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

[Hardinge]

Hi all, and thanks @austinpop for the illuminating thread. I'm building my first proper system and, thanks mainly to this thread, am now vastly more focused on everything preceding my dac. My budget is mid-range at this point and I was hoping to get suggestions on a pre-dac-chain for <US$4,500. I had expected that a Zen MkII STD would be in that chain?? So that would leave US$2,000 for the rest, but what should that look like?

 

As background I play sub 24/192 flac and mqa through roon and currently feeding an oppo 205 as dac. Many thanks!

[Hardinge]

On 5/10/2018 at 7:25 AM, soares said:

Have your Oppo 205 moded or buy an ultrarendu + an Sbooster. The sound of your system will probably improve a lot. At least it did in mine. I am currently using an i5 transporter + ultrarendu & Sbooster + an Oppo 205 as Dac. I am planning to buy a qutest and most probably to upgrade my Oppo (internal LPS + clock). Cheers. J.

 

22 hours ago, austinpop said:

3. Send your Oppo 205 to get the PSU and OCXO mod.

 

Thanks guys. There seems to be a lot of mod options. And some i can ship to Australia and instal mysefl so that's great!

[Hardinge]

7 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

I believe Roy got the Complete mod from here: http://www.oppomod.com/

Thanks i just found them. My solder skills are minimal so at least the PSU is a done deal. Will find a local tech for the clock addition. Many thanks again!

[Hardinge]

10 hours ago, austinpop said:

I have a pending test to compare a track pulled from the NAS to the same placed in RAM (somewhere in the root partition) to the same read from the Optane SSD.

 

Very interested to hear this! Thanks in advance @austinpop

[Hardinge]

On 3/27/2019 at 9:35 AM, austinpop said:

I just realized I'd forgotten a component in my diagram. In my listening room, I had added a Netgear GS105 with a JSGT-shunted LPS for general hygiene. Based on John Swenson's studies, the Netgear is one of the switches whose port magnetics effectively isolate upstream noise, in conjunction with a ground-shunted LPS.

 

The Router manifest's itself in each room as an Ethernet port in the wall, and there is in-wall Cat 5e wiring from that port to the actual router in my master closet.

 

Hope this all makes sense.

 

 

Sorry to bother but i'm seeing 2 options for the Netgear GS105, which is the JS recommended?

https://www.umart.com.au/Netgear-GS105PE-5-Port-Gigabit--2-Port-POE--No-Power-Adapter_27922G.html

https://www.umart.com.au/Netgear-GS105-5-Port-Gigabit-switch_5604G.html

Thanks!

[Hardinge]

@romaz et al, i’m about to build a fanless case music computer as per the latest summaries on the intro post. I need it to be an all in one box that i can take to work each day (leaving LPS’s at work and home so only the computer is transported). I need internal library storage to the tune of 6tb though. I had been assuming 2x 4tb SSDs would do the trick but seeing talk that they could be noisy. Considering playback is via RAM though would a cheaper spinning drive have any worse SQ when all considered? 

[Hardinge]

9 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

Hmm, interesting project - portable huh. Do you want convenience vs max performance ?  I suppose you want something like the NUC (though I am not familiar with it's size), so I can't help you with the hardware. My HDPlex is too bulky but you can look at the smaller model they have. There are a bunch of other small quiet PC you can choose. You don't want a fan!.   

 

I recomend  the software Euphony as single box solution, presumably you are not connecting this with many boxes and bridges. It is easy use, no need to fuss around much. (Library management is terrible, though).

You can use a 2.5' SATA drive and store 4 TB of music in same drive as the euphony OS, run RAmroot and hopefully not too noisy (SATA is supposedly noisier and slower than e.g the Optane M2 which numerous use here).

Or I suppose you can use M2 but the memory is not as big and so you need to store music on another drive. E.g to use other SATA drive for music storage attached to the MB but that would create more noise. You would need some SATA drive filter and nice data cable etc. not sure if that is cost effective. But ff you don't mind using external drive (any drive), then just stick the external drive, load the music into the Ecache and then detach the external drive. This way you can use M2 drive to store the euphony, though there won't be lot of cache memory. But you have no noise at all from a large storage drive. 

 

Then you would also need some nice internal cables for the PC, e.g get from Ghentaudio or DIY yourself. 

And some nice Apacer RAM

 

Depending on your budget, you may want a nice USB bridge in it with good good internal clock (check out pink faun) This way you may not need any galvanic isolation devices. (though you may still need if your office has dirty AC current, but again depends on your LPS)

Intona may be a good and easy to carry single galvanic isolation device. 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

Thanks @Chopin75 yes portable just for the computer (so server and drives (ideally in one box). Then an HDPlex at home and one at work. 

Good tips there for the Apacer and I had been looking at SotM's USB card but Pink Faun looks good too. 

 

Not sure i understand the ecache suggestion as the ecache would need to be 6tb??

 

Thanks

[Hardinge]

7 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

Sorry ecache is a way in the

Euphony program to allow u to load a few albums from another storage drive onto the internal hard drive and play then u can play the music after detaching the storage drive. This avoids the need to

have an external storage drive attached all the time. But space is limited depending on how big the internal hard drive is. U can also load remotely via file manager. Or i think via a network drive. So basically if u have say 4-6 TB of music u don’t have to put all into the internal drive

Ah ok gotcha. Yes sounds like a good option thanks.