i7 Builds - Specs and Results

[PatriotsBiker]

Thanks, Gents! I agree that there are big limitations to my tests, such as they were. Not knowing what is signal fault and what is testing fault makes it ambiguous to say the least.

The 25db increase just sort of happened over time as the noises decreased layer by layer. I will compile a list of "fixes" the best I can remember. One thing I will say now is that I am thrilled beyond words at what I can record/track now as far as signal to noise ratio goes. I've gotta have a nasty mean patch going with the gate off to have the noise appear at -60dbfs. The whole 300Hz to 1K is brand new to me. 1K to 5K is means more now than a place to put a whole bunch of notch filters. Music just sort of magically blends together now. Happy times!

PC isolation results. I did as suggested and isolated my PC from everything else. There was no noise level coming through my headphones with the volume cranks all the way up. When I played a song from my ripped Cd collection, everything was clear as could be. Exactly as I would expect it to sound. I did the whole kill and disconnect my monitor/mouse/keyboard thing just for giggles to see if anything changed and it did not.

Next, I reconnected what I had to in order to get PT up and running, as well as installing ASIO4ALL and created an empty project. In that project, I eventually found a Big Fish audio loop with some bland space at the beginning. It was a snare fill, IIRC. This blank section did have what appeared to me as a wave form hovering around -100dbfs to -110dbfs. It was fairly even with a big drop off at 22kHz. I did increase the signal. It's much louder than I normally hear, even with a reduce Q. I raised it about 18db before noises started and it got worse from there. The noises were mostly static in nature. I raised everything up to be obvious and disconnected everything else again. Not changes in that noise. I reconnected everything and re-checked just to make sure I heard nothing before raising a bandwidth in the EQ. Again, I could not hear anything until raising it a sufficient amount in the EQ.

So, as has been pointed out, raising the EQ a ton is doing little more than inviting noises to occur, no matter the source. That is indeed what I saw. I was very surprised to hear that the blank place in a loop had a lot of static in it once it was turned up. That it was louder than my own system with purposely introduced noises is puzzling, to say the least.

Was this done as you expected and/or tell you anything, guitardom and YYR123?

[YYR123]

Once you reconnected everything - I would have imported that song you ripped, the one that sounded clear in the phones

Import that into a session....how does it sound playing back through the computer speaker?/ how does it sound when playing back via your studio monitors?

[PatriotsBiker]

Originally Posted by YYR123

Once you reconnected everything - I would have imported that song you ripped, the one that sounded clear in the phones

Import that into a session....how does it sound playing back through the computer speaker?/ how does it sound when playing back via your studio monitors?

This test came out with flying colors. Even the nearly tacet spots that had some slight audio hiss/pressure came out sounding the same.

I copied that snare loop from the previous test over to my laptop and abused it in the same fashion that I did for that test. I came up with the same static noises.

Right now, I am feeling very confident about my audio machine's ability to handle/process music signals cleanly. Monitors and headphones. The only thing I do not know for sure is tracking a signal via USB interface.

I will say this, though. My home project studio is the poster child for anyone's compilation of best practices when using non-professional gear. 3 weeks ago, I could not even wave a low voltage detector near an unplugged instrument cable in the middle of that room on my comfy chair. Now I have to get up front and close to an active piece of gear(11R, Power conditioner, PC) to get it to complain. Once I got a few things fixed inside of the computer (replaced PSU, discovered a wiring issue to front panel's portion of the sound card and reinstalled Apollo afterwards, all that other stuff I begrudgingly tried again made differences this time around. The final bit of quiet came from getting all Mogami(sp?) cables for the room.

[Darryl Ramm]

Does anybody know the state of i9/X299 builds, I've searched and not found much on DUC. I need to build a development PC and thought I would make it as Pro Tools compatible as well in case I end up using it for that as well. I was hoping for a motherboard with Thunderbolt 3, so started looking at the ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE.

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Does anybody know the state of i9/X299 builds, I've searched and not found much on DUC. I need to build a development PC and thought I would make it as Pro Tools compatible as well in case I end up using it for that as well. I was hoping for a motherboard with Thunderbolt 3, so started looking at the ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE.

If you do Asrock you can use a thunderbolt3 card with 2 ports and 10gbe ethernet built in. I haven't tested this board out yet but it looks like a winner.

https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/Fata...20i9/index.asp

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Brandonx1

If you do Asrock you can use a thunderbolt3 card with 2 ports and 10gbe ethernet built in. I haven't tested this board out yet but it looks like a winner.

https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/Fata...20i9/index.asp

Thanks for that, I like the 3 x M.2 mounts.

[WilliebSR]

Will be building an i7-8700k board using AsRock Extreme 4 board. Has two additional front SATA busses and has the thunderbolt header. That processor seems to have a nice balance in increased cores and speed relative to cost when compared with the others offered right now. Parts on order. Cross your fingers.

That said, when I was surfing around looking at parts reading reviews yada, yada.. I decided to stay away from i9 and the i7-7xxx because of all the hubbub about them running really hot. Not wanting to introduce lots of fan noise; or the expense / potential tragedy of water cooling..

I could be talking out my tail feathers and the wizards of PT on this thread certainly are more qualified than me. Just sharing what my impression was after several days of snooping around, for what its worth.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by WilliebSR

Will be building an i7-8700k board using AsRock Extreme 4 board. Has two additional front SATA busses and has the thunderbolt header...

You are looking at this motherboard

https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z370...#Specification

right?

It doesn't seem to have Thunderbolt 3. That's something I think we'll all want in the near future.

[jofprexus]

Hi everyone, first post. I'm assembling a list of parts to build a PC, (for ProTools), and wanted to know if anyone sees any issues with what I have so far...

Motherboard http://a.co/cRetEoR

CPU http://a.co/iKYDWAk

RAM http://a.co/9Rtj3UJ

Power Supply http://a.co/8U4jJtH

Cooler http://a.co/4jl7cjT

Case http://a.co/3yvwXiz

I haven't decided on storage yet,

Thanks,

Gary

[WilliebSR]

Originally Posted by EGS

You are looking at this motherboard

https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z370...#Specification

right?

It doesn't seem to have Thunderbolt 3. That's something I think we'll all want in the near future.

That's the board. It has an internal thunderbolt header and AsRock sells a pci card (out of stock right now like pretty much every manufacturer) but I liked that board since it has more Sata ports than any other Z370 out there, as well as a nice mix of headers for other types of usb as well as plenty of pci slots.

There are other MOBO that have that thunderbolt header where you add a card. I know I saw some Z170 boards and I think there was one other, I just don't remember.. maybe X99? The thing right now though is that it has to have the header so the card will work. Some of the newer boards also sport additional pci lanes so there's even greater access I think to the processor via that route.. making it seem more doable adding m.2 cards attached to a pci expansion slot too....

Don't put too much stock in what I'm writing though, I'm not 100% sure it will actually work like that..... I'm just reporting my interpretation of the marketing mumbo jumbo.... and I've been known to be gullible once or twice.