The role of RAM & published SPECS

[Albrecht]

What role does RAM, processor speed/power, etc. have to play in some of the digital file players/network file players we've seen come out recently? Do you think that some manufacturers are diminishing the role of hardware in lieu of their player app? Some manufacturers have "custom" mainboards, no or limited USB bus, no PCI bus etc..

 

I am writing mostly about NUCs and NAAs and somewhat network file players: haven't we seen some better performance from some of these devices that are loaded up with 4GB (and more) of RAM as opposed to 512MB? Some other players don't have gigabit NICs.

 

I know that I have raised several questions here, but, - I am curious if some of these performance issues that we're seeing from some of these devices isn't due to inadequate hardware elements?

[Jabs1542]

I'm not even remotely an expert here but it seems you would need to distinguish the difference between rendering/streaming (which is perfectly suitable for a small NUC acting as a NAA) versus media player and upsampling (these are other duties that require horsepower, so to speak). As an example, HQPlayer and JRiver both have hardware requirements and warn you about less than adequate horsepower (I should probably be coining this as CPUpower).

[CR250]

With regards to memory, I've read in several different places that memory speed makes little to no difference in PC performance. You do need quality memory, and enough to do the job, but spending more on faster memory isn't worth the extra price. I've never done any type of testing to verify this, but it does seem reasonable.

[Albrecht]

With regards to memory, I've read in several different places that memory speed makes little to no difference in PC performance. You do need quality memory, and enough to do the job, but spending more on faster memory isn't worth the extra price. I've never done any type of testing to verify this, but it does seem reasonable.

 

Thanks for posting. Yeah, - I was speaking more about some of the stand alone players, I guess that I should've been more specific: The Aurender N100, Sim Mind, Bryston, Auralic, Accustic Arts etc.

 

Few of these companies publish their RAM specs, or processor or any specs. I know that part of Bryston's "upgrade" with the BDP-2 was to add more RAM to 2GB. And with PCs/MACs running player apps like Amarra, and Pure Music, there new versions are recommending 8GBs of RAM. If the software sits on the file player, (and loads/queues up songs into RAM), seems that more RAM would benefit performance. I found out, (through some persistence that the Aries Mini only has 512MB of RAM).

 

I guess the only real answer is to compare. I really want to see this stuff published, as IMO, and IME, hardware is still very, very, important when it comes to high end audio playback.

[jabbr]

Hard to say. I think at best this is a tweak that should come *after* you mostly have the rest of your system optimized.

 

I do find benefit in the HQplayer/NAA approach, and in this case a low powered CPU can be used e.g. Celeron. I use the ASRock Q1900M myself.