Onboard vs Sound Card

[Rroff]

Yeah I'm covering most of that - the plan is 2x 470uF (per rail) Cornell Dubilier MLQ series AE cap bank then 0.1uF then LM317/337 pair that supplies 220uF Nichicon KZs (one for each rail) decoupling caps as well as the 0.1uF decoupling caps near the opamp supply pins.

Optionally between the cap bank and the 0.1uF before the regulator possibly a 100-200uH inductor with a (protective) diode to ground before it but I'm not really very familiar with inductors so I'm not 100% if I'm going to do that or not - badly done there is the potential for wire melting incidents with the inductor hence the diode

 

[PaulCa]

I think it's a bit overkill. 920uF of capacitance might overload your PSU on start up. They pull an awful lot of current while charging. The PSU will often quote "Max capacitive load"

Inductor + Capacitor = tank circuit. Be careful, badly designed inductor capacitor circuits can output spikes of multi-kilo-volts.

Remember you are only powering a couple of op amps. My headphone amp is probably considerably more powerful that what you are attempting and I needed nothing like what you are putting into it.

You only need to use the kind of capacitance and inductance you are talking about if you are building an actual amp, not a headphone amp. When pulling 10s of watts not 100s of miliwatts.

However the inductor could serve to filter high frequency noise spikes if you are using a switch mode PSU.

If you are looking for an overkill challenge see if you can make a class D amp.

 

[Rroff]

I think it's a bit overkill. 920uF of capacitance might overload your PSU on start up. They pull an awful lot of current while charging. The PSU will often quote "Max capacitive load"

Inductor + Capacitor = tank circuit. Be careful, badly designed inductor capacitor circuits can output spikes of multi-kilo-volts.

Remember you are only powering a couple of op amps. My headphone amp is probably considerably more powerful that what you are attempting and I needed nothing like what you are putting into it.

You only need to use the kind of capacitance and inductance you are talking about if you are building an actual amp, not a headphone amp. When pulling 10s of watts not 100s of miliwatts.

However the inductor could serve to filter high frequency noise spikes if you are using a switch mode PSU.

If you are looking for an overkill challenge see if you can make a class D amp.

It is mainly for the noise filtering rather than the power capabilities (though it is simple to scale it upto high current headphones) - I've already tested it with an older prototype and a modified O2 design and had no start up problems - I'm using either a dual output or 2x single output versions of these to provide positive and negative rails without a virtual ground splitter: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dcp020515d.pdf

I'm probably going to give the inductor part a miss though in this version as the considerations to avoid potential damaging outcomes are a bit beyond my skill set.

 

[PaulCa]

Check out Murata and XP Power isolated PSUs for +- rails. I went for the vgnd for easy of powering from battery supply and the isolated PSUs are £15 each

 

[Rroff]

I looked at the Murata before but the TI's seem a bit better suited to audio use - switching frequency further away from audio range and built in support for avoiding beat frequencies, etc. if you use multiples of them. Haven't looked at XP Power offerings.

 

[4K8KW10]

How would you compare the on-board sound in the ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-X470-F-GAMING/specifications/

SupremeFX 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC S1220A
- Dual OP Amplifiers
- Impedance sense for front and rear headphone outputs
- Supports : Jack-detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel Jack-retasking
- High quality 120 dB SNR stereo playback output and 113 dB SNR recording input
- SupremeFX Shielding Technology
- Supports up to 32-Bit/192kHz playback *3
Audio Feature :
- Optical S/PDIF out port(s) at back panel
- Sonic Radar III
- Sonic Studio III + Sonic Studio Link

ROG's awesome SupremeFX audio technology has levelled up, delivering an exceptional 113dB signal-to-noise ratio on the line-in connection for best-ever ROG recording quality! We've also added a low-dropout regulator for cleaner power delivery to the SupremeFX S1220A codec, plus Texas Instruments® RC4580 and OPA1688 op-amps for high gain with low distortion. It all adds up to audio that envelops you as never before!

and a discrete sound card like the Creative Sound Blaster Zx https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...ound-card-retail-70sb150600001-sc-090-cl.html

and its slightly cheaper sibling Creative Sound Blaster Z https://www.overclockers.co.uk/crea...g-sound-card-oem-30sb150200000-sc-088-cl.html

and, for example, the ASUS STRIX SOAR 7.1 PCI-E sound card? https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-strix-soar-7.1-pci-e-sound-card-90yb00j0-m1ua00-sc-031-as.html

 

[JasonM]

I actually got an offer from Burson a few days ago that they'd send me some samples including the V5i to review but unfortunately I'm way too busy to do them justice at the moment.

Reviving an old thread.

Did you ever test the V5i's?

 

[Rroff]

Reviving an old thread.

Did you ever test the V5i's?

Nope - been too busy with other stuff unfortunately.

 

[V F]

Interesting reading over this thread again. It made me look up my orders from 2018, seeing the Creative SoundBlasterX AE-5 bought back on 18 May 2018. Had originally used it for a few months before it was boxed back up. Date first available, 1 Jun. 2017.

It's one thing I definitely do not miss after all these years going external. Is drivers breaking from certain updates or newer OS revisions or a new OS. Leaving you with useless hardware or things broken/glitching.

 

[MatteRB26]

I have an ASUS Xonar AE 5.1 and the difference between that and the onboard audio from my X470 Gaming Plus is practically night and day. Lows are deeper, highs are crisper and there's far more clarity and range. Add on the virtual surround and I get pinpoint audio in gaming. In terms of input, there's no noise and voice is much more clear.

When I upgraded my PC from my 3570k with the older ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 it was a big downgrade in audio, genuinely putting me off gaming.

 

[mattyfez]

I can't fault the audio on my gigabyte z170 k3.. It's on a kind of isolated circuit part of the mobo which was one of the selling points for me.
I'm not saying it's studio quality but it's good enough for me not to bother with sound cards or external DACs etc.

 

[Bill Turnip]

If you have an internal sound card such as a soundblaster ae-5, it comes with drivers on it so that it can encode a dolby digital signal on the fly and transmit it over an optical out. Is this something that you are able to achieve with an external DAC setup? I would be able to plug into discrete speakers in my office, but if I'm playing in my front room, I need to get a dolby digital signal sent over an optical cable.

Does not work over hdmi from the gpu with my setup (believe me, I've tried! Sonos issues) so the optical out is important.