PCI Interface cards

All of this talk about USB to optical converters has me thinking about what would be the best PCI interface to get the 1's and 0's to a DAC cleanly. Most of us are using dac's with multiple inputs and there has been a ton of talk about defuckifiers / reclockers / usb to optical converters etc. But I have seen very little about the effect that the output card has on a pc and how it relates to sound performance.

I've read that USB on laptops can be noisy and a usb port with more power is quieter and more reliable. Is a PCI USB port card going to give better power or cleaner output? Instead of defuckifiers cleaning up the signal outside of the computer it may be beneficial to clean it up before it leaves the PC.

Should all of this be skipped and go for a sound card with optical out and avoid usb all together?

I've seen both pro audio cards in the $400 - $1000 range, but even a soundblaster has optical out and may positively effect the delivery of the digital information. Any input would be helpful, thanks.

 

In my experience, consumer soundcards or motherboard/notebook integrated/internal sound chipsets have very high jitter. Usually they are using some kind of cheap crystal clock or just based their timings off the systems shared internal clock which isn't ideal for audio.

Also the soundcards are drawing power off the noisy pc switching power supply which does have effect on the output transmitter chip, this is in contrast to USB audio where with smart design, they can either migitate or completely isolate the power supply noise.

Optical toslink is usually limited to 24/96 or up to 192khz at best. You will have to use other interfaces like bnc, coax/rca or aes to get to higher resolutions.

There are prosumer/broadcast grade soundcards that have better clocks and aes/bnc out like that the Rme hammerfall dsp or Lynx aes16. They will be better than sound blaster, but there's not much reviews/impressions to go around.

 

There's also stuff like the JCAT usb card supposedly meant for audiophile usb use which has a port that lets you connect an external linear power supply.

 

It will be interesting to compare the Lynx aes16e to the mutec mc3+usb, since they are in the same pricing range.

 

If you're running everything off of DC, for example from a laptop/tablet and have a reclocker, surely that would be the ideal situation?

 

I don't want to spend the money on it ($2500), but I really like this thunderbolt solution here: http://www.lynxstudio.com/product_detail.asp?i=2

Some of us Mac nerds no longer have PCI Express slots, but with Thunderbolt, it's PCI-E over a wire. And it means I could use a laptop if I wanted to. And hopefully with Thunderbolt becoming part of the new standard on USB 3.1, there is some long-term here.

 

Quickly looking up Lynx and RME cards and they give you coaxial, optical, bnc, or AES digital outputs. AES sounds like it could be a winner with Yggdrasil. Sounds like the rocky mountain division of SBAF liked optical in on Gungnir Multibit, but BNC might offer a clean transfer as well.

I also like the analog to digital conversion that this can provide over a usb to optical converters (with or without reclocking). $500 - $1000+ is a lot to take for a one trick pony device. Digital rips of records could offer a good backup option or in making a record collection portable. As we all know its only a matter of time before the robots take over and our world is 100% digital and our brains are converted to 256 gbit processors. Analog guys won't be so smug then.

 

Laptops can be noisy. The problem here is not the USB, but the laptop power supplies. If one has a noisy psu/laptop problem, then isn't it true that any electrical connection can carry that noise?

Probably, if one can go for Lynx, then, assuming it is a model with analogue out, maybe just use that, forget about the external DAC? Never could afford it, never will --- but I loved my RME card ten or twelve years ago.

 

As a tangent to this topic, could someone who's more versed in hardware chime in on the current state of pci vs usb2/3 ?

Random thingies that I *think* I know...
- pci offers higher speed, higher voltage power supply, possibly better communication protocols? (fuzzy wording I know)
- but might be subject to electronic noise within the case?
- I'm not sure about hardware channels anymore; I remember a million years ago I would edit my config.sys and autoexec.bat files to allocate my sound blaster to a separate IRQ channel, yadda yadda, does stuff still work like that?
- these days it's all about usb compatibility, but in terms of hardware are all peripherals getting cranked through the usb bus?
- does adding a separate usb card to the computer take any load off the main hub or does it all funnel through the single one eventually? (I thought desktops could have several, but laptops usually only 1?)

 

I'm going down a similar line of investigation here. From what I can gather, USB is not designed as a transport optimized for audio, though it is getting improvements as it iterates.

PCI(e) is a much more direct path into the computer, and most pro audio gear is still PCI(e) based, as it allows for output of a desired signal, for example AES, SPDIF etc.

Thunderbolt is an externalized PCI(e) connection and has promise, but seems to be mostly supported on Macs. I've seen several quotes from audio engineers who have issues getting TB functioning properly.

Modern PC hardware is plenty fast enough that elaborate config is not necessary anymore to provide 'priority' to devices or processes. The 'deep' hackery in fact makes things worse.

I've been working in the tech world long enough to know that simple is generally better. I can't imagine that a bus and protocol like USB could possibly be ideal if it seriously requires the degree of defuckery indicated by the multitude of devices UNLESS you're in a pro studio setting. And even then, you'd need to be slaved to USB for some strange reason. Portability, maybe? I don' know.

So it seems the path to reasonable excellence would be to build a PC that is as physically and electronically quiet as reasonably possible, ie: fanless case, pico power supply with external linear power brick, PCIe Lynx AES16e or similar card with AES/EBU out to a DAC.

This one looks on the money: http://www.quietpc.com/sys-lora-4k . It even has the DAC-UP feature that allows you to turn off power to two dedicated USB ports if you want.

I reckon that, with no DVD drive and a Lynx card out to Yggdrasil would put you in the sweet spot. To get any better than that without any way to really measure stream propagation accuracy IMO is insane...you really have no way to know that what you're hearing is more accurate. If you simply think it sounds better, more power to you.

 

Given that one can galvanically isolate PC from the DAC using Intona, Mutec MC-3+ USB, any tranny isolated coax SPDIF output, Toslink etc, seems it's pointless to fixate on whether "PCI" or "USB" is good or crap. Everything seems crapshoot since apparently every transport and input conceivable have their unique sound.. so choosing something seems just a personal belief choice. Whether it's isolation, clocking, or linearizing everything even if they have zero electrical connection.

Should just get a Chord Dave which is apparently immune to anything and be done with it.

 

Have any of the enlightened folk here ever use a Lynx or similar PCIe card that works with BNC?

I'm considering a Mutec (should have a demo here today) or Lynx primarily, but I'm open to suggestions.

 

This one is also interesting and quite a bit cheaper, in the EU atleast: http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/hdspe_aio.php It also comes with a breakout cable whereas the Lynx does not.

 

Jcat, not lynx