HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[craighartley]

Miska, could you advise me which of the 2 processors would be the best choice for Windows-based NAA: Intel Core i3-5010U / Intel Core i5-5250U ?

See also http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/845/Intel_Core_i3_Mobile_i3-5010U_vs_Intel_Core_i5_Mobile_i5-5250U.html

[craighartley]

I'm not Miska (Jussi) but my Windows NAA is a low power Atom processor (aka Caps Carbon) with a JCAT USB card and battery-powered SSD. Its fantastic. The goal of the NAA is not big power/heavy lifting, but instead quiet minimalist design, as NAA box only runs a FIFO/buffer (networkaudiod.exe) and dac driver. I also have two other NAAs (microRendu and exaSound's Playpoint for the exaSound dacs). Both are somewhat minimalist designs.

 

Ted, Thanks. I get the quiet minimalist point. I already have the PlayPoint for the exaSound, but was wondering about running a Windows NAA for passing on 512DSD to the T&A 8 DSD. But I want to get something as off the peg as possible and was looking at Fanless NUCs. I do worry about the USB quality though without a specialist audio card. Also, how much RAM is needed do you think?

Thanks again

Craig

[craighartley]

Specialist audio card: SOtM makes an external (cleanup USB connection) box that serves the same function as their internal USB cards.

 

Have you considered something like one of these as a windows NAA:

 

https://www.amazon.com/VENSMILE-Windows-Desktop-Compute-Computer/dp/B01AD8F1NE

https://www.amazon.com/Fanless-Desktop-Windows-BayTrail-Bluetooth/dp/B00SGMLN1O

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FS6SIUE?psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CJFZZ76?psc=1

 

Don't know anything about them, it's just occurred to me something like this would be good for just that purpose, as long as it had some "cleanup" between it's USB output and the USB input on the DAC.

 

Thanks, yes those are the kind of thing I'm now considering, although I'm in the UK so the choices available are not the same. I'm still dubious about the external USB clean-up though.

[craighartley]

Hi Miska - iFi micro-iDSD. I don't think this is the problem. My guess is the remaining noise is ground noise. Today I received the network isolator and put it into the downstairs system, not using the NAA, and my wife immediately said "I don't know what you did, but it sounds really good." (And it does. )

 

Sorry if you've said this, but I can't see it in the thread: what sort of network isolator, and where in the system?

[craighartley]

Hi Craig. This is *not* (so far) with the NAA in the system. It's a Baaske Medical network isolator, and the configuration is:

 

eero router -> Blue Jeans cat6a -> Baaske isolator -> Blue Jeans cat6a -> MacBook Pro Ethernet input

 

Thanks Jud.

[craighartley]

You can connect one port of the switch to the router's local side port. That way it is only involved in the configuration stage, but not in any actual audio related traffic (unless you play Tidal from the internet).

 

BT router works fine for this (I have latest model)

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[craighartley]

You can set IP of each device from the 192.168.1.x network, leave the .1 unused (usually router/gateway), but from .2 onwards, assign each device a different IP address. Netmask is 255.255.255.0. In this case, leave gateway and name server (DNS) addresses out, since you don't have one.

 

 

 

You can connect one port of the switch to the router's local side port. That way it is only involved in the configuration stage, but not in any actual audio related traffic (unless you play Tidal from the internet).

 

By default BT router has IP address 192.168.1.254

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[craighartley]

No, the protocol relies on similar multicast-based auto-discovery as UPnP and various Apple protocols (Bonjour) like the printer discovery. Typically NAA devices are intended to be plug-and-play black boxes using DHCP, that is why.

 

Miska,

Related to this. In my case there is no problem except that I can't rename the NAA in HQPlayer. It calls it 'default' and when I try to change the name it just reverts to 'default'. Is this something to do with a setting on the NAA? (Windows 10 Pro for both main PC and NAA).

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[craighartley]

Renaming is only supported on Linux. On windows there's the included networkaudiod_name.bat that is intended for starting up the daemon. Just edit the .bat file to change the name...

 

Note! Anybody who has more than one NAA it is critical to name NAA's properly, two NAA's with same name will be confused to each other and cause all kinds of weird problems that happen nondeterministically.

 

Where do I find the networkaudiod_name.bat file?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[craighartley]

Here: https://www.signalyst.eu/bins/naa/windows/

 

Thanks. But what do I do with it when I've edited the name?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[craighartley]

31 minutes ago, Solstice380 said:

 

@Guf Gufler I've gotten that message on Win NAA when the computer just doesn't connect correctly to the DAC.  Sometimes I've had to do the "restart everything" routine to get proper listing/recognition of the PCM and DSD formats.  I have to have my Lampi DAC up and running, if using a REGEN or other get that started, and then start the NUC NAA.

Same here. It happens quite frequently. Sometimes unplugging and replugging the USB lead to the DAC will solve it, but usually I end up rebooting NAA with HQPlayer closed on main pc and then re-open HQPlayer.

[craighartley]

31 minutes ago, cat6man said:

hi jussi

can we get an NAA 4.0 image build for cubox, which in the past has covered both Rendu and TotalDAC streamers?

cheers

+1