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

seeteeyou · August 15, 2018

42 minutes ago, hurka said:

That certainly looked like a thumb drive after an accident in the kitchen

kyrill · August 15, 2018

My signal wires are DIY from finest OCC copper insulated by cotton sleeves which you can buy ( steep price) on the internet.

However they dont attenuate RFI and EMI.

SO I do another sleeve around it. You might ask "will that not negatively interfere with the low DK of cotton?" IT will be inaudible because of the betterment in sq with shielding The RFI/EMI shielding is very very thin (conductive textile) so its DK is by itself because of that attenuated. Also because the cotton keeps it away from the wire. The more airy the cotton is the lower its DK This is the shield I use. In audiophile land it is close to cheap. there are many different widths https://hollandshielding.com/Cable-shielding-materials-shielded-entries-materials. I never use the heavy metallic

I never use the heavy metallic flexible tube of audiophile death. . although a transparent death. ( EMI and RFI attenuate strongly transparency) Its DK is a nightmare between 6 and infinity. A high metal DK gives a sharpness ( tiredness after longer listening) and typical HiFI" sound the opposite of listening to acoustic signals around you. Non transparent systems how ever with "damped highs" may benefit from higher DK. It suggests focused and outlined "identities" of the different "players" in the sound stream Replace it with the fabric, and when living under heavy RFI bombardement of mobile hotspots or towers around you, use two layers.

But a mobile phone wrapped in a thin layer fabric of less than a half mm cannot receive phone calls anymore.

flkin · August 15, 2018

Warning - pretty long post.. ?

The Pink Faun 2.16 Streamer - a journey of creation

Over the past year or so, CA and especially this one thread has been educating me about computer hifi specifically the front end of the chain and all the myriad of devices that includes the functional boxes, wires, power supplies, power and power supplies for the power supplies etc. Along the way, like many here, I assembled my version of the Trifecta Stable system that includes the tx-USBultra, sMS-200, isoRegen, Clocks and more. Items that all have a contribution to the ultimate sound.

And then I was ready for the next step - a custom server of my own with the view to keep the glorious sound but simplify the system if possible. After reading about the benefits of power, clocks and simple low-power motherboards with special SSD memory, eMMC drives, RAM etc it didn't seem all that difficult to specify and get built a good streamer at a good price.

Near the end of my efforts and when almost ready to commission a build, I did one last check with other high end servers to see if there was anything I left out in my planned build. And that’s when I came across the rather obscure Pink Faun website in Dutch language. The pictures of the streamer there was exciting. A highly complex box full of equipment and wires. No reviews online for the device as yet.

The Pink Faun streamer is made by the Triple M Audio Shop is a Dutch company based in Rhenen. The streamer is now v2.16 in its current incarnation and has been around for over a year now but it's only recently that I came across it during my research to assemble my own extreme server. Apart from the basic motherboard, most of the streamer is designed in-house and hand made.

With my interest generated, I wrote in to Jord the proprietor of the Triple M Audio Shop company for more information on his State Of The Art streamer than what was already provided in the website.

In a nutshell the Pink Faun 2.16 streamer can have

Up to 20 liner power supplies
Up to 4 OCXO clocks internally
Option wiring with zero inductance
Star earthing and supply cabling design
Custom built OS and Bios

That was far more technology than I was planning in my own streamer. And far more costly too. But I figured that if I went with my own streamer design I would also have to consider adding an external bespoke power supplies like a Paul Hynes or Sean Jacobs or an extreme clock like the Mutec Ref10 or Cybershaft OP14, the price would get closer. And to get the clocks working you would need to add a re-clocking card, optimised cables and modifications to utilise the clocks. Not to mention having to choose and setup an optimised OS like Windows Server 2016 with Audiophile Optimizer or Fidelizer Pro or even perhaps Linux installation.

After some consideration about the daunting task of going ahead with my own streamer design or go with a company of which I hadn't heard much off and without any reviews of the 2.16 streamer, it was close but I chickened out of making my own and went with Jord's design.

Pink Faun has a few streamers on offer - a basic box which you can then choose what you want to place inside starting at euro1750, a medium streamer model 3.4 starting at euro3490 and their top of the range 2.16 which starts at euro6990.

Considering what they had already described to me, I decided to go for the 2.16 but also added some optional extras to it making it the 2.16x version. This included:

4 OCXO clocks in various locations
3 Pink Faun Rhodium 10mm fuses
Furutech FI-09 Rhodium IEC inlet
PCX-1 zero inductance cables for the ATX motherboard PSU, the processor PSU, the SPDIF bridge PSU and SATA cable for OS-SSD

As I proceeded with this project of customising the PF2.16 server (and it's a truly custom design actually as all their multitudes of i2S cards, spdif i2S Stereo, I2S Multi-channel, s/pdif coax, AES/EBU, USB, LAN etc are all self designed and hand built along with their clock and power boards) I figured that the project would be a lot more fun if I dug out their thoughts behind their designs as it was not easily found online. So I asked Jord and we discussed the following:

On Power Supply Design - there are 3 transformers in the case.

1) Why do you use three smaller separated and not one larger mains transformer?

There are two reasons for this, first smaller transformers are more stable under high current swings, and have less chance of humming during high current peaks. Secondly and most important, each transformer is used for it dedicated area of operation. One for the processor, one for the motherboard and one for the peripherals. A streamer supply has a highly peaking current load, and all currents add up in the transformer core and interact with each other. By separating the main areas of a streamer in each transformer interaction is less and will improve the final sound quality.

2) Why are chokes use in your power supplies?

Due to its intrinsic properties, a capacitor buffered power supply does not draw a continuous, but a highly peaked current. Each 100Hz capacitors are filled up for the full cycle in only microseconds, depending on the duty cycle of the power supply. The higher the capacitance and the lower the inductance (and Rdc) of the transformer, the lower the duty cycle, and the higher these peaks are. These peaks introduce large Hf noise in power supplies. In Pink Faun power supplies we use high inductance power transformers (low field saturation in the core), and we use pi-filtering to keep the peaks at a minimum and thus Hf noise. The less rubbish in, the less we have to filter later.

3) Why do you use separated power rails and not on single mains supply?

All loads in the end come together in the source of power. In this source they interact, resulting in harmonics and intermodulation noise. The earlier all separated loads are split in the device, the less they interact, resulting in lowest initial noise in power supplies. Also by using a lot of smaller separated and regulated supplies, we can keep current loops very minimal and local, which also will reduce spread of EMC inside the device. This is why Pink Faun streamers use separated rails for dedicated areas and a separated regulator each for each load. Great care is taken in adding these power supplies all together in one star ground, and also to source all ingoing voltage from star outputs in the power supply, resulting in minimal interference and minimal Hf noise and harmonics.

4) What can we do to get lowest noise possible in the streamer power supply?

Even the best regulators have very poor Hf characteristics. Noise of the regulator itself is a factor in the final supply's output noise, but even more important are the noise of the mains power, EMC noise (from outside and the device itself) and noise generated by the rectifying and current peaks of the capacitors. All these noise sources have to be minimized in order to let the regulator get to its optimal performance. This means special low inductance transformers, schottky diodes, low ESR capacitors and a lot of common and differential mode Hf filtering, separated rails, lots of regulators with localized current loops, star sources and ground, shielded power planes on the PCBs, cable setup, etc, etc. In the end the final result is the addition of all efforts taken right from the mains input of the power supply to the connector of the motherboard.

In my particular design, the 3 transformers are providing 4 main power rails from which all separate voltages for each part of the streamer are regulated. Every part of the streamer has its own dedicated regulation from the corresponding power rail. The transformers are housed just behind the front panel in an internally shielded section furthest from the sensitive electronics at the back of the case. The use of Schottky diodes, feed coils on a nano-crystal line core and Nichicon capacitors providing a capacity of 800,000uF is included.

Jord explained that during the development of their single ended, class A 2x40 power amplifier (pic below), they found that if transformers were carefully placed at angles, their natural fields would cancel each other out. In that amp there were 3 power transformers (left/right/peripherals) 2 big chokes and two big output transformers.

- ATX to motherboard: 5 dedicated regulators
- SSD OS: 1 dedicated regulator
- SSD 1T: 1 dedicated regulator
- OCXO: 4 dedicated regulators
- LAN card: 1 dedicated regulator
- USB card: 1dedicated regulator
- Processor: 1dedicated regulator

Total 14 dedicated regulators on the audio side. In fact I'm told that there are more liner regulators as there are many other parts of the system that are not directly related to audio, like the External Switch ES to power on/off a DAC with the system, this ES has also its own regulation (there is a small transformer in the middle for that) also the standby LED for the power switch etc. all have their own regulation. Apparently this is to prevent distortion on the other power lines.

On the Pink Faun Arch Linux OS

Pink Faun earlier used a version of the Windows for the OS and still offer do if customers require it but when I asked what Jord believe would offer the best sound and he strongly recommended to use the real-time, low-latency kernel Arch Linux which allows one to build exactly the modules required for audio and nothing more.

He said that in concept Windows and Linux are totally different. The benefit of Linux is you start with nothing and only configure what you really need for audio playback. With Windows, the opposite is true, it comes loaded with all kinds of stuff and preprogrammed priories and actions, so you have to peel of the entire OS to your needs.

When ask about the allocation of the processor cores to their duties of running the basic applications like Roon and HQPlayer, and whether it was advantages to have certain cores dedicated to certain applications to avoid cross interactions (ala SGM), Jord offered:

" The 2.16 Linux OS gives realtime priority (in a decreasing way) following the configuration file they made in the Realtime Kernel. In this configuration file HQPlayer is the first and Roon second in order of high priority. There are here 2 possibilities:

If you are using Roon with HQPlayer. In this case Roon is only giving the file to HQPlayer, but is not processing audio. So HQPlayer gets all the priority, Roon doesn't get any because is only used for library management and not for processing audio.
If you are using Roon without HQPlayer, since the presence of HQPlayer is ineffective since is not loaded so all the priority is going to Roon because Roon is processing audio.

Linux uses all cores if the applications allows it and HQPlayer needs all possible cores to work at best. I don't see an advantage in giving some cores to Roon and some to HQPlayer, for what I have written in option 1 (Roon is not processing audio). "

In use having spend many working years with Windows, I can say using Linux is very refreshing. No updates or configurations to worry about or virus issues. It simply works and as claimed in a Dutch review by Michael van Meersbergen in January 2018 Recension (http://www.hvt.nl/hvt-xtra-streaming/pink-faun-streamer-2-16/), it is "as stable as a elephant on 16 legs". Living in Thailand, I understand what he is trying to say. ?

Shutdown is 6 seconds and boot-up takes around 30 seconds. Nice

On Clocks

My 2.16x version of the streamer comes with four Connor Winfield OH200 series OCXO clocks, one each for the processor, motherboard, USB card and LAN card. I didn't specify for the i2S card as I don't have a DAC capable of using this connection but I will probably opt for one in the future. Apparently their re-clocked i2S card is something special. My LAN card is still forthcoming as Pink Faun just created a new redesigned card and I wanted the latest version of the card with the latest clock.

As I write this, we are awaiting for their new generation of clocks to come out - one that was custom built for Pink Faun and is a simple swap (not user installable) out from the existing clock boards. The phase noise of this new clock is out and is a very nice -133 dBc/Hz (10Hz) at the use frequency of 20MHz.

Why is this very nice? Because this suggests even lower phase noise levels when compared to external reference clocks at lower use frequencies. Is apparently easier to reach lower phase noise figures at the reference clock frequencies of 10MHz but the problem is that 10MHz is not directly usable in audio. In the Pink Faun streamer, 20MHz (USB bridge) or 24.576 (I2S bridge / SPDIF bridge) and 25MHz for the system and processor clock is required.

For those here that understand the science behind clocks, this is what Pink Faun engineers explained when comparing their clock noise with the Mutec Ref10's phase noise of -142 dBc/Hz at 10Mhz:

" All the specification you referred are at 10 MHz not 25 MHz (or 20MHz).

Due to physics: Frequency multiplication by N increases the phase noise by N2 (i.e., by 20log N, in dB's).

If you move the frequency from 10MHz to 25MHz you will loss theoretical = 8 dB in PN ( 20log 2.5)

In practice you can calculate with 15 dB loss because the best Q value of the crystal is around 800k at 25MHz instead of 1.3M at 10MHz

We are on the physical limits already at 10MHz in the moment with -145dBc/Hz at 10 Hz ( 10 dB better than Vectron and CTS). The best value we could reach is -130 dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The Vectron 10 MHz OX-204 has 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The CTS Model 122 10 MHz has also 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

At the moment we don't have any crystals with a Q value of 800k available. So at first we need to produce such crystals and check if we could guarantee at 25 MHz the PN better than -120dBc/Hz at 10 Hz at 25 MHz "

This new clock should be quite a bit better than the current clocks which are already pretty decent now being installed on board close to where they are required. On that matter, my 2 processor and board clocks are installed under the motherboard in order to shorten the signal path of the clock to the components. This was optional but necessary in my opinion.

Each OCXO clock has their own printed board with linear power regulation. Jord claims that the phase noise is not only determined by the clock itself, also the used wiring, PSU and way of mounting the clock are a major part of phase noise and so have taken this into consideration during the clock card designs. They must have done a good job as the acclaimed SGM server uses a Pink Faun designed clock board. Pink Faun actually worked on a power supply design for SGM too also but in the end they opted to use another approach.

On why Pink Faun believes they need a separate OCXO clock for the processor:

" The system clock (chipset) is needed to synchronize all components/clocks on the motherboard. This clock also synchronizes the clock for the CPU, but the CPU clock is only used on the chip itself. Because the CPU needs to perform more operations per time than the motherboard the clock frequency will be multiplied in the CPU. Our clock runs on 25Mhz and is multiplied 136 times. The System runs at a fixed frequency of 3,4 GHz "

On the Motherboard

As time went on, I started to get a feel about Pink Faun and their unconventional approach to audio. A quirky, extreme approach backed by logic and ability to execute. And this extends to their choice of motherboard to use. Whilst the current approach by all is to use low power, lowest power consumption CPUs required for their function boards, Pink Faun opted to use an extreme gaming motherboard the ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming that uses a Rizen 8-core processor https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157756. This board is full of technology designed to push output to extreme levels necessary for gaming. Why would it then be suitable for the quiet noise free environment required for audio use?

In order for the board to operate at extreme gaming levels, many of the supporting functions must have been enhanced and optimised to perform at all costs. Like the enhanced power delivery to the CPU, the chokes that allow higher saturation currents to the board and the RAM heatsinks to cool memory. And when run at the lower demand audio levels, these peripheral supporting hardware still operate well below capacity, fully allowing effortless and low noise functioning.

Jord emphasised that this board and his power, clock and Bios adjustments on it provided for Low Latency operations. The time it takes to issue an instruction to the 8-core processor and the time it takes to execute it has been reduced to the very minimum. The core is working at full speed all the time and so there isn't any issues of cores running at different frequencies with power saving modes kicking in which also complicates the OS and produces further latency. The downside of this Class A approach to CPU output is that it will run hot and so the 2.16 has a passive cooling system of pipes attached to large heat sinks at both sides of the streamer. I can confirm it runs hot and when I am upsampling with HQPlayer to DSD512/48 the case is almost too hot to keep my hand on the case but the streamer seems to remains stable. Over the course of a few months of use not once has the Pink Faun crashed or hung.

There are so many details to the design that I found it difficult to ask the right questions. When I made the order, I had not know all of the above yet and only discovered it as the project developed. My decision was based on my soft spot for quirky, artistic designers that have a passion for their work. The product usually is more true to their goals and contains a bit of genius that make for that little extra - something necessary in my mind for SOTA designs. And of course the fact that their technology got-to-have check-list was already longer than my own planned SOTA streamer list.

As a testiment to their focus on designing and making products and not with marketing, much later in the process it occured to me that I needed to use HQPlayer along with Roon and asked about it. It was then casually mentioned that the 2.16 came with HQPlayer Embedded, one of the very first streamers to do so. Oh my, how nice!

I then asked about how to place the unit as it was a hefty 20+kg and if I could use my special footers under them. That was when off handedly Jord mentioned that the streamer includes their own special isolation footers which had steel ball bearings in between 2 aluminium parts designed to absorb energy that in their experience sounded very nice. Wow, another pleasant surprise!

It is obvious that Jord, Mattijs and the Pink Faun team has put a tremendous effort in the design of this 2.16x streamer and it's a shame its not recognised more due to their quiet approach to the market. I'm glad I decided to choose their streamer and so confident they are with their product, they offered me a full money back guarantee of satisfaction with it. A guarantee that I will not use as I am totally happy with their product! Hopefully this quick description of my decision to go with the Pink Faun 2.16x streamer will place more information about their product and approach to audio into the internet for all to consider.

Hope it was enjoyable reading,

Regards, Kin ??

@flkin

coming soon..

The listening tests of the 2.16x streamer in different configurations:

2.16 - DAC
2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC
2.16 - sMS-200 - tx-USBultra (both clocked) - DAC
SonicTransporter i5 - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC
SonicTransporter - switch (clocked) - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC (ala Roy's findings)
Antipodes Cx and Ex set comparisons, if I can get @Kritpoon to lend me his set. In various combinations to be determined.

* Spoiler alert! One of the combinations above is truly magical ?

- usual disclaimers: Not in the business, no affiliation to Pink Faun or Triple M Audio Shop. Purchased at retail price. etc.

Cooler · August 15, 2018

OMG, what a MONSTER!!

flkin · August 15, 2018

1 minute ago, Cooler said:

OMG, what a MONSTER!!

Sorry ?, I did mention at the top it was going to be a long one... ?.

Jord at Pink Faun was so kind and responded to all my pestering questions, it was the least I could do to not let his information go to waste.

nfnc · August 15, 2018

@ flkin, thank you for sharing this. I am using the Melco N1ZH at the moment but have always been curious about Pink Faun (as well as the Innous servers). As you have mentioned, they have an individualistic, sometimes unusual approach to issues but appear, to me at least, to have done it methodically.

Besides the Trifecta and those that you have listed, what other "high end" servers have you tried?

flkin · August 15, 2018

4 minutes ago, nfnc said:

@ flkin, thank you for sharing this. I am using the Melco N1ZH at the moment but have always been curious about Pink Faun (as well as the Innous servers). As you have mentioned, they have an individualistic, sometimes unusual approach to issues but appear, to me at least, to have done it methodically.

Besides the Trifecta and those that you have listed, what other "high end" servers have you tried?

Borrowed and tried the Antipodes DX in my system for a few weeks. And soon will have a chance to hear the CX/EX too.

Before choosing the Pink Faun 2.16, I also look at the Zenith units and Adrian's TLS Kalpa-One streamer too. Ultimately the thing that pushed me over the edge with Pink Faun was their star-earthing - something I have always wanted to explore

flkin · August 15, 2018

I remember many years ago in the late '80, I was introduced to the then amazing DNM pre-amp. It came in a clear perspex box and was built with star-earth cabling. It was a mess of wires inside the clear box attempting to provide direct earth to all the components inside! It was received by the hifi press as revolutionary and apparently sounded very good. Since that time I have always wondered if star earthing would matter and if there were any builders today that still believed in the concept.

Well, I found one ?

rickca · August 15, 2018

@flkin what was the price of your server as configured?

flkin · August 15, 2018

8 minutes ago, rickca said:

@flkin what was the price of your server as configured?

That would be euro11,100 excluding shipping.

I added a 1T SSD for an additional euro 609 with top cables

auricgoldfinger · August 15, 2018

8 hours ago, Bricki said:

Is anyone else using cotton as a dielectric on cables in their system?

Good source of DIY wire, both cotton and air insulation options, in your choice of copper or silver.

https://www.vhaudio.com/wire.html

(Habst uses something similar to VH Audio AirLok, but Habst doesn't sell DIY wire.)

tapatrick · August 15, 2018

4 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

That certainly looked like a thumb drive after an accident in the kitchen

https://tenor.com/view/lol-cry-laughing-gif-7506946

jean-michel6 · August 15, 2018

10 hours ago, Bricki said:

My latest adventures with dc cables.

Recently I was revisiting the first post in this thread with the brilliant collection of links that Rajiv has put together and I started re-reading one of the posts by romaz about power cables. Here is a quote from that post where he talks about dielectrics.

"Here are examples of the dielectric constants of various materials:

Air (vacuum) 1.0

Cotton 1.3

Wood 1.4

Teflon (PTFE) 2.1

Polypropylene 2.2

Kevlar 3.5

Neoprene 4.0

Distilled water 34

Teflon and polypropylene are the most commonly used dielectrics because of their durability and heat resistance. Certain manufacturers have gone to cotton as a primary dielectric (i.e. DHC, Zenwave) and I believe their results speak for themselves."

This got me thinking about something John Swenson said with regards to how dielectric absorption can effect the performance of a dc cable.

Previously I have used chopped up bits of an audioquest ethernet cable with good quality solid core copper inside. A while ago I used all 8 conductors for a positive and all 8 in another section for negative. The results were underwhelming and I went back to my 10awg wire trimmed at each end to fit my plugs (in separate positive and negative wires). I wondered if all the insulation on each conductor was having a negative effect.

So I stripped the insulation off each conductor.

Then I wound 16 of the 28awg conductors together and using the handle of a cotton shopping bag (once cut it makes a nice cotton sleeve)

I twisted the cotton sleeve around the conductor and used electrical tape to hold the cotton on.

Ending up with a positive and negative each looking something like this...

So I have 2 x 16 x 28awg. The positive is around 10cm long and negative is bit longer. I then did separate JSSG 360's around the positive and negative and put it in place between my lps1 and sMS-200. The end result is a very ugly looking "cable". But looks can be deceiving because this is by far the best sounding dc cable I have made. Everything sounds richer and smoother with better tone. Vocals have more of a sense of realism. Every note on the piano is better delineated from the other keys being struck. Brass instruments are less harsh and have better timbre. I think there is also a darker background with more depth and better image focus.

Is anyone else using cotton as a dielectric on cables in their system?

Hi,

Congratulations for this nice trial. I am not surprised you get good result.

However those will not last ,because copper will oxidize unless it is extremely pure occ copper. Copper oxide is a poor conductor.

If you try the same thing with silver you will get result which last in time , silver will oxidize too but silver oxide is highly conductive.

I have several interconnect cable using air as dielectric and it gives very good result.

austinpop · August 15, 2018

5 hours ago, flkin said:

Warning - pretty long post..   ?

The Pink Faun 2.16 Streamer - a journey of creation

Over the past year or so, CA and especially this one thread has been educating me about computer hifi specifically the front end of the chain and all the myriad of devices that includes the functional boxes, wires, power supplies, power and power supplies for the power supplies etc. Along the way, like many here, I assembled my version of the Trifecta Stable system that includes the tx-USBultra, sMS-200, isoRegen, Clocks and more. Items that all have a contribution to the ultimate sound.

And then I was ready for the next step - a custom server of my own with the view to keep the glorious sound but simplify the system if possible. After reading about the benefits of power, clocks and simple low-power motherboards with special SSD memory, eMMC drives, RAM etc it didn't seem all that difficult to specify and get built a good streamer at a good price.

Near the end of my efforts and when almost ready to commission a build, I did one last check with other high end servers to see if there was anything I left out in my planned build. And that’s when I came across the rather obscure Pink Faun website in Dutch language. The pictures of the streamer there was exciting. A highly complex box full of equipment and wires. No reviews online for the device as yet.

The Pink Faun streamer is made by the Triple M Audio Shop is a Dutch company based in Rhenen. The streamer is now v2.16 in its current incarnation and has been around for over a year now but it's only recently that I came across it during my research to assemble my own extreme server. Apart from the basic motherboard, most of the streamer is designed in-house and hand made.



With my interest generated, I wrote in to Jord the proprietor of the Triple M Audio Shop company for more information on his State Of The Art streamer than what was already provided in the website.

In a nutshell the Pink Faun 2.16 streamer can have

Up to 20 liner power supplies

Up to 4 OCXO clocks internally

Option wiring with zero inductance

Star earthing and supply cabling design

Custom built OS and Bios

That was far more technology than I was planning in my own streamer. And far more costly too. But I figured that if I went with my own streamer design I would also have to consider adding an external bespoke power supplies like a Paul Hynes or Sean Jacobs or an extreme clock like the Mutec Ref10 or Cybershaft OP14, the price would get closer. And to get the clocks working you would need to add a re-clocking card, optimised cables and modifications to utilise the clocks. Not to mention having to choose and setup an optimised OS like Windows Server 2016 with Audiophile Optimizer or Fidelizer Pro or even perhaps Linux installation.

After some consideration about the daunting task of going ahead with my own streamer design or go with a company of which I hadn't heard much off and without any reviews of the 2.16 streamer, it was close but I chickened out of making my own and went with Jord's design.

Pink Faun has a few streamers on offer - a basic box which you can then choose what you want to place inside starting at euro1750, a medium streamer model 3.4 starting at euro3490 and their top of the range 2.16 which starts at euro6990.

Considering what they had already described to me, I decided to go for the 2.16 but also added some optional extras to it making it the 2.16x version. This included:

4 OCXO clocks in various locations

3 Pink Faun Rhodium 10mm fuses

Furutech FI-09 Rhodium IEC inlet

PCX-1 zero inductance cables for the ATX motherboard PSU, the processor PSU, the SPDIF bridge PSU and SATA cable for OS-SSD

As I proceeded with this project of customising the PF2.16 server (and it's a truly custom design actually as all their multitudes of i2S cards, spdif i2S Stereo, I2S Multi-channel, s/pdif coax, AES/EBU, USB, LAN etc are all self designed and hand built along with their clock and power boards) I figured that the project would be a lot more fun if I dug out their thoughts behind their designs as it was not easily found online. So I asked Jord and we discussed the following:

On Power Supply Design - there are 3 transformers in the case.

1) Why do you use three smaller separated and not one larger mains transformer?

There are two reasons for this, first smaller transformers are more stable under high current swings, and have less chance of humming during high current peaks. Secondly and most important, each transformer is used for it dedicated area of operation. One for the processor, one for the motherboard and one for the peripherals. A streamer supply has a highly peaking current load, and all currents add up in the transformer core and interact with each other. By separating the main areas of a streamer in each transformer interaction is less and will improve the final sound quality.

2) Why are chokes use in your power supplies?

Due to its intrinsic properties, a capacitor buffered power supply does not draw a continuous, but a highly peaked current. Each 100Hz capacitors are filled up for the full cycle in only microseconds, depending on the duty cycle of the power supply. The higher the capacitance and the lower the inductance (and Rdc) of the transformer, the lower the duty cycle, and the higher these peaks are. These peaks introduce large Hf noise in power supplies. In Pink Faun power supplies we use high inductance power transformers (low field saturation in the core), and we use pi-filtering to keep the peaks at a minimum and thus Hf noise. The less rubbish in, the less we have to filter later.

3) Why do you use separated power rails and not on single mains supply?

All loads in the end come together in the source of power. In this source they interact, resulting in harmonics and intermodulation noise. The earlier all separated loads are split in the device, the less they interact, resulting in lowest initial noise in power supplies. Also by using a lot of smaller separated and regulated supplies, we can keep current loops very minimal and local, which also will reduce spread of EMC inside the device. This is why Pink Faun streamers use separated rails for dedicated areas and a separated regulator each for each load. Great care is taken in adding these power supplies all together in one star ground, and also to source all ingoing voltage from star outputs in the power supply, resulting in minimal interference and minimal Hf noise and harmonics.

4) What can we do to get lowest noise possible in the streamer power supply?

Even the best regulators have very poor Hf characteristics. Noise of the regulator itself is a factor in the final supply's output noise, but even more important are the noise of the mains power, EMC noise (from outside and the device itself) and noise generated by the rectifying and current peaks of the capacitors. All these noise sources have to be minimized in order to let the regulator get to its optimal performance. This means special low inductance transformers, schottky diodes, low ESR capacitors and a lot of common and differential mode Hf filtering, separated rails, lots of regulators with localized current loops, star sources and ground, shielded power planes on the PCBs, cable setup, etc, etc. In the end the final result is the addition of all efforts taken right from the mains input of the power supply to the connector of the motherboard.

In my particular design, the 3 transformers are providing 4 main power rails from which all separate voltages for each part of the streamer are regulated. Every part of the streamer has its own dedicated regulation from the corresponding power rail. The transformers are housed just behind the front panel in an internally shielded section furthest from the sensitive electronics at the back of the case. The use of Schottky diodes, feed coils on a nano-crystal line core and Nichicon capacitors providing a capacity of 800,000uF is included.

Jord explained that during the development of their single ended, class A 2x40 power amplifier (pic below), they found that if transformers were carefully placed at angles, their natural fields would cancel each other out. In that amp there were 3 power transformers (left/right/peripherals) 2 big chokes and two big output transformers.

- ATX to motherboard: 5 dedicated regulators

- SSD OS: 1 dedicated regulator

- SSD 1T: 1 dedicated regulator

- OCXO: 4 dedicated regulators

- LAN card: 1 dedicated regulator

- USB card: 1dedicated regulator

- Processor: 1dedicated regulator

Total 14 dedicated regulators on the audio side. In fact I'm told that there are more liner regulators as there are many other parts of the system that are not directly related to audio, like the External Switch ES to power on/off a DAC with the system, this ES has also its own regulation (there is a small transformer in the middle for that) also the standby LED for the power switch etc. all have their own regulation. Apparently this is to prevent distortion on the other power lines.



On the Pink Faun Arch Linux OS

Pink Faun earlier used a version of the Windows for the OS and still offer do if customers require it but when I asked what Jord believe would offer the best sound and he strongly recommended to use the real-time, low-latency kernel Arch Linux which allows one to build exactly the modules required for audio and nothing more.

He said that in concept Windows and Linux are totally different. The benefit of Linux is you start with nothing and only configure what you really need for audio playback. With Windows, the opposite is true, it comes loaded with all kinds of stuff and preprogrammed priories and actions, so you have to peel of the entire OS to your needs.

When ask about the allocation of the processor cores to their duties of running the basic applications like Roon and HQPlayer, and whether it was advantages to have certain cores dedicated to certain applications to avoid cross interactions (ala SGM), Jord offered:

" The 2.16 Linux OS gives realtime priority (in a decreasing way) following the configuration file they made in the Realtime Kernel. In this configuration file HQPlayer is the first and Roon second in order of high priority. There are here 2 possibilities:

If you are using Roon with HQPlayer. In this case Roon is only giving the file to HQPlayer, but is not processing audio. So HQPlayer gets all the priority, Roon doesn't get any because is only used for library management and not for processing audio.

If you are using Roon without HQPlayer, since the presence of HQPlayer is ineffective since is not loaded so all the priority is going to Roon because Roon is processing audio.

Linux uses all cores if the applications allows it and HQPlayer needs all possible cores to work at best. I don't see an advantage in giving some cores to Roon and some to HQPlayer, for what I have written in option 1 (Roon is not processing audio). "

In use having spend many working years with Windows, I can say using Linux is very refreshing. No updates or configurations to worry about or virus issues. It simply works and as claimed in a Dutch review by Michael van Meersbergen in January 2018 Recension (http://www.hvt.nl/hvt-xtra-streaming/pink-faun-streamer-2-16/), it is "as stable as a elephant on 16 legs". Living in Thailand, I understand what he is trying to say. ?

Shutdown is 6 seconds and boot-up takes around 30 seconds. Nice

On Clocks

My 2.16x version of the streamer comes with four Connor Winfield OH200 series OCXO clocks, one each for the processor, motherboard, USB card and LAN card. I didn't specify for the i2S card as I don't have a DAC capable of using this connection but I will probably opt for one in the future. Apparently their re-clocked i2S card is something special. My LAN card is still forthcoming as Pink Faun just created a new redesigned card and I wanted the latest version of the card with the latest clock.

As I write this, we are awaiting for their new generation of clocks to come out - one that was custom built for Pink Faun and is a simple swap (not user installable) out from the existing clock boards. The phase noise of this new clock is out and is a very nice -133 dBc/Hz (10Hz) at the use frequency of 20MHz.

Why is this very nice? Because this suggests even lower phase noise levels when compared to external reference clocks at lower use frequencies. Is apparently easier to reach lower phase noise figures at the reference clock frequencies of 10MHz but the problem is that 10MHz is not directly usable in audio. In the Pink Faun streamer, 20MHz (USB bridge) or 24.576 (I2S bridge / SPDIF bridge) and 25MHz for the system and processor clock is required.

For those here that understand the science behind clocks, this is what Pink Faun engineers explained when comparing their clock noise with the Mutec Ref10's phase noise of -142 dBc/Hz at 10Mhz:

" All the specification you referred are at 10 MHz not 25 MHz (or 20MHz).

Due to physics: Frequency multiplication by N increases the phase noise by N2 (i.e., by 20log N, in dB's).

If you move the frequency from 10MHz to 25MHz you will loss theoretical = 8 dB in PN ( 20log 2.5)

In practice you can calculate with 15 dB loss because the best Q value of the crystal is around 800k at 25MHz instead of 1.3M at 10MHz

We are on the physical limits already at 10MHz in the moment with -145dBc/Hz at 10 Hz ( 10 dB better than Vectron and CTS). The best value we could reach is -130 dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The Vectron 10 MHz OX-204 has 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The CTS Model 122 10 MHz has also 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

At the moment we don't have any crystals with a Q value of 800k available. So at first we need to produce such crystals and check if we could guarantee at 25 MHz the PN better than -120dBc/Hz at 10 Hz at 25 MHz "

This new clock should be quite a bit better than the current clocks which are already pretty decent now being installed on board close to where they are required. On that matter, my 2 processor and board clocks are installed under the motherboard in order to shorten the signal path of the clock to the components. This was optional but necessary in my opinion.

Each OCXO clock has their own printed board with linear power regulation. Jord claims that the phase noise is not only determined by the clock itself, also the used wiring, PSU and way of mounting the clock are a major part of phase noise and so have taken this into consideration during the clock card designs. They must have done a good job as the acclaimed SGM server uses a Pink Faun designed clock board. Pink Faun actually worked on a power supply design for SGM too also but in the end they opted to use another approach.

On why Pink Faun believes they need a separate OCXO clock for the processor:

" The system clock (chipset) is needed to synchronize all components/clocks on the motherboard. This clock also synchronizes the clock for the CPU, but the CPU clock is only used on the chip itself. Because the CPU needs to perform more operations per time than the motherboard the clock frequency will be multiplied in the CPU. Our clock runs on 25Mhz and is multiplied 136 times. The System runs at a fixed frequency of 3,4 GHz "

On the Motherboard

As time went on, I started to get a feel about Pink Faun and their unconventional approach to audio. A quirky, extreme approach backed by logic and ability to execute. And this extends to their choice of motherboard to use. Whilst the current approach by all is to use low power, lowest power consumption CPUs required for their function boards, Pink Faun opted to use an extreme gaming motherboard the ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming that uses a Rizen 8-core processor https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157756. This board is full of technology designed to push output to extreme levels necessary for gaming. Why would it then be suitable for the quiet noise free environment required for audio use?

In order for the board to operate at extreme gaming levels, many of the supporting functions must have been enhanced and optimised to perform at all costs. Like the enhanced power delivery to the CPU, the chokes that allow higher saturation currents to the board and the RAM heatsinks to cool memory. And when run at the lower demand audio levels, these peripheral supporting hardware still operate well below capacity, fully allowing effortless and low noise functioning.

Jord emphasised that this board and his power, clock and Bios adjustments on it provided for Low Latency operations. The time it takes to issue an instruction to the 8-core processor and the time it takes to execute it has been reduced to the very minimum. The core is working at full speed all the time and so there isn't any issues of cores running at different frequencies with power saving modes kicking in which also complicates the OS and produces further latency. The downside of this Class A approach to CPU output is that it will run hot and so the 2.16 has a passive cooling system of pipes attached to large heat sinks at both sides of the streamer. I can confirm it runs hot and when I am upsampling with HQPlayer to DSD512/48 the case is almost too hot to keep my hand on the case but the streamer seems to remains stable. Over the course of a few months of use not once has the Pink Faun crashed or hung.

There are so many details to the design that I found it difficult to ask the right questions. When I made the order, I had not know all of the above yet and only discovered it as the project developed. My decision was based on my soft spot for quirky, artistic designers that have a passion for their work. The product usually is more true to their goals and contains a bit of genius that make for that little extra - something necessary in my mind for SOTA designs. And of course the fact that their technology got-to-have check-list was already longer than my own planned SOTA streamer list.

As a testiment to their focus on designing and making products and not with marketing, much later in the process it occured to me that I needed to use HQPlayer along with Roon and asked about it. It was then casually mentioned that the 2.16 came with HQPlayer Embedded, one of the very first streamers to do so. Oh my, how nice!

I then asked about how to place the unit as it was a hefty 20+kg and if I could use my special footers under them. That was when off handedly Jord mentioned that the streamer includes their own special isolation footers which had steel ball bearings in between 2 aluminium parts designed to absorb energy that in their experience sounded very nice. Wow, another pleasant surprise!

It is obvious that Jord, Mattijs and the Pink Faun team has put a tremendous effort in the design of this 2.16x streamer and it's a shame its not recognised more due to their quiet approach to the market. I'm glad I decided to choose their streamer and so confident they are with their product, they offered me a full money back guarantee of satisfaction with it. A guarantee that I will not use as I am totally happy with their product! Hopefully this quick description of my decision to go with the Pink Faun 2.16x streamer will place more information about their product and approach to audio into the internet for all to consider.

Hope it was enjoyable reading,

Regards, Kin ??

@flkin

coming soon..

The listening tests of the 2.16x streamer in different configurations:

2.16 - DAC

2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC

2.16 - sMS-200 - tx-USBultra (both clocked) - DAC

SonicTransporter i5 - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC

SonicTransporter - switch (clocked) - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC (ala Roy's findings)

Antipodes Cx and Ex set comparisons, if I can get @Kritpoon to lend me his set. In various combinations to be determined.

* Spoiler alert! One of the combinations above is truly magical ?

- usual disclaimers: Not in the business, no affiliation to Pink Faun or Triple M Audio Shop. Purchased at retail price. etc.

Wow, I love your epic report! Can’t wait for the listening results.

ElviaCaprice · August 15, 2018

6 hours ago, kyrill said:

My signal wires are DIY from finest OCC copper insulated by cotton sleeves which you can buy ( steep price) on the internet.

However they dont attenuate RFI and EMI.

SO I do another sleeve around it. You might ask "will that not negatively interfere with the low DK of cotton?" IT will be inaudible because of the betterment in sq with shielding The RFI/EMI shielding is very very thin (conductive textile) so its DK is by itself because of that attenuated. Also because the cotton keeps it away from the wire. The more airy the cotton is the lower its DK This is the shield I use. In audiophile land it is close to cheap. there are many different widths https://hollandshielding.com/Cable-shielding-materials-shielded-entries-materials. I never use the heavy metallic

I never use the heavy metallic flexible tube of audiophile death. . although a transparent death. ( EMI and RFI attenuate strongly transparency) Its DK is a nightmare between 6 and infinity. A high metal DK gives a sharpness ( tiredness after longer listening) and typical HiFI" sound the opposite of listening to acoustic signals around you. Non transparent systems how ever with "damped highs" may benefit from higher DK. It suggests focused and outlined "identities" of the different "players" in the sound stream Replace it with the fabric, and when living under heavy RFI bombardement of mobile hotspots or towers around you, use two layers.

But a mobile phone wrapped in a thin layer fabric of less than a half mm cannot receive phone calls anymore.

Interesting Kyrill,

Seems your looking for a compromise between DK and EMI/RFI attenuation. Isn't there a point which enough low DK material/air is present around the signal conductor where a high DK material such as metallic flexible tubing would be best, for EMI and RFI, but no longer be reflective back upon itself? Then you would have the best of both worlds.

I'm sure this would be signal wire dependent.

flkin · August 15, 2018

Thanks Rajiv, that's the fun part ?. And quite interesting. I still have a lot of listening to do but already quite a bit to share.

ElviaCaprice · August 15, 2018

8 hours ago, kyrill said:

I never use the heavy metallic flexible tube of audiophile death. . although a transparent death. ( EMI and RFI attenuate strongly transparency) Its DK is a nightmare between 6 and infinity. A high metal DK gives a sharpness ( tiredness after longer listening) and typical HiFI" sound the opposite of listening to acoustic signals around you. Non transparent systems how ever with "damped highs" may benefit from higher DK. It suggests focused and outlined "identities" of the different "players" in the sound stream Replace it with the fabric, and when living under heavy RFI bombardement of mobile hotspots or towers around you, use two layers.

But a mobile phone wrapped in a thin layer fabric of less than a half mm cannot receive phone calls anymore.

Further thoughts on my use of metal flexible tubing with your comments in mind.

I'm not sure what you consider signal wires? I will assume both digital and analog. Other than DC cables, which I assume are a different matter, I have used the JS 360 in 3 different signal cables. One my, short SATA cable, which is a PPA cable, here I chose to keep the cable as is and wrap the additional JS 360 around it.

Second cable is the flat ribbon cable running from mini PCIe to PCIe 1X lane. Here I first added a heat shrink before applying the JS 360.

Third set of cables is my RCA to spade speaker cables direct from Chord DAVE to speakers. In this case, I used the Canare 4s11, which is already wrapped in cotton. Here I applied the JS 360 direct to the cable.

I also applied the 3M AB 5100SHF to the NUC casing.

SQ observations,

There is absolutely zero hint of computer gleam what so ever in the highs, fantastic lows and mids, if I had to describe the sound, the term balance comes to mind. No listening fatigue. Transparency is thru the roof, detail is nicely balanced with sound stage. In comparison from before, sound stage was slightly larger, vague hints of gleam, with loss of transparency.

My thoughts are that this staging was a false stage created by RFI, EMI noise resulting in loss of transparency and gleam?

Whereas, the JS 360 direct to the clocking cables was a disaster. Distortion in the highs was unbearable. A gleam so strong that listening fatigue was immediate. Upon removing, all was returned to perfect. Here I may try cotton wrap.

paulhynes · August 15, 2018

Hi Elvia,

There are AC load currents passing through the DC leads so I would suggest you treat them in the same way that you treat your signal leads. This is also why the voltage regulator circuit topology, and of course the rest of the power supply support system, are so important as the load currents are circulating around the power supply.

Regards

Paul

ElviaCaprice · August 15, 2018

44 minutes ago, paulhynes said:

Hi Elvia,

There are AC load currents passing through the DC leads so I would suggest you treat them in the same way that you treat your signal leads. This is also why the voltage regulator circuit topology, and of course the rest of the power supply support system, are so important as the load currents are circulating around the power supply.

Regards

Paul

Paul, I have applied the JS 360 to all my DC cables consisting of Canare 4S6 star quad cable. I have placed the SR7 MR4 as close as possible to my needed components so as to maintain the shortest length possible. The results have been outstanding to say the least and only enhance the results of your top of the line design.

But my thoughts are that the JS 360 is preventing any external leakage from seeping into the DC conductor. When you say AC load currents passing through the DC leads, I would assume your talking about just this kind of external leakage? Otherwise if that AC current is already within the DC conductor from the power supply, how would any cage such as the JS 360 prevent it?

Loving the SR7 MR4, thanks again.

FredM · August 15, 2018

10 hours ago, flkin said:

Warning - pretty long post..   ?

The Pink Faun 2.16 Streamer - a journey of creation

Over the past year or so, CA and especially this one thread has been educating me about computer hifi specifically the front end of the chain and all the myriad of devices that includes the functional boxes, wires, power supplies, power and power supplies for the power supplies etc. Along the way, like many here, I assembled my version of the Trifecta Stable system that includes the tx-USBultra, sMS-200, isoRegen, Clocks and more. Items that all have a contribution to the ultimate sound.

And then I was ready for the next step - a custom server of my own with the view to keep the glorious sound but simplify the system if possible. After reading about the benefits of power, clocks and simple low-power motherboards with special SSD memory, eMMC drives, RAM etc it didn't seem all that difficult to specify and get built a good streamer at a good price.

Near the end of my efforts and when almost ready to commission a build, I did one last check with other high end servers to see if there was anything I left out in my planned build. And that’s when I came across the rather obscure Pink Faun website in Dutch language. The pictures of the streamer there was exciting. A highly complex box full of equipment and wires. No reviews online for the device as yet.

The Pink Faun streamer is made by the Triple M Audio Shop is a Dutch company based in Rhenen. The streamer is now v2.16 in its current incarnation and has been around for over a year now but it's only recently that I came across it during my research to assemble my own extreme server. Apart from the basic motherboard, most of the streamer is designed in-house and hand made.



With my interest generated, I wrote in to Jord the proprietor of the Triple M Audio Shop company for more information on his State Of The Art streamer than what was already provided in the website.

In a nutshell the Pink Faun 2.16 streamer can have

Up to 20 liner power supplies

Up to 4 OCXO clocks internally

Option wiring with zero inductance

Star earthing and supply cabling design

Custom built OS and Bios

That was far more technology than I was planning in my own streamer. And far more costly too. But I figured that if I went with my own streamer design I would also have to consider adding an external bespoke power supplies like a Paul Hynes or Sean Jacobs or an extreme clock like the Mutec Ref10 or Cybershaft OP14, the price would get closer. And to get the clocks working you would need to add a re-clocking card, optimised cables and modifications to utilise the clocks. Not to mention having to choose and setup an optimised OS like Windows Server 2016 with Audiophile Optimizer or Fidelizer Pro or even perhaps Linux installation.

After some consideration about the daunting task of going ahead with my own streamer design or go with a company of which I hadn't heard much off and without any reviews of the 2.16 streamer, it was close but I chickened out of making my own and went with Jord's design.

Pink Faun has a few streamers on offer - a basic box which you can then choose what you want to place inside starting at euro1750, a medium streamer model 3.4 starting at euro3490 and their top of the range 2.16 which starts at euro6990.

Considering what they had already described to me, I decided to go for the 2.16 but also added some optional extras to it making it the 2.16x version. This included:

4 OCXO clocks in various locations

3 Pink Faun Rhodium 10mm fuses

Furutech FI-09 Rhodium IEC inlet

PCX-1 zero inductance cables for the ATX motherboard PSU, the processor PSU, the SPDIF bridge PSU and SATA cable for OS-SSD

As I proceeded with this project of customising the PF2.16 server (and it's a truly custom design actually as all their multitudes of i2S cards, spdif i2S Stereo, I2S Multi-channel, s/pdif coax, AES/EBU, USB, LAN etc are all self designed and hand built along with their clock and power boards) I figured that the project would be a lot more fun if I dug out their thoughts behind their designs as it was not easily found online. So I asked Jord and we discussed the following:

On Power Supply Design - there are 3 transformers in the case.

1) Why do you use three smaller separated and not one larger mains transformer?

There are two reasons for this, first smaller transformers are more stable under high current swings, and have less chance of humming during high current peaks. Secondly and most important, each transformer is used for it dedicated area of operation. One for the processor, one for the motherboard and one for the peripherals. A streamer supply has a highly peaking current load, and all currents add up in the transformer core and interact with each other. By separating the main areas of a streamer in each transformer interaction is less and will improve the final sound quality.

2) Why are chokes use in your power supplies?

Due to its intrinsic properties, a capacitor buffered power supply does not draw a continuous, but a highly peaked current. Each 100Hz capacitors are filled up for the full cycle in only microseconds, depending on the duty cycle of the power supply. The higher the capacitance and the lower the inductance (and Rdc) of the transformer, the lower the duty cycle, and the higher these peaks are. These peaks introduce large Hf noise in power supplies. In Pink Faun power supplies we use high inductance power transformers (low field saturation in the core), and we use pi-filtering to keep the peaks at a minimum and thus Hf noise. The less rubbish in, the less we have to filter later.

3) Why do you use separated power rails and not on single mains supply?

All loads in the end come together in the source of power. In this source they interact, resulting in harmonics and intermodulation noise. The earlier all separated loads are split in the device, the less they interact, resulting in lowest initial noise in power supplies. Also by using a lot of smaller separated and regulated supplies, we can keep current loops very minimal and local, which also will reduce spread of EMC inside the device. This is why Pink Faun streamers use separated rails for dedicated areas and a separated regulator each for each load. Great care is taken in adding these power supplies all together in one star ground, and also to source all ingoing voltage from star outputs in the power supply, resulting in minimal interference and minimal Hf noise and harmonics.

4) What can we do to get lowest noise possible in the streamer power supply?

Even the best regulators have very poor Hf characteristics. Noise of the regulator itself is a factor in the final supply's output noise, but even more important are the noise of the mains power, EMC noise (from outside and the device itself) and noise generated by the rectifying and current peaks of the capacitors. All these noise sources have to be minimized in order to let the regulator get to its optimal performance. This means special low inductance transformers, schottky diodes, low ESR capacitors and a lot of common and differential mode Hf filtering, separated rails, lots of regulators with localized current loops, star sources and ground, shielded power planes on the PCBs, cable setup, etc, etc. In the end the final result is the addition of all efforts taken right from the mains input of the power supply to the connector of the motherboard.

In my particular design, the 3 transformers are providing 4 main power rails from which all separate voltages for each part of the streamer are regulated. Every part of the streamer has its own dedicated regulation from the corresponding power rail. The transformers are housed just behind the front panel in an internally shielded section furthest from the sensitive electronics at the back of the case. The use of Schottky diodes, feed coils on a nano-crystal line core and Nichicon capacitors providing a capacity of 800,000uF is included.

Jord explained that during the development of their single ended, class A 2x40 power amplifier (pic below), they found that if transformers were carefully placed at angles, their natural fields would cancel each other out. In that amp there were 3 power transformers (left/right/peripherals) 2 big chokes and two big output transformers.

- ATX to motherboard: 5 dedicated regulators

- SSD OS: 1 dedicated regulator

- SSD 1T: 1 dedicated regulator

- OCXO: 4 dedicated regulators

- LAN card: 1 dedicated regulator

- USB card: 1dedicated regulator

- Processor: 1dedicated regulator

Total 14 dedicated regulators on the audio side. In fact I'm told that there are more liner regulators as there are many other parts of the system that are not directly related to audio, like the External Switch ES to power on/off a DAC with the system, this ES has also its own regulation (there is a small transformer in the middle for that) also the standby LED for the power switch etc. all have their own regulation. Apparently this is to prevent distortion on the other power lines.



On the Pink Faun Arch Linux OS

Pink Faun earlier used a version of the Windows for the OS and still offer do if customers require it but when I asked what Jord believe would offer the best sound and he strongly recommended to use the real-time, low-latency kernel Arch Linux which allows one to build exactly the modules required for audio and nothing more.

He said that in concept Windows and Linux are totally different. The benefit of Linux is you start with nothing and only configure what you really need for audio playback. With Windows, the opposite is true, it comes loaded with all kinds of stuff and preprogrammed priories and actions, so you have to peel of the entire OS to your needs.

When ask about the allocation of the processor cores to their duties of running the basic applications like Roon and HQPlayer, and whether it was advantages to have certain cores dedicated to certain applications to avoid cross interactions (ala SGM), Jord offered:

" The 2.16 Linux OS gives realtime priority (in a decreasing way) following the configuration file they made in the Realtime Kernel. In this configuration file HQPlayer is the first and Roon second in order of high priority. There are here 2 possibilities:

If you are using Roon with HQPlayer. In this case Roon is only giving the file to HQPlayer, but is not processing audio. So HQPlayer gets all the priority, Roon doesn't get any because is only used for library management and not for processing audio.

If you are using Roon without HQPlayer, since the presence of HQPlayer is ineffective since is not loaded so all the priority is going to Roon because Roon is processing audio.

Linux uses all cores if the applications allows it and HQPlayer needs all possible cores to work at best. I don't see an advantage in giving some cores to Roon and some to HQPlayer, for what I have written in option 1 (Roon is not processing audio). "

In use having spend many working years with Windows, I can say using Linux is very refreshing. No updates or configurations to worry about or virus issues. It simply works and as claimed in a Dutch review by Michael van Meersbergen in January 2018 Recension (http://www.hvt.nl/hvt-xtra-streaming/pink-faun-streamer-2-16/), it is "as stable as a elephant on 16 legs". Living in Thailand, I understand what he is trying to say. ?

Shutdown is 6 seconds and boot-up takes around 30 seconds. Nice

On Clocks

My 2.16x version of the streamer comes with four Connor Winfield OH200 series OCXO clocks, one each for the processor, motherboard, USB card and LAN card. I didn't specify for the i2S card as I don't have a DAC capable of using this connection but I will probably opt for one in the future. Apparently their re-clocked i2S card is something special. My LAN card is still forthcoming as Pink Faun just created a new redesigned card and I wanted the latest version of the card with the latest clock.

As I write this, we are awaiting for their new generation of clocks to come out - one that was custom built for Pink Faun and is a simple swap (not user installable) out from the existing clock boards. The phase noise of this new clock is out and is a very nice -133 dBc/Hz (10Hz) at the use frequency of 20MHz.

Why is this very nice? Because this suggests even lower phase noise levels when compared to external reference clocks at lower use frequencies. Is apparently easier to reach lower phase noise figures at the reference clock frequencies of 10MHz but the problem is that 10MHz is not directly usable in audio. In the Pink Faun streamer, 20MHz (USB bridge) or 24.576 (I2S bridge / SPDIF bridge) and 25MHz for the system and processor clock is required.

For those here that understand the science behind clocks, this is what Pink Faun engineers explained when comparing their clock noise with the Mutec Ref10's phase noise of -142 dBc/Hz at 10Mhz:

" All the specification you referred are at 10 MHz not 25 MHz (or 20MHz).

Due to physics: Frequency multiplication by N increases the phase noise by N2 (i.e., by 20log N, in dB's).

If you move the frequency from 10MHz to 25MHz you will loss theoretical = 8 dB in PN ( 20log 2.5)

In practice you can calculate with 15 dB loss because the best Q value of the crystal is around 800k at 25MHz instead of 1.3M at 10MHz

We are on the physical limits already at 10MHz in the moment with -145dBc/Hz at 10 Hz ( 10 dB better than Vectron and CTS). The best value we could reach is -130 dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The Vectron 10 MHz OX-204 has 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The CTS Model 122 10 MHz has also 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

At the moment we don't have any crystals with a Q value of 800k available. So at first we need to produce such crystals and check if we could guarantee at 25 MHz the PN better than -120dBc/Hz at 10 Hz at 25 MHz "

This new clock should be quite a bit better than the current clocks which are already pretty decent now being installed on board close to where they are required. On that matter, my 2 processor and board clocks are installed under the motherboard in order to shorten the signal path of the clock to the components. This was optional but necessary in my opinion.

Each OCXO clock has their own printed board with linear power regulation. Jord claims that the phase noise is not only determined by the clock itself, also the used wiring, PSU and way of mounting the clock are a major part of phase noise and so have taken this into consideration during the clock card designs. They must have done a good job as the acclaimed SGM server uses a Pink Faun designed clock board. Pink Faun actually worked on a power supply design for SGM too also but in the end they opted to use another approach.

On why Pink Faun believes they need a separate OCXO clock for the processor:

" The system clock (chipset) is needed to synchronize all components/clocks on the motherboard. This clock also synchronizes the clock for the CPU, but the CPU clock is only used on the chip itself. Because the CPU needs to perform more operations per time than the motherboard the clock frequency will be multiplied in the CPU. Our clock runs on 25Mhz and is multiplied 136 times. The System runs at a fixed frequency of 3,4 GHz "

On the Motherboard

As time went on, I started to get a feel about Pink Faun and their unconventional approach to audio. A quirky, extreme approach backed by logic and ability to execute. And this extends to their choice of motherboard to use. Whilst the current approach by all is to use low power, lowest power consumption CPUs required for their function boards, Pink Faun opted to use an extreme gaming motherboard the ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming that uses a Rizen 8-core processor https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157756. This board is full of technology designed to push output to extreme levels necessary for gaming. Why would it then be suitable for the quiet noise free environment required for audio use?

In order for the board to operate at extreme gaming levels, many of the supporting functions must have been enhanced and optimised to perform at all costs. Like the enhanced power delivery to the CPU, the chokes that allow higher saturation currents to the board and the RAM heatsinks to cool memory. And when run at the lower demand audio levels, these peripheral supporting hardware still operate well below capacity, fully allowing effortless and low noise functioning.

Jord emphasised that this board and his power, clock and Bios adjustments on it provided for Low Latency operations. The time it takes to issue an instruction to the 8-core processor and the time it takes to execute it has been reduced to the very minimum. The core is working at full speed all the time and so there isn't any issues of cores running at different frequencies with power saving modes kicking in which also complicates the OS and produces further latency. The downside of this Class A approach to CPU output is that it will run hot and so the 2.16 has a passive cooling system of pipes attached to large heat sinks at both sides of the streamer. I can confirm it runs hot and when I am upsampling with HQPlayer to DSD512/48 the case is almost too hot to keep my hand on the case but the streamer seems to remains stable. Over the course of a few months of use not once has the Pink Faun crashed or hung.

There are so many details to the design that I found it difficult to ask the right questions. When I made the order, I had not know all of the above yet and only discovered it as the project developed. My decision was based on my soft spot for quirky, artistic designers that have a passion for their work. The product usually is more true to their goals and contains a bit of genius that make for that little extra - something necessary in my mind for SOTA designs. And of course the fact that their technology got-to-have check-list was already longer than my own planned SOTA streamer list.

As a testiment to their focus on designing and making products and not with marketing, much later in the process it occured to me that I needed to use HQPlayer along with Roon and asked about it. It was then casually mentioned that the 2.16 came with HQPlayer Embedded, one of the very first streamers to do so. Oh my, how nice!

I then asked about how to place the unit as it was a hefty 20+kg and if I could use my special footers under them. That was when off handedly Jord mentioned that the streamer includes their own special isolation footers which had steel ball bearings in between 2 aluminium parts designed to absorb energy that in their experience sounded very nice. Wow, another pleasant surprise!

It is obvious that Jord, Mattijs and the Pink Faun team has put a tremendous effort in the design of this 2.16x streamer and it's a shame its not recognised more due to their quiet approach to the market. I'm glad I decided to choose their streamer and so confident they are with their product, they offered me a full money back guarantee of satisfaction with it. A guarantee that I will not use as I am totally happy with their product! Hopefully this quick description of my decision to go with the Pink Faun 2.16x streamer will place more information about their product and approach to audio into the internet for all to consider.

Hope it was enjoyable reading,

Regards, Kin ??

@flkin

coming soon..

The listening tests of the 2.16x streamer in different configurations:

2.16 - DAC

2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC

2.16 - sMS-200 - tx-USBultra (both clocked) - DAC

SonicTransporter i5 - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC

SonicTransporter - switch (clocked) - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC (ala Roy's findings)

Antipodes Cx and Ex set comparisons, if I can get @Kritpoon to lend me his set. In various combinations to be determined.

* Spoiler alert! One of the combinations above is truly magical ?

- usual disclaimers: Not in the business, no affiliation to Pink Faun or Triple M Audio Shop. Purchased at retail price. etc.

What an excellent writeup Kin, thank you very much for sharing your journey and insights. I enjoyed it and already look forward reading your further steps and discoveries!

Johnseye · August 15, 2018

12 hours ago, flkin said:

Warning - pretty long post..   ?

The Pink Faun 2.16 Streamer - a journey of creation

Over the past year or so, CA and especially this one thread has been educating me about computer hifi specifically the front end of the chain and all the myriad of devices that includes the functional boxes, wires, power supplies, power and power supplies for the power supplies etc. Along the way, like many here, I assembled my version of the Trifecta Stable system that includes the tx-USBultra, sMS-200, isoRegen, Clocks and more. Items that all have a contribution to the ultimate sound.

And then I was ready for the next step - a custom server of my own with the view to keep the glorious sound but simplify the system if possible. After reading about the benefits of power, clocks and simple low-power motherboards with special SSD memory, eMMC drives, RAM etc it didn't seem all that difficult to specify and get built a good streamer at a good price.

Near the end of my efforts and when almost ready to commission a build, I did one last check with other high end servers to see if there was anything I left out in my planned build. And that’s when I came across the rather obscure Pink Faun website in Dutch language. The pictures of the streamer there was exciting. A highly complex box full of equipment and wires. No reviews online for the device as yet.

The Pink Faun streamer is made by the Triple M Audio Shop is a Dutch company based in Rhenen. The streamer is now v2.16 in its current incarnation and has been around for over a year now but it's only recently that I came across it during my research to assemble my own extreme server. Apart from the basic motherboard, most of the streamer is designed in-house and hand made.



With my interest generated, I wrote in to Jord the proprietor of the Triple M Audio Shop company for more information on his State Of The Art streamer than what was already provided in the website.

In a nutshell the Pink Faun 2.16 streamer can have

Up to 20 liner power supplies

Up to 4 OCXO clocks internally

Option wiring with zero inductance

Star earthing and supply cabling design

Custom built OS and Bios

That was far more technology than I was planning in my own streamer. And far more costly too. But I figured that if I went with my own streamer design I would also have to consider adding an external bespoke power supplies like a Paul Hynes or Sean Jacobs or an extreme clock like the Mutec Ref10 or Cybershaft OP14, the price would get closer. And to get the clocks working you would need to add a re-clocking card, optimised cables and modifications to utilise the clocks. Not to mention having to choose and setup an optimised OS like Windows Server 2016 with Audiophile Optimizer or Fidelizer Pro or even perhaps Linux installation.

After some consideration about the daunting task of going ahead with my own streamer design or go with a company of which I hadn't heard much off and without any reviews of the 2.16 streamer, it was close but I chickened out of making my own and went with Jord's design.

Pink Faun has a few streamers on offer - a basic box which you can then choose what you want to place inside starting at euro1750, a medium streamer model 3.4 starting at euro3490 and their top of the range 2.16 which starts at euro6990.

Considering what they had already described to me, I decided to go for the 2.16 but also added some optional extras to it making it the 2.16x version. This included:

4 OCXO clocks in various locations

3 Pink Faun Rhodium 10mm fuses

Furutech FI-09 Rhodium IEC inlet

PCX-1 zero inductance cables for the ATX motherboard PSU, the processor PSU, the SPDIF bridge PSU and SATA cable for OS-SSD

As I proceeded with this project of customising the PF2.16 server (and it's a truly custom design actually as all their multitudes of i2S cards, spdif i2S Stereo, I2S Multi-channel, s/pdif coax, AES/EBU, USB, LAN etc are all self designed and hand built along with their clock and power boards) I figured that the project would be a lot more fun if I dug out their thoughts behind their designs as it was not easily found online. So I asked Jord and we discussed the following:

On Power Supply Design - there are 3 transformers in the case.

1) Why do you use three smaller separated and not one larger mains transformer?

There are two reasons for this, first smaller transformers are more stable under high current swings, and have less chance of humming during high current peaks. Secondly and most important, each transformer is used for it dedicated area of operation. One for the processor, one for the motherboard and one for the peripherals. A streamer supply has a highly peaking current load, and all currents add up in the transformer core and interact with each other. By separating the main areas of a streamer in each transformer interaction is less and will improve the final sound quality.

2) Why are chokes use in your power supplies?

Due to its intrinsic properties, a capacitor buffered power supply does not draw a continuous, but a highly peaked current. Each 100Hz capacitors are filled up for the full cycle in only microseconds, depending on the duty cycle of the power supply. The higher the capacitance and the lower the inductance (and Rdc) of the transformer, the lower the duty cycle, and the higher these peaks are. These peaks introduce large Hf noise in power supplies. In Pink Faun power supplies we use high inductance power transformers (low field saturation in the core), and we use pi-filtering to keep the peaks at a minimum and thus Hf noise. The less rubbish in, the less we have to filter later.

3) Why do you use separated power rails and not on single mains supply?

All loads in the end come together in the source of power. In this source they interact, resulting in harmonics and intermodulation noise. The earlier all separated loads are split in the device, the less they interact, resulting in lowest initial noise in power supplies. Also by using a lot of smaller separated and regulated supplies, we can keep current loops very minimal and local, which also will reduce spread of EMC inside the device. This is why Pink Faun streamers use separated rails for dedicated areas and a separated regulator each for each load. Great care is taken in adding these power supplies all together in one star ground, and also to source all ingoing voltage from star outputs in the power supply, resulting in minimal interference and minimal Hf noise and harmonics.

4) What can we do to get lowest noise possible in the streamer power supply?

Even the best regulators have very poor Hf characteristics. Noise of the regulator itself is a factor in the final supply's output noise, but even more important are the noise of the mains power, EMC noise (from outside and the device itself) and noise generated by the rectifying and current peaks of the capacitors. All these noise sources have to be minimized in order to let the regulator get to its optimal performance. This means special low inductance transformers, schottky diodes, low ESR capacitors and a lot of common and differential mode Hf filtering, separated rails, lots of regulators with localized current loops, star sources and ground, shielded power planes on the PCBs, cable setup, etc, etc. In the end the final result is the addition of all efforts taken right from the mains input of the power supply to the connector of the motherboard.

In my particular design, the 3 transformers are providing 4 main power rails from which all separate voltages for each part of the streamer are regulated. Every part of the streamer has its own dedicated regulation from the corresponding power rail. The transformers are housed just behind the front panel in an internally shielded section furthest from the sensitive electronics at the back of the case. The use of Schottky diodes, feed coils on a nano-crystal line core and Nichicon capacitors providing a capacity of 800,000uF is included.

Jord explained that during the development of their single ended, class A 2x40 power amplifier (pic below), they found that if transformers were carefully placed at angles, their natural fields would cancel each other out. In that amp there were 3 power transformers (left/right/peripherals) 2 big chokes and two big output transformers.

- ATX to motherboard: 5 dedicated regulators

- SSD OS: 1 dedicated regulator

- SSD 1T: 1 dedicated regulator

- OCXO: 4 dedicated regulators

- LAN card: 1 dedicated regulator

- USB card: 1dedicated regulator

- Processor: 1dedicated regulator

Total 14 dedicated regulators on the audio side. In fact I'm told that there are more liner regulators as there are many other parts of the system that are not directly related to audio, like the External Switch ES to power on/off a DAC with the system, this ES has also its own regulation (there is a small transformer in the middle for that) also the standby LED for the power switch etc. all have their own regulation. Apparently this is to prevent distortion on the other power lines.



On the Pink Faun Arch Linux OS

Pink Faun earlier used a version of the Windows for the OS and still offer do if customers require it but when I asked what Jord believe would offer the best sound and he strongly recommended to use the real-time, low-latency kernel Arch Linux which allows one to build exactly the modules required for audio and nothing more.

He said that in concept Windows and Linux are totally different. The benefit of Linux is you start with nothing and only configure what you really need for audio playback. With Windows, the opposite is true, it comes loaded with all kinds of stuff and preprogrammed priories and actions, so you have to peel of the entire OS to your needs.

When ask about the allocation of the processor cores to their duties of running the basic applications like Roon and HQPlayer, and whether it was advantages to have certain cores dedicated to certain applications to avoid cross interactions (ala SGM), Jord offered:

" The 2.16 Linux OS gives realtime priority (in a decreasing way) following the configuration file they made in the Realtime Kernel. In this configuration file HQPlayer is the first and Roon second in order of high priority. There are here 2 possibilities:

If you are using Roon with HQPlayer. In this case Roon is only giving the file to HQPlayer, but is not processing audio. So HQPlayer gets all the priority, Roon doesn't get any because is only used for library management and not for processing audio.

If you are using Roon without HQPlayer, since the presence of HQPlayer is ineffective since is not loaded so all the priority is going to Roon because Roon is processing audio.

Linux uses all cores if the applications allows it and HQPlayer needs all possible cores to work at best. I don't see an advantage in giving some cores to Roon and some to HQPlayer, for what I have written in option 1 (Roon is not processing audio). "

In use having spend many working years with Windows, I can say using Linux is very refreshing. No updates or configurations to worry about or virus issues. It simply works and as claimed in a Dutch review by Michael van Meersbergen in January 2018 Recension (http://www.hvt.nl/hvt-xtra-streaming/pink-faun-streamer-2-16/), it is "as stable as a elephant on 16 legs". Living in Thailand, I understand what he is trying to say. ?

Shutdown is 6 seconds and boot-up takes around 30 seconds. Nice

On Clocks

My 2.16x version of the streamer comes with four Connor Winfield OH200 series OCXO clocks, one each for the processor, motherboard, USB card and LAN card. I didn't specify for the i2S card as I don't have a DAC capable of using this connection but I will probably opt for one in the future. Apparently their re-clocked i2S card is something special. My LAN card is still forthcoming as Pink Faun just created a new redesigned card and I wanted the latest version of the card with the latest clock.

As I write this, we are awaiting for their new generation of clocks to come out - one that was custom built for Pink Faun and is a simple swap (not user installable) out from the existing clock boards. The phase noise of this new clock is out and is a very nice -133 dBc/Hz (10Hz) at the use frequency of 20MHz.

Why is this very nice? Because this suggests even lower phase noise levels when compared to external reference clocks at lower use frequencies. Is apparently easier to reach lower phase noise figures at the reference clock frequencies of 10MHz but the problem is that 10MHz is not directly usable in audio. In the Pink Faun streamer, 20MHz (USB bridge) or 24.576 (I2S bridge / SPDIF bridge) and 25MHz for the system and processor clock is required.

For those here that understand the science behind clocks, this is what Pink Faun engineers explained when comparing their clock noise with the Mutec Ref10's phase noise of -142 dBc/Hz at 10Mhz:

" All the specification you referred are at 10 MHz not 25 MHz (or 20MHz).

Due to physics: Frequency multiplication by N increases the phase noise by N2 (i.e., by 20log N, in dB's).

If you move the frequency from 10MHz to 25MHz you will loss theoretical = 8 dB in PN ( 20log 2.5)

In practice you can calculate with 15 dB loss because the best Q value of the crystal is around 800k at 25MHz instead of 1.3M at 10MHz

We are on the physical limits already at 10MHz in the moment with -145dBc/Hz at 10 Hz ( 10 dB better than Vectron and CTS). The best value we could reach is -130 dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The Vectron 10 MHz OX-204 has 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

The CTS Model 122 10 MHz has also 135 dBc/Hz at 10 Hz => best PN would be -120dBc/Hz at 25 MHz

At the moment we don't have any crystals with a Q value of 800k available. So at first we need to produce such crystals and check if we could guarantee at 25 MHz the PN better than -120dBc/Hz at 10 Hz at 25 MHz "

This new clock should be quite a bit better than the current clocks which are already pretty decent now being installed on board close to where they are required. On that matter, my 2 processor and board clocks are installed under the motherboard in order to shorten the signal path of the clock to the components. This was optional but necessary in my opinion.

Each OCXO clock has their own printed board with linear power regulation. Jord claims that the phase noise is not only determined by the clock itself, also the used wiring, PSU and way of mounting the clock are a major part of phase noise and so have taken this into consideration during the clock card designs. They must have done a good job as the acclaimed SGM server uses a Pink Faun designed clock board. Pink Faun actually worked on a power supply design for SGM too also but in the end they opted to use another approach.

On why Pink Faun believes they need a separate OCXO clock for the processor:

" The system clock (chipset) is needed to synchronize all components/clocks on the motherboard. This clock also synchronizes the clock for the CPU, but the CPU clock is only used on the chip itself. Because the CPU needs to perform more operations per time than the motherboard the clock frequency will be multiplied in the CPU. Our clock runs on 25Mhz and is multiplied 136 times. The System runs at a fixed frequency of 3,4 GHz "

On the Motherboard

As time went on, I started to get a feel about Pink Faun and their unconventional approach to audio. A quirky, extreme approach backed by logic and ability to execute. And this extends to their choice of motherboard to use. Whilst the current approach by all is to use low power, lowest power consumption CPUs required for their function boards, Pink Faun opted to use an extreme gaming motherboard the ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming that uses a Rizen 8-core processor https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157756. This board is full of technology designed to push output to extreme levels necessary for gaming. Why would it then be suitable for the quiet noise free environment required for audio use?

In order for the board to operate at extreme gaming levels, many of the supporting functions must have been enhanced and optimised to perform at all costs. Like the enhanced power delivery to the CPU, the chokes that allow higher saturation currents to the board and the RAM heatsinks to cool memory. And when run at the lower demand audio levels, these peripheral supporting hardware still operate well below capacity, fully allowing effortless and low noise functioning.

Jord emphasised that this board and his power, clock and Bios adjustments on it provided for Low Latency operations. The time it takes to issue an instruction to the 8-core processor and the time it takes to execute it has been reduced to the very minimum. The core is working at full speed all the time and so there isn't any issues of cores running at different frequencies with power saving modes kicking in which also complicates the OS and produces further latency. The downside of this Class A approach to CPU output is that it will run hot and so the 2.16 has a passive cooling system of pipes attached to large heat sinks at both sides of the streamer. I can confirm it runs hot and when I am upsampling with HQPlayer to DSD512/48 the case is almost too hot to keep my hand on the case but the streamer seems to remains stable. Over the course of a few months of use not once has the Pink Faun crashed or hung.

There are so many details to the design that I found it difficult to ask the right questions. When I made the order, I had not know all of the above yet and only discovered it as the project developed. My decision was based on my soft spot for quirky, artistic designers that have a passion for their work. The product usually is more true to their goals and contains a bit of genius that make for that little extra - something necessary in my mind for SOTA designs. And of course the fact that their technology got-to-have check-list was already longer than my own planned SOTA streamer list.

As a testiment to their focus on designing and making products and not with marketing, much later in the process it occured to me that I needed to use HQPlayer along with Roon and asked about it. It was then casually mentioned that the 2.16 came with HQPlayer Embedded, one of the very first streamers to do so. Oh my, how nice!

I then asked about how to place the unit as it was a hefty 20+kg and if I could use my special footers under them. That was when off handedly Jord mentioned that the streamer includes their own special isolation footers which had steel ball bearings in between 2 aluminium parts designed to absorb energy that in their experience sounded very nice. Wow, another pleasant surprise!

It is obvious that Jord, Mattijs and the Pink Faun team has put a tremendous effort in the design of this 2.16x streamer and it's a shame its not recognised more due to their quiet approach to the market. I'm glad I decided to choose their streamer and so confident they are with their product, they offered me a full money back guarantee of satisfaction with it. A guarantee that I will not use as I am totally happy with their product! Hopefully this quick description of my decision to go with the Pink Faun 2.16x streamer will place more information about their product and approach to audio into the internet for all to consider.

Hope it was enjoyable reading,

Regards, Kin ??

@flkin

coming soon..

The listening tests of the 2.16x streamer in different configurations:

2.16 - DAC

2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC

2.16 - sMS-200 - tx-USBultra (both clocked) - DAC

SonicTransporter i5 - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC

SonicTransporter - switch (clocked) - 2.16 - tx-USBultra (clocked) - DAC (ala Roy's findings)

Antipodes Cx and Ex set comparisons, if I can get @Kritpoon to lend me his set. In various combinations to be determined.

* Spoiler alert! One of the combinations above is truly magical ?

- usual disclaimers: Not in the business, no affiliation to Pink Faun or Triple M Audio Shop. Purchased at retail price. etc.

Great write up.

Bricki · August 15, 2018

9 hours ago, jean-michel6 said:

Hi,

Congratulations for this nice trial. I am not surprised you get good result.

However those will not last ,because copper will oxidize unless it is extremely pure occ copper. Copper oxide is a poor conductor.

If you try the same thing with silver you will get result which last in time , silver will oxidize too but silver oxide is highly conductive.

I have several interconnect cable using air as dielectric and it gives very good result.

Thanks for this. I did wonder how long it might take for the copper to deteriorate after I stripped the insulation off. I didn't know that about silver oxide still being highly conductive. Great info, thanks ?.

Are your interconnects DIY? If you have any pics or further info I would be interested ?

lmitche · August 16, 2018

2 hours ago, Bricki said:

Thanks for this. I did wonder how long it might take for the copper to deteriorate after I stripped the insulation off. I didn't know that about silver oxide still being highly conductive. Great info, thanks ?.

Are your interconnects DIY? If you have any pics or further info I would be interested ?

Jean-michel is right about copper. That's why it is tinned in the braid used here.

ElviaCaprice · August 16, 2018

Okay, Kyrill, I'm going to eat a little crow here. You been doing this a lot longer than I, cables. So I had an extra ribbon to replace my JS 360 one with. I cut some cloth and wrapped it around the PCIe ribbon that runs from my NUC mini SATA to my tXUSBexp PCIe card. I found the cloth wrapped ribbon has better musical flow, especially in complex passages of music. More sound stage but less transparency or at least appearance of. So my thought is your right on about signal cables should not utilize any of this metal conduit. Cloth it shall be. Guess the question now is, does this apply to any analog cables? or just digital signal cables? What do you think of the clocking cables? You picture a type of non metal shielding to use? Is this better than cotton? 100% cotton or a mix? Can I apply any tape, electrical or such to secure the cotton to the cable? How about shrink wrap over the cotton?

Last but not least, what do you do for DC cables?

paulhynes · August 16, 2018

16 hours ago, ElviaCaprice said:

Paul, I have applied the JS 360 to all my DC cables consisting of Canare 4S6 star quad cable. I have placed the SR7 MR4 as close as possible to my needed components so as to maintain the shortest length possible. The results have been outstanding to say the least and only enhance the results of your top of the line design.

But my thoughts are that the JS 360 is preventing any external leakage from seeping into the DC conductor. When you say AC load currents passing through the DC leads, I would assume your talking about just this kind of external leakage? Otherwise if that AC current is already within the DC conductor from the power supply, how would any cage such as the JS 360 prevent it?

Loving the SR7 MR4, thanks again.

Hi Elvia,

The AC load currents are the varying currents the equipment load draws from the power supply during signal processing. They are nothing to do with external interference leakage picked up from around the DC lead from various external sources. A cage such as the JS360 should not prevent the varying load currents in the DC lead. If it did it would disrupt the operation of the equipment. However there could be some interaction between the DC lead cores and the surrounding cage and indeed the insulation material, which could affect the AC load currents and consequently the signal processing. To what degree any interaction would affect the perceived sound quality of the sound system is dependant on many factors. Investigation requires much work and CA members are rising to the occasion admirably.

I am pleased you like the SR7.

Regards

Paul

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

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in