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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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5 hours ago, greenleo said:

I don't recall anybody posted impression of the CX + EX here yet.  However, Rajiv, our highly respected steward, used the Trifecta before.  Please goto the 1st post of this thread and search the index.  You would find something.  The history of how he changed his system in the past I found very interesting.  Worth to have a look.

 

The EX or CX, like Innuos SE mkii, are basically a computer powered with a excelent LPSU and a nice cases. 7k bucks each. The secret, I think, is in the OS. 

Maybe we can make, for less than half, a near quality server with AL.

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6 hours ago, Advieira said:

1) Is it possible this new solution NUC AL endpoint + NUC AL server be better than new Antipodes CX+EX? 

I mean, can we achieve equal or near SQ for cheap?

 

I don't think we've had anyone here report on CX+EX. So we don't know the answer. As I've found, the improvement you get with NUC/AL depends on where you're coming from.

 

6 hours ago, Advieira said:

2) I've actually a Sotm Trifecta as Roon endpoint and a Roon Core server Mac Mini running from SDcard, MMK powered by Hdplex200. I PROBABLY will achieve best improvements changing my Mac Mini to a NUC AL than change the Trifecta to a Endpoint NUC AL?

 

 

You will get a bigger bang for the buck on the endpoint. Replace the sMS-200ultra with a NUC running AL in RAM, and see what you think. I don't know what you mean by "trifecta." My definition, when I coined the reference on this thread :) was to the combo of switch/sMS/tX. Later on, SOtM made it into a combo that included the sPS-500. Anyway, if you have the switch/sMS/tX, keep the switch and tX in place - so switch+NUC+tX. Then you can play around - some people found they like it without the tX. I prefer it with. Experiment. And report.

 

On the server, I would argue the jury is still out on what is the sweet spot for the server. My advice would be to keep your server HW, and just boot it up with AL/RAM. I wouldn't commit $$ yet on the server HW, until we hear more experiences on what tradeoff between TDP, cores, frequencies, and cache size sounds best. Search back for Roy's experiences - I think they're in the index too.

 

 

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17 minutes ago, austinpop said:

On the server, I would argue the jury is still out on what is the sweet spot for the server. My advice would be to keep your server HW, and just boot it up with AL/RAM. I wouldn't commit $$ yet on the server HW, until we hear more experiences on what tradeoff between TDP, cores, frequencies, and cache size sounds best. Search back for Roy's experiences - I think they're in the index too.

 

 

 

What`s HW? lol

Do you mean I can run AL in Mac Mini on Ram?

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http://www.audio-linux.com

Quote

Audiolinux PinkFaun version 2.1.0 (not for sale, available with PinkFaun Streamers)

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/43629-pink-faun-216/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-886404

On 10/16/2018 at 10:31 PM, flkin said:

Pink Faun 2.16x setup, listening tests and a comparison with Antipodes Cx+Ex

 

CX+EX combo wasn't doing too well despite their rather "special" motherboards from Asus, though the operating system itself might be nothing special

 

https://antipodes.audio/server-upgrades.html

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20 minutes ago, rickca said:

Well there is a TIDAL plugin for LMS if you want to use LMS/Squeezelite.  I use iPeng on an iPad as a controller.  You can use Squeezer on Android.

 

BubbleUPnP on Android I believe uses UPnP/MPD rather than LMS/Squeezelite.  You can certainly install the appropriate software to work with BubbleUPnP on your AudioLinux NUC.  In fact, in AL headless 0.7, Piero has added menu selections to do just that.

 

I can't comment on which ecosystem is better.  When I had an ultraRendu, I switched from BubbleUPnP/UPnP/MPD to iPeng/LMS/Squeezelite and never looked back.  I just had fewer hassles.  And of course my Zenith SE uses the LMS ecosystem (or Roon if you prefer).

 

There are helpful posters on CA to assist you with any of these choices.

Thanks for the reply, will post my query later on the AL thread

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58 minutes ago, mozes said:

Hi Rick

Can I stream Tidal in the same way from Bubble upnp?

You Can stream Tidal from Bubble UPnP, BubbleDS Next or Mconnect on Android.I

If you are using new AL 0.7 version you Can install MPD and install UPnP for MPD from the Audiolinux Update menu

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/54933-audiolinux-and-nuc-troubleshooting-and-tuning/?page=20&tab=comments#comment-906795

 

When you are asked for a password type audiolinux0

 

Then you go to Configuration menu and enable MPD and UPnP for MPD services.

 

Now you should be able to see Upmpd renderer In Bubble UPnP or BubbleDS next.

 

In AL 0.6 ver You Can run

yaourt -Sy

password audiolinux0

After run

yaourt -S mpd upmpdcli

password audiolinux0

When asked to edit type n on all other type Y

When finished enable MPD and UPnP for MPD services In Configuration.

 

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5 hours ago, austinpop said:

the jury is still out on what is the sweet spot for the server.

Hi Rajiv,

 

If you mean we don't know what the best sounding server HW/SW configuration is, I would agree with you. However, I would say we have heard some sweet sounding servers of all types at various price ranges including some existing servers that previously were used in one box designs.

 

For myself, the quad core i7-6700k and z270 motherboard machine previously used for hqplayer upsampling sounds great here running AL/Roonserver with a variety of NUC endpoints ranging from Celeron to i7 processors. I'm aware of many other people with similar setups that are not itching for upgrades.

 

With that said a NUC I7 based server sounds even better, even running from the stock smps.

 

Having used a Celeron NUC running Roonserver for a few weeks, while the image is not as dense as the I7 NUC, the Celeron still delivered a great big soundstage and image with depth that beats any one box server configuration I've tried here.

 

Unfortunately I've never tried the Pentium quad core NUC as server. Nevertheless it has the potential to be the value leader both as server and endpoint.

 

Clearly there are lots of ways to skin this cat, and while we don't know the best sounding configuration, there are great sounding server solutions available today.

 

Larry

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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15 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Hi Rajiv,

 

If you mean we don't know what the best sounding server HW/SW configuration is, I would agree with you. However, I would say we have heard some sweet sounding servers of all types at various price ranges including some existing servers that previously were used in one box designs.

 

For myself, the quad core i7-6700k and z270 motherboard machine previously used for hqplayer upsampling sounds great here running AL/Roonserver with a variety of NUC endpoints ranging from Celeron to i7 processors. I'm aware of many other people with similar setups that are not itching for upgrades.

 

With that said a NUC I7 based server sounds even better, even running from the stock smps.

 

Having used a Celeron NUC running Roonserver for a few weeks, while the image is not as dense as the I7 NUC, the Celeron still delivered a great big soundstage and image with depth that beats any one box server configuration I've tried here.

 

Unfortunately I've never tried the Pentium quad core NUC as server. Nevertheless it has the potential to be the value leader both as server and endpoint.

 

Clearly there are lots of ways to skin this cat, and while we don't know the best sounding configuration, there are great sounding server solutions available today.

 

Larry

 

Larry,

 

I don't doubt that there are many good sounding servers. I just don't know what I would recommend people to buy.

 

I hope you'll agree that for someone who already has a suitable box - in this case a Mac Mini, modified by MMK, and powered by a decent HDPlex LPS - it is reasonable to suggest they first improve SQ by running AL in RAM on that server, and then decide whether to take the next step and buy new hardware.

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1 hour ago, austinpop said:

 

Larry,

 

I don't doubt that there are many good sounding servers. I just don't know what I would recommend people to buy.

 

I hope you'll agree that for someone who already has a suitable box - in this case a Mac Mini, modified by MMK, and powered by a decent HDPlex LPS - it is reasonable to suggest they first improve SQ by running AL in RAM on that server, and then decide whether to take the next step and buy new hardware.

Rajiv,

 

If someone has a dedicated server today and has the skills to upgrade that server to AL, I agree, that is a good starting point. Indeed with our professional systems engineering skills you and I both did this with our vanilla Windows machines, although I started with the Celeron server first. However at the end of the day, the I7 NUC beats the SQ of my i7-6700k machine.

 

The SQ of a three level architecture with the i7-6700k as a Samba server, i7 NUC as RoonServer, and I7 NUC as endpoint is awesome, but not conclusively better then a two level NUC i7 design. More testing needs to be done here.

 

However if someone has a home office desktop or laptop machine also used to serve music, I'd have no hestitation recommending the best NUC/AL server one can afford as server. Moving from a general purpose machine to a dedicated server has a huge impact on SQ at any performance level.

 

I can't speak to the Mac Mini MMK use case as I have no experience there and wouldn't know if that is an easy or torturous upgrade to AL.

 

Larry

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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1 hour ago, lmitche said:

With that said a NUC I7 based server sounds even better, even running from the stock smps.

 

Were you up-sampling on the NUC i7 ? I am curious as to how much you can up-sample on the NUC (apart from HNK/HVK models) using HQP filters. I tried on an 8th gen NUC i7BEH with dsd256 but it couldn't keep up. Eventually I moved the task to a mATX board in a fanless chassis running i7-4790S.

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6 hours ago, Monge said:

You Can stream Tidal from Bubble UPnP, BubbleDS Next or Mconnect on Android.I

If you are using new AL 0.7 version you Can install MPD and install UPnP for MPD from the Audiolinux Update menu

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/54933-audiolinux-and-nuc-troubleshooting-and-tuning/?page=20&tab=comments#comment-906795

 

When you are asked for a password type audiolinux0

 

Then you go to Configuration menu and enable MPD and UPnP for MPD services.

 

Now you should be able to see Upmpd renderer In Bubble UPnP or BubbleDS next.

 

In AL 0.6 ver You Can run

yaourt -Sy

password audiolinux0

After run

yaourt -S mpd upmpdcli

password audiolinux0

When asked to edit type n on all other type Y

When finished enable MPD and UPnP for MPD services In Configuration.

 

Thank you, that's very helpful! 

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6 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

http://www.audio-linux.com

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/43629-pink-faun-216/?page=5&tab=comments#comment-886404

 

CX+EX combo wasn't doing too well despite their rather "special" motherboards from Asus, though the operating system itself might be nothing special

 

https://antipodes.audio/server-upgrades.html

 

Yeah, I did a comparison of my Pink Faun 2.16x (uses a PF version of AudioLinux) with a Antipodes Cx+Ex in a detailed review a while ago - link is above, not in the index. 

 

I believe that Antipodes discovered the benefit of 2 boxes a long while ago and has been experimenting to optimise different custom boards for server and renderer functions along with adding good power to it. It feels to me they have taken it to the next step compared with the simpler NUC. I understand they even have a placement strategy for the boxes which optimises for EMI during playback. The CxEx plays to a high level but didn't manage to top my PF during the tests. 

 

Not sure if we can extrapolate this to how a NUC with AL would sound against the CxEx combo. 

 

I am converting my SonicTransporter i5 into an AudioLinux Roon endpoint to see how that compares with my all in one streamer under AL. I didn't have much success with the STi5 with the original SonicOrbitor OS which was clearly worse. 

 

@Kritpoon is experimenting to try and convert his Ex box to a AL endpoint to see if it's the OS in the CxEx combo that is the bottleneck now. The CxEx claims to use their own OS but Khun Aek suspects it might be only a tweaked version of the SonicOrbitor.

 

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23 minutes ago, flkin said:

I am converting my SonicTransporter i5 into an AudioLinux Roon endpoint to see how that compares with my all in one streamer under AL. I didn't have much success with the STi5 with the original SonicOrbitor OS which was clearly worse. 

@Kritpoon

I converted my sonicTransporter i5 into an AudioLinux Roon server and it sounds much much better. 

 

Don't forget to disable hyperthreading, Intel speedstep and turbo boost in the bios... Also removing the ssd is very worthwhile. 

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7 minutes ago, flkin said:

Will do, thanks for the suggestion.

 

Did you ever try it as an Roon endpoint rather than a file server? As a file server, where did you keep the music?

I haven't tried it as a roon endpoint. I have the NUC7CJYH as roon endpoint. I got rid of all disks and I'm just using tidal at the moment. If you use audiolinux lxqt then it should mount a usb disk automatically and I think Piero is working on an easier way for mounting disks in headless. 

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