NVA 'TFS': 'The Future Statement' lands at Marco Towers...

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Originally Posted by Ali Tait

Jason, any idea what the price will be?

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Not yet Ali, but I promise to post here as soon as there's a ballpark figure.

Ok, thanks Jason.

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Originally Posted by Welder

Hi Jason :)

Lots of questions....sry :eyebrows:

Given you’ve Windows7 as the operating system I take it you’ve not optimised the cores for particular processes. If you have got around this problem I would be interested in knowing whose software you used and how much you had to pay for it.

I gather you’ve used one of the Asus on PCI sound cards (?) From what I’ve read it may be the ST (?)

Have you underclocked the processor (?)
If so did you match it to the bus speed (?)
I understand you have to linear regulated power supplies feeding the MOB (?)
I wondered how you had implemented the clock power feed and have you separated the power supply for RAM and processor on the board (?)
I haven’t seen any mention of USB connectivity, or galvanic isolation on any of the data outputs. Is this primarily built for S/PDIF ?

Is there any provision for the owner to change the operating system without breaking any hardware dependencies?
What if anything has been done to the sound card?
I’ve had a few Asus sound cards in my time and while they’re competent they aren’t the best performing cards out there so why choose it ?

My view is media storage should never be on the same drive as the operating system yet I see you’ve allowed for this and I wondered why?

That’s the first batch of questions.

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Wow! sounds like you should be designing digital streamers and not me!

I'm not sure how to take all those questions, John. It's like asking a commercial enterprise to reveal all it's secrets publicly and give away all it's hard earned experience.

But anyway, let's take some of the easier questions and see where this leads...

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Originally Posted by Welder

My view is media storage should never be on the same drive as the operating system yet I see you’ve allowed for this and I wondered why?

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First, from what perspective do you make that statement. Is it from a back-up and recovery perspective or from a optimal audio playback perspective?

If it's from an audio playback perspective, why do you think it matters? do you think that the storage device will be accessed by the OS and thus introduce some kind of jitter?

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Originally Posted by Welder

Given you’ve Windows7 as the operating system I take it you’ve not optimised the cores for particular processes.

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Ok, this one really interests me. Why do you think it matters? What benefit do you think it gives to the audio playback process?

By the way, what formal or informal level of understanding do you have in computer architecture. I ask so I can frame my responses appropriately.

Let's start with those 2 questions and see how we get on.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Hi Ben?

Could you please add your first name and basic geographical location to your profile. You will also need to pop into the Welcome area and introduce yourself to our community, by telling us what system you use and what music you like.

Sorry, matey, but them's the rules! :)

Marco.

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Of course. Apologies.
Am on phone at moment. Will sort it when I get on the pooter later.
Ben

Cheers, Ben. Much appreciated! :cool:

Marco.

:lol: Lets start with the easiest. I'm a complete amateur equipped with a few large hammers and a propensity for bodging.

I have however partially designed and built a few servers now and the subject seriously interests me.

Dealing with core optimisation first.
Sending audio data through a core isn't usually particularly demanding at 16/44.1 but as the bit depth and frequency increases there is more data to process. So, should you wish to include some DSP, or even a basic room correction application having just one core dealing with audio and the other or others dealing with system processes may be of some benefit.
Whether any benefits gained give an audible improvement is of course debatable but it may give one a bit of "headroom" for running multiple applications.
Having tried bashing Windows about in this regard I am curious as to whether you've managed to achieve this without infringing Windows copyright etc.
There are applications that can be used on top of Windows but the good ones tend to be rather expensive.


Regarding Data and OS on same drive. If anything is going to feck up its going to be the OS and that could easily mean losing all those tunes you've spent so long ripping assuming one cant rescue the system.

My names John btw ;)

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Originally Posted by Welder

I would be interested in knowing how hard the Window operating system has been tied into the hardware.
There is absolutely no doubt remaining in my mind that ALSA drivers not only sound better than WMD drivers but develop at a faster pace.

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Not sure that anyone has replied to this. My TFS is running Ubuntu 11.10, so Windows 7 isn't tied to the hardware.

Cheers Terry :)

I certainly wouldn't want to be running Windows on a music sever.

John.

Core optimisation ? Well as I understand it it's the other way round. This is a software issue. Basicaly programmes have to be written in a certain way to utilise multicore processors. Earlier programmes for instance will not benefit as they will use a single core. Try thinking from that angle.

Paul.

Hi Paul.

Yes, it is a software issue. There is a lot of software out there that is built to take advantage of multiple cores.