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


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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.

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15 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

So it's not a competition to determine "the winner." Some - like me - don't want to mess with building a custom server, and like the simplicity of the SE.

 

Others really enjoy delving into all the myriad decisions in assembling a custom server:  mobo,  SATA,  drives, USB,  Ethernet, case, connectors, ... the list goes on. Once you start adding in the cost of SR7 rails (or perhaps Sean Jacobs rails), I wonder if there is even a cost advantage. 

 

Cost wise, yeah the sCLK-EX server is still much cheaper even with the SR7.  Especially if you buy the SR7 as the MR4 and use all 4 ouputs for 4 separate devices.  My entire sCLK-EX server cost $1500.  Each SR7 output comes to $500 a piece.  

(JRiver) Jetway barebones NUC (mod 3 sCLK-EX, Cybershaft OP 14)  (PH SR7) => mini pcie adapter to PCIe 1X => tXUSBexp PCIe card (mod sCLK-EX) (PH SR7) => (USPCB) Chord DAVE => Omega Super 8XRS/REL t5i  (All powered thru Topaz Isolation Transformer)

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3 hours ago, austinpop said:

One thing to point out is that the current version of the InnuOS dos not support an NAA daemon yet. I’ve requested this from Nuno, and he’s going to set me up with a test build to try it out.

You da man!  Thanks for doing that.

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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Hi guys,

 

I figured I'll give this bridged ethernet a shot. I have a slightly different setup than most here, so I'll explain that first.

 

Until now, I have been running Roon Core on my Late 2009 iMac which is running Mountain Lion (10.8.5). The router/modem with internet is in another room far away, while the iMac and the Bryston BDP-1 are in the same room close to each other. I don't have ethernet running throughout the house.

 

The iMac is connected wirelessly to my modem/router, which access the internet and lets Roon run. I have selected wireless as the preference in top order in network setting. In order to connect the BDP-1 to the iMac, I have a spare router (with wireless disabled) and a switch (w/ LPS) that I keep in the listening room. The iMac/spare router/switch/BDP-1 are connected by ethernet. This works perfectly.

 

________________________________________________

 

So I figured I'll try the bridged ethernet. The iMac has an ethernet port and no thunderbolt. So I got a USB to ethernet Apple adapter. All of them show up Network devices and active. I'm connecting the BDP-1 and iMac directly with ethernet. I'm using the USB to ethernet adapter for connecting to the spare router/switch in the room, so it can assign stuff.

 

When I go to System Preferences -> Network -> Tools (geal symbol) drop down -> Manage Virtual Interfaces -> +........I see two options for "New Vlan" and "New Link Aggregate." I don't see an option for 'Bridge".

 

Is there any way I can make this work and feed the BDP-1 directly by the iMac? I'm running 10.8.5 on Late 2009 iMac.

 

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

Power: Torus (main) + Teradak (network)

Source: Bryston BDP-1 w/ Roon

DAC: Dangerous Source (Teradak 12V13A) + Emotiva DC-1

Amp: Amphion Amp100 + Marantz PM6004

Speakers: Amphion One15 + Mackie HR 824 Mk1

Headphones: Audeze LCD-2C + Denon AH-D2000 + HD 598 + KRK KNS 8400

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1 hour ago, zoom25 said:

Is there any way I can make this work and feed the BDP-1 directly by the iMac? I'm running 10.8.5 on Late 2009 iMac.

 

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

 

I have never implemented bridging using MacOS, so unfortunately cannot help. I hope someone who's done it on MacOS can jump in.

 

Just curious - why are you still on Mountain Lion and not current - on High Sierra?

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5 hours ago, lateboomer said:

 

Hi lmitche,

 

Could you elaborate more on how to power the i7-6700 z170 motherboard for the CPU separately? I am trying to figure out how to do the same for my Asrock J3455B-ITX board.

 

I don't know if this is possible with your board. You have to look and the user manual to see if the headers exist.

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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2 hours ago, ElviaCaprice said:

 

Cost wise, yeah the sCLK-EX server is still much cheaper even with the SR7.  Especially if you buy the SR7 as the MR4 and use all 4 ouputs for 4 separate devices.  My entire sCLK-EX server cost $1500.  Each SR7 output comes to $500 a piece.  

 

Good for you! But note that if ordered an SR7 today, I would get it in 2019, and that's assuming Paul continues to build them.

 

It's all choices, man. There's no single path to nirvana.

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4 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

The 4 pin connector is 12V DC (2x12V, 2xground) The 24 pin ATX connector is for an ATX power supply. You use either one or the other. If you have a linear power supply you can use the pico converter to split the voltages for the 24 pin ATX connector. Innuos appear to be using both connections in the Zenith. The pico converter is being used for the optical drive but its not clear if it's powering anything else.

I have the same 12 pin pico converter here and it must be powering the normal 3.3, 5 and 12 volt pins on the ATX header.  Where did you learn that the board would run with just the 4 pin 12 volt header connected? Most single voltage DC powered boards use a normal DC barrell connector for power.

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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18 minutes ago, lmitche said:

I have the same 12 pin pico converter here and it must be powering the normal 3.3, 5 and 12 volt pins on the ATX header.  Where did you learn that the board would run with just the 4 pin 12 volt header connected? Most single voltage DC powered boards use a normal DC barrell connector for power.

It's in the motherboard manual, I made a 4 pin to DC adapter to use a linear supply. The maual also says use either one or the other (atx or DC) This differs to some motherboards who use the 12V input alongside the ATX. However in the Zenith both are used, so either Innuos have modified the board somehow or that pico connector is not fully connected and just powers the optical drive. I think the latter is more realistic since if one rail 1 supplies the motherboard, rail 2 the SSD then what else would be 'shared' with the 3rd rail and optical drive? A picture of the inside of Zenith SE is available on DARKO's review.

https://darko.audio/2017/10/richer-sounds-with-the-innuos-zenith-mkii-se/

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3 hours ago, KingRex said:

Austinpop, thank you for a very thoughtful and through review.  Could I ask a couple question.  

 

Of course!

 

3 hours ago, KingRex said:

First.  Were you doing any upsampling or just playing native redbook - WAV rips from CD.

 

As I answered to another poster, no - I did not upsample. As I've explained before, I've nothing against upsampling, and in fact have played with both HQPlayer and Roon upsampling. Since my Codex DAC benefits only mildly from it, it's not been a critical feature for me. With the SE comparisons, I ran all the scenarios native.

 

Regarding "WAV rips from CD": all my rips are FLAC or DSD. I tend to listen to a lot DSD and hi-rez PCM than redbook, but I'm just peculiar that way.

 

3 hours ago, KingRex said:

Second.  In your Best Zenith chain you have a USBultra, a Cybershaft  clock and other devices.  Are these only necessary for the ethernet connection to your NAS or streaming Tidal source.  In other words, for best sound performance from the internal storage, do you find these other devices necessary.

 

Necessary? 9_9 No. That's like asking if it's necessary to imbibe only 18 year old single malts when you drink whiskey.

 

But do they enhance and elevate the SQ dramatically? You bet!

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34 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

I have never implemented bridging using MacOS, so unfortunately cannot help. I hope someone who's done it on MacOS can jump in.

 

Just curious - why are you still on Mountain Lion and not current - on High Sierra?

 

Yeah I hope someone with the knowledge can help me out. It shouldn't be too hard?

 

In the past I have had higher OS X (10.9 and above) running on the computer and it'd get slow. It's a Core Duo 2 processor so that might be slowing it down. I have upgraded the RAM to 12 GB. I rebooted it and fresh installed Snow Leopard, which worked great. I then upgraded it to Mountain Lion which has also been working flawlessly.

 

I don't know if there was something else wrong with the computer at the time when I initially upgraded the OS (Mavericks, Yosemite). I've been hesitant to upgrade the OS again and having to go through fresh install again and setup everything again.

Power: Torus (main) + Teradak (network)

Source: Bryston BDP-1 w/ Roon

DAC: Dangerous Source (Teradak 12V13A) + Emotiva DC-1

Amp: Amphion Amp100 + Marantz PM6004

Speakers: Amphion One15 + Mackie HR 824 Mk1

Headphones: Audeze LCD-2C + Denon AH-D2000 + HD 598 + KRK KNS 8400

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3 hours ago, ElviaCaprice said:

This is nothing new.  I've often powered my CPU separately with a 12V LPS.

 

Please kindly explain how you managed to dedicate a single 12V LPS strictly for powering Celeron N2930 processor and then another dedicated PSU for powering the rest of the JBC311U93's motherboard NU93S

 

http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/JBC311U93.html

http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/NU93S.html

Quote

Caution: There is no isolation circuitry between the external +9V ~ +24V DC jack and the internal 1 x 2 power connector. It is the system integrator's responsibility to ensure no more than one power supply unit is or can be attached to the board at any time and to ensure the external +9V ~ +24V DC jack is covered if the internal 1 x 2 power connector is to be used.

 

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4 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

A. My ethernet to (PS Audio) Bridge II supports the full MQA unfold. So if the TX-USBultra route comfortably kicks it's SQ ass, well that's a dilemma. 

 

I've admired the PS Audio DirectStream DACs for a while, but when they decided to use the Bridge II to implement MQA, that was a non-starter for me. Right now, all this stuff we're learning with clocking means that it's best to keep Ethernet out of the DAC. Eventually, when this is all well understood, it would be great to have it all in the box.

 

Until then, while I do want my next DAC to have MQA - please, no MQA rants here! - I can't abide it if it's only available through Ethernet input. I've already found the Ethernet input of the QX-5 subpar, and I gather PS Audio are also using the same ConversDigital controller on the Bridge II. That does not bode well.

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31 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

 

Please kindly explain how you managed to dedicate a single 12V LPS strictly for powering Celeron N2930 processor and then another dedicated PSU for powering the rest of the JBC311U93's motherboard NU93S

 

http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/JBC311U93.html

http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/NU93S.html

 

Nope, not possible with that mobo.   I was thinking of bigger mobos and not low powered SOC ones?  That NUC is already so small, I don't see the benefit of a separate powered CPU.  A clean 12V to the mobo  would be a clean 12V to the CPU.  These small mobos benefits is the shorter paths, smaller board, lower impedance.

(JRiver) Jetway barebones NUC (mod 3 sCLK-EX, Cybershaft OP 14)  (PH SR7) => mini pcie adapter to PCIe 1X => tXUSBexp PCIe card (mod sCLK-EX) (PH SR7) => (USPCB) Chord DAVE => Omega Super 8XRS/REL t5i  (All powered thru Topaz Isolation Transformer)

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1 hour ago, austinpop said:

 

I have never implemented bridging using MacOS, so unfortunately cannot help. I hope someone who's done it on MacOS can jump in.

I saved this from earlier in the thread, in case I needed it. It was posted  by @amgradmd ...Haven't tried it myself but might help you@zoom25

 

"For those who aren't fluent in Mac bridge networking (I wasn't), here's a rundown of how to do it:

 
Connect a Thunderbolt Ethernet adaoter into one of the TB ports and direct connect the ethernet cable to the DS DAC. Then do the following:

 
Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Network.

Click the Action pop-up menu (gear icon) then choose Manage Virtual Interfaces.

Click Add +,  choose New Bridge, then select the interfaces to include in the bridge. This is important – select BOTH Ethernet and Thunderbolt Ethernet. This tripped my up for a while, as did several other things I won’t go into. Hey, I’m just a doctor, not a networking expert here! 

 
From there selected the option for DHCP to manage IP address for the Thunderbolt Bridge (too many Bridges!). Then I went into the DS Bridge II menu and manually put in a workable IP address, also including the subnet mask (the same as the Thunderbolt Bridge) but not the DNS server or Gateway. Maybe I could have put those in, but I didn’t need to. After waiting a minute, the router saw the DAC! Unreal. It is listed in my router client list as “CoversDigitalCo., LTD” who is the manufacturer of the Bridge II, I guess. I have no idea why it took me so long to get to this point, I swear. It seems so simple." 

Topaz 2.5Kva Isolation Transformer > EtherRegen switch powered by Paul Hynes SR4 LPS >MacBook Pro 2013 > EC Designs PowerDac SX > TNT UBYTE-2 Speaker cables > Omega Super Alnico Monitors > 2x Rel T Zero Subwoofers. 

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1 hour ago, lmitche said:

I have the same 12 pin pico converter here and it must be powering the normal 3.3, 5 and 12 volt pins on the ATX header.  Where did you learn that the board would run with just the 4 pin 12 volt header connected? Most single voltage DC powered boards use a normal DC barrell connector for power.

Yes, I saw the Darko picture before. That's what started this silliness!

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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49 minutes ago, ElviaCaprice said:

A clean 12V to the mobo  would be a clean 12V to the CPU.

Modern CPUs run on around 1 V. Peripherals are typically 1.8 V or 3.3 V. There is typically a switching regulator near each high power consumer, often combined with LDO regulators for fine control.

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6 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

The 4 pin connector is 12V DC (2x12V, 2xground) The 24 pin ATX connector is for an ATX power supply. You use either one or the other. If you have a linear power supply you can use the pico converter to split the voltages for the 24 pin ATX connector. Innuos appear to be using both connections in the Zenith. The pico converter is being used for the optical drive but its not clear if it's powering anything else.

 

Since Sean should be still waiting for 2 'premium' toroids from the manufacturer, maybe it ain't too late to eliminate the pico converter with this kinda wiring?

 

http://forum.doctorhead.ru/index.php?showtopic=27247&st=200

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H87M-ITX/

 

C6SUIgk.jpghml1Neg.jpgSjolNxA.jpgyyPtqkc.jpg

 

We can't tell exactly what they're doing but most likely there should be multiple (i.e. 1 + 4 = 5) rails coming from the outputs of one large transformer. From what I could tell from looking at the pictures, they're dedicating one of them (all the way to the right with black+yellow wires) for the 4-pin molex connector (12V) that's hidden under the giant heatsink.

 

Now it's somewhat to tricky to understand how they're getting things done for the ATX connector, let's just take a quick look at the pin-out first but please ignore the colors assigned to the corresponding pins

 

947AkYL.jpg

 

The 2nd one from the right had black+yellow wires. The 3rd one from the right had black+violet+red wires. The 4th and 5th ones from the right seemed to be packed together and they had black+orange+orange wires. Finally we could also see red+orange wires that were coming from somewhere else.

 

Basically it's just too much for me to dissect but there's still something we could learn from those pictures. Supposedly we could indeed do better without a pico converter as long as we're feeding the right pin(s) with correct voltage coming from a specific rail.

 

Regarding the pico converter, it's also interesting to read what they're talking about below

 

https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/more-g-unique-bto-psus-are-now-available-direct-order.1983/page-2#post-44484

Quote

Yeah, basically all DC-ATX boards use 16v because they want to be compatible with laptop bricks. When you use AC-12v you skip a step which enables everything to be smaller and more efficient.

 

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1 minute ago, mansr said:

Modern CPUs run on around 1 V. Peripherals are typically 1.8 V or 3.3 V. There is typically a switching regulator near each high power consumer, often combined with LDO regulators for fine control.

yes, I stand corrected.  Thank you

(JRiver) Jetway barebones NUC (mod 3 sCLK-EX, Cybershaft OP 14)  (PH SR7) => mini pcie adapter to PCIe 1X => tXUSBexp PCIe card (mod sCLK-EX) (PH SR7) => (USPCB) Chord DAVE => Omega Super 8XRS/REL t5i  (All powered thru Topaz Isolation Transformer)

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Hi, @tapatrick

 

I did read that earlier. The problem is that on 10.8, I don't see the option for choosing a new bridge.

 

In the mean time, I got it working on my MacBook Pro using a combination of USB-ethernet (router) and Thunderbolt-ethernet adapter (for connection to BDP-1).

 

So I was able to connect the MacBook Pro directly with the BDP-1. Testing it out now. Have a Cat6 and a Cat 6A SSTP for the connection to BDP-1.

 

Let's see how it holds up in comparison to my connection via the network switch powered by LPS, which is already isolated along with the spare router from the internet and other devices.

Power: Torus (main) + Teradak (network)

Source: Bryston BDP-1 w/ Roon

DAC: Dangerous Source (Teradak 12V13A) + Emotiva DC-1

Amp: Amphion Amp100 + Marantz PM6004

Speakers: Amphion One15 + Mackie HR 824 Mk1

Headphones: Audeze LCD-2C + Denon AH-D2000 + HD 598 + KRK KNS 8400

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8 hours ago, ElviaCaprice said:

For the cost of the Zenith, I'd rather acquire the  Chord Blu 2.  Even Roy thought the SQ gain from the Chord Blu 2 was far and away more important than the server.

 

That's the $64,000 question to ask ourselves whenever we're thinking about an upgrade to our source components. Could spending thousands of dollars result in an even bigger jump in SQ when compared to what we're able to get from M-Scaler? Both @austinpop and @romaz seemed to share the same kinda enthusiasm about the power of a million taps

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=159&tab=comments#comment-727232

On 10/9/2017 at 9:41 AM, austinpop said:

One such exception was the Bluebird room, which demo'd the Chord Dave and Blu-2 M-scaler, playing on Vienna Acoustics speakers. Hearing the Dave by itself and then with the M-Scaler was epic. This was a fall out of your chair improvement. I know I've said I find DAC differences to be modest, but this was anything but. I heard the same effect downstairs in the CanJam Chord booth.

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=148&tab=comments#comment-723032

On 9/25/2017 at 5:16 PM, romaz said:

Practically speaking, this results in a massive improvement in DAVE's resolution, so massive that the collective impact of my server mods which includes 8 clocks being replaced pales in comparison to what Blu Mk2 provides.  For those of you who own a Chord DAVE, I would suggest you prioritize getting a Blu Mk2 beyond anything else discussed on this thread.  Combined with Chord's upcoming "digital" amplifiers, there will be no more resolute or transparent way of listening to a digital file.  Despite all of this, I am finding, however, that the quality of the music server still matters.

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=164&tab=comments#comment-728221

On 10/11/2017 at 6:37 PM, romaz said:

HQPlayer was drier and less smooth.  With Blu2 combined with either DAVE or Hugo2, the improvement was massive.  HQPlayer does not come close to what the M-scaler in Blu2 can do with either Hugo2 or DAVE.

 

Finally here's a fantastic review

 

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

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