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

[Advieira]

What´s the problem to direct connection SMS200 and Macmini by ethernet port? I mean mac mini connected to internet by wifi and sms200 connected to mac mini by ethernet.

 

Would its way macmini>wifi>sms200 improve audio compared to router>SMS200?

[Advieira]

I´ve a mac mini and I could not create the bridge as taught by @romaz. But I could share internet with thunderbolt.

My questions are:

- Would the sound quality be the same?

- I´m using router>macmini(thunderbolt)>macmini(ethernet)>SMS-200Ultra>Vega. The correct sequence is this?

 

Other:

- If I put a TX-Usbultra after SMS-200ultra would be a smart move? Worth the money? Or should I use the money with a Sotm ISO-CAT6 Lan Isolator + ISO Regen(LPS1)? Or is there a better move with a $1k budget?

 

Thanks

Andre

 

[Advieira]

I´ve a mac mini and I could not create the bridge as taught by @romaz. But I could share internet with thunderbolt.

My questions are:

- Would the sound quality be the same?

- I´m using router>macmini(thunderbolt)>macmini(ethernet)>SMS-200Ultra>Vega. The correct sequence is this?

[Advieira]

This topic have lost its initial

consensus. I dont know anymore if I can do anything to improve sotm trifecta, oor if I order a Innuos, or build a media server piece by piece or forget media server and order M-scaler. ?

 

I even dont know it the bridged connection is the best yet.

 

Why you each of you guys dont create a tutorial with the various approaches tested? Item by item what you have done to media serving your dac?

[Advieira]

On 12/3/2018 at 7:23 PM, austinpop said:

 

Orthogonal approach, to be honest.

 

I have always found the efficacy of HQPlayer to be dependent on the DAC. For the Terminator, it makes a big difference. For the Ayre QX-5, it likes native resolutions best. At least to my ears.

 

Raj, can you send a picture of your new topology chain?

And about Roy chains, how it works for now?

 

A Nuc+AL is much better (in your system and opinion) than SMS200-Ultra as endpoint?

The server (roon core) can be anything, a dell, mac mini, anything with this new topology using NUCs? The Roon core doesnt matter anymore?

 

Sorry, I cant follow this topic full time, it change and show new paths so fast.

[Advieira]

15 minutes ago, lmitche said:

To my mind, nothing fundamental has really changed since September with the early use of a NUC in ramboot using Audiolinux.

 

 

Let me understand. A 7h Gen Nuc (i7 or celeron), used as Roon Endpoint (taking the place of Ultrarendu and SMS200Ultra) running Audio Linux in RAM (a solution no more than U$600) is better than UR and Ultra (with all theirs clocks, decraps and all).

And using a nH-10G before the NUC I am completely isolating the Roon Core Server, can using any PC or MAC without big impact on SQ?

 

Are those the new findings?

[Advieira]

13 minutes ago, lmitche said:

These questions can't be answered by me. I have never owned or heard an UltraRendu, SMS200Ultra or a nH-10G (whatever that is). With no first hand experience with these devices it would be wrong for me to comment.

 

Others with first hand experience have documented their findings above.

 Ok, I will wait @austinpop and @romaz confirming its findings.

[Advieira]

9 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

Yes as a previous owner of an Ultra, but why? I'm not sure but there are some differences between the 2.

First,, the NUC in general has more processing power.

Second the NUC processors mentioned have a much larger processor cache.

Third, you can use audiolinux booted into RAM on the NUC, rather than an OS on a micro sd card. I dont think there is enough memory on the rendu/ultra to boot audiolinux in RAM, that would level the playing field for testing.

 

Its possible to install ubuntu in a Mac Mini, so maybe audiolinux is possible too. If yes, should it have the same SQ as the NUC, or not?

[Advieira]

8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

The only "conclusion" is to ask what people are using currently, and I'll post a diagram soon, but my system is till in flux. 

 

But maybe you find some kind of holy grail of the computer audio, I mean, a device to completely and 100% turn the mediaserver unimportant to SQ. Could a clocked switch, before NAA, be this device?

 

Rob Watts said to me its new M Scaler do it (make server unimportant).

 

I mean, if we can isolate the server, its one thing less to worry about.

[Advieira]

17 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Repeat after me: there is no holy grail.   Everything still matters.

 

Somewhere upthread, Roy posted, and I have confirmed, that even with a reclocked, isolated switch (SOtM in his case, TLS in mine), the server still matters. Search for his posts in the last 3 months - there aren't many, but on the flip side, they are incredibly informative.

 I see.

But what has more impact in Sound Quality in these new findings: a NUC+Roon server or a NUC+AL endpoint?

[Advieira]

Have someone compared ou can compare the followings chains?

 

mac mini (roon core) > nuc AL (roon endpoint) > Dac

 

nuc AL (core) > nuc AL (endpoint) > Dac

[Advieira]

2 hours ago, Advieira said:

Have someone compared ou can compare the followings chains?

 

mac mini (roon core) > nuc AL (roon endpoint) > Dac

 

nuc AL (core) > nuc AL (endpoint) > Dac

☝️

[Advieira]

5 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

This was a quick test we ran, when I came to drop off Eric's SR-7. I brought my new i7 NUC with me so we could have a quick listen.

 

If you read my NUC impressions, I've made the point repeatedly that the NUC over the SE was a subtle improvement, which I heard in my system, only with my Dell running AL as the server, and a TLS OCXO switch in the path.

 

In Eric's system, we didn't have a reclocked switch in the path, and we ran the NUC from the bridged port of the SE running Roon Core with the 1.4.0 firmware.

 

In this configuration, the difference was indeed small. However, the key finding, that Eric agreed with, was that we were achieving essentially similar level of SQ on his system with a NUC costing 10% of his SE.

 

Finally, don't discount the benefit of the Tranquility Base. Whatever that thing does, it makes a positive impact on SQ. We've done an experiment in the past where we stacked up all his spaghetti in a neat wertical sandwich, and moved it on and off the Base. Damned if it didn't sound better.

 

How is the topology of your system today?

[Advieira]

I have a curiosity, even to evaluate the progress of the improvements achieved in this topic.
Comparing the first direct connected server of the first post (Jan/17) from @romaz and @austinpop  and the latest find, Nuc (AudioLinux), what is the level of improvement, comparing both?

 

I meant, the latest chain is a lot simplified as the firsts. How do they compare?

[Advieira]

On 12/11/2018 at 7:32 PM, ray-dude said:

 

Rajiv will of course speak to his opinion, but I've seen astronomical improvement by up leveling DACs.  It may be heretical, but my view is that everything before the analog chain (I include DAC in the analog chain) takes away SQ.   For me, all the work on the digital/network side is about taking away as little as possible.

 

By way of example, I documented my journey up the DAC (and transducer) ladders here:

 

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/chord-hugo-2.22209/reviews#review-19435

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/chord-blu-mk-ii-digital-cd-transport.22848/reviews#review-19675

 

(as a bonus, this documented my journey from Mojo to Hugo2 to DAVE to BluDAVE, related to question earlier about whether an update from Mojo is worthwhile)

 

 

 

 

what you can say comparing the sound quality between a Chord DAC using the Hugo M-Scaler or Blu mk2 built-in M-Scaler with the best solutions found in this topic?

I have read that some people say that the M-scaler is a Game Over in pursuit of sound quality of transport/source/streaming

[Advieira]

10 hours ago, greenleo said:

I'm afraid that's not an apple to apple comparison. 

 

DAC (or Hugo M-Scaler+DAC) is the device after the audio PC (the endpoint).  The best (what is best by the way, SQ, bang for the buck, ...etc )solutions that are currently talking about is NUC+AL, the upstream of the DAC, no matter a single box solution, 2 box solution or even a 3 full box solution.  Hence, they are complimentary.

 

The following is my opinion.

DAC is the most important device for CA.  Anything after it is subtractive because it's now analogue.  Hence Linn thinks that the optimization should begin at the very beginning like the LP, the turn table, the cartridge, ... etc,  and I totally agree.

 

In digital the source may be corrected (hence additive as an analogy) and to achieve bit-perfect when entering a DAC may not be a dream anymore and this bit-perfect is the thing we can do and are doing in MPOV. Then the DAC will always be the bottleneck.

 

It's clear that in a chain everything matters.  But I would rather have a mediocre upstream and a better DAC than a mediocre DAC and a better upostream.  Reasons stated before.

 

Roy, the OP of this thread, among others regards DAVE alone highly, Blu2+DAVE combo and HMS+DAVE better and better.  If you may, HMS+DAVE should provide a long term joy. TT2+HMS may provide the best bang for buck but I've never heard this system and can't comment.

 

Again, this is my opinion.  Others may think otherwise.

 

But if HMS buffers the bits and with powerful algorithms massively upsample the signal, all which is behind it have no impact anymore, clocks for sure, maybe ground loops not. Its make sense and thats what Rob Watts told us at Head-fi.

[Advieira]

5 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

Buffering is not fool proof, there is no mechanism to check that all the bits have arrived correctly, without any distortion or variation to the signal. It just ensures the equipment is more immune to such distortion.

Taken to the extreme:

If you upsample cr&&p, you get upsampled cr&&p.

If you upsample from a cheap laptop/ poor power supply against good server you will hear the difference

 

What you are saying is streaming audio from Tidal (per example) never can be "perfect" because I'm sure Tidal servers, Internet servers, doesnt have LPSU, clocks, etc. We never will have control from what is happening before our modem. And I can told you for sure, I can streaming Tidal, some tracks, mainly MQA, which are crystal pristine sound (with all limitations of my system).

[Advieira]

Guys, two questions:

 

1) Is it possible this new solution NUC AL endpoint + NUC AL server be better than new Antipodes CX+EX? 

I mean, can we achieve equal or near SQ for cheap?

 

2) I've actually a Sotm Trifecta as Roon endpoint and a Roon Core server Mac Mini running from SDcard, MMK powered by Hdplex200. I PROBABLY will achieve best improvements changing my Mac Mini to a NUC AL than change the Trifecta to a Endpoint NUC AL?

 

What do you think? 

[Advieira]

5 hours ago, greenleo said:

I don't recall anybody posted impression of the CX + EX here yet.  However, Rajiv, our highly respected steward, used the Trifecta before.  Please goto the 1st post of this thread and search the index.  You would find something.  The history of how he changed his system in the past I found very interesting.  Worth to have a look.

 

The EX or CX, like Innuos SE mkii, are basically a computer powered with a excelent LPSU and a nice cases. 7k bucks each. The secret, I think, is in the OS. 

Maybe we can make, for less than half, a near quality server with AL.

[Advieira]

17 minutes ago, austinpop said:

On the server, I would argue the jury is still out on what is the sweet spot for the server. My advice would be to keep your server HW, and just boot it up with AL/RAM. I wouldn't commit $$ yet on the server HW, until we hear more experiences on what tradeoff between TDP, cores, frequencies, and cache size sounds best. Search back for Roy's experiences - I think they're in the index too.

 

 

 

What`s HW? lol

Do you mean I can run AL in Mac Mini on Ram?

[Advieira]

5 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Yes. I have no direct experience, but others have done it. 

 

I didn't find on Index. Who did it? thanks!

[Advieira]

A mac mini with mmk powered by a high quality psu as SR4. 

Has it same sound quality as media server as NUC powererd by a SR4?

 

Both running Audiolinux or not. Same

endpoint.

 

if no, why?

 

and if we had a sotm switch between them and the endpoint?

 

[Advieira]

1 hour ago, afrancois said:

There's only one test left for me. A NUC with AL as endpoint versus the sMS-200 ultra.

The 4.4 firmware of the sMS-200 ultra gave a massive improvement in sound as a Roon endpoint.

I'm waiting to install 4.5 because some are experiencing problems with it. 

With what I'm hearing now from the sMS-200 ultra, I'm not sure that the NUC will be clear winner. To be continued...

 

Where you find firmwares for sms200ultra and how yo install it?

 

updated: Ive found it, thanks!

[Advieira]

@rickca @afrancois When Im trying to burn the new image on Sotm Micro USB Card, in OSX even in Windows, dont recognize and ask for format. Do I need format to burn the upated image?

[Advieira]

Would not it be time to propose a new C.A.P.S based on everything we learned here?