cleanest , purest MoBo available?

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playboss

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Hello, first of all , Im not a gamer!! I need stuff for serious audio work . Im looking for the most "non-compromise" mainboard in terms of used analog components , dc-dc stuff and else. I know macintosh mobos isnt supposed to use the same cheapass components compared to PC ones. I heard pc mobo manufacturers indeed spare every penny they can. Is this the case in 2008 too? Is there a mainboard with nice clean supply? Id pay for it. IDEAS?
 
Most newer motherboard have gone to solid capacitors, five and six (and eight)-phase power regulation, et al. And since Macs are built on Intel technology, there's not THAT much different they could be.

Question: are you talking about using the onboard sound (ie, integrated into the motherboard) for your audio work? If so, then DO NOT. There are multiple professional-quality sound cards on the market that will avoid motherboard noise entirely.
 
i have a lynx aes-16 , 700 usd soundcard, Im afraid of the high frequency switching garbage corrupting the onboard oscillator. So G5 is the answer? Thats what I m about to do , prices seem to get more and more into the OK region.
 
Surely he can't mean on-board audio. :oops: My guess would be that he wants to keep signal interference coming from components on the motherboard to the sound card to a bare minimum. (eg. no whining coils, nice clean signal on the PCI bus, something like those).
 
i have a lynx aes-16 , 700 usd soundcard, Im afraid of the high frequency switching garbage corrupting the onboard oscillator. So G5 is the answer? Thats what I m about to do , prices seem to get more and more into the OK region.

What the hell are you talking about? You seem to have little concept of what you even want. The information you've been fed in the past is bullshit to. There is no way I would ever believe someone who says Apple uses superior quality components in their products in comparison to the PC market, mainly because the EXACT same manufacturers make the Apple products, and even then the PC market allows you to pay for premium components which allows you to be guaranteed what goes in your system, not something possible with a Mac. Any quality motherboard shouldn't have a issue with what you're trying to achieve here.
 
this been told by an industry engineer who designed set top box pc mobo, also standalone DSP circuits so maybe not your usual "heard it thru the grapevine" type story here. I ask everyone without sufficient knowledge about "wtf" we are talkin about, please leave no remark here, Im not a mac fanboy, I find Jobs 's stuff shady as well.
 
so its interference your worried about
if you keep the sound digital untill its outside the pc you shouldnt suffer any
or maybe get an external soundcard (ps: i have no idea how good they are)
 
Typically set-top-boxes are designed with two primary constraints to reach one goal. They are driven by making it as cheap as possible and as feature laden as possible. If a mfg can save $0.02 a board by using a slightly inferior component that still meets the design window they will. The reason is they typically move tens of million of units if not more. That $0.02 suddenly becomes well over $600K. Now save $0.02 cents on multiple components and you're well into an extra couple of millions in cost savings.

With all that said, I'd take what your friend says with a huge grain of salt as it does not apply to the general industry practices with respect to MAC vs PC.
 
well you can bet this type of set top box is not a receiver gear but audio player purpose. I think i beleive tho .
 
so its interference your worried about
if you keep the sound digital untill its outside the pc you shouldnt suffer any
or maybe get an external soundcard (ps: i have no idea how good they are)

yes thats the point, its everything is in digital realm until it reaches outside, but the corrupted clocking going to manifest itself at the receiving end. The phase locked loop on the receiving end has to recover the clocking, so if it was corrupted back then, when inside the PC, I can fuck it . The way to do it would be to transmit data without clocking , I cannot do that with this soundcard.
 
How exactly do those links have anything to do with this discussion?
 
i quote from the second link:

"The linear obviously is a lot “quieter”, by up to a 10,000 times. The topology of the switch-mode supply
with its high frequency switching technology had to have a downside right? So if the noise is 10,000 times
worse, how can anyone use it? Sounds so bad.
In truth, there are some applications (studio mixers and very sensitive test equipment) where low electrical
noise is critical. The others?"
 
Would love to know what you're doing where you're this serious yet don't know about the technology already and you're using a relatively cheap $700 sound card.
 
you'd probably want to have a computer or electrical engineer who works with the hardware take a look at what's out there and tell you what seems to use the best components. It's not just the components though, but the board quality too (ie how many layers).

I can tell you that my Gigabyte P35-DS3R is noisy. Well, either that or the 8800GTX is. When a 3D game is pushing the vid card hard, my Audigy 2 starts outputting some noise.
 
So with your big tirade above, did you even answer the question? What do those two links have to do with what you're asking?

The links are talking about linear power supplies. The problem is, it's the entire motherboard that causes electical noise, emits EMI and other such issues like grounding loops from imperfect / imbalanced ground planes amongst the multiple layers.

Had you been paying attention, you'd have seen mention in the DIYAudio forums that most (if not all) of this noise is removed from PCI-connected audio cards that come with their own voltage regulation circuitry. If you have a $700 sound card, chances are the manufacturer spent at least a few dollars on building a proper VRM setup.

And if they didn't? You got ripped off, because even $50 PCI-based SoundBlaster cards have that kind of equipment.

This isn't a PC versus Mac thing; they're made up of the same electronics and will have the exact same problems. This is YOU buying a good sound card that has it's own filters, ground-loop isolation and RF shielding as to keep all the noise OUT from whatever system it's plugged into.

i bet you don know shit about windows sound driver hierarchy and stuff and yet , I have a bet where the 4000 posts of yours came from why in hell YOU have to comment about sometingh you haveno fckin clue ?
Can the attitude, ass. Windows sound driver hierarchy has dick to do with the question at hand. But maybe if you too had a fckin clue, you'd already know that?
 
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