New Year: My Best Advice In Regards To Audio is...

[esldude]

In his case, I don't think there was much of a distinction.

 

cf: For the unrepentant patriarch of LSD, long, strange trip winds back to Bay Area - SFGate

 

Thanks for the article. It was an interesting read. There is this quote:

 

"Any time the music on the radio starts to sound like rubbish, it's time to take some LSD," he says.

 

 

I guess I would need Bear as a friend (and supplier) if I was to follow his example. Or never listen to the radio again.

 

I am with him on the mono concert sound however. When you have amplification and mikes it is a must for good sound. Otherwise you get comb filtering between each speaker and each mike. Every mike is in a different location between the filters, and stopping bad sound from comb filtering and bad feedback on the mikes becomes a Godzilla sized monster. Dolphins indeed.

[rn701]

That's nice, I'm glad you enjoyed them, but what that has to do getting out and listening to live, un-amplified music or attending a symphony orchestra concert where the supposedly professional musicians play like the "Portsmouth Sinfonia"* while charging an arm and a leg for tickets, I don't know.

 

*The Portsmouth Sinfonia was an orchestra founded by a group of students at the Portsmouth School of Art in England, in 1970. The Sinfonia had an unusual entrance requirement, in that each player had to be either a non-musician or, if a musician, play an instrument that was entirely new to them. Among the founding members was one of their teachers, English composer Gavin Bryars. The orchestra started as a one-off, tongue-in-cheek performance art ensemble but became a cultural phenomenon over the following ten years, with concerts, record albums, a film and a hit single. They last performed publicly in 1979.

 

Ok, sorry. We appear to have have different tastes in music. I like all kinds of music, although I admit I haven't been to a symphony concert in many years and haven't played in one since my younger days many years before.

 

Guess I just misunderstood your original remark as being critical of live music in general. I love it. Loud, raunchy, whatever. Different strokes and all that. Cheers!

[Snowmonkey]

Ok, sorry. We appear to have have different tastes in music. I like all kinds of music, although I admit I haven't been to a symphony concert in many years and haven't played in one since my younger days many years before.

 

Guess I just misunderstood your original remark as being critical of live music in general. I love it. Loud, raunchy, whatever. Different strokes and all that. Cheers!

I've enjoyed a few loud, raunchy rock concerts myself in my time, but let's face it, most of the joy is in the atmosphere generated by the artist and the crowd. Music that's been piped through a mike and out huge speakers is hardly "live" in the listening sense. You'll very likely get a better listening experience from cranking up the same music on your home hifi. Orchestral music, along with the odd intimate jazz or folk club and street musicians, is the only source of truly "live" (ie unamplified) music these days.

[gmgraves]

Is it available?

 

 

Like I said, the San Jose Symphony never had a recording contract, so my recordings are the property of the symphony itself. I have a DAT dub of the 1/2-track, 15 ips master tape, but I do NOT have the master and I do not own rights to either the master or any dubs of the master. Legally, I probably shouldn't even have those dubs, but the symphony organization knew I have them and have never said anything. So, the answer to your question is, unfortunately, no. And I must say, I don't remember if that particular concert was broadcast or not (some were, some weren't). If it was, there might be someone out there with an air-check of the program recorded off of the radio, and of course, legally, nothing can be done about those copies.

[Snowmonkey]

Like I said, the San Jose Symphony never had a recording contract, so my recordings are the property of the symphony itself. I have a DAT dub of the 1/2-track, 15 ips master tape, but I do NOT have the master and I do not own rights to either the master or any dubs of the master. Legally, I probably shouldn't even have those dubs, but the symphony organization knew I have them and have never said anything. So, the answer to your question is, unfortunately, no. And I must say, I don't remember if that particular concert was broadcast or not (some were, some weren't). If it was, there might be someone out there with an air-check of the program recorded off of the radio, and of course, legally, nothing can be done about those copies.

Just wondering. It sounds like the sort of thing that might have ended up in the hands of High Definition Tape Transfers.

[gmgraves]

Ok, sorry. We appear to have have different tastes in music. I like all kinds of music, although I admit I haven't been to a symphony concert in many years and haven't played in one since my younger days many years before.

 

Guess I just misunderstood your original remark as being critical of live music in general. I love it. Loud, raunchy, whatever. Different strokes and all that. Cheers!

 

The "different taste in music" to which you allude is really neither here nor there. My comments were about the musicianship of a symphony orchestra, whose concerts I attend to hear live, un-amplified acoustical instruments playing in a real venue. And when I don't get what I went to the concert to hear, why, I get a little annoyed! In fact, I have walked out of symphony orchestra concerts (demanding a refund) when I enter the concert hall and see "sound reinforcement" equipment set up. It's not needed, for one thing, and for another, I usually tell the concert hall management when I encounter sound reinforcement, that I came to hear real musicians playing, not somebody's P.A. system, and that I have much better equipment at home and if I wanted to listen to speakers, I could have put on a recording of whatever was being played that evening and listened from the comfort of my own easy chair!

 

I too have a much wider musical taste than just classical. I like much post WWII jazz, big band music, folk, latin jazz (including Bossa-Nova), bluegrass, Sinatra, and other late 20th century pop singers such as Shirley Bassey, Dinah Washington et-al. It's just that I don't hold these other types of music (live or recorded) to the same standards that I hold an expensive live symphony concert.

[gmgraves]

Just wondering. It sounds like the sort of thing that might have ended up in the hands of High Definition Tape Transfers.

 

Yes, they could have. The masters were Dolby-A encoded, and sound quite spectacular (I wonder where they are now; probably sitting in someone's moldy garage or basement!). They were all recorded with a pair of Sony C-37Ps on a stereo T-bar hanging about 10 ft over, and about 15 ft behind the conductor's head with AKG C414s as accent mikes (when needed). But I always thought that the DAT dubs sounded just as good as the masters, and the CDs burned from those DATs almost as good. Certainly the CDs sounded better than anything one could buy commercially. I know 24/96 would have been really something as well, but due to the limitations of magnetic analog tape, probably actually more than a little overkill so HD analog tape transfers would probably be as close as possible to perfect copies.

[gmgraves]

I've enjoyed a few loud, raunchy rock concerts myself in my time, but let's face it, most of the joy is in the atmosphere generated by the artist and the crowd. Music that's been piped through a mike and out huge speakers is hardly "live" in the listening sense. You'll very likely get a better listening experience from cranking up the same music on your home hifi. Orchestral music, along with the odd intimate jazz or folk club and street musicians, is the only source of truly "live" (ie unamplified) music these days.

 

Amen to that, Brother!

[lmitche]

Okay... That one just makes me curious as all get out. Would you explain your reasoning there please? Unless of course, you were joking. .

 

Nope, not joking. Give it a shot.

 

PXE/ISCSI boot enabled consolidation of all boot, system and music storage for the audio and server PCs into one 4TB WD red drive.

 

LOL, yes a BIOS chip is required, so there are practical limits.

 

Removing flash devices delivered the largest step change in SQ I have ever experienced from a tweak, with a stunning improvement in richness and clarity.

[mansr]

Removing flash devices delivered the largest step change in SQ I have ever experienced from a tweak, with a stunning improvement in richness and clarity.

 

And then there are those who swear SSDs make everything sound much better in all the usual ways.

[Jud]

And then there are those who swear SSDs make everything sound much better in all the usual ways.

 

I suppose this is possible if the situations are slightly different. Where active SATA I/O is going on, and the electronics of the SSD are relatively quieter than the mechanicals and electronics of the HDD it replaces, it seems logical the SSD will be quieter. OTOH, in lmitche's situation, where SATA I/O has been pretty well eliminated, what if the SSD has high idle power consumption and relatively noisy electronics?

[mansr]

I suppose this is possible if the situations are slightly different. Where active SATA I/O is going on, and the electronics of the SSD are relatively quieter than the mechanicals and electronics of the HDD it replaces, it seems logical the SSD will be quieter. OTOH, in lmitche's situation, where SATA I/O has been pretty well eliminated, what if the SSD has high idle power consumption and relatively noisy electronics?

 

SSDs have pretty low idle power consumption. As for noise, a gigabit Ethernet interface is probably no less noisy than a SATA interface + SSD. Sometimes you can hear them without even using any audio gear. No matter what you do, computers produce a lot of electrical noise which is why DACs need good noise isolation/rejection, and when they do, reducing the computer noise by a few per cent isn't going to make much difference on the analogue output.

[lmitche]

I suppose this is possible if the situations are slightly different. Where active SATA I/O is going on, and the electronics of the SSD are relatively quieter than the mechanicals and electronics of the HDD it replaces, it seems logical the SSD will be quieter. OTOH, in lmitche's situation, where SATA I/O has been pretty well eliminated, what if the SSD has high idle power consumption and relatively noisy electronics?

 

My suspicions about flash memory noise were raised when trying various SDCARD USB adapters as boot drives. SQ varied from one adapter to another. Asked about this at RMAF John Swenson suggested it was probably the flash controller that was the noise maker. Later I reached out to Intel/Micron flash product management team. Not surprisingly, they seemed to have never considered the impacts of flash in audio applications. And while they while they have no empirical data, they also conjectured it was the controller chipsets that create the noise. They also suggested that in the normal operation of a flash device, that there is a huge amount of processing happening under the covers of this technology, on top of very complex physics.

 

Having built many desktop machines in the past, I have always used a SSD as a boot drive without thinking too much about it. We all know the benefits of using an SSD in a Windows build, given Windows promiscuous use of the system drive. Later it occurred to me that this was a type of bias, and that a HDD is plently fast enough for audio applications. So I decided to experiment. I don't want to oversell the benefits, but the results were better then expected, with a new level of clarity and focus.

 

My server and audio pc are galvanically isolated with EMOsystems ethernet isolation transformers and AC isolation transformers, secondary lifted, and seperate LPSes on the power side. Last week, the last two flash devices and SSD and EMMC were removed from the server PC. Despite the isolation, another SQ increase was observed. I was surprised at the benefit, especially considering the level of isolation in place.

 

It would be great if someone else can independently confirm this finding.

[crenca]

Ok, sorry. We appear to have have different tastes in music. I like all kinds of music, although I admit I haven't been to a symphony concert in many years and haven't played in one since my younger days many years before.

 

I for one encourage everyone to get out and see (hear) a live symphony. We had a guest cellist (can't remember her name - I could look it up) a couple of performances ago. She took a Bach piece (of all things), and literally "made it rock". Her instrument, her attitude, the music, it ROOOCCCKKKEEED!!! Really, I don't think I have been to a performance that ever ROCKED as much as this one, and I have seen my share of arena worthy "rock n roll" bands.

 

During her performance, while I was trying to stay still in my seat (as your supposed to do ) I looked around, noticed that the average age of the audience was 75 going on a 110, and thought to myself "Kids these days, if they could only put aside their $2 earbuds and lossy/compressed dumbstep and hear this!!". Alas, the vast majority of them will never know...

[Paul R]

Nope, not joking. Give it a shot.

 

PXE/ISCSI boot enabled consolidation of all boot, system and music storage for the audio and server PCs into one 4TB WD red drive.

 

LOL, yes a BIOS chip is required, so there are practical limits.

 

Removing flash devices delivered the largest step change in SQ I have ever experienced from a tweak, with a stunning improvement in richness and clarity.

 

I typically IPL most of my machines from local storage (usually a SSD) but access the music libraries either via SAN (Fibre or iSCSI) or via a network share. Keeping the music on SAN or a network server seems to provide the best sound for me. I thought I was being a little extreme with that setup!

 

-Paul

[whoozwah]

My new year audio advice (partly to myself):

 

The music is more important than the format. Go wherever gives you the most music that hits you in the soul no matter if its flac, streaming, dsd, pcm, mqa, spotify etc.

 

Also, listen to music you like regardless of the production. Dont worry so much if something is brickwall mastered or whatever. If the tunes are good to you, dont let the mastering job get in the way of enjoying them.

 

Finally, put your stereo in a communal space if at all possible. Loosen up about sweet spots and room correction etc. Invite your buds over, turn it up, crack open some cold ones and be excellent to each other. Music is to be shared

[lmitche]

I typically IPL most of my machines from local storage (usually a SSD) but access the music libraries either via SAN (Fibre or iSCSI) or via a network share. Keeping the music on SAN or a network server seems to provide the best sound for me. I thought I was being a little extreme with that setup!

 

-Paul

 

"IPL", are you a mainframe guy?

 

My server is a QNAP NAS device, that has been de-QNAPped, and is running Archlinux with a realtime kernel hosting Samba, ISCSI target, and DNSMASQ. Boot, system and Music virtual drives are stored on a single WD 4TB HDD, as are the two virtual drives (LUNs) used to boot the audiopc with Audiolinux(Archlinux) or Windows 10.

 

Well with ISCSI done already, you have the tough part of becoming "flash-less" finished already. You should give it a go. PM me if I can help in anyway.

[jabbr]

I likewise iSCSI boot my NAA but access files using SMB

[mansr]

"IPL", are you a mainframe guy?

 

My server is a QNAP NAS device, that has been de-QNAPped, and is running Archlinux with a realtime kernel hosting Samba, ISCSI target, and DNSMASQ. Boot, system and Music virtual drives are stored on a single WD 4TB HDD, as are the two virtual drives (LUNs) used to boot the audiopc with Audiolinux(Archlinux) or Windows 10.

 

Well with ISCSI done already, you have the tough part of becoming "flash-less" finished already. You should give it a go. PM me if I can help in anyway.

 

Root on NFS is considerably easier to configure, and for light load like an audio playback system performance is more than adequate.

[lmitche]

Root on NFS is considerably easier to configure, and for light load like an audio playback system performance is more than adequate.

 

Can you boot Win10 with root NFS?

[mansr]

Can you boot Win10 with root NFS?

 

No, but Arch (or any other) Linux can, and you mentioned that as well.

[lmitche]

No, but Arch (or any other) Linux can, and you mentioned that as well.

 

Thanks mansr.

[Jud]

No, but Arch (or any other) Linux can, and you mentioned that as well.

 

FreeBSD and I assume other BSDs as well, so perhaps OS X (and OS X server) also?

[Paul R]

"IPL", are you a mainframe guy?

 

My server is a QNAP NAS device, that has been de-QNAPped, and is running Archlinux with a realtime kernel hosting Samba, ISCSI target, and DNSMASQ. Boot, system and Music virtual drives are stored on a single WD 4TB HDD, as are the two virtual drives (LUNs) used to boot the audiopc with Audiolinux(Archlinux) or Windows 10.

 

Well with ISCSI done already, you have the tough part of becoming "flash-less" finished already. You should give it a go. PM me if I can help in anyway.

 

Yep - definitely have dino DNA in me, as well a dozen or so other systems, including my 9track BSD source tapes, PDP-11/45 boot programs (keyed in at the console), and so on.

 

But what I meant to say, but did not communicate clearly, is that my systems sound the same whether "booted" (IPLed) from SSD or "booted" from SAN. No difference in iSCSI or Fibre. Either of which sounds a little better to me than a spinning disk.

 

However, having said that, I cannot reliably immediatly pick out the difference between them based upon the device they are "booted" from- not in an AB/X test.

 

I can reliably say which is which after listening for a while. Little or no listening fatigue from SAN, noticeable fatigue from a local spinning disk after a couple hours. Have not pushed either one to the point at which fatigue makes me turn off the music though.

 

YMMV!!!!!

[lmitche]

FreeBSD and I assume other BSDs as well, so perhaps OS X (and OS X server) also?

 

Yes, FreeBSD and most Linux distros should have all that is needed for a flash-less boot configuration. I tried FreeNAS, Nas4free and Xopenology before settling on Archlinux for the server. These linux based server solutions all seem to need at least two devices for operation. My goal was to get to one device and that was easy to accomplish with Arch. Someone smarter than me may know how to get the NAS linux distros to run on one drive. I also find it difficult to hold the details of more then one Linux in my head at the same time. They seem to differ in the details, and the devil is definitely in there. As Arch was the incumbent, I went went with that. Arch is also very well documented. One had better be comfortable with the command line however.

 

There is something called Netboot server for Macs that should do the same as ISCSI. I have never used this.

 

The toughest thing on a MAC may be physically digging the SSDs out of the case. It seems to me that most MACs use 2.5 inch HDDs. I don't know the electrical noise signature of these drives. The 3.5 inch WD red drive seems electrically quiet, enough at least that the isolation transformers seem to be able to block the noise.

 

If you want to give this a go on two Macs, I am happy to help.