how much ram do I need / is recommended

[Duomike]

Hello. I just registered and this is my first post. I have a 2009 mac mini with a ssd installed and using Audirvana plus player.

My mini only got 2 GB of ram but unit works fine even when playing 24/192 files. my friend claims that upgrading ram to 8 GB will increase sq a lot. Is that true?

 

I'm quite happy with the sound I'm getting playing pcm fles. My dac is pcm only and I let Audirvana do the conversation of dsd to pcm. Surprisingly all dsd files sound quite bad. Have brother in arms in dsd 64 and 24/96. Switching between the 2 is interesting. It's like going from color picture to black and white. Do I need a more powerful computer/more ram to make dsd files sound good or is it that these 2 formats are very different and that the converting process is adding a lot of nasties to the sound?

regards

Duomike

[Paul R]

Hello. I just registered and this is my first post. I have a 2009 mac mini with a ssd installed and using Audirvana plus player.

My mini only got 2 GB of ram but unit works fine even when playing 24/192 files. my friend claims that upgrading ram to 8 GB will increase sq a lot. Is that true?

 

I'm quite happy with the sound I'm getting playing pcm fles. My dac is pcm only and I let Audirvana do the conversation of dsd to pcm. Surprisingly all dsd files sound quite bad. Have brother in arms in dsd 64 and 24/96. Switching between the 2 is interesting. It's like going from color picture to black and white. Do I need a more powerful computer/more ram to make dsd files sound good or is it that these 2 formats are very different and that the converting process is adding a lot of nasties to the sound?

regards

Duomike

 

The computer, and the configuration of the computer, can certainly make a huge difference in the SQ you are listening to, but if it is working fine as is, adding memory is probably not going to make a significant improvement. Now, if you go to use memory play and intensive processing (up/down sampling) then memory may well improve things, sometimes a lot.

 

This might be why down sampled DSD sounds so bad to you, or it might just be you don't like that sound.

 

-Paul

[RealAudio]

Hello. I just registered and this is my first post. I have a 2009 mac mini with a ssd installed and using Audirvana plus player.

My mini only got 2 GB of ram but unit works fine even when playing 24/192 files. my friend claims that upgrading ram to 8 GB will increase sq a lot. Is that true?

 

Duomike

 

 

Memory is close to free, just upgrade.

[Duomike]

The computer, and the configuration of the computer, can certainly make a huge difference in the SQ you are listening to, but if it is working fine as is, adding memory is probably not going to make a significant improvement. Now, if you go to use memory play and intensive processing (up/down sampling) then memory may well improve things, sometimes a lot.

 

This might be why down sampled DSD sounds so bad to you, or it might just be you don't like that sound.

 

-Paul

Thanks for your reply! Will try to upgrade the ram if it is available for a 5 years old computer hoping it will make some kind of improvement.