If you're hearing noise, there's probably a ground loop issue. Otherwise, if you don't hear anything wrong, don't worry about it. As for Paul's advice, modern computers, especially laptops, will automatically clock down and shut off cores as much as they can, too save power and heat. So if all you're doing is listening to Tidal, you probably have one active core running almost at idle. Running your laptop off battery vs plugged in would probably make a bigger difference than anything else. Give it a shot both ways. If you don't hear a difference, like I said before, don't worry about it. If you're still worried, try a digital interface. I think ifi makes something affordable and effective.
That's exactly why I use a Roon Nucleus. It's a dedicated computer where the the Roon Core (platform) resides. I have read online audio forums that many owners of the Nucleus state that it does indeed improve the SQ markedly. It's hard for me to make this claim as I started streaming from scratch and purchased everything I needed to stream digital music at the same time. I am very pleased with the results that I'm hearing using this dedicated digital device.
Paul is correct when he said noise will come from the power supplies, particularly the 0VDC part of them. So with connecting multiple DC devices within an audio system, eg; laptop, digital streaming unit a separate DSP and active amplification, that 0VDC can become not zero volts at all. It will often corrupt any analog ground with noise, even if balanced XLR is used. The result can be humming or random pops or low level squealing noises from your speakers. The fix? Shunt the noise that is being generated in the ground of RCA cables to a good earth point. The ground of the AC supply will work. As long as we're you live as a good earth connection. Easy way is to bond the shield of the RCA output cable that goes to your amplification directly to ground.
I added a capable sound card to my pc which bypasses the internal chip. The card is designed for high quality low noise and low distortion and all audio processing is done on the card. I was amazed and well pleased with the huge improvement and have used it for 10 years to capture vinyl ,stream, and as a normal part of my sound system. Eliminates problems with motherboard audio quality. Well worth the investment.
Uncompressing an audio file such as FLAC is a trivial demand for any computer so should not be a concern. As you stated, power supply noise is the largest potential troublemaker. I use a USB connected clocker to prevent jitter and electrical isolation from the PS. I do not notice a difference between using optical or coax SPDIF connections to my DAC, which directly feeds my amplifiers. Too bad these clockers have fallen by the wayside because they solve the two biggest problems using a computer as the source. Viva JRiver!
the BEST and most LOGICAL explanation of the petite but absolutely notable (on a higher resolving system) superiority of an uncompressed WAV file causing frequent fits of anger by the firm believers that no matter what electronics you employ ALL ones and zeroes will yield the same sound!
Turning down the CPU speed will have minimal or no effect. This noise the writer of the question is talking about is often not audible. offte a laptop computer has spdif through one of the jac earphone plugs. you have to switch to digital in sound settings in windows or whatever you are using. If you use usb for your DAC. Then I once experienced hearing noise, but never when using spdif.
CPU's either work or they don't. Even if one bit is flipped, that can cause the computer to be unstable or crash outright. And that's a more noticeable and serious problem than just having digital audio noise. That said, it's good to have a stable low-noise PSU and motherboard with good power delivery so that you're feeding the components with clean power.
Best to overclock the RAM, CPU and GPU. disconnect the fans. Fans are inherently noisy by nature and will affect the binary stream. For better results, delete the system32 folder as it runs some processes that will generate excessive interrupts. Edited for Grammar and typo 😅
Thinking you hear a difference and there actually being a difference are not the same things. This would be trivial to diagnose. Simply capture the output of the computer and compare. You’ll see that they’re identical. This puts whatever you think you’re hearing into the placebo camp, just like so much of the audiophile world.
Google Computer Audio Design Scott berry. As well as designing/selling stripped back PC for audio, he has written guides on how to shutdown surplus parts of your computer to improve audio.
Alot of these comments are hyperbole. Having newer Hardware helps. And a separated power source. 1. Get a dedicated everything. SoundCard with it's own audio engine. 2. A USB out with a booster or spidif. 3. Output to a second amp dac or a theater system doesn't hurt if you know what your doing. 4. Enjoy clean audio. Fac and wave argument is rather silly. That's why I still use HB 320 mp3 to save space to flac or even in visualization it's almost the same ripped quality as wave.
VRMs are pretty noisy. Of course this varies from motherboard to motherboard, but yes, power supply and VRMs (also part of power delivery) are noisy things.
Exactly correct. I set my cpu and graphics card to Maximum Energy Conservation mode. My DAW runs at 1.3% cpu utilization when idle. Not bad. As the cores run tasks, the processors ramp up only as needed. No fan runs usually. Very quiet. WAV files are best for professional recording, mixing to keep the cpu quiet. The big strain is on the hard drive. Must be fast, 7,200 rpm, sata, ram cache, etc. Defragmentation a must on MS PC's. All WAV's must be same khz for mixing down to a master. Run only required services. The rest I must keep as trade secrets. Good video.
You do not need much CPU power to play music files -- any music files. The InnuOS Statement transport / music player uses a Pentium CPU. Perhaps that model CPU's lower clock cycle helps reduce noise? Very likely it does reduce noise, which is why it is used in their flagship transport / music player. And that box makes digital content sound better than anything you have ever heard. Perhaps one or two people viewing this video have heard something in that league? They use an outboard power supply (a completely separate box for the power supply). That is one of the major contributing factors to its outstanding sound quality. Power supplies are critical for sound quality.
Modern cpus downclock/volt in adaptive mode to 800mhz & under 1 volt when idle. Listening to music shouldnt put much of a load on the cpu but Paul is right by minizing background tasks & uninstalling apps it will be less busy. Also Intel 12th & 13 gen cpus have efficiency cores that handle background tasks, whether that would decrease noise is anyones guess
If FLAC and wav sound different because one takes more CPU resource, then the more powerful the CPU (higher speed being one factor), the closer the two will sound.
Então Robson. Se eu posso dar alguma dica ou compartilhar alguma experiência, eu te digo que com relação a usar computadores com win10 como fonte de áudio para um receiver ou amplificador, há muitas variáveis, mas realmente, quanto menos processos, melhor será o trabalho. Há também, principalmente de você for usar uma placa de som PCI em um Desktop, a questão do aterramento, ele será fundamental nesse caso. Já no caso dos notebooks com adaptador USB, eu penso que ainda é importante uma boa fonte de alimentação bem aterrada, mas o mais importante, é a qualidade do adaptador e a compatibilidade dele com o que você estiver usando, se usar um spotfy, por exemplo, vale ajustar ele para 44khz e 24 ou ainda 32bits, já se estiver usando um player tipo o AIMP ou o Qobuz que tem diversas opções de saída, vale a pena experimentar todas elas e escolher a que mais lhe agrada. Eu, por exemplo, tenho um notebook antigo com um I3 de segunda geração, um adaptador usb modesto com o chip Realtek alc5686 que ligados direto ao meu Receiver estéreo, me dão um ótimo resultado. Agora, falando em Receiver, me lembrei que o meu é classe AB e é óbvio que há muitos bons amps classe D, mas tenha em mente que há um problema sério em vários classe D que é o vazamento de interferência do oscilador na entrada dele, contaminando o DAC, bem como a emissão de EMI em aparelhos próximos a ele, atrapalhando o trabalho do dac, por isso, se usar um amp classe D, tenha essa possibilidade em mente.
This would be an interesting test... Stream identical resolution music from the following, different, sources and listen for audio quality differences. + Streamer's local storage (not always available). + A local USB attached thumb drive. + A local network library (wired and wireless). + An Internet based library (should sound identical to above, local network library). + An Internet streaming service, such as QOBUZ (that requires decrypting). Additionally, the difference between WAV and FLAC could also be verified.
I have a pretty hardcore tower with eight fans in it (tower itself, power unit, video card, etc.) so, for whatever it's worth, I put the fans to their lowest settings purely to lower the noise level and it helps significantly.
@@mikepxg6406 Totally agree My M1 Mac Mini fan has never run once since i had it it’s used every day for photo editing and music playback to my Cambridge 200M Dac. it has never got warm once Apple silicon is in a different league.
I have tried and cannot hear a difference on my aging ears. But the concept makes sense so I do use WAV as everything counts at some level so perhaps in aggregate it helps. Downside is you lose all the metadata which will be a non starter for most.
Tried. Yes, it's affect SQ. Some of my friend like Hynix and I prefer Micron. However, we came the same conclusion that Samsung RAM/SSD sound bad. Only one exception was when it's in Aurender.
I doubt slowing down the CPU would make a difference...in my experience he would be better off purchasing an external silent usb power supply (iFi micro iUSB 3.0 for example), or a galvanic isolation usb device, or an "audiophile" usb card (like the jcat femto for example) These aren't cheap but they do make a difference
This is a very complex problem. I have tried many settings on my dedicated audio Fanless computer (Bios, windows, etc.) for months. Fans, Led and SATA bus are the ennemy of audio. But the worst is the influence of the cpu frequency on the audio quality : the sound feels more accurate at 4Ghz than at 700Hz but more harsh to the ears. It's a difficult tradeoff to find between accuracy and smoothness...
The way to avoid this issue is to not use a power hungry gaming computer as audiophile music server. Nowadays you can find highly power efficient computers such as the M2 Mac mini providing lots of processing power and excellent support for high sample rates and no concern of digital noise. In actuality, noise from the power supply leaking out on a USB cable is not just about potential theoretical impact on the analog audio circuit but also about compliance with FCC regulations. Both the power supply and the digital circuitry of the computer have the necessary filtering to avoid emitting RF noise into the air from connected wires and thus also emitting RF into the analog circuitry. Now even I have some anecdotal evidence of past computers emitting too much RF. In fact I had a PC long ago that emitted enough RF on a PS/2 mouse cable to cause my neighbor's TV to show noise on the screen and make him call some expert to measure emitted noise. The guy with the measurement equipment came to my parents house and found my computer to be the root cause. But that happened decades ago. I suspect Paul has some experiences of this sort. Today this topic does not deserve the attention Paul is giving it.
If you get small balls of newspaper and soak lightly in warm water put in your ears all unwanted noise disappears. Top tip, I learned this when listening to my friends Sony stack system
Letting the CPU work efficiently (but not pushed with OC) is probably the best bet. I have looked at some tests on PSU and they seem to be all over the place, probably a better place to start. How the audio is routed/exiting is another thing, some software will allow you to bypass volume etc, if USB is used then there is USB cards that you can use external PSU for. How the different softwares on the computer is written might impact things, some can really lug down the computer even if it's not showing up as a large process. I'm not sure if it matters at all, but there's also different paths that the signal might go on the motherboard, like the USB.
Right you are sir. WAV files generally sound better than a FLAC version of the same album and FLAC files have a variable level of compression and the less compressed they are the better they sound.
If we talk about digital media - there's no big difference, how fast/slow your processor are - most important is - what digital format you wish to play. Processor frequency doesn't affect quality of the played audio. What affects - is your PC fan/DVD/HDD EM noise and quality of PSU. Cheap power supply for desktop PC' s usually didn't have proper output filters, so they make make constant side noise. Add some magnetic coils on HDD/DVD power wires and it becomes not so annoying. Proper grounding of your PC also helps a lot. Most pervert on first look is adding grounded shield around sound card (or sound codec on motherboard), but I saw studios PC modernized in such way and it helps minimize electromagnetic noise. For notebooks most noisy is PC fan and processor VRM, but it's impossible to avoid. Apple computers, by the way, shield their sound processing components; on PC's it's part of "luxury" & "top-tear" motherboards, but I am not sure, if someone wish to pay additional hundreds of $ for such pleasure...
I’ve found that using a audiophile grade Ethernet switch into the streamer or dac greatly improves the sound quality. I use the English Electric 8Switch and really like the results. I think Wave always seems to sound a little better than Flac no matter what you do.
I think you'll find that if pc is doing more "work" unpacking a flac file; more cpu cores should actually be better==> more cores means more available resources to unpack ==> less overall stress on the system. Slowing down the available cores will also make the pc work harder to do the same (or any task ....) task(s) 🤨🧐🤨
Basically, when you are running many processes in background, it requires more power. Hence, more PSU noise. And modern CPU doesn't run at static frequency. It has power saving mode which running a low clock and low power consumption. When CPU is detecting more processing power is needed, they increase either multiplier or a base clock, waking up some Sleeping CPU Cores. Therefore, more jitter. Not to mention that different kernel has different jitter. However, decoding lossless file involve another factor. Computer instruction sets (such as AVX, AVX2, SSE, MMX) has different jitter values. It varies depend on each CPU brand and model. Therefore, depend on decoder you're using, its optimization could also affect SQ, too. A software developer from Japan, who developed player called Bughead Emperor, discovered that just rewriting wav file with different CPU instruction set could also change sound quality. I tried his software and found similar result as his.
@Mike Pentax Mac Mini/Studio coming with switched-mode PSU. Unlike Mini PC with VDC input that you can just plug it with Linear PSU. Some could hear the difference between switched-mode PSU and Linear PSU.
Lowering the CPU frequency to try to get better audio is a bad idea. If you cut the frequency in half, your computer will become very unbearably slow. And there's no evidence that doing so improves the sound. If you think it will make any difference, listen to it with your own ears.
From what i here the recomendation is intel xenon prosessor, ECC Ram memmory the more the better, Single layer cell SSD to run the operating system at least! USB Output Card probebly Jcat EX is your best bet for now and ethernet Card from jcat with LPSU's connected to everything even the PC it self they make a ATX LPSU from Jcat. And it should runn in a lowlatency operating system preferbly Linux this is for the server pc aka where you storrage the music and transport it to the streaming pc yes you should use two pc's! Now the play of pc where you should have a pc about the same use LPSU and same type of ram, usb card and ethernetcard but with a slow running CPU like an atom ore celeron just running the operating system from a thumb drive. If you can you should runn booth pc's "headless" without grafic interface and controll them from diffrent device like remote desktopp setup ore from an ipad and try to optimise the bios no extra crap no overclocking, hyperthreading, try to stableise the computer turn off all extra functions that you dont need. Ok now you are reddy to play high quality music from your pc's ore music server/streamer system you could call it 😊 good luck!
AWHAAAAA(T)!?!?!!?! pc's sometimes "irregular" extra processing it has to do effects...the...sound...? Hmm, nah, I disagree. Nope. I'm gonna drink some water and get on with my work.
CPU commonly use internal multipliers to the system clock, so it's only the internal CPU core that has a lower clock, the edge speed will remain the same. So no, changing the CPU speed won't help you. Lets face it, a computer is a garbage can of unregulated noise, crap, bursts, farts you name it. I think the correct answer is if you are at all serious, don't connect computers to your analog chain.
Computer noise has nothing to do with CPU speed! It has something to do with the fans, cheap power supply or if you have a water cooler pump or any bling bling lightings. Replace your power supply with noise filter, also put a decent sound card and attached your DAC direct using RCA or 3.5 plug, not through USB.
@@philipslighting8240 I did not say use the sound card as a DAC! I said buy a decent sound card with an RCA output and connect your external DAC to the sound card using RCA with shielded cables. USB is always a culprit and a source when it comes to noise that comes from power supply... That's why most Audiophiles when using USB as a power to their DAC connect it to external battery pack. FYI...
Hmmm....you got rid of the internet explorer from the Mac. Interesting. I don't think it's anger Paul. You are fantastic and so is your company. And your knowledge of audio is certainly vast and very considerable. But it's the limits of your knowledge where things go very wrong, fast. The genesis of the question was even sparked it seems from the nebulous statement about processing power and audio quality. Even more nebulous when it's blamed on the power supply (a possible and viable contender for audio degradation, of a kind) but then that's forgotten and the focus is back on the processor. Bottlenecks in PC's range from the OS, to more commonly, the ram and hdd and by organizing or upgrading these one can certainly ensure the software outputting audio runs better however none of these implicate the processor. Because of the multi factorial and co dependent environment in which a processor works the 'guess' that the processor or the even more nebulously 'the computer' is noisey (and noisey is not defined in terms of audio quality but rather measurements made by hyper sensitive instruments) is a bad one. The likely culprit of unsatisfactory audio from a PC is the hardware and software from the sound output device and possibly the background applications - but that is something of a stretch. Most computers are not optimised either via hardware or software for high quality audio outputting. This is the issue, coloring and poor processing by the hardware at the output stage. Likely not the power supply, not processor but the audio output chip/card and or companion software. In my office I have a high end nVidia GPU card outputting to Denon AVR x 2800 via a high quality HDMI card. The sound is supberb and I have no doubt it is bit perfect even on the most over done dsd files, however it's still colored. Every piece of hardware that outputs has a color. A/B listening is therefore essential to decide whether that color is beneficial or detrimental to to the overall sound quality. By having strong knowledge of computing and networking I can discern where the weaknesses in this 'digital chain' or domain most likely lie. And there must be someone at PS Audio with such a knowledge? And so perhaps where your weaknesses lie Paul you could bounce the question over to such a person? The guess then becomes far less nebulous and more focused.
In an untreated living room, I'm willing to bet, but sure, CPU speed is definitely bottlenecking their otherwise flawless audiophile listening experience...
@@MarkDanov The best advice for better sound quality is a few beers or Wine. Everything sounds perfect. I think people forget about the music and listen to wires and equipment.
"All this “stuff” just to play a song..😳🙄" Even though Robsin, in Brazil, made it clear that he wants to reduce noise. You attempt to change the questioner's reason for writing to Paul, and make it about your own contempt for people that seek better sound quality. It is not just to play a song, and you probably know that. If you don't know that, then you are a moron. It is about achieving better sound quality while just playing a song. It is unfortunate that this had to be explained to you. Be part of the solution, rather than trying to be cute by belittling others.
I wonder how the debt ceiling stalemate will affect high end cable sales? There is already a collectible Out of Print lp seller offering discounts on their used albums. If old peoples Social Security checks don't come through at the beginning of the month, will they be selling off their KLH 9 speakers and Marantz 9 power amps cheap, to pay their rent? Keep a look out. I was just kidding in my last post when I said my cable buying would affect my kids amusement park activity and vacations. Actually I don't have any children. Just a take on over the top audiophile habits getting carried away. Let's totally refrain from controversial subjects like cables. Isn't it amazing how much improvement greening the edges of cds make? I was playing some Mercury Living Presence recordings and they are known to have a 1k to 2k peak in their frequency response. On my system, the greening of those cds, transformed the woodwind sound from peaky to almost just right. Less screechy massed strings too. Try it. "Paint Pen" not magic marker.
