A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

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Guys, can you please help me get working roon + hqplayer on one PC(Win10, two ethernet PCI-E devices) with direct connect of mR.

I tried many times, the same problem, PC doesnt see mR in NAA mode. In RoonReady it works fine, roon sees it without a problem.

The best result i got, when i add static IP to bridge with subnet different to gateway. Gateway is 192.168.0.x, ip of bridge 192.168.1.xx. Then i see mR in NAA on iMac, connected to router via wifi and to this router connected PC via ethernet cable. But then PC doesnt have internet connection and of course it doesnt see mR

 

As i understood i have to give to mR ip from another subnet during the bridge mode, but its impossible, as windows gives an option to adjust IP of a bridge and do other magic by itself.

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I'm using Win 10 as well. No need to set separate subnet.

Onboard LAN to router (DHCP)

PCIe LAN to mR (DHCP) then add both of this to form a network bridge (DHCP)

Attach a WiFi dongle then add it to the bridge.

Then HQPlayer should be able to find mR in NAA mode and play.

You may now eject the dongle.

 

Never try roon. Hope this method helps. I tried to used DHCP server in Win10 but didn't work out.

Ok, can you write more detailed?

So i connected mR and router to PC, created bridge, assigned static IP to this bridge, then added wifi dongle, connected it to router and added to bridge. Are these steps correct? As before on another computer i HQPlayer sees mR, but PC with mR doesnt see it.

Did you assign static IPs to all of them separately? Should there be some rule?

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Big thanks to clipper, now my PC sees directly connected mR in NAA mode!

So what i did.

I plugged mR to PC, PC to router via ethernet, i also plugged wifi usb adapter to PC and connected PC with router via wifi (installed all drivers and checked connection). Then chose all of them and created bridge, rebooted PC and mR, then added static IP to bridge.

Rebooted again. Now i see mR on PC.

But i realized, if i remove wifi adaptor, no longer HQPLayer sees mR, but if i turn off wifi in menu, music still works, so wifi adaptor will be connected there forever!

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Glad to see that your system is now working. Clipper helped me as well.

You may even eject and remove the WiFi adapter. HQP still works. You may check if this sounds better :-)

You may disable the LAN that connected to the router as well. HQP still works for at least two hours (see my earlier post) and a total isolation from the router and the WiFi dongle is possible. You may check if this sound better :-)

This is fun :-)

But if your system restarts, you need to setup the bridge again :-( but it just take 2 minutes. What I did was to enable the LAN before shutting down Win10 and reinsert the WiFi adapter just before starting up Win10. The bridge will be re-built automatically so far.

 

Cheers.

Enjoy.

Thanks for suggestions, greenleo!

 

I tried to remove the wifi adaptor, doesnt work for me, HQPlayer is loosing mR, but its really funny, as i turned off wifi for this adaptor and just kept it in usb plug and it works And as i have raid on that PC i cant isolate it from network, but im still thinking to buy sonicTransporter and NAS, maybe i will get even better SQ.

 

Best wishes.

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Did anyone test sotm/microrendu connected to PC with linear PSU and standard PSU, is there any advantages in SQ?

Im going to build PC in fanless case, which could do DSD512 upsample in HQPlayer + Roon, and dont know if it makes sense to invest in linear PSU for PC. For now i use standard PC with directly connected microRendu + uptone LPS-1 PSU

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romaz, imitche, thanks guys for detailed answers!

I will put into my wishlist some most expensive PC PSUs, like Seasonic.

 

I also found HDPLEX Fanless 400W ATX Linear Power Supply with Modular ATX Output

But...800 bucks, i guess its too much))

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yeah, go for the full 3.5" HDD, that's what I would do with a HQP server.

I may missed something, why do you suggest 3.5HDD? I see everywhere people suggest to go with ssd and if possible even with m.2 ssd.

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Look at these ripple specs. Seasonic Prime 850W Review

Looks like seasonic 650 even better, but got 9.5 just because of cables.

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On 3/21/2017 at 10:34 PM, lmitche said:

I found the power supply upgrade notes from last year:

 

"FWIW, I have replaced the 400 watt fanless Seasonic ATX power supply with a 1600 watt EVGA ATX power supply priced at $400. This is total overkill, but the ripple specs are less than 15 uv and there is an audible increase in SQ. It comes with a 12 gauge power cord and very heavy ATX, CPU, and SSD cabling. The difference in SQ was immediate with a lower noise floor, more detail and better PRAT. Hifial bought the same power supply on my recommendation."

Sorry was on vacation in Rome and missed most of the discussion here

So is it still valuable to buy 1600 watt EVGA ATX, considering a fantastic results of Seasonic Prime titanium 750/850 watt?

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33 minutes ago, lmitche said:

To my knowledge no one has done an a to b comparison of the EVGA vs. the Seasonic.  Nevertheless I know people with one or the other that are very happy with their choice.

As i understood from EVGA review, one of it benefits of it are cables (motherboard and AC). I think would be great to buy cables with the same quality for motherboard + good AC cable:

 

 

With AC cable its easier, there are a lot of them on the market, but motherboard cable, can you guys suggest some audiophile one or just with great quality?!

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36 minutes ago, Peter_T said:

Recently CAT asked on the Jplay forum about an audiophile ethernet card. Marcin (Jplay/Jcat) answered that they will start to sell an ethernet card (2 ports) with femto-clock in May.

Thanks for sharing,  but i still do feel it makes sense to spend $1k on mR/sotm + LPS-1 and then spend 2-3 times more to build true audiophile PC

 

I decided to stick to good PC parts (like titanium PSU, intel ethernet cards, good cables), but not spend $400 for each part of PC and at the end have $5k PC.

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i meant DONT feel it makes sense)

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Anyone tried to compare sotm/mRendu with pinkfaun i2s pci-e?

Instead of connect

PC -> ethernet -> sotm/mRendu -> usb DAC to

PC -> pindfaun i2s -> i2s DAC. 

 

Ive heard usually usb worse then i2s in modern DACs and sotm/mRendu cant fix that, they only can send best possible signal to DAC via usb.

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Im waiting for the similar solution, JCAT Net femto card with two ethernet plugs and clock.

 

Btw, wanted to ask, if anyone tried to use mR with linux music PC instead of windows, would it give any SQ improvements?

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Guys, some time ago we discussed PSUs for music PC. And i decided to stick to seasonic titanium 850w psu. But now im planning to get more equipment. I want to feed my ssd with linear psu and also i want to buy that jcat ethernet nic and feed it also with linear psu. So i was thinking to buy j2 uptone psu, which is near 1100 euro, but then recalled that there is hd-plex 400w linear psu on the market, with which i can feed all my pc, motherboard, ssd and ethernet all together, and it costs 750 euro and i also can sell seasonic for near 200 euro. What would you suggest? Maybe some other psus? I dont know what is better in my situation. I also thought to buy more Lps-1, but this nic needs 2A for proper work. 

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3 hours ago, rickca said:

Where did you see that the JCAT NIC requires 2A?

I talked to @Marcin_gps 

if nic will work on gigabit speed with two ports, it needs 2A.

 

2 hours ago, ElviaCaprice said:

Do some searching in this thread.  PS have been thoroughly discussed.   My opinion is this is the one area not to slouch on.  Great PS's hold their value and make a big difference in SQ.  Any component add on/replacement must take into consideration the PS.  

Thus, a 5V 2A component is doa, since I wouldnt have the proper supply to feed it, like an LPS-1.  Any ATX component is doa, since there is no great PS to feed it.  I would keep the Seasonic until your ready to change out the atx mobo for a 12V mobo.  HD Plex would be a sideways movement.

If i stay with seasonic, is j2 good enough, or what would you suggest? And what do you mean under "12v mobo"?

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what a crazy setup)) can you explain why did you decide to go in this way.

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Guys, can you suggest me what to do. 

I use HDPlex H5 case for my music PC. There are installed thin mini ITX mother board with JCAT net card and 1 ssd. So the half of the case is empty. On that case i put microRendu with LPS-1 and berkeley converter. Also i bought HDPlex LPSU 200W and feed with it motherboard, ssd and JCAT net card.

 

I want to reduce amount of boxes/cases in my setup (for at least hide them), so im thinking to put LPS-1 and microrendu inside the PC case, and feed LPS-1 with HDPlex LPSU along with music PC, ssd and JCAT. So i will exclude one noise PSU, which i used for LPS-1.

 

Then i would have free space on the PC case, i would put HDPlex LPSU on PC case and order for some custom very short cables, instead of default ones.

 

But i have few concerns about this idea.

1. Will motherboard influence somehow microrendu with its EMI noise? Should i add some metal fence between motherboard and microRendu? 

2. The same question about HDPlex LPSU, is that ok, that i put it so close to motherboard and microrendu? Maybe better to order longer cables and put this LPSU as far as possible from PC?

 

What do you think about that?

Thanks

 

 

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7 hours ago, Bruce Orr said:

Ok, guys. As a newbie, I could use a little coaching. I'm waiting for my ISO Regen to arrive and will have to make the same tuff decisions about where things go in the chain. I don't know what 'tX' or 'sMS' or some of the other short-hand abbreviations are so can't figure out how to apply to my system. 

 

So pls tell me what to change in my system below to get to your "agreed" and ""preferred" SQ sequence:

-Ethernet>ultraRendu (powered by LSP-1)>

-USPC USB A>B adapter (comes with ISO Regen) >

- ISO REGEN (powered by LSP-1) >

- Lush USB cable >

- DAC (Simaudio Moon 280D)

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Your IR is in right place, the main idea for IR is to provide the cleanest power to device, which consumes power from usb cable. Im going to do the same for my converter, as the power from mRendu/uRendu is already polluted and your dac(my converter in my setup) is getting dirty power, which of course has influence on SQ.

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15 hours ago, afrancois said:

I received my 3 sheets of 3M AB5100SHF-210X297 today and used them around the sMS-200 ultra, MC3+ USB and even under some of my LPS-1’s with very good results.

I’m so satisfied that I immediately ordered extra 5 sheets. I still got a lot of equipment that could potentially benefit from this miracle paper. DAC’s, power amplifiers and headphone amplifier.

Perhaps not everybody will benefit as much as I do. Most of my equipment is in the garage and it seems a rather noisy environment.
 

Can you provide some photos, how it looks like?

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As Jcat started to sell their Jcat net cards with clocks, i immediately bought one for my music PC. And for now I use it in bridged mode. First lan port for ultraRendu and second one for router. With two working lans it consumes more than LPS-1 can provide, so i use HDPlex LPSU for Jcat card and music PC.

 

But I spent some time with linux configuration and i found the way how to fully isolate ultrarendu from internet/router.

With that I want to achieve 3 aims:

 

1. Less noise from Jcat itself and from external devices to Jcat card

Actually the only reason, why we need access to internet for ultrarendu (to make it visible for external devices) is to give to it an IP address.

For that we built bridge, which is a wrong way. As we mix signals from external very noisy devices (router/switch) with clean (what we are trying to have) signals internally in one card.

And i dont want to connect directly router to Jcat card even through pink faun lan isolator or any other isolator.

 

And another issue is that Jcat card consumes more current and: heats more, more noisy etc and as a result has worse SQ.

Once we use one port, we will get better SQ itself from Jcat card and in addition we will cut noise from router, which is getting into Jcat card.

 

2. Use LPS-1 as PSU, which is better than HDPlex

Once we use only one port on Jcat card, it will consume less or near 1A, which can provide LPS-1. 

 

3. Possible use music PC without internet at all 

Roon wont work for now, but HQPlayer still works. Maybe later Roon will add offline license validation, then we can use Roon offline, maybe partially offline, i mean to have some online validation once in a week or day, i will write to them with this idea. But then the issue is a control, but i can live with some small screen, which connected to music PC, which i can turn on and turn off (one of the ways to control).

 

So for now, i have working ultrarendu without internet on linux, i provide IP for it locally from PC its connected, i installed there DHCP server with different subnet comparing to my router.

And i use one Jcat card port only. Win-win!  

 

The only issue i have is the internet connection, for that i use builtin lan on motherboard and i still fighting with configuration. Internet doesnt work properly, so i cant use Roon so far  

 

I may share configuration later, once i have working solution. If someone already have this working, let me know pls!

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@Forehaven Guys, you misunderstood me. I have bridge solution now, i have jcat net card with two lan ports and also +1 lan on motherboard. 3 lans in total. I dont need more lans, but i want:

1. Use only 1 lan of Jcat card, i explained why

2. I want to use motherboard lan just for Roon work, but maybe i will go with offline solution (but just for tests, i like Roon and use Tidal)

3. I dont want to use a bridge mode. I want to isolate ultrarendu from external network, as it doesnt need network to work, only Roon needs network to communicate with remote controls.

 

I expect SQ improvements from this next level configuration

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The best is berkeley usb converter  

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Hmm, i didnt know they had such a product. 

I read about (didnt hear in person) Singxer SU-1 is good for its money, and the cheapest is Gustard u12, i had it as a temp solution before i got berkeley, i would say its ok for that money, but not in high level setup for full time 

 

ps. you have Bricasti M5, which has AES, why you need additional box then?!

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1 minute ago, mikicasellas said:

I don't have the M5 anymore, i just can't take it out from my profile, i have tried it 

Oh  Top right corner, click on your name -> account settings -> signature -> save

I suppose you are changing Audio System in Profile, which is different thing, but for me, its also confusing :))