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Most of our suggestions have to do with reducing electronic noise and potential effects on the digital data itself. A cable from your computer to DAC carries noise along with digital data. Thus the concern about noise makers...a spinning drive or USB circuit, or noise getting to the USB chip in the DAC, or power supply.....
Better memory play keeps the drive quieter when you have a spinning drive like I do, so enough memory is important. Also opening only Audirvana, leaving the drive and memory as little to do otherwise as possible. Set the preferences for Audirvana to dominate the computer, limiting unnecessary system stuff.
Also noise related, for many DACs the USB cable makes a big difference, and if the DAC USB chip gets its 5v from the computer, this can be another area to isolate with a linear USB power supply. A point of good USB cables is to get the digital data through with the least interference from electronic noise, and to reduce the transmission of noise.
A lot of people who have looked really closely at this (if not using a dedicated server that is tweaked for you) have decided that the Mac Mini is the best stock computer for music, and not by intention from Apple necessarily. The heavy aluminum case, used for quiet/fanless heat dissipation reduces fan noise, and also reduces vibration, a killer for all audio stuff. It also uses all quality circuits to reduce heat, and cooler circuit parts are less noisy in general. Also, Apple figured out that using better parts causes less warranty issues, so less physical and phone support.
Even so I use vibration reducing feet, and weight on the Mini, and I could hear things get deeper and more solid when I did this. I isolated the USB power to the DAC with a USB power supply...big difference with my particular DAC, though orangecrush, who I trust the way he listens, had no effect on his DAC with the same unit. Presumably his DAC is somehow using clean power to the USB chip.
I use an external Firewire drive known to be quiet for music files, also being a separate buss from the DAC USB, reducing electronic noise. And more subtle, but if your system is very revealing, you can even hear different commercial FW cables...again, presumably electronic noise or not...also vibration reduction helps a little on the drive.
I use all uncompressed AIFF files ripped with error correction by an app called XLD.
Audirvana has never suited me...it sounds a little colored to me, an interpretation of "analog." But most people really like it. With Audirvana and Pure Music, I prefer to use iTunes as interface and library since it is a standard no matter how the player apps change. And these apps take over the player and library functions, so it is mostly just a convenient interface as far as I know.
But finally, if you get a computer totally worked out, I suppose it is possible that you will still like the PWT the way it is cabled, voiced etc. An optimized computer setup will give you clean file data, but it seems possible that the unaffected files will not sound as good to you as the way the PWT pulls data and transfers it.
To test your computer I would first check the Audirvana preferences and make sure all is set well. And check around on computeraudiophile or other forums to see if your DAC is one that benefits from a good USB cable and/or a USB power supply. But remember all the guys addicted to saying cables don't matter will likely be part of the equation, so you have to dig. The 1's and 0's argument is simply not true if your system is revealing and you can hear well. Even many of the bigtime DAC companies, using ASYNC and other means of cleaning the stuff from the USB cable will recommend quality USB cables. I would be very surprised if a good cable would not help, and this could be a primary difference from the PWT the way it is cabled. Also, after getting these sorted, compare it on battery versus plugged in just to see. If you have a backup Firewire or Thunderbolt drive, it could be good to hear a few tracks fed from it using an alternate port from the DAC. Or if you just have USB, an external drive still could help.
And finally, this is a whole other thing, but something to keep in the back of the mind if you end up liking a computer...EQ
With Pure Music, it is easy to set up very sophisticated EQ if you want to, in effect digitally mastering your collection for your system/room. I started using this to cut low bass I could not get with the bass traps I have. But later started measuring the room, and adjusting across teh spectrum, and this has become a main reason for me to use a computer.
If purism is to get the most from your system, this can be an amazing tool. If purism is to instead EQ entirely with room treatment, gear, tubes and cables....all of these will shift the EQ and resolution, but to "get there" completely by these means is a lot of work in most rooms.
I have done all that, and adding low-key EQ in the right places to fine-tune, at least if your room does not need crazy amounts of EQ to help it, it notches up the whole to quite another level transparently. By evening up bumps and valleys the benefits to the sound can be pretty amazing, especially with really minor tastes tweaks added for flavor.
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