[dm]

Just ordered Gigabyte's newer board optimized for the audio market:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4485#ov

It has several features of note:

USB DAC-Up

Featuring a gold plated USB 2.0 port, GIGABYTE USB DAC-Up provides clean, noise-free power delivery to your Digital-to-Analog Converter. DACs can be sensitive to fluctuations in power from the other USB ports, which is why GIGABYTE USB DAC-Up takes advantage of an isolated power source that minimizes potential fluctuations and ensures the best audio experience possible. 

The USB DAC-up port can also have it's power output disabled if your external dac does not need power on the USB line.

Upgradable Onboard OP-AMP

GIGABYTE motherboards are the world's first to feature an onboard operational amplifier (OP-AMP), allowing users to physically switch out and try different OP-AMPs which offer distinct and nuanced properties that make the audio clearer, punchier and more life-like. Additional OP-AMPs can be purchased separately to further expand audio capabilities.

Audio Noise Guard with Path Lighting
GIGABYTE motherboards feature an audio noise guard that essentially separates the board’s sensitive analog audio components from potential noise pollution at the PCB level. LED trace path lighting Illuminates to show the separation of the PCB layers.

I am particularly interested in the power line noise filtered USB out since I already have a USB DAC in my setup.

Anyone else have experience with this motherboard?

[raysracing]

I wonder how long it will take for someone to buy this to pit against the Paul Pang set-up.  Sounds like a fun board to tweak on though.

[dm]

I have the board in my HTPC now.  Just started using it.  So far the sound is really pretty good with the stock OPAMP.  My DAC is a Mav Audio tubemagic D2.  It does not work with the power disable option on the DAC up USB port on the motherboard.  So I guess the USB tenor chip on the DAC needs to see the power coming over the USB cable.  I am busy comparing the sound between the onboard realtek opamp motherboard analog output and the motherboard USB and TOSLINK connected tubemagic DAC output.

One big issue I am having and currently troubleshooting.  The HDMI out seems to be really picky about a headless setup like mine.  I have my HTPC connected to a projector for movies.  For music listening I leave the project off and run the HTPC headless.  For some really bad reason, the motherboard WIN7 BSOD when my onkyo receiver switches HDMI inputs (goes to a non-HTPC HDMI source) or if the projector is turned off/on.  This never happened with my old motherboard.  For now I have moved my old HD5450 video card out of the old setup and have it installed with this motherboard to be the primary HDMI output.  Now no more BSOD.

[jqp]

Hmmm - not sure audiophile and mass market consumer computer products will be a good mix....add to that a PC with all the driver requirements and interrupts.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may03/articles/pcmusician0503.asp

This article probably has some obsolete info since it was written 10 years ago, but may be worth a read

[JRace]

Hmmm - not sure audiophile and mass market consumer computer products will be a good mix....add to that a PC with all the driver requirements and interrupts.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may03/articles/pcmusician0503.asp

This article probably has some obsolete info since it was written 10 years ago, but may be worth a read

With all due respect, a significant amount has change in computer audio in the last 10 years.
That article is not relevant today.

This board looks interesting. Wonder if it comes in mitx...my preffered cases only take mitx...

[this_is_vv]

just for music help me in this....

If you have external DAC then the only thing that matters is clean USB power...again i know people have CAPS build powering SSD with external soure....but at the end we are just trying to get clean USB signal?

right or wrong or partially right and wrong...

V

[JRace]

There are many factors, not just "clean" usb....but that alone is not the easiest task!
However even with off the shelf motherboards and half decent PSU's one can get great audio from a PC.

Like the rest of audio (and drag racing i am told) the first 90% is easy.
Its perfecting the last 10% performance that is difficult!

[dm]

just for music help me in this....

If you have external DAC then the only thing that matters is clean USB power...again i know people have CAPS build powering SSD with external soure....but at the end we are just trying to get clean USB signal?

right or wrong or partially right and wrong...

V

Yes I have an external DAC already...But I needed a new HTPC build since my previous HTPC did not have the processing power to deal with the HDTV DVR capture/transcode/streaming tasks (via nextpvr) that I am planning on doing for the Sochi olympics.  So since I was upgrading motherboard and CPU anyway, I figured I would give this board a try.  It does have supposedly "cleaner" USB power which may be of some help to my external DAC.

[this_is_vv]

Yes I have an external DAC already...But I needed a new HTPC build since my previous HTPC did not have the processing power to deal with the HDTV DVR capture/transcode/streaming tasks (via nextpvr) that I am planning on doing for the Sochi olympics.  So since I was upgrading motherboard and CPU anyway, I figured I would give this board a try.  It does have supposedly "cleaner" USB power which may be of some help to my external DAC.

again i was asking just to verify what i am looking for....i udnerstand last 10% is hard to get....question is what is last 10% in the e.g...where i need the music from pc only through USB.....

V

[dm]

still testing out the new motherboard.  I was able to clear my BSOD crashes on the HDMI port.  Not sure why, but booting to safemode and uninstalling and reinstalling my Intel HD 4400 drivers cleared the errors.

[dm]

This motherboard with the audiophile features continues to impress me.  I have been doing some measurements with RMAA and listening tests.  The sound is very good, very 3D and clean.

I have also started playing with opamp rolling.  My favorite is the ADA4627 which is a single SOIC chip that I have mounted on a SOIC-DIP adapter board with a .01 uF pin 4-pin8 bypass capacitor to clean up the power supply pins.





And here are some of the RMAA loopback (speaker out looped to audio in) with the stock OPAMP as well as with the ADA4627-1 OPAMP.  Measurements at the max 16bit 192Khz sampling rate.



RMAA Noise Measurements



RMAA THD


RMAA IMD

[dm]

More RMAA measurements.  16 bit/44.1khz vs 16bit/96khz vs 16bit/192khz loopback speaker out to line in all with the ADA4627 opamp installed.

RMAA Freq Response




RMAA Noise Response



RMAA THD response



RMAA IMD response

[dm]

More RMAA measurements.  16 bit/44.1khz vs 16bit/96khz vs 16bit/192khz loopback speaker out to line in all with the ADA4627 opamp installed.

dynamic range.

[kenreau]

dm - what power supply are you using?

Kenreau

[dm]

ANTEC 380D.  I do have some iron ferrite RFI clamps/beads on the power lines as well.

[kenreau]

That Gigabyte board sure looks appealing.  I would be really curious to see what impact a linear regulated ps would have on its performance.  With all the built-in audiophile features, it's hard to guess if they take care of 90% of the noise gremlins, or not. 

Thanks for sharing

Kenreau