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PC based. 4th generation i5T. HD Plex H1 chassis, LSPU. SSD independently powered, SS RAM. PicoPSU. Very custom Linux-based OS. Lots of bits in rotation.

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I also have a 4th or 5th gen i5. Currently using a silverstone chassis. Ssd running snakeoil is and the psu is giving me horrible buzz. Through my whole system. And the cpu fan too probably. I need some ideas for upgrades. Happy to keep my silverstone chassis but want it nice and silent

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Go fanless and get a new PSU :) either are reusable if you decide to upgrade the platform.

 

There's a lot you can do with 4th gen CPUs that is not possible with later designs, however the new stuff is incredibly lean on power draw if specified correctly.

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31 minutes ago, anewmission said:

I also have a 4th or 5th gen i5. Currently using a silverstone chassis. Ssd running snakeoil is and the psu is giving me horrible buzz. Through my whole system. And the cpu fan too probably. I need some ideas for upgrades. Happy to keep my silverstone chassis but want it nice and silent

 

How are you outputting sound from your PC to your system?

USB interfaces are a popular way to isolate your system from your PC.

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I have two dacs, one I use via USB for dsd high res stuff. 

Another is a firewire recording interface. It can only do upto 96khz though. Still sound extremely sweet.

 

Currently my setup is a 4th gen i5 running snakeoil is as my streamer/upnp for tidal ect. 8gb ram, ssd, asrock 1150 motherboard and a cheap Chinese psu as my thermal take recently died

 

It's a high pitch buzzing noise, once I turn off the pc there is a more faint buzzing from the pre amp, and then a much lower hum for the power amp. Pre and power aren't audible from listening distance

 

 

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I was thinking about getting something like this

https://www.boardss.com/new-asus-e35m1i-deluxe-ddr3-miniitx-sata3-usb3-motherboard-p-1278.html

 

And pairing it with 

https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/power-supplies/atx/74900-cp-9020177-au?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-vCEtoO-7gIVDdiWCh38iAyVEAQYASABEgLQPPD_BwE

 

Would this mean I would get a fully passively cooled system and still be able to use my silverstone milo chassis?? 

 

I want to keep the chassis as it looks really nice and is the correct 17" or 19".. whatever hifi normally is. 

 

Then I could just use my current ram and ssd.

 

Wondering if it's worth adding a cd player of sorts but I'm not sure of there are any audiophile pc cd drives? Does anybody know?

I already know there is no sacd pc drive but does a dvd audio and hdcd formats sound any good?

 

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58 minutes ago, anewmission said:

I was thinking about getting something like this

https://www.boardss.com/new-asus-e35m1i-deluxe-ddr3-miniitx-sata3-usb3-motherboard-p-1278.html

 

And pairing it with 

https://www.scorptec.com.au/product/power-supplies/atx/74900-cp-9020177-au?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-vCEtoO-7gIVDdiWCh38iAyVEAQYASABEgLQPPD_BwE

 

Would this mean I would get a fully passively cooled system and still be able to use my silverstone milo chassis?? 

 

I want to keep the chassis as it looks really nice and is the correct 17" or 19".. whatever hifi normally is. 

 

Then I could just use my current ram and ssd.

 

Wondering if it's worth adding a cd player of sorts but I'm not sure of there are any audiophile pc cd drives? Does anybody know?

I already know there is no sacd pc drive but does a dvd audio and hdcd formats sound any good?

 

Just playback or are you doing some processing also?

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On this machine, playback, maybe some pcm to dsd conversion.. not a whole lot of strange things

Will be using snakeoil is with mpd for the best digital audio quality I have ever heard.

 

I have another machine I record music on. That's an i7 with 16gb ram and the whole shebang but it's kept back with my tape machine in another room

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11 minutes ago, anewmission said:

On this machine, playback, maybe some pcm to dsd conversion.. not a whole lot of strange things

Will be using snakeoil is with mpd for the best digital audio quality I have ever heard.

 

Can you drop the PCM>DSD conversion requirement? Changes a lot.

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1 hour ago, anewmission said:

No I don't think I can

 

That's a shame, there's a few ways to lower jitter though undoubtedly the easier way to a good result (as opposed to the hard way to a stunning result) is to keep the power draw as low as possible. If going that way, some nice Celeron-based completely fanless motherboards exist, and aren't expensive. 

 

I can't help with AMD, haven't worked on the platform. 

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24 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

That's a shame, there's a few ways to lower jitter though undoubtedly the easier way to a good result (as opposed to the hard way to a stunning result) is to keep the power draw as low as possible. If going that way, some nice Celeron-based completely fanless motherboards exist, and aren't expensive. 

 

I can't help with AMD, haven't worked on the platform. 

Nah I'm not keen on amd. I'd like to stick to intel.

Surely there are atleast i3s that are fanless

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24 minutes ago, anewmission said:

Nah I'm not keen on amd. I'd like to stick to intel.

Surely there are atleast i3s that are fanless

 

In latest-gen-landia i3's are 6-8MB L2 cache and four physical cores, >3GHz, 7-15W TDP. 

 

The Celerons you're more likely to find are 10W TDP max, up to 4 cores, around half-to-two-thirds the speed and 4MB cache. 

 

So the Celerons you'll find motherboards that have small heatsinks and are fanless. 

 

I've got one of these running https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J4105-ITX/ and it's pretty good out of the box, though you'd probably notice DSD conversion.

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11 hours ago, rmpfyf said:

 

In latest-gen-landia i3's are 6-8MB L2 cache and four physical cores, >3GHz, 7-15W TDP. 

 

The Celerons you're more likely to find are 10W TDP max, up to 4 cores, around half-to-two-thirds the speed and 4MB cache. 

 

So the Celerons you'll find motherboards that have small heatsinks and are fanless. 

 

I've got one of these running https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J4105-ITX/ and it's pretty good out of the box, though you'd probably notice DSD conversion.

Do you notice anything with just dsd playback? I don't mind converting them beforehand.

Has anyone managed to get i2s to work from a hdmi pc port ?

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54 minutes ago, anewmission said:

Do you notice anything with just dsd playback? I don't mind converting them beforehand.

Don't use DSD, sorry. Maybe others could comment?

 

54 minutes ago, anewmission said:

Has anyone managed to get i2s to work from a hdmi pc port ?

 

 

Negative. Need yourself a Pink Faun card.

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27 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

Don't use DSD, sorry. Maybe others could comment?

 

 

 

Negative. Need yourself a Pink Faun card.

Woah Abit pricey for a card. I'm wondering if anyone has tried one of these vs pc usb.???

 

Something like the topping d90 can accommodate both.

 

Really keen to get the best pc audio streamer, with no fans and hopefully can remove that high pitch buzzing coming from my current pc streamer

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1 minute ago, anewmission said:

Woah Abit pricey for a card. I'm wondering if anyone has tried one of these vs pc usb.???

 

Something like the topping d90 can accommodate both.

 

Really keen to get the best pc audio streamer, with no fans and hopefully can remove that high pitch buzzing coming from my current pc streamer

 

If your streamer works ex the buzzing I'd deal with that.

 

I2S vs USB depends more on how the DAC handles either.

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A couple of things.     I have found that some mini PCs are very quiet/silent, even though they have a laptop-type heat-pipe and fanned heatsink cooling setup.  I bought a cheap Lenovo M93P that sits on the desk in front of me and I don't hear it.

 

Secondly,  does it have to be a PC?  The latest raspberry Pis are very good, and make great streamers with remote web interfaces.  It's the setup I prefer.

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Well with a p

2 hours ago, aussievintage said:

 

A couple of things.     I have found that some mini PCs are very quiet/silent, even though they have a laptop-type heat-pipe and fanned heatsink cooling setup.  I bought a cheap Lenovo M93P that sits on the desk in front of me and I don't hear it.

 

Secondly,  does it have to be a PC?  The latest raspberry Pis are very good, and make great streamers with remote web interfaces.  It's the setup I prefer.

With a pc I get many more options than a raspberry pi. Windows could potentially be a future thing. I can add cards such as the i2s mentioned above or a firewire/thunderbolt card.

 

I am going to get a few raspberry Pi's to replace my bulky htpc's though. Or maybe nvidia shields

 

I looked at the rpi option and by the time I get all th accessories ect it will equal around the same price

 

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3 hours ago, rmpfyf said:

 

If your streamer works ex the buzzing I'd deal with that.

 

I2S vs USB depends more on how the DAC handles either.

I never noticed it until I bought some decent speakers, sonus faber's. Now they are making me notice things in my system that aren't as good as I thought they were

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4 hours ago, anewmission said:

Woah Abit pricey for a card. I'm wondering if anyone has tried one of these vs pc usb.???

 

Something like the topping d90 can accommodate both.

 

Really keen to get the best pc audio streamer, with no fans and hopefully can remove that high pitch buzzing coming from my current pc streamer

I have a Pink Faun I2S card available.

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