MUSIC SERVER IN FC10 PART 1

MUSIC SERVER IN FC10 PART 1 ,
With pico box in external linear PSU input.

Top view.
Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H Main Board with i7-4770T CPU

Pico Box PSU with audio grade power cable

Input socket of pico box PSU,
Could be replace the socket to fit the linear PSU

Riser for V2 USB card

V2 USB card need to powered by a +5V/1-3A from pico box,

If you are using a linear PSU for the pico box.

It is not much difference with sound quality to power V2 card from a separate +5V linear PSU

CF as SSD will provide the best sound quality to any SSD

CF as SSD has used the same connector with regular SSD

SATA cable with 70 degree connector

As my SATA cable is anti twist,
You could bend the body of sata cable for easier install,
And the SATA cable won't be demage.

SATA extension card,
Please keep the connector straight to avoid the bad contact.



 
The bracket os SATA extension card.

The main clock of Main Board upgraded with low jitter TCXO with output transformer.

Why I don't use Lan Isolato

 This is my NAS in heavy aluminum chassis

My NAS has upgraded clocks also.
Powered by linear PSU,
The router powered by linear PSU too.

This NAS is fanless,
Chip & HHD using chassis as a heatsink.

Working tem. under 50 degree Celsius.

I hear no noise with my NAS,

So I don't use Lan Isolator.

THE DIFFERENCE OF GRAY,BLUE,RED & JCAT CABLE

Multi-core conductor has much higher bandwidth than single core conductor and bandwidth is a very important parameter in digital audio applications. 

Corresponding to the sound performance, 
multi-core conductor will have rich harmonics and detail and with low and high frequency extension. 
Single-core conductor will have high denseness to the vocal (mid. and low-mid. range).

The TZ YUN Grey, Blue and Red cables use multi-core conductor so they have a similar sound style. 
The main difference between the Grey, Blue and the Red cable is the silver content.
The Grey cable uses 10uM silver plating.
The Blue cable uses 15uM silver plating.
The Red cable uses 20uM silver plating.
Multi-core conductor with 20uM silver plating is expensive, 
even more expensive than the single-core pure silver conductor. 
My experience is that the multi-core conductor will be the best choice for a digital cable. 
That is why I only use multi-core conductor for my digital cables. 
Grey, Blue, Red and the JCAT cables have the same basic performance and they are well balanced across the entire frequency range. 
Although the JCAT cable is the same grade as the Red cable the JCAT cable is designed according to JPLAY's request. 

The main difference between them is the JCAT cable is built using high density Z stranded as the central core with the outside of the inner cable has used mid density S stranded. Please refer to the picture. 
This mean that the JCAT cable will combine the strong points from both the single-core and multi-core conductor designs. 
This conductor is more expensive than the Red cable, 
so the JCAT cable price is slightly higher than the Red cable. 

I recommend you to use the JCAT cables with the Jplay Ultrastream mode. 
That will be a perfect match!!

The Grey cable has a very high value cost to performance ratio.
In the majority of CATs the Blue cable is a great choice. 

The Red cable is designed for a high-end grade CAT.
The Red cable is absolutely the highest performance cable, 
it needs an high-end grade CAT to appreciate the full performance.  


Please refer to the shopping area for my products price
http://ppaproduct.blogspot.tw/http://ppaproduct.blogspot.tw/

Power supply for the CAT

Although it seems everything matter with PC audio(CAT,CACP,PcHiFi...)

But as time goes by ,

We have found out that are only three key points to the hardware.

Power supply,clock & vibration.

All other things are connecting to them.

Same as analog audio devices,
The power supply is the elements of the most basic.
With a good linear PSU,
It will solve many problems with hardware.

Because a full linear PSU for CAT is big & expensive,
A dc to atx psu will be the appropriate choice.

This dc to atx is similar to picoPSU,
But it accept +16V to +24V dc input.
picoPSU accept only with +12 dc input
So picoPSU's +12V output is not a fair supply  for MB & CPU
And I choose this wide range input psu for my server

A 120W linear PSU for picoPSU is very important,
If you use adapter for picoPSU,
The SQ will be worse to a good atxPSU.

A single picoPSU is not enough for a full dynamic,
It is nothing to do with the power input.
That is because of MB's power supply circuit structure
You need another 120w linearPSU for CPU
Two linearPSU will improve SQ & dynamic.
 
Power cable is improtant,
But I won't recommend silver power cable,
Only if you have used linearPSU for picoPSU.
Power supply is the basic of CAT,
All hardware connect to  power supply.
Good power supply will improve every hardware,
EX. SATA cable,USB card,CPU,RAM................................................

Use a linear 12 V input for picoPSU will be fine,

But wide range PSU will have a better conversion efficiency.

For example,

A 120W picoPSU need a +12V/10A min. input,

A 120W wide range PSU could be use +24V/5A min. input

Linear PSU will have higher performance and lower cost & heat with low current output.

That is why I choose wide range PSU

A good linear PSU for the picoPSU is very important.

Although DC to ATX PSU will generate EMI,

But a linear PSU or battery PSU will decrease EMI,

And MB have many switching PSU for CPU,RAM.......

You should use EMI shield for chip & cables of course.

That is why I use aluminum block to shield the chips. 

And a separate linear PSU for CPU will improve the SQ,
Just insert the PSU with 4pin or 8pin ATX plug into CPU power socket will be fine 

Battery PSU is a clean power soure,
OS SSD,USB card with a battery PSU will increase sound stage,high & low extention
Very low noise floor & smooth sonic.

But battery need a vibration control,
It sounds quite different with a wood block for vibration control
Vibration mus be noted to battery supply

This is a battery structure digram,
It has large area of ​​the parallel structures
That is the reason why a battery afraid of vibration.

Unfortunately,
Cheap mobile battery PSU is design only for cell phone,
It will be no better than a linearPSU
So we have to build a audio grade battery PSU

But even so,
You could hear the improvement with a vibration control to this PSU

Why the SATA cable make sound different?

The SATA BUS contains a transmit and receive 2set of  balanced signal
Both contains CLOCK inside the bus
And SATA bus bandwidth up to 3GHz 
So SATA cable need a very high performance conductor  

Although the regular SATA cable can also be functioning of the PC
But that is because of OS's error correction function
With regular SATA cable
Your CAT will always do a lot of error corrections
So a regular SATA cable will degrade the SQ to your CAT

With my SATA cable
OS's working will became simple & continuous
So my SATA cable do a big improvement in SQ
This improvement do not need you to do a AB blind testing
Just replace my SATA cable
You will hear the big different right away  

For general user
You don't need any instruments to prove that
Because my SATA cable make your OS working simple & continuous
So you will get a shorter booting time,
This should prove the performance of my SATA cable

And with the similar reason
Use my SATA cable
You will have a shorter cd ripping time 
And got better SQ from cd ripping

The conductor of my cable
Have been fully tested with professional instruments

After a lot of R & D
All conductors of my cable now
Are multi-cores of silver-plated copper alloy
This is the best conductor for digital audio cable I have tried

With my SATA & USB cable
Your CAT will became a wonderful source
Over a year
I had over 500 users world wide now
And have many postive feedbacks from those users.
So use my cable with confidence

ODM of SATA & USB cable is welcome 
Any question,please contact
ppastudio@yahoo.com.tw 

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FYI,
Although these sata cables is not directional in manufacturing process,
But many users claim that my sata cable has a stronger performance for certain direction
For this reason,
All my sata cables have marks on it to identify,
You could try my sata cable's direction before burning the cable,
Higher energy,more smooth will be the right direction for the cable.
And these cables used silver-plated copper alloy,
You should burn these cables 200hrs at least,
And these cables will need 6 months for full performance.  
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Optimize the Musiland 01USD DDC

Some friends of mine have heard the modified 01USD.
It sounds good in neutral & well balance.
So they asked me to do some more.

This project is planning to use 4pcs of 18650 Lithium battery-powered
And USB +5V  charging the battery
Battery-powered is ideal and cheap to DDC
Because if you use a  linear PSU for 01USD
For a better sound quality,
You need to use an expensive power cord.
And battery-powered has a very low noise floor &  high resolution to full sonic range.


 
This is a new development silver wire output transformer for clock generator

 Output waveform of low jitter TCXO with buffer 

Output waveform of low jitter TCXO with buffer plus silver wire output transformer

As seen from the above waveform diagrams
The clock with better electrical characteristics after plus transformer
The results presented in acoustically 
are better texture,more stable image & more 3-dimensional space
And SQ  is naturally smooth, low distortion just like analog source!

Testing sample of second-generation resonance control small chassis

With two aluminum brick grip the main chassis
Very nice in the resonant characteristics and sound quality

My Solution with CD RIP

This is my cat,
Base on a MINI ATX MB with ATOM330 cpu & nVdia ION chip for 1080P video playback
Fanless,Full linear PSU, Sealed full aluminum chassis.
All my ripping & playing with this CAT

I have changed Green Label SATA into TZ YUN III SATA recently
That is because  Green Label is monitor style
It is near field listening,
Everything is clear and need a good optimization CAT for better result.
TZ YUN III is more smooth listening but in Green Label acoustics
Something like sitting in the 15th line of music hall to listen.
This CAT is for ripping & playing music
It is not a AV workstation,
So I like TZ YUN III more.
These TZ YUN III are prototype

End product of TZ YUN III SATA

I use CF card as OS & DATA disk

CF need very low power supply & better SQ to SSD

Two 18650 3.7V Lithium battery with auto charge for  CF
It is more detail in full range,higher S/N ratio & more extension to high frquency than linear PSU.

 
 This unit has 2 separate +5V output and up to supply 2 SSD in 4pcs 18650 battery.

I use 01USD as USB to SPDIF converter
This 01USD has been  modified almost in everything,
Every chips has it's own power supply,replace low jitter Clock,
Superb grade silver pulse transformer for spdif output.
And in a sturdy full aluminum chassis.

01usd has a well balance response and less coloring tone
After modified,It has very good sound quality!

I use DVD burner,
Ripping data via eSATA to CF data disk  inside the chassis


 
DVD burner's power is supply from my cat
My cat support 2 separate linear PSU for DVD burner & HDD

 Restore ripping data to HDD in 3 layer anti-vibration platform outside the chassis

Mike Garson's The Oxnard Sessions  for  ripping demo

DVD burner in single platform

demo piece

DVD buner in 3 layer platform

DEMO piece

You should hear the different between these 2 files

CD RIP is the basic elements of CAT

Worth to invest more effort