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


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Most important: please realize this thread is about bleeding edge experimentation and discovery. No one has The Answer™. If you are not into tweaking, just know that you can have a musically satisfying system without doing any of the nutty things we do here.

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3 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

Roy was going from HP Z820 to Mac Pro and it's a massive upgrade once Piero guided him to get ramboot working.

 

I believe it was the other way around, not that it changes your observation.

 

As good as my Mac Pro sounded as my RoonServer, the HPZ820 workstation running AudioLinux + RoonServer in RAM simply sounded better.  A LOT BETTER and it was one of those OMG moments!  Deeper, richer tone with better dynamics, better bass, better transients, better separation and better articulation.  Bingo!

 

 

 

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On 11/17/2018 at 10:11 AM, Superdad said:

BTW, @lmitche very recently made a pretty detailed report about powering his NUC with the UltraCap LPS-1.2 at 12V:

 

A shameless plug here and there, certainly not the first time and most likely not the last one IMHO

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=393&tab=comments#comment-882374

On 10/5/2018 at 6:05 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Alex, this isn’t allowed. 

 

Not trying to play the role of a mod or an OP by any means, personally I don't feel very comfortable to see any business owners who might not seem to behave professionally. While I'd like to express for gratitude for our sponsors who help to keep this site going, we already have dedicated forums for our beloved sponsors.

 

FYI - here's yet another fine example where conflict of interest should be inevitable

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=413&tab=comments#comment-892822

On 11/5/2018 at 7:59 AM, Superdad said:

Not sure why people keep using or mentioning Connor-Winfield OCXOs.  Their phase-noise at low-offsets (1Hz, 10Hz, 100Hz) is nothing to write home about.  There are vastly less expensive low-phase-noise XOs with better performance.

 

Basically we've got a "Crystek Camp" (DownTone Video + Daughterore combo and maybe JDOG) that's backed by two of our sponsors and @romaz already called them out after some kinda relentless criticism of another "Connor-Winfield Camp" (TLS 1.0/1.1/1.2/1.3 as well as Wink Fawn 3.14) ICYMI

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=359&tab=comments#comment-860030

On 8/8/2018 at 7:29 PM, romaz said:

Once again, say what you will about the pedestrian specs of the clock used in this switch and I realize there are the "engineer types" on CA who believe they already know how something is going to sound even "before the needle hits the groove" based purely on specs but this switch soundly outperforms my SOtM-modified switch even when clocked by my REF10.

 

Speaking of SOtM, some might wanna treat this as a joke of some sort while others would interpret this as ridiculing a competitor outside their own sponsored forum

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/46775-habst-ultra-iii-usb-cable-an-unusual-discovery-on-bandwidth/?tab=comments#comment-856038

On 8/5/2018 at 9:21 AM, Superdad said:

Don’t you just love all the odd names SOtM comes up with for their products?  My banking passwords are easier to remember and to capitalize. :S

 

I didn't really wanna bring this up in public but honestly I could no longer stand repeated unprofessional conduct.

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1 hour ago, auricgoldfinger said:

I believe it was the other way around, not that it changes your observation.

 

IMHO that's a tricky one, my native language ain't English so maybe I was still missing something?

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=409&tab=comments#comment-892124

On 11/3/2018 at 1:29 AM, romaz said:

As previously stated, my HP workstation utilizes an 8-core Xeon with a base frequency of 3.4GHz and 25MB of SmartCache and a TDP of 150w.  My Mac Pro utilizes a 12-core Xeon with a base frequency of 2.7GHz and 30MB of SmartCache and a TDP of 130w.  I can tell you that the Mac Pro is sounding better.

 

On 11/3/2018 at 1:49 AM, lmitche said:

It is also possible that the Mac is just a better engineered machine than the HP.

 

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17 hours ago, greenleo said:

Thanks for the info flkin.  May I know which clock did you use, the Ref 10 or the Cyber and in which grade?

 

For the mod of the mobo to change the clocks, is it the regime of the SOtM?  I look forward to hearing your mod results.

 

Regards.

 

I used both. The Mutec ref 10 was on loan and the Cybershaft is the OP14, one of the last to be made apparently.

 

SOtM clock mods generally use their distribution board (the sCLK-EX) to split an external clock ref signal into what ever frequencies you need. Up to 4 different output frequencies can be programmed. So say a streamer had the sCLK-EX board inside you would still need to feed it from an external clock. In my case the clocks are actual OCXO clocks at the final use frequency and attached to the location they are required. No reference clock signal nor frequency programming is needed. It's part of Pink Faun's streamer design to offer these as optional clocks and wasn't a mod as such.

 

There are others offering similar devices, like the JCAT LAN or USB femto cards with good clocks on board already. The motherboard and processor clocks are more tricky and was matched specifically for the AsRock board and AMD Rizen processor Pink Faun used. I suspect the Audiolinux operating system and even bios was tweaked for this. I say this because apparently others like Innuos and The Linear Solution  have tried to reclock the processor and had faced issues with stability.

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1 hour ago, seeteeyou said:

IMHO the challenging part should be singling out the ONE thing that's "supposed" to take credit for the progress being reported recently.

I think Larry and Roy did list a few points the one main point was higher processor cache. I would agree with your points and think there is still life in the X10SBA-L board. A clue is TLS I think they are using it in their new server? and the NUC board in their 'budget' version?

The point also is the amazing value for money £$120 or so for the Celeron NUC board and its performance with another bargain priced software AL.

One thing that is of interest would be to power the RAM directly in the way we did with the SSD. I hope to get round to that eventually especially now with Ramboot. - Which brings up your other good point of ECC Vs NonECC.

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5 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

 

I posted quite a few choices below that's even smaller than the NUC form factor

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=377&tab=comments#comment-867010

 

However, sometimes we'll end up with soldered-down eMMC drive / RAM when the PCB is so small. UP Core itself is really tiny when compared to other options while we could actually get the 4GB version for $149 plus (expensive) shipping unless we're ordering from Mouser. However, we just couldn't tell if that eMMC drive were making any differences in ramboot mode without giving that a try. Besides, we're only getting 2MB of "plain vanilla" cache from Z8350 that's shared by 4 cores but quad-core i7-8650U (from NUC7i7DNBE) would provide 8MB of SmartCache.

 

Once again we still dunno where that sweet spot is without any direct comparisons. NUC seemed to be the winner so far, we could also try stuff like Compute Stick / Compute Card from Intel since it's getting closer to Black Friday / Cyber Monday. Unfortunately all of them came with soldered-down eMMC / SSD for storage while some of them should have less than 4GB of RAM.

Thank you for the detailed information. I agree we know nothing before we try

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7 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

 

IMHO that's a tricky one, my native language ain't English so maybe I was still missing something?

 

Actually, not that tricky.  I was quoting from Oct. 29.  Evidently, he subsequently got AL running on the Mac Pro, which changed his previous opinion.  You were quoting the more recent finding from Nov. 2.  ?

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, seeteeyou said:
On 4/26/2018 at 10:25 AM, nvitorino said:

1. ATX only (using a Pico-PSU with a clean 12V input)

2. 12V only

3. ATX + 12V

 

1. and 2. sound similar in our tests. 3 sounds significantly better.

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=361&tab=comments#comment-860642

On 8/10/2018 at 9:01 AM, romaz said:

Regarding power supplies for this NUC board, yes, it scales extremely well to power supplies and better than my DFI board.  This board can accept 12-19V.  During my testing with my SR7s, 19V sounds a little better than 12V but DR (double regulated) 12V sounds considerably better than 19V.  The ideal SR7 for this board would likely be a DR 19V which I do not have.

 

Not to mention there's something "unique" about Supermicro

 

On 4/26/2018 at 10:25 AM, nvitorino said:

If you connect the ATX supply, the board will not use it's own switching regulators to convert to 5V and 3.3V from 12V. The interesting part is that it still uses the 12V rail on both the ATX and the 12V input separately if the 12V input is available.

 

BTW, they also made something that's fairly similar to how X10SBA-L would work in terms of accepting power

 

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/atom/A2SDi-2C-HLN4F.cfm

http://www.acmemicro.com/Product/15834/Supermicro-A2SDi-2C-HLN4F-MotherBoard-Intel-Atom-UP-C3338-2-Core-DDR4-SATA3-4x-1GbE-1x-PCI-E-Mini-ITX

 

If you look at a picture of the zenith SE , there is in fact a pico psu feeding the atx connector and this pico psu is fed himself by the 12v coming from the Sean Jacobs designed PSU .

Therefore yes it may not use the DC-DC converter of the super micro board but it use the DC-DC converter of the pico psu .

 

I am using those super micro board in my dual pc but i never try as of today to use the atx to power it , i use only the 4 pin connector .

Before going to the super micro board , i had an other more power hungry board and was powering it with both the atx and 4 pin connector and it was much better than using only the ATX .

 

03.jpg.118b4ac8a237daef4e092a8b5add67fc.thumb.jpg.a7176a291e1d4ba7ecb3bbde5247d533.jpg

 

 

PCserver Supermicro X11SAA under Daphile  ,Jcat pcie net card ,Etherregen,e-red dock endpoint,powered by LPS 1.2 , SPS 500 , Sean Jacobs level 3 psu,  DAC Audiomat Maestro 3, Nagra Classic Amp , Hattor passive preamplifier , Martin Logan montis

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Audio Linux?: I just check the site. It's an arch based distro. To be charged for a linux mod is pretty rare, at least IME. Before spending the money in a NUC and a linux distro, there a simple think anyone can do in their own laptop:

 

1. Download a light version of linux: like Lubuntu, LXLE  (my favorites) or Puppy, Porteus   (not experience with them)

2. At  booting of linux edit the kernel parmeters and introduce the option 'torarm', near splash or quiet.

    This will load all the OS in the RAM.  This is the whole point of audiolinux, and this is done by  lots of

    light and security-oriented linux distros. 

3. Play around with some player to chech wheather is there any improvement on SQ.

4. If not, nothing lost. If so, there will be no 'optimization' in audio linux  that can not be obtained/learned for free in github.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, austinpop said:

I should be getting my loaner NUC from Roy in a week or so. Meanwhile I continue to enjoy and play music on my Zenith SE running RoonServer on AL Extreme headless with ramroot. The one thing missing in this configuration is Qobuz. For that, I just have to shutdown and restart with InnuOS, then use the native player.

 

Last night, to decompress from a Diwali party - I'm not a party guy! - I made a renewed effort to get LMS and Squeezelite running under AL. The motivation was to get Qobuz on AL, but it would allow me to compare Roon player with squeezelite.

 

 It didn't look that hard. And it wasn't. Everything looks good, both LMS (logitechmediaserver-git.service) and squeezelite@audiolinux services are active. The squeezelite player shows up as an endpoint on LMS (Squeezelite-R2) but when I try to play a track, nothing happens.

 

I might get offline with some of you who've got this combo to work for troubleshooting tips.

Rajiv,

 

Did you load C-3PO?

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4 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

No - always been more of an R2D2 guy, myself. ? 

More of a Yoda, you tend to be.

Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade.  Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones.

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