Power conditioning for computer audio

Hi Paul,

I checked the site of one of the distributors I mentioned, Mouser Electronics, and you can order from them in quantities as small as 1.

Just enter the Fair-Rite part number into the search box near the top of Mouser's home page. For instance, part number 0431167281 returns this, indicating 17,520 in stock, with a minimum order of 1 piece, costing $2.64. Looks like they'll add on about $7 for shipping of a 1 pound parcel.

So, does improvement from these things typically fall into the "I think I hear something" category or the "there is a definite improvement" category?

I can't really say, as I haven't gotten into computer-based audio, but the technical rationale strikes me as plausible, and the cost is minimal, so my instinct would be to just do it, as a matter of good practice.

Happy holidays, and best for 2011!

-- Al

Barking up the wrong tree, digital out from your MAC doesn't care about internal noise. Your MAC would be malfunctioning if 1's and 0's weren't being read correctly inside the case.
But your external D/A and analog equipment does care about how clean its power source is... ghost signals from other equipment power draws can reduce your tranparency during and after analog conversion.

Davide256, note that the question concerned "high-frequency noise put back into the line by computers and digital sources," so the wrong tree was not being barked up.

Regards,
-- Al

Paul - you must be very careful about where you use ferrites. They can definitely inhibit dynamic current flow to a DAC for instance. If you are using a sound card in a desktop PC, the ferrites may add significantly to the jitter by making the power supply sluggish.

IMO, these are only useful for protection of a computer against line voltage fluctuations. Keep them away from the audio parts.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

If you are using a sound card in a desktop PC, the ferrites may add significantly to the jitter by making the power supply sluggish.

Hi Steve,

Could you explain why that would be so?

I would expect, given that we are talking about a digital output of the computer (as opposed to an output whose current demands may fluctuate widely) that capacitive energy storage and decoupling on the sound card, and perhaps the motherboard as well, would isolate the sound card circuits from any power supply sluggishness. If a lot of bits are toggling at once in parts of the circuit, then yes there may be a sudden spike in current demand for perhaps a few nanoseconds, but it seems to me that assuring that demand is met during those few nanoseconds is the responsibility of capacitors on the card, not the power supply.

And I would also expect that by far the greatest demands on the power supply in terms of dynamics would be due to the cpu, its associated chipset, and the video card, none of which would be heavily taxed in an audio application.

Thanks, and happy holidays!

-- Al