DIY Project High Performance Audio PC with high quality wiring

3 hours ago, elan120 said:

The 8GB Apacer WT ECC DDR4 UDIMM part number is D31.23245S.001

I see nowhere that sells this RAM. Do we have to contact Apacer directly in order to purchase it?

1 minute ago, Energy said:

 

I see nowhere that sells this RAM. Do we have to contact Apacer directly in order to purchase it?

That certainly is an option, or purchase from Mouser for 4GB module when they are back in stock to use it in either 2x or 4x configuration.

And it goes on 😀

1.11 Minimization of resonances

We will try different combinations of the BF Magic Spacer Z1. These parts are made of stainless steel with an accuracy of 1/100mm. The stainless steel 4 mm allen screw fits exactly into the HDPLEX 2nd Gen H5 Fanless Chassis. Balls made of black glass, rose quartz or steel can be added between the device feet Z1 and the discs S1.

All three ball variants are always supplied with a set of device feet. Fine tuning can also be done with the discs. The standard variant is the precisely fitting fis Magic Spacer S1 disc.

For reasons of sound, most customers use the larger fis Magic Disk 1 or fis Magic Disk 2. The same discs can also be used for the fis Magic Spikes.

I have my motherboard powered by an HDPlex 800w dc-atx which is powered by a Keces 20v/8A LPS. Since I am only running Roon server I never see it go above 2A on the Keces. 

12 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

And it goes on 😀

 

1.11 Minimization of resonances

 

We will try different combinations of the BF Magic Spacer Z1. These parts are made of stainless steel with an accuracy of 1/100mm. The stainless steel 4 mm allen screw fits exactly into the HDPLEX 2nd Gen H5 Fanless Chassis. Balls made of black glass, rose quartz or steel can be added between the device feet Z1 and the discs S1.

 

 

All three ball variants are always supplied with a set of device feet. Fine tuning can also be done with the discs. The standard variant is the precisely fitting fis Magic Spacer S1 disc.

 

 

For reasons of sound, most customers use the larger fis Magic Disk 1 or fis Magic Disk 2. The same discs can also be used for the fis Magic Spikes.

 

 

Bit of advice, I use similar design (symposium rollerblocks). Play around with placement before you decide on final location. I’ve spent countless hours finding the best sq placement. Its really worth the time experimenting. Location varies per device. 

@StreamFidelity  Very nice!  Consider this:  the heat pipes are too short to extend the full length of the copper block so you are losing - it looks like - 15-20% of the heat transfer area.  Do you have enough thermal paste left over to fill those?  At least it is better for heat transfer than air.

1 hour ago, elan120 said:

Here is a screenshot from HDPlex website where the heat pipes are extended past the heat distribution block.

Can you get longer pipes?  That may be the best / safest approach.

14 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

Grounding with Minadax® ESD antistatic mat and grounding cable

 

Every time I shuffle over the carpet to the power amplifiers, I get an electric shock when I switch on. 😂

This is very harmful when assembling sensitive electronic parts. I therefore use a grounded antistatic mat. I am also grounded through a bracelet. I connected the crodcodile clips to the protective contact of a socket. I also wear ESD gloves.

This happened to me when listening to my audio a few months ago, somehow the static electricity transmitted through my pre-amp volume knob when I touched it and signal traveled thru to my outbaord DAC - it went away after rebooting the DAC, was a scary moment as I feared that damaged was a result. Everything seems to be working ok now.

I now make a habit of touching my metal "Audio Rack" frame prior to adjusting the volume.

Good advise for when building a pc tho'

20 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

The mainboard has an OLED display that shows the temperature.

Glad to hear it's working well!  Pretty even temps across the cores, too?  That is one massive block so the temp across it probably stays pretty uniform. 👍

Extremely high-value thread which has motivated me to try building my own server with these exact parts.  I am coming from a background of very little technical knowledge about the operation or assembly of computers and electronics.  The only area where I plan to diverge from what's here is to use a single linear power supply, the Keces P8, 20V/8A.  I'll also add the JCAT USB bridge at a later date.  Two questions:

1) I'll use the wiring diagram on page 2, but with only 1 Keces P8, where/what do I connect the 4-pin, EAT12V_2 input to?

2) Any recommendations for upgraded PC/DC cables that won't break the bank?  

If anyone has advice about common areas where things go wrong for first-time assemblers I'd love to hear.    

You will power your CPU EPS from the connector on the 400W DC-ATX directly.

13 minutes ago, WilliamWykeham said:

1) I'll use the wiring diagram on page 2, but with only 1 Keces P8, where/what do I connect the 4-pin, EAT12V_2 input to?

With one P8, you will connect just the 8 pin EPS and leave the 4 pin EPS not connected.  If you can make your own EPS cables or have one build, you can have the 4 pin EPS wired in parallel to 4 of the 8 pin EPS connector.

On 2/24/2020 at 11:52 PM, Nenon said:

This is interesting. In my tests, the EPS connector is the most important to the sound quality. Can you please share what motherboard and CPU your friend used in his testing? I remember that on low powered motherboards the 5V made bigger difference and benefitted by oversizing the power supply a little. The reason for that might be that the oscillators might be using that rail, but that is just a guess. 

 

The Neotech wire is $3 per foot, and that's the best conductor Ghent offers. The Mundorf silver/gold wire I use in my DIY DC cables is $33 per foot. 

 

Although this thread is intended to focus on commercial cables at some point, I would like to point out that I have not heard a better DC cable than the DIY recipe I have shared with everyone yet. I do encourage people who are looking at the best of the best to give it a try. The best thing (for some) is that this is a DIY cable that you can do on your own, which makes it a great value for the money. The bad thing is that it's a DIY cable, which means not everyone can make them.

 

@Blackmorec wrote an awesome review about a week ago and told me today they got even better:

 

@Dev made one of them too and liked them better than his reference AudioSensibility solid core silver cable.

 

Another member pinged me a couple of days ago and told me that the DC cable made much bigger difference than replacing the regular RAM with Apacer RAM. And for those of you who have tried the Apacer RAM, you know than means a lot. 

 

I am following this thread with pleasure and waiting to see what fis would come up with. Anything that sounds better is always welcome. The more good products we have, the better!

 

And just for completeness, you can find the DIY DC cable recipe by following the link in that post:

 

I wholeheartedly agree that the 15.5AWG Mundorf silver/gold wire can't be beat.  I've also tried out the Neotech OCC Copper wire and much prefer the SQ of the Mundorf (using JSSG360 X 2 configuration) hands down and even without any burn in time.  It's just that good IMHO, and worth the $33.00/ft.

4 hours ago, elan120 said:

With one P8, you will connect just the 8 pin EPS and leave the 4 pin EPS not connected.  If you can make your own EPS cables or have one build, you can have the 4 pin EPS wired in parallel to 4 of the 8 pin EPS connector.

Just bought all the parts.  What’s the advantage of the two wires in parallel vs. just the 8 pin EPS? 

56 minutes ago, WilliamWykeham said:

What’s the advantage of the two wires in parallel vs. just the 8 pin EPS?

It will help lower the total resistance, which in the end, will contribute to a bit of SQ improvement, but certainly not a show stopper.

One thing to keep in mind that there are other parts in the build can have much greater effect then having these EPS wires in parallel, such as power supplies, RAMs...etc., once you have the server done, there is a good chance you will continue to experiment, change certain components, set things up differently, which is a good reason to go through the build yourself, but certainly keep an open mind on possible more changes after the build.

10 hours ago, WilliamWykeham said:

The only area where I plan to diverge from what's here is to use a single linear power supply, the Keces P8, 20V/8A.

We are very happy if we can give suggestions. Bernd and I gave the project a name: fis Audio PC. We are very humble because fis stands for finest innovative systems. 😁

I am now pretty sure that a Keces P8 (Single 20V / 8A) is sufficient for this build. I've been listening very relaxed to music for hours. The fis Audio PC runs with the HQPlayer with the most computationally intensive DSD modulator currently available: ASDM7EC with DSD 256.

The CPU has a load of 17% and temperature is stable about 53 ° C. The Single Keces P8 has a power consumption of 20V / 3A.

We will test whether a second Keces P8 (Single 12V / 8A) is still postive audible.

2 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

We are very happy if we can give suggestions. Bernd and I gave the project a name: fis Audio PC. We are very humble because fis stands for finest innovative systems. 😁

 

I am now pretty sure that a Keces P8 (Single 20V / 8A) is sufficient for this build. I've been listening very relaxed to music for hours. The fis Audio PC runs with the HQPlayer with the most computationally intensive DSD modulator currently available: ASDM7EC with DSD 256.

 

What cable are you using between the Keces and jcat USB card?

4 hours ago, dminches said:

What cable are you using between the Keces and jcat USB card?

At the moment it is a cable from ghentaudio:

Neotech UPOCC 7N Copper 18AWG DC (JSSG360) Cable
USB to Oyaide

The project is designed to use own DC cables. We want to make it even better. 👍

Bernd still needs some time.

@StreamFidelity Did you by any chance listen before and after applying the new BIOS configuration to listen for audible changes?

@Energy  The settings of the CPU clock frequency, hyperthreading and Energy management were the most important for me. I think it depends a lot on the renderer used. In my experience, the HQPlayer requires an even clocking of the cores. Otherwise the sound becomes restless and it can also lead to stuttering.