xr1st1anos

NVIDIA just wants to take a little steam off the new console releases hence they are releasing just before hand. They fear loosing gamers to the consoles. Also, the 8k capable is for the Titan class (3090 pro class) only. Thats not to say the 3080 is lacking in terms of power...

date of purchase/under warranty?

I have the HTS 12 with the Kanto SYS I use on my 2.1 desktop setup. It's a handsome box. It definitely fills up a 3x3 room with ease. Integrates well for me (can't tell theres an active sub running). I'm using the stero RCA in and the built in crossover works well. I have mine set at 100hz. Got mine on sale so it wasn't too pricy.

The JDS Labs split stack - EL Dac 2 and El Amp 2 has all the connections(USB/Optical/Coax). A Schiit stack Modi/Magni will work too. (though it doesn't have a preamp switch) They are both cheap enough to play with. I have both this stack and they work for me. You basically have to only worry about the amp for your headphone as your speakers are active. I think most here use a Topping DX7 amp/dac . Going up from there would be something like a Topping D90/A90 stack. Another step would be THX 789 amp with RME ADI 2 DAC Your choices gets wider if it doesn't have to match/stack together..

@ifcowscouldfly hardware eq. 4 levels - 20Hz,/400Hz,/2kHz/8kHz. 6/12db. Has a bypass switch too. Pretty decent for what it is and you can definitely hear the changes. I don't use software eq for the stack as I also use the Magni as a preamp for an active speaker. I've only ever tried using the Nahimic/Realtek built-in eq for the pc and it's pretty basic so haven't really bothered. I use a minidsp 2x4hd (hardware/software hybrid eq/crossover) for other speakers. That thing is a beast when it comes to control. I guess that too can be use if configured as : source>minidsp>dac>amp or even remove the dac altogther but it wil get tedious fast.

Can I ask why the popularity of the Focal Clears (honest question)? Are they that good? I'm a little behind on the headphone updates lately. I mean I know I took a compromise with my Sundara but to say that the Clears are 3-4x better (value/performance wise) might be a bit much. When I last tried the Clears, I found them a bit leaning on the bright side but they were pretty good. I would say they are pretty similar to the Audeze LCD-X (which I also have) and would probably be a better comparison price/value wise. Also the Hifiman Arya as well. Personally, I wouldn't tag any of these as average at best. As you can see, I'm a little bias towards Planars (I have a few of them)

Grats on the Arya. I don't want to sound 'blasphemous' but have you considered adding a Loki to your stack? At the very least, it will give you a semblance of control. I have Sundaras ran by a Modi/Loki/Magni as my home desktop driver and I just dial in (when I could be bothered) what I feel might be lacking. For U$140, it's a cheap way to experiment. The Aryas are pretty efficient @ 41 ohms so I doubt your stack lacks of power. In saying that, I just ordered the JDS Labs EL2 stack to give it a whirl (and use for the office or vice versa)

I like open back planars and have the Sundaras as my desktop headphones (ran by a schiit stack modi mb/loki/magni 3). They're reasonably price (in terms of enthusiast grade) and are easy to drive. Can't go wrong with the line up of Audezes. You can also check out Beyerdynamics 1990 pro for non planars.

Better cases tend to have a noise reduction in place (like be quiet/lian li cases). High end GPU's (like MSI gaming trio's) have their fans off when not 'in load'). Same goes for power supplies. The better/higher wattage PSU's have fans off at certain percentage of use(20/30% of max). Water pumps tend to have a low noise (across the board) but is barely noticeable for most). So far, the best place to check out low noise builds and samples is "optimum tech" in youtube. He specialises on ITX builds but has great sound comparsions for fan noise etc. It is basically a trade off between 'in case temp' versus noise. You just have to decide which one you can compromise on. Personally, I run 3 case fans running at 600+ rpm. An ek 360 rad/fan for the cpu running @ pwm with an adjusted curve. The only thing I can hear is the very low noise of the pump in a silent room. I have no experience in passive coolers.

Just a heads up on your mboard. The 970 evo is PCIe 3.0 and your board is PCIe 4.0 It won't get 4.0 speed. You could get a cheaper board like b450 for the same performance and put the money elsewhere. B450's have also already been approved for next gen compatibility (zen 3). Also, you can download windows 10 installer directly from microsoft. It will even create a usb installer for it. Then just use your key to activate. Retail keys are transferrable and OEM keys are not but it's noot really an issue when you can buy windows keys in ebay legally for 10 bucks.

Looks good. Like they said, the AMD cooler is pretty decent as is. To save more cash, you can drop the b550 and get a MSI b450 Tomahawk or carbon gaming max for savings and just pour it all in graphics cards. Don't really need PCIe 4.0 for gaming/typical desktop usage. 5700xt is only a few fps behind a 2070 but if you're chasing performance, nothing wrong with going up the ladder. It's just the price to performance gain that drops.

UserBenchmarks: CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 - 91.4% SSD: Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 375.8% SSD: Crucial MX500 2TB - 126% SSD: Crucial MX500 2TB - 123% RAM: G.SKILL F4 DDR4 3600 C16 2x16GB - 103.2% MBD: MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON MAX WIFI (MS-7B85) It keeps failing my GPU... ?

I've just built a gamng PC so specs and prices are still fresh on my head. For gaming, it basically comes down to the graphics card. The budget has to revolve around that. I recommend AMD for CPU as the 3600 is still the cheapest gaming performer out there. and already comes with a CPU cooler. 16 gig of ram (3000+ mhz) is minimum to be future safe. As for motherboard, Any B450 chipset will do. I suggest MSI Tomahawk Max. There is no need for PCIe 4.0 for drives in a gaming pc. Any 650watt power supply (gold rated ). A 500 gb NVME drive for the OS and maybe another 1 terabyte sata SSD for storage and your done. It will keep up with all games and will go atleast 2 generations/iterations before needing upgrades. So, graphics card( the most expensive part), best bang for buck is the Radeon 5700x. this will play AAA games at high/ultra settings no problem. That's the highest radeon card there is and is equivalent to a Nvidia 2070(which would be a couple of hundred dollars more). If youre willing to spend more, it's all NVIDIA from here (and there's no competition so prices go steeply up). Personally, I have a 2080 Super as I game in ultrawide. Monitor - dont bother with 4k, if they are after FPS, it has to be 1080p/1440p and at least 100hz with fast gtg(gray to gray). As for RGB lights.. RGB Fans are probably the most prominent additons as most parts will already have rgb on it. And your done. ? Hope this helps. Chris.

Hiya. I'm Chris from SA. I'm currently using desktop DAC stack for headphones with an alternate 2.1 speaker system.