Does anyone plug their desktop computer to a power conditioner if you use it as a music source via USB to a DAC?

Does anyone plug their desktop computer to a power conditioner if you use it as a music source via USB to a DAC??

Do you still use the generic power plug to the computer or do you also upgrade that cable?

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There is no reason not to try it.

A member here, who has not posted in years, put an expensive power cord on his computer and powered it with a PowerPlant when ripping CDs. He reported the resulting rips sounded better.

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And there is some merit to using a conditioner that has isolated banks of power. With something like that you ensure that the PC isn’t passing anything nasty down the AC line to the other gear. I’d bet that will likely be the most impactful part.

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I have exactly the same thought. The chap @Elk mentioned probably hasn’t posted for a while as he is likely to be in an institution without access to the internet. A very common feature of conditioners is that each power connection is isolated to protect against component to component contamination. Even the £500 ($600?) ifi mains block has this feature. I’ve always assumed desktop and laptop computers are going to inject noise into any audio system, so in 12 years of streaming have never used one. Besides the power being used, it’s the wifi and video elements of the hardware that are particularly noisy, and which are rarely if ever found on servers designed specifically for audio.

No, he is a very bright, experienced, interesting audiophile. As capable as anyone here.

… he believed an error-checked CD rip can be affected by the incoming power supply? I’d be scared to leave the house with that level of paranoia. Come to think of it, I’ve not left the house much recently.

It is not paranoia; it was a report of his experience.

There are many claims in high-end audio which sound dubious. I share your skepticism. But repeated ad hominem attacks are never justified.

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Isn’t Tier 4 a wonderful thing

When I had a headphone dedicated stack, I used a P5 to power everything including a notebook Roon Core and it worked well.

It was tongue-in-cheek because, as @chris5 points out, Tier 4 is making me go slightly mental. It’s pretty full on stay at home and don’t go anywhere.

My son was quite ill this week, but thankfully a lot better yesterday. Oxygen intake was down, but retained his sense of taste and smell, so had Christmas lunch but could not stay awake long enough to eat it.

Did the notebook use HDD or SSD?

I’m going from my desktop which have both HDD and SSD

In my experience HDD noise is kind of high, but there is no harm trying it for playback both ways.

Tested this about a year ago. I unplugged my iMac (with SSD) from the wall and plugged it into the P5 instead. I was very skeptical, PCs are so “noisy” anyway, but the result was an improved sound quality, less “harsh”, really immediately noticeable. Just my experience, YMMV. Another finding: Try to avoid using the other USB ports. In particular do not connect an external USB hub - it took me a while to find out that the hub was the reason for degraded sound quality.

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Welcome, ubongo!

Plugging a PC into PowerPlant certainly goes against one’s intuition - as do many things in this hobby. :slight_smile:

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