 
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Good move ... I think you'll like it!

If the card's a bit dusty when you get it, apparently some issues with earthquakes nearby ... yeowch!


Worth repeating. Be patient. Mine was a big improvement on first fire, but it keeps getting better. Rainy day today, so I should get a couple more hours closer to full bloom ...
 
I should mention that I use a Music Hall 25.3 DAC with a Mullard CV2493 (high spec) tube in the buffer. The Music Hall is not a true asynchronous DAC, and therefore, a lower jitter clock on the USB board should help out.
 
What ever happened to asynchronous anyway? Was a time we'd be tripping all over those in any thread concerning DACs ... mfgs would be really tooting their horns singing it's praises ...

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Pretty sure the whole WASAPI thing had a lot to do with it ... as mentioned earlier, that's a software solution that's already the next best thing to bit perfect.
 
initial impressions of the vantec usb 3.0 hub. hooked up to seasonic low noise atx psu

immediately sound seems more refined.. very subtle but once you crank up the volume the details really pop... amazing investment for $20

although i'm sure others will not have such a noticeable effect with a typical HTPC. my HTPC is a old school gaming rig, w/ a power hungry i7 and high end graphics card... a lot of noise pollution on the mobo BUS
 
Glad it worked for ya ... as mentioned earlier, the Vantec solved a whole slew of problems on my rig, and that's with a much newer motherboard. There's just too much resource competition on the stock USB channels. The Paul Pang is a big step up from that, but the Vantec kept me happy for a couple years anyway. Upgrading to the high end card was more of a "hey, that sounds neet, gotta try it" kinda thang rather than something driven by necessity.

WASAPI is a Plug'n'Play feature built into your Windows 8, isn't it?

I should have it on Windows 10 (?)

WASAPI is built into WindOHs! ... first appeared in Vista if I remember right and much improved in V7. Big strides forward in W8, but I haven't heard of any big changes in W10. One thing you DO have to do is verify that's what your system is using, as your audio hardware won't necessarily select it by default. In any case, it WILL run rings around DirectSound and most proprietary drivers IF your hardware allows. Some stuff's kinda picky in that regard.
 
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