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

[Advieira]

Like @romaz said, poweful PCs are better servers. What do you think for the new mac mini 2018 (4.2ghz and 12 mb cache)? Could be a great server to SQ?

[Bricki]

5 hours ago, bobfa said:

I have moved a bit further along in my testing.  I have shrunk the test bed down to be more mobile with a small HDMI display if I need it.  I am still using the NUC7i7BNH test bed.   I have removed both of the SSDs.  I turned off the SATA, M2, Bluetooth, WiFi, TurboBoost in the BIOS.

 

I have a funny little 60hz buzz in the system right now that goes away if I put my hand on the NUC or the Mojo.  Sort of annoying but this is a test....   

 

I have skipped a couple of floors up on the sound quality stairway.  I have two words that describe what I am hearing:  Smooth Detail.  Over the next couple of days I am going to setup the NUC so that I can swap between the Ultrarendu in my listening system.  

 

Off to family stuff....

 

Bob

 

 

Don't forget to turn off hyperthreading and speed step as well 😁

[bobfa]

When I put this NUC back into service as a Windows 10 general purpose PC  I will have to reset the BIOS to factory......  😀

 

I will go look at the BIOS settings.   We need a reference document.... Well I do.

 

Thanks

[bobfa]

So the company is gone and we are starting to put the Christmas decorations away.  The stereo is playing with the NUC as the Roon Endpoint.

 

 

I have things organized so I can swap between the NUC and the Ultrarendu by moving the network and USB cables.  I am not sure I will ever swap back....  The NUC is powered by the SMPS it came with.  (Not the final config).  The Lush2 goes to an ISOregen then to the Yggdrasil.  

 

 

*** The blue and black blocks are vibration blocks for HVAC equipment.  I use them for air spacing and scratch protection.  

[rickca]

@bobfa if you're running ramroot, remove your USB flash drive after you boot.  It makes quite a difference in sound quality.  I know it seems crazy that a stupid USB stick makes a difference, but it does.  Try it while some music is playing.

[rickca]

36 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I am not sure I will ever swap back

Does this mean you've concluded that you prefer NUC/AL to ultraRendu or the other way around?  Can you describe the differences you hear?

[novaca]

A lot of people are writing about using LMS + Squeezelite in AL, few people about MPD. Are you prefer this solution because of the available functions, or SQ?

[bobfa]

10 hours ago, rickca said:

@bobfa if you're running ramroot, remove your USB flash drive after you boot.  It makes quite a difference in sound quality.  I know it seems crazy that a stupid USB stick makes a difference, but it does.  Try it while some music is playing.

I have just been removing the USB stick after it boots up.  I will play.

[bobfa]

10 hours ago, rickca said:

Does this mean you've concluded that you prefer NUC/AL to ultraRendu or the other way around?  Can you describe the differences you hear?

A very big yes to the NUC/AL.  I am still playing with the “wrong NUC” but it is amazing. I am waiting for my board to be shipped.  I order over the weekend and I assume that they were on holiday.  I hope it will ship today.

[Jiffi32]

7 minutes ago, bobfa said:

A very big yes to the NUC/AL.  I am still playing with the “wrong NUC” but it is amazing. I am waiting for my board to be shipped.  I order over the weekend and I assume that they were on holiday.  I hope it will ship today.

I was afraid you were going to say that, seems my ultrarendu may be needing a new home soon then, and i need to start looking for a NUC.....

[bobfa]

17 hours ago, Advieira said:

Like @romaz said, poweful PCs are better servers. What do you think for the new mac mini 2018 (4.2ghz and 12 mb cache)? Could be a great server to SQ?

I would not assume how well it will work.  The Mac Mini still  has the internal SMPS and PWM fan.  Some of the testing has been done using workstation class machines.  Lots more to learn here.

[Advieira]

14 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I would not assume how well it will work.  The Mac Mini still  has the internal SMPS and PWM fan.  Some of the testing has been done using workstation class machines.  Lots more to learn here.

 

But you are using NUC i7 with Fan and SMPS and like the sound more than UR/JS2. 

[bobfa]

1 minute ago, Advieira said:

 

But you are using NUC i7 with Fan and SMPS and like the sound more than UR/JS2. 

Yes that is true. I warrant caution with all of this. There is a lot more to report on. I will talk more later today about my system.  I will not keep the current NUC I AM TESTING IN MY SYSTEM. 

 

i have a fanless case in house and a NUC on order.  

 

There are are some things about the sound in my system that are not where I want them to be.  

[Advieira]

15 minutes ago, bobfa said:

Yes that is true. I warrant caution with all of this. There is a lot more to report on. I will talk more later today about my system.  I will not keep the current NUC I AM TESTING IN MY SYSTEM. 

 

i have a fanless case in house and a NUC on order.  

 

There are are some things about the sound in my system that are not where I want them to be.  

 

I really want to know how the impact of LPS and fanless NUC7 to SQ compared with stock power supply and fan. I have a slight mistrust that should not be too much ...

[tapatrick]

3 minutes ago, Advieira said:

 

I really want to know how the impact of LPS and fanless NUC7 to SQ compared with stock power supply and fan. I have a slight mistrust that should not be too much ...

Better psus (in my case PH SR4s) and  fanless cases brought major improvements to my NUC server and endpoint. Most listenening reports confirm this. 

[rickca]

I'm running my NUC7PJYH/AL ramroot wireless and it sounds great.  When the Uptone Audio EtherREGEN is available I'll probably run wired instead Asus RT-AC3100 -> EtherREGEN -> NUC.

 

In the meantime, I decided to try the 19V fixed rail of my new HDPLEX 200W LPS on the Asus router... specs are 19V/max 2.37A.  I really wasn't expecting much.  I was wrong.  There's definitely an improvement in clarity that is quite compelling.

 

The NUC7PJYH (10W TDP) runs on the HDPLEX 2A adjustable rail set to 15V.  I've done some BIOS tuning like disabling SpeedStep to optimize sound quality, but the NUC booted up no problem right out of the box with this supply. 

 

[Advieira]

1 hour ago, tapatrick said:

Better psus (in my case PH SR4s) and  fanless cases brought major improvements to my NUC server and endpoint. Most listenening reports confirm this. 

 @bobfa said NUC (without mods and adds) is much better than MicroRendu ("a very big yes", he said in preference between them). If a fanless case and a LPS give a big impact too, the conclusion is very easy: a NUC fanless + LPS ($1k) is completely, massively and unquestionably superior than Ultrarendu/JS2 ($2k).

[bobfa]

1 hour ago, Advieira said:

 

I really want to know how the impact of LPS and fanless NUC7 to SQ compared with stock power supply and fan. I have a slight mistrust that should not be too much ...

I have been playing with all of the little bits for about two years now.  I have changed the power supply and removed the fan from a MacMini with great results.   

 

I will have the ability to test two NUCs in my system soon.  I am not sure the test will be fair as the motherboards are different.  

[Superdad]

14 hours ago, bobfa said:

The NUC is powered by the SMPS it came with.

 

Happy New Years Bob.  Why not run your NUC from your JS-2?  Many dozens of people do. 12V is just fine for those.

You’ll of course need a cable with 5.5mm x 2.5mm plug at the device end—versus 5.5mm x 2.1mm as you use with the UltraRendu.  I can fix you up with that.

 

Cheers,

—Alex C.

[bobfa]

I want everyone to be careful here.  My sound quality reports are preliminary.  As of right now the (WRONG) NUC/AL in my system has much more “space/depth” there is much more detail in some of the tracks I am testing with.  There is more clarity in some of the female vocals.  Again this is early,  There is one track I have in rotation sounds a lot worse.  

 

Over the top of this there is a bit of top end glare or something that is not there with the UltraRendu.  I am “betting” that it will go away when I get the PWM fan out of the system and put the NUC on the JS-2. I also still have to fully optimize the BIOS on the NUCs.  

 

I cannot go to far with the NUC I have without removing it from the case which I do not intend to do.  This NUC has other roles to fill in my computing evironment.    I hope that SimplyNUC will ship my new board today.

 

 

What I will be testing is NUC in fanless case running AL against the UR.  Both will be powered by my JS-2 and I will separately power my ISORegen with an LPS-1.2.  I have to build a network diagram to show all of this.  

[Middy]

Case removal and sbooster helped.

Didn't  the mac mini Mod by Uptone  kill the square wave noise. 

Removing the fan entirely doesn't have this noise pulse.

It ia an audible difference, more than i thought it would be..

 

Better power helps, the mac mini is Alex's domain..  i use my LPS1 for the iso regen..

[Blake]

26 minutes ago, Advieira said:

 @bobfa said NUC (without mods and adds) is much better than MicroRendu ("a very big yes", he said in preference between them). If a fanless case and a LPS give a big impact too, the conclusion is very easy: a NUC fanless + LPS ($1k) is completely, massively and unquestionably superior than Ultrarendu/JS2 ($2k).

 

This makes it seem like you are cheering for your favorite sports team.  😁

 

It may well be that after enough members have directly compared the NUC+AL against the UR, we have a consensus, or perhaps not.  Ideally, we need lots of input from members with differing systems before statements like yours should be made IMHO.

 

 

[Advieira]

11 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

This makes it seem like you are cheering for your favorite sports team.  😁

 

It may well be that after enough members have directly compared the NUC+AL against the UR, we have a consensus, or perhaps not.  Ideally, we need lots of input from members with differing systems before statements like yours should be made IMHO.

 

 

 

Lol. You're right. But don't take me wrong. I am of Arm-NAA-Combo Team (Sotm in my case) . I really want this new solution (NUC + AL) not to be as superior as they saying.

Is really unbelievable a simple NUC can be better than SMS200Ultra+TxUltra or Ultrarendu+Iso-Regen.

[mikicasellas]

14 minutes ago, Advieira said:

 

Lol. You're right. But don't take me wrong. I am of Arm-NAA-Combo Team (Sotm in my case) . I really want this new solution (NUC + AL) not to be as superior as they saying.

Is really unbelievable a simple NUC can be better than SMS200Ultra+TxUltra or Ultrarendu+Iso-Regen.

 

Well NUC + AL has been very favorable compared with the Zenith SE, so that says a lot

[mikicasellas]

Happy 2019!!

Feliz 2019!!

 

Wish you all good health and blessings and that all your projects come true 👌

 

Miki