Looking to purchase a PC that can run all filters at DSD1024 48 and can upsample hi res files without issue. Is there an off the shelf solution or am I stuck building a custom machine?
Since you are looking at an nvidia and want fanless, I would say custom.
Any ideas what I would need to spec? I have a local shop that will build something custom. If it’s a tower I could probably do it myself.
Any particular reason why you aim for 1048? It’s not automatically better than 512 or 256. Usually the sweet spot for DACs is 256-512.
But if you want to run 1048 with ALL settings, then you need something very top of the line. With the dedicated modulator (AHM7EC8B) though, it’s an easier load. I can run 1048 with AMD 9700X - 32gb DDR5 - Geforce 4060Ti 16gb.
1 Like
Finding a PC to do it isn’t hard. Look at a top of the line gaming rig and you’ll be most of the way there. The hard bit is the fan-less part. The fastest CPU’s exceed the thermal ratings of most if not all passively cooled solutions. And you won’t find a decently fast passively cooled GPU this side of 2005!
Water cooling is the answer. Ask someone to build a solution with a remote heat exchanger so the fans can’t be heard. Or as one YouTuber did, use his swimming pool so fans weren’t needed!
1 Like
Using a NAA allows placing a powerful PC with fans in a place where the fans cannot be heard at the listening place. Such as basement/equipment room/utility room. This also helps keeping costs down since a regular gaming PC can be used.
4 Likes
Doing DSD1024 fanless? I dont think its possible. Not many CPUs can do that, even with latest modulators. You will need huge radiators then. I agree with Henry, water cooling is best solution if your main concern is the noise from the fans.
Apple Mac Studio could be another option, pretty quiet, small and decent performance for DSD1024, even multichannel.
hailo
fanless would need custom but i have yet to see anyone achieve such as thermal throttle will be your enemy
for componentry you may need to seek highest cpu and gpu and minimum 48gb or 64gb ram if wish to seek sinc l from 44 and 48 base rate
1 Like
I’m aiming for 1048 because with my current DAC (T+A DAC 200) it consistently sounds the best at 1048 48.
I’m using a Mac Studio M4 Max 14 core CPU, 32 Core GPU with 36GB RAM. Also have a Holo Red Running as a NAA.
With Jussi’s OS installed on the Red and turning on DAC corrections in HQPlayer, if I start with DSD files or higher res flac files, I get frequent pauses in playback using some of the filters that sound better in my system.
Ok interesting, I have Holo Red (running NAA OS) + DAC200 combo also. IMO it sounds the best with DSD256 (ASDM7EC-super) and DSD512 (ASDM7EC-super 512+fs). DSD1048 + AHM7EC8B comes third. Also DAC correction makes a clear improvement and I have it turned on also. I’ve been playing DSD256 lately and it sounds superb.
1 Like
I believe, as soon as Asahi project will implement support for TB4, it will be a lot easier. Mac Studio with Nvidia eGPU for offload will make a great combo.
Funny stuff, i was able to do 8xDSD512 on Mac Studio running Fedora, but could not get combo backend running using MacOS 
No route to host error pops up, when i apply settings in the HQPlayer preferences tab.
AHM7EC8B is pretty decent load, there’s quite a lot of hardware that can do it.
From regular modulators pretty high CPU core clock speeds are needed.
Even if you get that error for IPv6, the IPv4 fallback may still work. So seeing that error doesn’t necessarily mean that things are not working at all.
I am pretty sure i had forcefully disabled IPv6, at least on NAA. Judging by the error, it is NAA reporting that it has no route to host.
1024 48 with AHM7EC8B works fine starting with a 44k file (it won’t run smoothly with higher res input files) but my favorite is ASDM7ECv3 and I can’t get that to work with 512 48 and dac correction on with the M4 MAX. I tried the different DSD rates (256, 512 and 1024) and still think that 1024 has the smoothest presentation with my system (45 based SET Amps into high efficiency speakers).
I found an off the shelf gaming system with the following specs locally:
Intel Core Ultra 9 Series 2
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070
32GB RAM
Is that sufficient, or should I be looking at something more powerful? If I’m going for a new tower I want to make sure it will run everything.
But NAA is not connecting anywhere…
What does the log entry specifically say?
ASDM7EC-super is similar, but technically better. And is better optimized, so could potentially run on your machine…
It is probably better to stick to i9-14900K(S) and RTX5080 for what you are asking for…
The newer Core Ultra 9 doesn’t seem to work as nicely always…
If u intent to use ASDM7EC family and aiming for DSD1024, you should be looking at 14900ks. Core Ultra is another example of ongoing Intel fails. It is already factory overlocked, so not much could be cooked out of it. With liquid nitrogen cooling some folks managed to overcook it 285k to 7.5ghz, while 14900ks to 9.1ghz. That is not doable in common environment but gives you an idea, what could be the difference with proper water cooling. Memory bandwidth is more important, two matched modules of single sided DDR5 must be used, G.Skill or something like that. 7200+
naa clcontrolserverthread::start(): clsocket::setoption(): setsockopt(…, 41,12, …): can’t assign requested address
This is the HQPlayer control API (used by HQPlayer Client, Roon, JPlay, etc) failing to listen on IPv6 address. So it will revert to IPv4-only. By default the control API is always both IPv4 and IPv6.
Not related to NAA at all.
For two channel listening and pushing to SDM 1024x48 one is dependent on single core performance of particular CPU, indeed 13th and 14th “K”,“KF” and specials “KS” are champions importantly at “stock” settings. I now have 14900KS for the main server, which is dedicated Ubuntu / HQPlayer Embedded. Core Ultra has been reported here (and on AS forum) by few members as “no fit” for SDM 1024 job, simply not. However Intel issues started in earlier generations. My first 14KS was botched (as seems to be many others) and has been replaced by Intel.
Here I’m sceptical. There were several discussions on this forum related to the memory speed. What would be important is a true latency and stability. Going up the memory “speed” ladder, the “faster” chips come with higher latencies, so overall true latency gains are questionable. My memory is DDR5 6800 / CL34, real latency of 10ns, this one is probably the boarder-line of stability. DDR5 6400 / 32CL will do and probably be more stable. Certainly one may have different stability criteria - my benchmark is months of uninterrupted server runs with no reboots. The other memory challenge is a voltage, even if you have MB with 4 memory slots, you may struggle to find 4 “fast” memory chips that would fit the voltage criteria. Bottom line here 32GB 6800/CL 34 at XMP1 is quite enough, frankly.
One may ask - what about Sinc-L at SDM1024 ? Indeed this is a good challenge for most of the systems. But depending on careful choice of MB with particular attention to its primary M2 slot + fastest server grade M2 SSD drive, one can easily benefit from SWAP. (note, highly not recommended by Jussi, but it redicusly works - question is why one would need that Sinc-L at 1024, but yeah… it sounds good)
In summary mine is 14900KS/32GB6800CL34/RTX4090
If you are interest in particular source / rate / filter / modulator / output rate / dac correction on off, I can check and report back if that helps…