Jump to content
IGNORED

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


Message added by The Computer Audiophile

Important and useful information about this thread

Posting guidelines

History and index of useful posts

Most important: please realize this thread is about bleeding edge experimentation and discovery. No one has The Answer™. If you are not into tweaking, just know that you can have a musically satisfying system without doing any of the nutty things we do here.

Recommended Posts

What an amazing collection of information. It took me over three days of “spare” time to read the whole thing.  Thanks to EVERONE.

 

I am evolving my systems and have upgraded my DAC/AMP  to the new Brooklyn DAC+ and AMP.  My current front end is Sonic Transporter i5 and an microrendu.  I have SOTM SMS-200 ultra and a modded switch on the way. I have held off on the USB re-clock part for just a bit.  I am looking at the grounding and shielding ideas that I can do on my own.  The idea of sleeving the USB with a shield and grounding the Switchs, etc.  will be fun.

 

i have a couple of server questions.

 

Has anyone used the new Sonic Transporter i7 bridged server?

 

I am looking to try my i7 Intel NUC with Windows 10 to see how that works for sound quality and bridging networks.  There was a whole section in the thread on out manually optimizing windows.  Does anyone have any thoughts about that or one of the methods?

 

—-RJF

Link to comment

So let us say the room is ok.

Before you spend any money try a few of these ideas.

Are the speaker cables phased right?  (sorry, but back to basics.  I have screwed that one up more than once)

Finish the bridging and the server optimization. Get that stable.  (and whatever else that is in-flux).  

Look at the Roon setup to make sure it does not have something set wrong about your DAC/ Audio system.  DSP options, etc.  

I doubt it is the ultraRendu.  I assume you have a good power supply on it. 

I do not know about AC power in the system.  A dedicated circuit, etc.. made a big difference to my system.  At least have the circuit breaker checked.  And check the outlets.  

 

@lmitche mentioned network isolation.  It might help but get the rest stable before you add stuff.

 

 

 

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

So the company is gone and we are starting to put the Christmas decorations away.  The stereo is playing with the NUC as the Roon Endpoint.

 

E5170490-DFEB-480D-8849-080B4F0C0BEE.thumb.jpeg.669717f1613aa0d0bd4bff0df00d9ac5.jpeg

 

I have things organized so I can swap between the NUC and the Ultrarendu by moving the network and USB cables.  I am not sure I will ever swap back....  The NUC is powered by the SMPS it came with.  (Not the final config).  The Lush2 goes to an ISOregen then to the Yggdrasil.  

 

 

*** The blue and black blocks are vibration blocks for HVAC equipment.  I use them for air spacing and scratch protection.  

Link to comment
10 hours ago, rickca said:

@bobfa if you're running ramroot, remove your USB flash drive after you boot.  It makes quite a difference in sound quality.  I know it seems crazy that a stupid USB stick makes a difference, but it does.  Try it while some music is playing.

I have just been removing the USB stick after it boots up.  I will play.

Link to comment
10 hours ago, rickca said:

Does this mean you've concluded that you prefer NUC/AL to ultraRendu or the other way around?  Can you describe the differences you hear?

A very big yes to the NUC/AL.  I am still playing with the “wrong NUC” but it is amazing. I am waiting for my board to be shipped.  I order over the weekend and I assume that they were on holiday.  I hope it will ship today.

Link to comment
17 hours ago, Advieira said:

Like @romaz said, poweful PCs are better servers. What do you think for the new mac mini 2018 (4.2ghz and 12 mb cache)? Could be a great server to SQ?

I would not assume how well it will work.  The Mac Mini still  has the internal SMPS and PWM fan.  Some of the testing has been done using workstation class machines.  Lots more to learn here.

Link to comment
1 minute ago, Advieira said:

 

But you are using NUC i7 with Fan and SMPS and like the sound more than UR/JS2. 

Yes that is true. I warrant caution with all of this. There is a lot more to report on. I will talk more later today about my system.  I will not keep the current NUC I AM TESTING IN MY SYSTEM. 

 

i have a fanless case in house and a NUC on order.  

 

There are are some things about the sound in my system that are not where I want them to be.  

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Advieira said:

 

I really want to know how the impact of LPS and fanless NUC7 to SQ compared with stock power supply and fan. I have a slight mistrust that should not be too much ...

I have been playing with all of the little bits for about two years now.  I have changed the power supply and removed the fan from a MacMini with great results.   

 

I will have the ability to test two NUCs in my system soon.  I am not sure the test will be fair as the motherboards are different.  

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

Happy New Years Bob.  Why not run your NUC from your JS-2?  Many dozens of people do. 12V is just fine for those.

You’ll of course need a cable with 5.5mm x 2.5mm plug at the device end—versus 5.5mm x 2.1mm as you use with the UltraRendu.  I can fix you up with that.

 

Cheers,

—Alex C.

Alex,

 

Thank you very much.    I was running the power supply to a Mytek DAC and my Mac Mini to start with.  Boy that was a lot of words and posts ago!  I have the 2.5mm cables on my JS-2. I have them adapted to 2.1 with barrel adapters.  I never ordered new cables with the right connectors.  Ultimately I should upgrade. I assume I will have two devices in the main system, a Roon endpoint and a ISORegen.  

 

I have removed the ISOregen for now and I am using a single Transparent Audio HP USB cable between the Yggdrasil and the endpoints.  The JS-2 is powering both the UR and the NUC/AL. The NUC still has the fan inside.  I have to review the BIOS settings.  They are a bit different on this NUC since this is an i7.  

 

I will do some listening after lunch.  ( I want to disconnect or turn off the fan for a bit too)

Link to comment

Physical location of modified Ethernet switch and cabling question.

 

My system today is a Sonic Transporter i7DSP bridged to my system with 50ft of “Normal” cat 6 cable.  I have one switch on order from TLS and I am waiting to order the UpTone switch. I am interested in where others put the switch and what cabling they use.

 

I can put the switch in my server “rack” in the basement next to the Roon Server.  Then run to the stereo about 50ft.  

I can put the switch in the stereo rack and use the standard Cat6 back to the basement.  Then a “good” short Ethernet cable to the endpoint.

 

I have about 3 weeks till the TLS switch arrives so this not urgent.

 

FYI if in the basement the switch will be on my HDPLEX 200W. In the stereo it will be on an LPS-1.2.

 

Bob

Link to comment
22 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Here is my approach to network hygiene. I don't claim this is the perfect solution, but its the best I've achieved so far in my system.

Rajiv thank you for that diagram and philosophy. Your thoughts really help.

 

 Right now my network system is similar. Cable-Modem ---> Orbi AC3000 Router --> TP-Link 24 port switch --> Sonic Transporter i7DSP server --> bridged network --> AL/NUC in music system with about 50ft of cable.  Tomorrow I should have an HDPLEX 200LPS that will initially run the Sonic Transporter only as a first test.  My ST has the music internally on 10TB spinning disks so not experimenting with my Qnap NAS yet.

 

I will insert the TLS switch into the system right before the AL/NUC and mount it in the Stereo system with an LPS-1.2.   OR put it next to the server on the HDPLEX and try that.  

 

I am not at this point considering running the rest of the core network on "fancy" power supplies.  I am considering optical isolation and a managed switch upgrade when the UpTone audio switch comes out.

 

I am hoping that a single fiber optic link will give me the isolation I need between the music system and the rest of the network. I KNOW I have a long way to go.  Just getting a TLS switch will be very interesting.  

 

Now off to new server designs.  

 

 

Link to comment
On 1/10/2019 at 9:24 PM, austinpop said:

Here is my approach to network hygiene. I don't claim this is the perfect solution, but its the best I've achieved so far in my system.

 

I am still working on my network designs and I started playing with an idea last evening.  I have a small TP-Link travel router that I have setup in client mode so it is an end-point on my network.  I then hooked my UltraRend system to the travel router and now that system is on wireless.  I have no sound quality report yet!  I have been thinking of using alternative connection such as wireless or fiber optic connection to see if it changes the sound quality!  I am wondering if it elimates the need for fancy switches,......

Link to comment
30 minutes ago, oilpaint said:

 

 

I thought this post would be helpful to those people who lurk on CS but don’t have the full grasp of all the issues and terms discussed here (that would be me). My system had evolved over the years to include the following MacBook Air - SOtM 200Ultra Neo - SOtM tX USBultra - Mutec MC3+USB - Devialet 1000 - Magico S3s with a Mutec REF-10 clocking the 200, tX, and MC3. Sounded great - but what a lot of boxes and cables!

 

 

Dan

Dan,

 

Thanks for the report I am glad your system is sounding better and that it is a lot simpler.

 

Quick question are you using a wired Ethernet connection between the two NUC boxes?  In the first part of the post you mentioned Ethernet but I was wondering if you had gone to wireless when you installed the server?

 

Bob

Link to comment
1 hour ago, hifi25nl said:

 

Since Roon is writing new files to the installation directory /opt/RoonServer directory (this is not a standard and correct procedure in linux systems with packaged applications...) installation could fail. 

 

To be sure that all is fine, please install manually with

yaourt -Syy roonserver roonbridge --noconfirm --force

Where --force in this case is unfortunately necessary.

 

If you want, you can edit the file /opt/scripts/alupdate.sh and add --force to the same line.

 

This will be added in the next menu release, that will have an automatic script for transferring roon  database to anther drive and some more option (Turbo=off) for CPU governor :)

 

Note: to be sure of version type pacman -Q roonserver
 

Would it be best to stop the audio services first and then run the install?

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...