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

[Nenon]

So much useful information on this thread. Thank you for all the contributions. I have spent several days going over all the posts, and starting with over 500 pages did not make it easy to catch up. But I finally did after a few sleepless nights. I can see consensus on many topics and different opinions on others, but I mostly get a pretty good idea on everything, except one area. Storage. It seems like there is a consensus that SSD drives are noisy and people boot from a USB drive or Optane. If the OS loads to the RAM, the USB gets unplugged. The Optane does not seem to cause much harm. But what about your music? I have 1TB worth of ripped CDs. How do people get that music to their favorite player (I use Roon). Here are some of the options:

1. SSD drive with a dedicated LPS. Too noisy / adding harshness to the music.

2. HDD. Also noisy + vibrations.

3. USB flash drive. Limited storage.

4. External USB hard drive with dedicated LPS. Shared USB with your DAC could be a problem. HDD or SSD based? 

5. Get the files over the network. Perhaps with good NICs/switches/cables that may not be that bad, but how would the files be stored on the server and wouldn't we run into the same problems (i.e. SSD is noisy and harsh, HDD has noise and vibrations, etc.).

 

I am sure there are many other options. What do you think is the best way to get 1TB of music to your player? I will try to do some comparisons but wanted to narrow down some of the options to begin with. 

 

Here is a test that I just did.

Loaded AL in ramroot. Plugged in an external USB drive and mounted it. Copied an album from the USB drive to /root (essentially to RAM). Configured Roon to look for new music in /root. Unmounted and unplugged the USB drive. Played the album in Roon. Also disconnected the network cable after hitting the "Play album" button. It sounded pretty good, but it's not practical at all. 

[Nenon]

1 minute ago, austinpop said:

I just pull from my NAS. 

Thank you. Is your NAS connected with a LPS? What is the underlying storage in your NAS? SSD or HDD?

 

48 minutes ago, Iving said:

I have exactly this problem ... and a good solution.

Music  Library is approaching a Tb / comprises ripped flac / carefully tagged exactly how I want it / backed up to >1 any drive.

I copy whole Library to a 1Tb SSD inside my player PC (single box).

In fb2k I copy over from this SSD only files tagged up as "favourites" per some fb2k Filter (preference HAS 3 AND demo IS 1 etc) using Convert/Copy - the copied files amount to about 220Gb - to a 280Gb PCIe Optane AIC which has the o/s on it too (see post above response to romaz).

Change fb2k Library to the Optane drive and disable SATA in BIOS.

Playing is all "CPU direct". 

Thank you. That's an option, but see my dilemma below.

 

After reading so much in this forum, I made a decision to go the Innuos way but do it yourself. Get a low power motherboard / CPU, the best multi-rail (at least 4 or 5) dual regulated power supply you can get, use an oversized custom excellent quality transformer and an oversized power supply. It would be one server solution. Something of quality comparable to the Zenith MkII SE or maybe even a tad better.

 

In the "Science Experiment: Audiolinux Extreme on Zenith SE" post, @austinpop liked Roon server running on the Zenith SE (as a one box solution) better than using a two-computer solution with Roon Core running on his Dell XPS 8700.

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?do=findComment&comment=895805

 

That's the kind of quality and level of complexity I am looking for. There might be ways to achieve better quality. There would always be, and that would be a never ending game. That's why I wanted to define some boundaries I am not planning to cross and reduce the number of variables (which are still SO MANY).

 

So I would have a low powered CPU / motherboard, with excellent power supply, a decent USB, a decent onboard NIC, and a single PCI-e slot I can use for improvements. I would have another level of USB reclocking after the computer. It would either be an Amanero card in my DAC or something like an Audiobyte Hydra Z with LPS that converts the USB to SPDIF. That part is still TBD based on listening tests.

 

There are a few things I would like to do but it's not possible to do all of them.

1. Since the motherboard I am using does not support Optane memory, I can use the PCI-e slot and add a card for that. Run the OS from Optane and have some extra storage for music there. The storage won't be enough, but I can live with it.

2. I can use the PCI-e slot to add a JCAT net card femto that would use one rail of the LPS. In that case I would probably benefit from pulling files from a NAS.

3. I can put one of the good USB cards designed for hi-end audio (again powered by an extra rail of my LPS). In that case external HDD USB storage might be a way to go. Connect the DAC to the good USB card. Connect the storage to the onboard USB.

I would like to do all 3, but I can't with the motherboard I have.

 

I would always need this computer connected to the network for the controlling app at least. So I know that the JCAT net card would be a very good option. Maybe I do that and hope that Innuos releases their USB reclocker that they use in the Statement and make it available to everyone. Then add that as a future upgrade. Or consider a tX-USBultra or something similar.

 

Now, unfortunately I don't have the time people here dedicate to test. I am happy to report everything I try and bring value to the forum if I discover something new during my test. I also understand that unless I test all scenarios I would never know for sure what works best. But I am sure there are people here who have done enough testing to be able to take a pretty good educated guess at the sonic improvements each one of these upgrades would make.

 

If it's not exactly clear what I am asking, take for example an Innuos Zenith SE. First, it uses a SSD drive (not good according to a lot of people here). Second, it uses the motherboard USB ports (not ideal). Third, it uses the onboard NICs (also not ideal). How can a DIY person improve a Zenith SE? We can see what they have done in the Statement. They have improved the USB and the NIC but left the SSD drive. If i was to improve just one of these, what should that be? I am leaning towards the NIC now and find a way to address the USB later as a future upgrade.

 

What do people here think? And sorry if I am off topic. I would be happy to move my post somewhere else or even delete if inappropriate.

 

Thank you in advance!

 

[Nenon]

54 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Yes, we use a startech USB 3.1 card and a Startech USB 3.1 hdd enclosure, separately powered.  The JCAT card is great too. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XLAZEFC/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Ordered one to try. Does the quality of the DC power matter on this thing? I wonder if I would hear difference between a cheap chinese LPS and my LPS1.2. I would try and report back if people have not tried yet. Thank you!

[Nenon]

6 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Please see the position of the NAS in my topology above. It is a stock Synology 4-bay with HDDs and stock SMPS. 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. My hope is that with my new topology, the SQ from the NAS is as good as the other 2. I'll update once I know. 

 

That would be very interesting. The content in a file is the same no matter where it is stored. I am guessing the audible differences we hear are due to some noise generated while pulling the file from its storage media. Does anyone have a better explanation? My guess is if can get to the bottom of that we might be able to create a buffer/reclocker/regenerator/whatever-you-want-to-call-it for files. If we can get those files to the RAM from any storage media without that noise, and play them from the RAM, I am guessing the storage would not matter that much.

[Nenon]

6 minutes ago, numlog said:

Yes, and also consider that using a LPS is not automatically better than a switching supply, which arent always as bad as you think. 

 

Thank you. I am not planning to use any SPMS in my system. Even if they are not bad, I don't want to face the chance of contaminating my power line (dedicated circuit) more than it already is. What I was wondering was if people could hear a difference when you power the USB enclosure with let's say a LPS like the HDPlex vs. let's say a top of the line Paul Hynes design. But that's a test that's easy to do myself.

[Nenon]

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

Yes, we use a startech USB 3.1 card and a Startech USB 3.1 hdd enclosure, separately powered.  The JCAT card is great too. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XLAZEFC/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Although I already ordered one and will try it soon, I am still wondering why connect the hard drive to a USB port rather than using the SATA controller on the motherboard? I kind of want to keep my USB as clean as possible for my digital audio signal, and connecting an external USB drive kind of worries me.

Okay, we don't want vibrating parts in our music server chassis, but theoretically would not it be better to connect the HDD to the SATA controller and keep it external (plus external LPS)? Or does the SATA controller tend to generate more noise?

I am either asking questions about an unexplored area or there is research already done that I have missed (sorry if that's the case). Or perhaps it is computer architecture/system dependent and no one knows the answer.

 

Also, I really like the indexing in the original post. But with currently 545 pages it is difficult to extract so much of the useful information here. Have you considered spinning a few sub-threads? Storage could be its own section as well as each of the topics in the original post index.

[Nenon]

17 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Here we go!

 

SATA Saga returns! 😁

 

Please start a new thread for this.

 

Yep. That sounds good. No more SATA drama from me here :).

 

I feel like it's worth to take the index in the original post and start a new topic for each section and provide a link. So much good information here but all looped into a giant and unmanageable thread (besides the indexed posts). It's probably easy for the people who followed it on regular basis in the past two years, but good luck to new members/readers. But I already said that, didn't I?

[Nenon]

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

Nothing is stopping people breaking off and starting new threads to offload from this thread. In fact, folks like @rickca, @lmitche, and @bobfa have done exactly that for some key topics.

 

Created one - 

 

Let's discuss there. 

[Nenon]

29 minutes ago, elan120 said:

Cap installed:

 

Nice work! Thanks for the info. 

Did you replace an existing cap? Or installed a new one? What model/value Evox cap did you use.

[Nenon]

3 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

Good point,. Euphony partially does that if you choose 100% buffer with the music file in RAM,  but the Stylus player is still running form the SSD. Anyway, Euphpony appears to use a different approach from AL so may be difficult to compare. 

 

I think the important part is to shutdown the SSD while playing, so that it would not generate any noise. I have always wondered why Innuos wrote their custom BIOS and what's in that BIOS. Better control of the SSD controller might be part of it. 

[Nenon]

9 minutes ago, Dutch said:

You can’t just shut down a SSD when it’s not used since the OS is constantly doing things on disk.

 

You certainly can by moving things to RAM. I am not suggesting Innuos does hat. But carefully designed OS/app/hardware interaction can achieve that. Roon for instance is constantly monitoring your music folders, which is probably not a good thing for noise generated by your storage media. 

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, Dutch said:

 

Looks like you didn’t read my entire post. 

 

Yes, I did :).

 

We have different OS flavors and software players that do bits and pieces. None to my knowledge is doing all the optimizations that help or at least don't hurt too much) the sound quality. I would really like to see a platform that takes advantage of a combination of things:

- AL-like optimized OS running in RAM

- Enable the SSD controller only to copy the music in RAM; disable right away

- Roon-like interface, metadata, etc.

Euphony is still on my list to explore, but from what I am reading so far there are definitely things we can learn from them as well. Or maybe, it is an end-game... nah, I don't believe that

 

[Nenon]

2 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

May be a dumb question, as I am no expert in OS running in RAM. If euphony were to run in RAM, then would its software player - stylus, or the embedded HQplayer need to run in RAM too ? Let's say when you run AL in RAM, if you use e.g. J Media player, would that also be running in RAM too ?? I can see how OS run in RAM for Roon or Endpoint when there is no music decoding for playback. But how does it work as server with software playing the music locally ? 

 

Hopefully I understand your question correctly... if not, please let me know. 

 

Typically, on a regular OS running from a HDD or SSD (let's call it a 'drive'), when you run the program, it is read from the drive and loaded into RAM. Depending on how the software is written, typically the software would continue to interact to some level with the drive (i.e. outputting to a log file, scanning a folder for new file, etc.). Also, your RAM is usually a lot smaller in size than your drive, so not everything can be loaded in RAM. The OS uses complex mechanisms to utilize the RAM as good as it can - it would cache the important data and remove (free up memory) the not so important data.

 

Let's look at an OS running in RAM now. We would assume that Roon is installed in RAM as well. We could go very granular from here, but let's keep it simple and relevant to this discussion. So, opening Roon would most likely be a little faster because reading from RAM is typically faster than reading from a drive. Once Roon is loaded, in a way, it's not very different whether it was installed in RAM or on a drive. In both cases it gets loaded in RAM while you work on it. The difference would be when Roon needs to read files or write to files. If those files are also in RAM, reading/writing would be a faster. However, chances are your music collection contains more data than the amount of available RAM you have left after loading the OS. You would most likely end up storing your collection somewhere outside of RAM, because it would not fit in RAM. Let's assume you keep in your drive. Roon would constantly monitor that folder for changes. And when you play a file, Roon would load part of the song in RAM, but probably not everything. It would continue to load as it plays. And this is where the problem starts... As you are playing, Roon would be accessing your drive, and this causes noise that can potentially degrade the sound. 

 

I believe Euphony's player would load the complete track to RAM before playing and is probably trying to minimize the interaction with your drive while playing. And my guess is this is why it sounds better. 

 

With AL running in RAM, and running Roon, I can clearly hear an improvement if I copy the file I am playing to RAM before playing. In comparison, playing the same file from my SSD or external USB drive sounds worse. 

 

 

[Nenon]

3 hours ago, davide256 said:

Wonder if anyone has tried/compared parallel LPS 1.2's to power endpoint NUC... seems to me that a split Ghent cable

would make that possible?

 

See this:

On 1/15/2018 at 5:59 PM, Superdad said:

The folks who are paralleling separate LT-3045 boards for more current need to be very careful--with matching to within a few milliVolts--or they will end up with one board bearing much more of the load.  I've hand-paired a few LPS-1 boards in the past to allow for parallel connection and higher current, but that is not a service we offer.  

 Of course series connection of units for higher voltage can always be done by anyone. 

[Nenon]

2 minutes ago, romaz said:

I already did this and posted my observations in my War and Peace length post.  I bought the requisite serial Y-cable from Ghent and combined two LPS-1.2s in serial and the outcome was not good.  SQ took a big hit and the LPS-1.2 sounded nothing like an LPS-1.2.  Noise floor is higher and details are muddied.  I don't think I can blame the cable since I asked Ghent to use his best wire (Neotech 7N OCC) and a JSSG360 shield with Oyaide plugs.  

 

My guess is that one LPS is pushed really hard (because the two LPS in parallel are not matched within a few milliVolts), and we all know that an overwhelmed LPS1.2 does not sound very good (or the protection shuts it down). 

In any case, it does not sound like a good idea and it is not recommended by the manufacturer.  

 

[Nenon]

I have seen some comments about adding EMI absorbing paper on the RAM. It seems like the Statement has done the same. 

Are you covering just the top side or both sides?

 

[Nenon]

1 minute ago, Chopin75 said:

What drive is this ?? Looks like a CD drive

 

Innuos Statement

[Nenon]

Regarding the JCAT Femto NET card...

 

I am sure it would make a difference when streaming Tidal, Qobuz, or even files over the network. No doubt about that!

 

But let's assume I am playing local files only.

I have noticed that my NUC is very sensitive on noise getting through my network cable. If I play a (local) file and disconnect the network cable while playing on my NUC, I can hear an improvement a few seconds later. I plug in the network cable, and the sound quality gets worse. It is quite audible. It was also shocking the first time I heard it. I can see how the JCAT Femto NET card would make a difference in this case. You need to control your software somehow, and typically you do this over the network. In that case even playing local files the JCAT Femto NET card would be an improvement. 

 

However, this is when it gets interesting. I have another computer I am playing around with. On this one I cannot hear any audible difference when playing local files with the network cable plugged or unplugged. Looking more into the motherboard architecture and the NIC components, I do see some isolators implemented on the NIC. So perhaps those isolators are good enough to eliminate most of the noise coming over the network. 

Can anyone think of a way how the JCAT Femto NET card would be an improvement for locally played music on this computer? 

[Nenon]

18 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Very interesting findings about the SQ variations simply due to the "presence" of a network connection. I have found the same, and it varies by machine, and what is upstream of the box, in terms of switches, the network speed (100 vs. 1000 Mbps), etc.

 

Actually I do hear some difference on the other server as well. Double checked now. It's just not as pronounced as it is on my NUC.

The interesting thing is that my streamer connects to a 100 Mbps fiber media convertor (tweaked by me with some MUSE capacitors and feb by LPS2.1). I never played with hardcoding the speed/duplex. But I also always found the sound quality better when using the media convertor. I always thought it sounded better because of the further isolation. But now I am thinking it has double effect as it also forces my streamer to negotiate at 100 Mbps. 

 

18 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Standalone server is a new use case for me, and I''ve just started to explore that, comparing Euphony/Roon and Euphony/Stylus. Too early to say much other than Stylus sounds very, very good. 

 

I have compared AudioLinux / Roon vs. Euphony / Stylus on a standalone server in my system. I prefered Euphony / Stylus. But again, I did not compared apples to apples as the software and the OS were different. 

[Nenon]

2 hours ago, mikicasellas said:

Any Suggestions:

 

I have been trying Euphony vs AL...

 

I have a MacMini and a NUC as the Endpoint, i have powered the NUC with an HDPLEX 200W.

 

When i listen to AL, the MAC is the server and the NUC the Endpoint.

  

When i use Euphony i select "ROON Server" using a USB stick on the NUC and the Macmini manages Roon

  

I have heard little differences between the two, so far Euphony being having more emphasis in the high region and AL being smoother but very little those differences.

  

Well here is where the things gets interesting and very frustrating for me, i have had Audirvana + for so long and i update to the latest version with made no cost and i have the idea that when i switch back to regular MacMini using A + compared with AL or Euphony the difference was going to be huge in favor of AL/Euphony, to my surprise it is not, all that cross to my mind is frustration, cause i have been investing to make this NUC deal shine and at the end i am not hearing what i should i think, so i guess maybe i am doing something very wrong here, something i must be missing, maybe i should change my Macmini server in order to extract the best from AL/Euphony and invest in a new dedicated PC with all the right ingredients.

 

My Mac mini has not any tweak, the only thing that has on the power input is an adapter with two Less Loss Firewall which indeed makes a difference sound, without them the sound is smaller and less open. I am thinking that maybe because of those FireWalls the Mac is being more competitive ?...

 

NUC + Akasa Case + HDPLEX 200W + AL + Euphony + Ghent DC Cables are what i have invested so far to NOT use the Macmini as i did before but i don't feel so far it has been a well worth investment...Either i am missing something or i definitely trowed my money away.

 

Any suggestions guys ?

 

Thanks !

 

Some random thoughts from me:

1. MacMini with Audirvana sounds pretty good to begin with.
2. Roon is not the best sounding software…  I haven’t done any comparisons in a while, but I did like Audirvana better on MacMini than Roon when I tried a while ago. 
3. You did not specify which NUC you are using. Not all of them sound very good.
4. Some NUCs are very sensitive on noise coming from the network. Try unplugging the network cable while playing (a local file) and see if that makes a difference.
5. HDPlex 200W is not the best power supply. You can do a lot better. And the power supply makes a big difference. 
6. Have you changed your BIOS settings per some of the recommendations here? That gives a nice improvement on a NUC.
7. Have you tried Euphony as an all-in-one solution and eliminate the MacMini as a streamer?
8. Also, I would try to use Euphony / Stylus playing local files in RAM and compare to the MacMini/Audirvana. You probably need to use Roon, but that test would eliminate a bunch of variables. 

[Nenon]

21 minutes ago, mourip said:

Can you describe your current system for us?

 

I have more than one, but the one that’s currently playing (and I am playing with) is similar to the top Innuos servers - similar motherboard, similar power supply (arguably better parts), two massively oversized (500VA) toroidal transformers (planned for 10 rails), separate rail for everything (8 rails so far), JCAT cards, EMI absorption, highest purity silver wiring all around, fancy footers, power cords, fuses, etc. Running a trial of Euphony and AL but prefer Euphony. I bought Roon a while ago, but kind of gave up on sound quality with it and use it more to explore music. And I have a bunch of NUCs, Macs, modded switches, network filters, etc. in the closet. It’s a never ending lab exercise, and I don’t remember when was the last time my computer had a cover on. 

But my main rig is analog, and I listen to a lot of vinyl. Oops, I should not have said that here :). But it's true. 

 

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, mikicasellas said:

- I have NO ssd inside the NUC and i don't know how to use a local file in the NUC, i am running both AL and Euphony from a USB stick...Any suggestions ?

 

With AL, you can copy files directly to RAM using SFTP. If you are using Windows, you can try Win SCP. If you are using Mac OS you can do it from the command line. You can also use the AL "menu" to mount an external drive.

 

With Euphony, you can upload files directly via the web gui. Point your web browser to http://euphony.local:8080. Open the Euphony drive. Click Advanced, and the buttons to create new folder / upload / etc. would show up. That might be the easiest option if you are not familiar with CLI or SFTP. 

 

[Nenon]

@Superdad : Not that it matters as you seem happy where you are, but I really liked the Audiobyte Hydra Z powered by LPS2.1. It sounded cold for a week or two, but after a month it became really really good. I tried it with the Hydra ZPM power supply and with the LPS2.1, and I liked it better with the LPS1.2 Both, the SPDIF and i2S outputs were really good. 

[Nenon]

@romaz Good to hear back from you. I also found a single Euphony installation running Stylus to sound best in my system. 

I've read most of your posts and know that you don't like to use SSD drives, even powered by a dedicated DC rail and good quality SATA cable, which I remember you had good feedback for. The computer I use does not support Optane drives. I could only pick between SSD or HDD for the Euphony OS. Unless I can keep the HDD outside of the chassis it's not an option for me. I would not want those vibrations inside my chassis. So the most logical way is to use SSD. And this is what I have done.

I am assuming the noise generated from the SSD drive is at its strongest levels when there is some type of I/O activity. Stylus caches the track in memory before playing. That means the SSD drive is not used for music retrieval while playing. The Linux OS could potentially use it, but a stripped down Linux version like the one Euphony uses would not require a lot of I/O activity.

So my question really is, how bad is to use a SSD drive for a single box Euphony installation? Is the negative impact of the SSD diminishing as Stylus is loading the track in memory before playing? 

While I have other options for the my music drive (USB, NAS, etc.), I still need to load the OS from a hard drive. I don't find using a USB stick ideal - prefer to keep the USB for the solely use of my DAC.

 

[Nenon]

38 minutes ago, RickyV said:

 

I have ordered this one 

8gb SLC memory the bare minimum for Euphony, no ecache. There is also 16gb.

 

That might be a good option. I guess it's just a SLC SSD drive. Does Euphony sound any better with it compared to other SSD drives? 

I recall a lot of discussions on storage, typically related to Roon installations, but I was also wondering if playing from RAM with Stylus changes what we've learn about storage somehow. I would be doing my own tests soon but wondering what other people have experienced.