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I went back to 3.4 on Mac with 3.5 audio quality, especially at low frequencies worse

similar experience?

 

Friends from a local forum pointed out differences between 3.5 and earlier code. Unfortunately I'm in the middle of a dac swap, so I have a limited playout system based on MacBookPro Retina and a pait of Sennheiser Momentum headphones … I did a try with some HD tracks, jazz in a club environment … With 3.5 background details are more evident and instruments are more precise, while with 3.4.0b6 all is smoother.

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

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  • 1 month later...
Miska do you have an image for a BeagleBones setup?

 

I used BeagleBoneBlack as NAA connected to an M2Tech EVO usb>spdif key ...

 

I sold BBB to move to another board but at this point of time I'm still unable to have a working setup.

 

If you need the BBB files let me know I can post them somewhere to DropBox ...

 

Have a nice day. Massimiliano

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
... The new tweak today was fibre optic isolation of the NAA's network interface using Fibre Media Converters ...

 

This is an application that interest me as well ...

 

My ideal NAA should have a fiber optic interconnection to the processing unit, in addition to galvanic isolation benefits, I think a F.O. cable is also definitely better than a CATx STP Ethernet cable.

 

My only concerns refers to a couple of points:

 

- Jitter introduced by poor optic/electric conversion at NAA side

- How to power the converter at the processing unit. Is there any USB powered converter ?

 

Have a nice day. Massimiliano

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  • 2 months later...
...

Here are our noise measurements illustrating the effects of using Galvanic isolation...

 

I'm more and more convinced that a serious audiophile with good digital playout in mind, should start acquiring oscilloscope, probes and measurement skills before any of audio equipment ... :-)

 

Please guys start a new thread " The Audiophile basic measurement test setup - How to know you setup is really performing as expected "

 

Have a nice day. Massimiliano

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Just noticed 3.8.1 doesn't work with my Mac OS X 10.7.5 ... This is dump info.

 

I loaded again 3.6.2b3 and it perfectly works.

 

Hope useful. Have a nice day. Massimiliano

 

 

Process: launchd [14291]

Path: /Applications/HQPlayerDesktop.app/Contents/MacOS/HQPlayerDesktop

Identifier: Signalyst.${PRODUCT_NAME:rfc1034identifier}

Version: ??? (???)

Code Type: X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process: launchd [179]

 

Date/Time: 2015-08-14 09:39:50.268 +0200

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7.5 (11G63)

Report Version: 9

 

Interval Since Last Report: 8780154 sec

Crashes Since Last Report: 30

Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 4

Anonymous UUID: E5E72F47-5D11-468E-9627-68C4B651D78A

 

Crashed Thread: Unknown

 

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00007fff5fc01028

 

Backtrace not available

 

Unknown thread crashed with X86 Thread State (64-bit):

rax: 0x0000000000000055 rbx: 0x0000000000000000 rcx: 0x0000000000000000 rdx: 0x0000000000000000

rdi: 0x0000000000000000 rsi: 0x0000000000000000 rbp: 0x0000000000000000 rsp: 0x0000000000000000

r8: 0x0000000000000000 r9: 0x0000000000000000 r10: 0x0000000000000000 r11: 0x0000000000000000

r12: 0x0000000000000000 r13: 0x0000000000000000 r14: 0x0000000000000000 r15: 0x0000000000000000

rip: 0x00007fff5fc01028 rfl: 0x0000000000010203 cr2: 0x00007fff5fc01028

Logical CPU: 2

 

Binary images description not available

 

 

External Modification Summary:

Calls made by other processes targeting this process:

task_for_pid: 1

thread_create: 0

thread_set_state: 0

Calls made by this process:

task_for_pid: 0

thread_create: 0

thread_set_state: 0

Calls made by all processes on this machine:

task_for_pid: 13730

thread_create: 0

thread_set_state: 0

 

Model: MacBookPro8,1, BootROM MBP81.0047.B27, 2 processors, Intel Core i5, 2.4 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 1.68f99

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000, Intel HD Graphics 3000, Built-In, 512 MB

Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x029E, 0x434D5341344758334D314131333333433920

Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 4 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x029E, 0x434D5341344758334D314131333333433920

AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0xD6), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.198.19.22)

Bluetooth: Version 4.0.8f17, 2 service, 11 devices, 1 incoming serial ports

Network Service: Ethernet, Ethernet, en0

Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en1

Serial ATA Device: TOSHIBA MK5065GSXF, 500,11 GB

Serial ATA Device: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-898

USB Device: hub_device, 0x0424 (SMSC), 0x2513, 0xfa100000 / 3

USB Device: BRCM2070 Hub, 0x0a5c (Broadcom Corp.), 0x4500, 0xfa110000 / 5

USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, apple_vendor_id, 0x821a, 0xfa113000 / 7

USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, apple_vendor_id, 0x0252, 0xfa120000 / 4

USB Device: FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in), apple_vendor_id, 0x8509, 0xfa200000 / 2

USB Device: hub_device, 0x0424 (SMSC), 0x2513, 0xfd100000 / 2

USB Device: IR Receiver, apple_vendor_id, 0x8242, 0xfd110000 / 3

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
Yes with non-DoP (raw DSD) and recent driver versions it should work fine. Or Debian Stretch out of the box, or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with my patched kernel and libasound2.

 

Nice to know. I should receive my new JLsounds DAC soon, so I will try again to install a NAA unit based on Acmesystems Acqua A5 board.

 

Have a nice day. Massimiliano

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  • 4 weeks later...
... although Macs are a bit tricky on that front because Apple has been using all three GPU brands on their products and obviously those cannot be changed or extended because they don't make machines with PCIe slots anymore. Apple's newest lineup seems to be Intel and AMD graphics (cheaper?).

 

Yes, my current rMBP use an Intel Iris Pro GPU while the previous one was an NVIDIA GT650M ...

 

The idea to offload some computation tasks is definitely great, and laptops should greatly benefits from that more than a desktop platforms. Grab a very powerful desktop computer it's easier that find a laptop with similar characteristics. As an example I'm quite sure my super expensive rMPB (11,4 model quad core i7 2.2GHz) can't up-sample a RB 16/44 to DSD256 ...

 

Based on recent comment it looks that my current choice is to move to a Windows based laptop as Asus/Lenovo P ... :-(

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

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CUDA offload is also working here with my ASUS G501 jw.

 

I saw you own a MacBookPro 2.3 Quad -i7, could you please briefly describe the performance comparison of MBP vs. Asus G501 ?

 

I own a rMBP 11,4 2.2GHz quad -i7 and I'm quite sure I cannot upsample 16/44 to DSD256, so I'm trying to understand a possible alternative laptop platform that combines decent characteristics for business usage and enough power for music processing.

 

Thanks in advance, Massimiliano

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I just managed to optimize the closed-form a bit further. Now, on Linux, it runs just fine to DSD512 on Xeon E5v3 + Quadro K620. GPU load peaks at 98% ...

 

What's the suggested rule for GPU selection on laptop ?

 

GeForce shows overall better computing performances but for CAD Quadro is suggested.

 

So, it should be better a Quadro K4000M (3.0) or a GTX965M (5.2) ?

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

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Probably it is JRiver's buffer, not the CoreAudio's hardware buffer... The setting in HQPlayer refers to the hardware buffer size.

 

With my rMBP mid 2012 I was able to set buffer size while with the latest rMBP 11,4 I just bought, that option disappeared ... I experienced myself chop audio even with easy operation for the processor ( DSD > PCM ) ...

 

I'm currently using laptop dac so I'm not sure if this behavior will shows with a real usb dac instead of the internal one.

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

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  • 3 weeks later...
... I cannot seem to get it to play in non DoP, and am limited to DSD128...

 

I just power on the JLsounds DAC/IF and I've some comments to add:

 

- As you mentioned I can't play non-DoP method with OSX and Linux as well (to be honest I would have expected a different behavior with Linux environment)

- With OSX mute isn't inserted between DSD traces but only when whole disk stops (I've a mute circuit based on relay)

- With Linux mute is inserted between every DSD trace

 

Miska, is the difference expected ?

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

 

OSX = El Capitan

Linux = Mint 17.2 with 4.2.5 Kernel

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AFAIK, you should be able to use native in Linux with the right distro or additions.

 

Yep, you and bibo01 pointed me simultaneously to my mistake ... I currently run Linux Mint 17.2 that's based on Trusty that doesn't include natively DSD code for non-DoP. Later I will try to install the required code.

 

I also did another verification on "mute" behavior with HQP on both OSX and Linux and "mute" is triggered on both systems on every DSD track change. A user gave me a comment that JLsounds + Win + Foobar doesn't show this issue. Miska, do you think it's related to HQP command ?

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

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I have updated packages for Trusty to add support for non-DoP...

 

Thanks Miska. Yesterday I tried to understand how to install the packages you mentioned for Trusty but no luck; then I downloaded latest Debian Stretch image and I did a clean install on a separate Hard Disks and I verified that HQP non-DoP perfectly works with JLsounds USB interface.

 

Unfortunately with my laptop Lenovo T410 with NVIDIA NVS3100M I can verify DSD64 only due to the fact that CPU and Graphic Card are under specs.

 

In addition I noticed Debian Stretch has higher CPU impact than Linux Mint, so for the moment I'm back to Trusty with DoP.

 

Is there any guideline to install packages for Trusty ?

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

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... If you are planning to HQPlayer, you could try Ubuntu Studio 15.10 Wily Werewolf:

Download Ubuntu Studio « Ubuntu Studio

 

It is very light weight GUI (XFCE) and you shouldn't need to install extra packages in order to run HQPlayer non-DoP (new enough kernel and libasound2). But I'm not 100% sure if the kernel is new enough to have JLsounds support.

 

On Trusty you need to install my patched linux-image, linux-headers and libasound2.

 

Ubuntu Studio 15.10 works. I'm able to play non-DoP DSD stream with JLsounds USB card, I tried with DSD256 upsampling as well and I was able to see DSD256 on DAC display but then my poor i5 can't really stream the file to life.

 

Nice test. I will try to do the same with Linux Mint 17.2

 

Have a nice day. Massimiliano

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...

For Gungnir DAC bits must be set to 18 and for Bifrost MB it must be set to 16. Otherwise you get incorrect and suboptimal results...

 

What about JLsounds, it's a AK4490 based unit, so I set it to 32 bits ... is it right ?

 

Have nice day. Massimiliano

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....

 

If you are planning to HQPlayer, you could try Ubuntu Studio 15.10 Wily Werewolf:

Download Ubuntu Studio « Ubuntu Studio

 

It is very light weight GUI (XFCE) and you shouldn't need to install extra packages in order to run HQPlayer non-DoP (new enough kernel and libasound2). But I'm not 100% sure if the kernel is new enough to have JLsounds support.

 

On Trusty you need to install my patched linux-image, linux-headers and libasound2.

 

I did a short test with OPTION-A Ubuntu Studio 15.10 and JLSounds I2S/DAC pair works and I was able to read DSD256 on LCD panel.

 

In general the sound doesn't convince me and CPU usage was higher than expected, so I ended up with your OPTION-B:

 

- Linux Mint 17.3 cinnamon

- LowLatency 4.4 Wily Kernel patch

- Your alsa, lib* patches for Trusty

 

non-DoP perfectly works, CPU% usage is lower than Ubuntu Studio and sound is very good (better than my super expensive MacBookPro Retina 11,4 just bought)

 

Thanks Miska as always

 

Have a nice day, Massimiliano

 

PS. I have an issue with mute behavior when JLsounds is set to direct DSD but I need to further investigate

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Question to all you HQ geeks: what is the minimum Geekbench score to safely allow PCM>DSD 256 or even 512 without hiccups? I need to score a new Mac to run HQ....

 

I just run my 1st DSD256 test with:

 

Processing = MacBookPro 11,4 i7 2.2GHz, El Capitan 10.11.2, HQPlayer 3.12 (no tuning)

NAA = Lenovo T410 i5, Linux Mint 17.3 (no tuning)

DAC = JLsounds AKM4490 with JLsounds I2overUSB I/F

 

PCM16/44 to DSD256 non-DoP > ~ 33-35% CPU (no pipeline SDM / closed-form / DSD257+fs)

DSD64 to DSD256 non-DoP > ~18-20% CPU (no pipeline SDM / closed-form / DSD257+fs)

 

Some comments:

 

- pipeline SDM doesn't work with my system and HQP 3.12 (unable to play any file ... dunno why)

- I experienced some rare dropouts (tried to tune buffer to 100mSec but sometimes still occur ... need to investigate)

- MacBookPro at stable 30% usage doesn't spin fans too fast, so noise is definitely good

 

Hope useful. Have a nice day. Massimiliano

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