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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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22 minutes ago, romaz said:

 

I often do seek out enterprise-grade gear as I do believe they are often more robustly engineered and built to a finer tolerance.  My main problem with the latest generation stuff is that they prioritize speed meaning low current draw and, therefore, low noise is much less of a priority.  Sometimes the improvements are so good that its worth the extra draw but I have to be convinced of it since my experience, in many cases, has been that they are not.  

 

It's clear the path I'm taking is counterintuitive to how many view a music server should be built and so reader beware.  While many are looking for the fastest there is, I'm looking for the slowest that I can get away with.  While there are those that look to Data Centers for the next best thing, I am hunting through E-Bay in search of NOS SSDs and lowly compact flash cards.

 

I think different requirements are in consideration between consumer, pro and data center equipment.  I'm not sure which is best for music reproduction, it probably depends on the component.  If you consider a motherboard, there is a lot more you can tweak with a gaming board vs. enterprise board. One is built to tweak while the other is built for reliability.  My only concern is whether it impacts the sound for better or worse.  I don't think something should be discounted based on age or target market.  Hopefully you discover something good in the ebay bins and we all benefit.  You certainly have invested a lot in your power back end and nothing has held you back.

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SATA Saga update.  The winning SATA cable is the flat Coboc 6 inch silver cable from Newegg.  I have it running between the m.2 Sata adapter and WD HDD.  It is just enough to work.

 

SQ is the best I've heard here.  Depth and ambience has hit a new level.  This is against the 18 inch Coboc flat cable, various Asus cables, an Akasa silver and the 12 inch Bitfenix cable.  My guess is that the cable length has everything to do with sound quality on a SATA connection.  This makes me wonder if it isn't time to research a SAS drive.

 

I learned that SATA, like USB, is a half duplex connection.  SAS is full duplex and may take the sensitivity to cable length away.  Maybe someone has an opinion about that.

 

It is tempting to order a second Adnaco with the pcie bus option.  That would allow one to move the SATA or SAS controller to the other side of a fiber cable.  Hmmmm.....

 

All for now.

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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3 hours ago, lmitche said:

SATA Saga update.  The winning SATA cable is the flat Coboc 6 inch silver cable from Newegg.  I have it running between the m.2 Sata adapter and WD HDD.  It is just enough to work.

 

SQ is the best I've heard here.  Depth and ambience has hit a new level.  This is against the 18 inch Coboc flat cable, various Asus cables, an Akasa silver and the 12 inch Bitfenix cable.  My guess is that the cable length has everything to do with sound quality on a SATA connection.  This makes me wonder if it isn't time to research a SAS drive.

 

I learned that SATA, like USB, is a half duplex connection.  SAS is full duplex and may take the sensitivity to cable length away.  Maybe someone has an opinion about that.

 

It is tempting to order a second Adnaco with the pcie bus option.  That would allow one to move the SATA or SAS controller to the other side of a fiber cable.  Hmmmm.....

 

All for now.

 

Thanks for reporting your findings, Larry. Your comparisons are always of great interest.  

 

Obviously, they support that SATA cables do matter even though the data these cables transmit are buffered into RAM.  As I have previously posted, with cables, I believe the lower the line resistance, the better, and this is what shorter cables offer.  Because cables also act as antennas for noise, it would make sense that shorter cables are also less noisy.

 

As for SATA vs SAS and half-duplex vs full-duplex, this is a good question to ponder and I have pondered it myself.  While full-duplex transmission where you have the capability of simultaneous send and receive is an attractive thought, it also results in much more current draw.  Even the non-RAID host bus adapters I have looked at from LSI, Intel, Adaptec, etc., often consume north of 8 watts (although at 12V, that isn't horrible).  Even worse, the SAS HBAs I have here (which are not in my audio PCs) run extremely hot and require an actively cooled machine.  The bigger problem is that SAS hard drives and SSDs are definitely all about speed and even though they are all 12V devices, they seem to all be power mongers.

 

Even though adding another Adnaco provides you protection from RF in the ground plane, it can't prevent this noise from permanently impacting the signal itself, at least that's my opinion.  If galvanic isolation was the solution for all noise issues, with my DAVE's galvanic isolation, none of these noise-prevention measures I'm taking should make a difference and yet they do.  As a further example, I currently have my 12-core Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM and 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD also connected to my DAVE via its optical input and compared against my audio PC, the SQ differences are quite notable.

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1 hour ago, romaz said:

Obviously, they support that SATA cables do matter even though the data these cables transmit are buffered into RAM.  As I have previously posted, with cables, I believe the lower the line resistance, the better, and this is what shorter cables offer.  Because cables also act as antennas for noise, it would make sense that shorter cables are also less noisy.

 

Why not use M.2 and eliminate the cable all together? 

 

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7 hours ago, Johnseye said:

I should have specified, but the M.2 drives I was referring to are SATA.  Yes they use the 3.3v rail but the drives run at around 80-100 mW as opposed to the 2.6W of the X25-E when active.

 

I suspect your SATA SSD might consume 80-100mW while idle but not during writes or reads.  That would be unprecedented if it did and if indeed it's true, then please share which drive you use so I can purchase it immediately.

 

Intel claims that the X25-E consumes 60mW while idle and 2.4W during sequential writes.  While 2.4W doesn't sound impressive, what caught my attention was how it performed in this benchmark:

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-x25-e-ssd,2158-7.html

 

This benchmark suggests during workstation level disk I/O, the X25-E consumes only 1.1W.  Green Leo previously wondered how the X25-M compared which is based on MLC NAND and it did well but not as good as the X25-E.  It has been stated numerous times by others that SLC consumes less power than MLC and this supports that claim.  What is important with respect to noise, however, isn't power consumption but current draw.  1.1W at 5V equates to less current draw and, therefore, less ground plane noise than the same 1.1W at 3.3V which is the voltage that M.2 devices operate at.  

 

Assuming your M.2 SATA SSD consumes 80-100mW at idle, at 3.3V, that equates to 24-30mA of current draw.  With the X25-E, which is a 5V device, 60mW of consumption equates to only 12mA of current draw.  Based on the benchmark performance of 1.1W of power consumption, that equates to about 200mA.  That's a pretty good number.

 

At the end of the day, it's about how it sounds that matters and not how much current it draws nor am I convinced that the X25-E is the best there is.  I will wait to compare against compact flash before making a final decision but thus far, to my ears and with this particular build, the X25-E is what has sounded the best.

 

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31 minutes ago, romaz said:

 

I suspect your SATA SSD might consume 80-100mW while idle but not during writes or reads.  That would be unprecedented if it did and if indeed it's true, then please share which drive you use so I can purchase it immediately.

 

Intel claims that the X25-E consumes 60mW while idle and 2.4W during sequential writes.  While 2.4W doesn't sound impressive, what caught my attention was how it performed in this benchmark:

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-x25-e-ssd,2158-7.html

 

This benchmark suggests during workstation level disk I/O, the X25-E consumes only 1.1W.  Green Leo previously wondered how the X25-M compared which is based on MLC NAND and it did well but not as good as the X25-E.  It has been stated numerous times by others that SLC consumes less power than MLC and this supports that claim.  What is important with respect to noise, however, isn't power consumption but current draw.  1.1W at 5V equates to less current draw and, therefore, less ground plane noise than the same 1.1W at 3.3V which is the voltage that M.2 devices operate at.  

 

Assuming your M.2 SATA SSD consumes 80-100mW at idle, at 3.3V, that equates to 24-30mA of current draw.  With the X25-E, which is a 5V device, 60mW of consumption equates to only 12mA of current draw.  Based on the benchmark performance of 1.1W of power consumption, that equates to about 200mA.  That's a pretty good number.

 

At the end of the day, it's about how it sounds that matters and not how much current it draws nor am I convinced that the X25-E is the best there is.  I will wait to compare against compact flash before making a final decision but thus far, to my ears and with this particular build, the X25-E is what has sounded the best.

 

 

I was basing those numbers from Intel's site. I can list some models if you'd like.  Comparing what they state for some m.2 drives and the x25-e. For what their spec literature is worth, they state active. 

 

That x25-e is a 32 gig drive which makes a difference.  Even if you have the 64G drive that's not much space and the power consumption will be slightly higher.  The review you pointed to also compares the 32G x25-e  to a 64G Samsung drive which does very well and beats it in some tests. They even have a streaming read power test where it beats the x25-e by almost half the consumption with twice the storage capacity. Did you happen to test that Samsung? 

 

Newer Samsung m.2 drives are also rated pretty well in power bench mark tests. Plus there's the benefit of not using a cable. 

 

I get the 5v vs 3.3v argument but if nothing else is going on with this server, meaning its services have been disabled to the point where it's only streaming music I don't how much it matters. There's little to nothing else on the bus. I'd personally prefer no cable especially since it appears there's some kind of impact from one. 

 

I'm curious to hear your compact flash results. 

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On 08/04/2017 at 1:15 AM, romaz said:

One thing I will say is that if you end up buying an Ultra of some sort, it would be a shame to have those extra clocks go to waste.  Those clocks are like audio gold.

 

Thanks very much Roy. Very helpful to understand what you have been doing.

I hope that, when you will be finished with this research, you will find the time to write a tutorial on how to do all these things for the less gifted of us in electronics ;)

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4 hours ago, romaz said:

 

I suspect your SATA SSD might consume 80-100mW while idle but not during writes or reads.  That would be unprecedented if it did and if indeed it's true, then please share which drive you use so I can purchase it immediately.

 

Intel claims that the X25-E consumes 60mW while idle and 2.4W during sequential writes.  While 2.4W doesn't sound impressive, what caught my attention was how it performed in this benchmark:

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-x25-e-ssd,2158-7.html

 

This benchmark suggests during workstation level disk I/O, the X25-E consumes only 1.1W.  Green Leo previously wondered how the X25-M compared which is based on MLC NAND and it did well but not as good as the X25-E.  It has been stated numerous times by others that SLC consumes less power than MLC and this supports that claim.  What is important with respect to noise, however, isn't power consumption but current draw.  1.1W at 5V equates to less current draw and, therefore, less ground plane noise than the same 1.1W at 3.3V which is the voltage that M.2 devices operate at.  

 

Assuming your M.2 SATA SSD consumes 80-100mW at idle, at 3.3V, that equates to 24-30mA of current draw.  With the X25-E, which is a 5V device, 60mW of consumption equates to only 12mA of current draw.  Based on the benchmark performance of 1.1W of power consumption, that equates to about 200mA.  That's a pretty good number.

 

At the end of the day, it's about how it sounds that matters and not how much current it draws nor am I convinced that the X25-E is the best there is.  I will wait to compare against compact flash before making a final decision but thus far, to my ears and with this particular build, the X25-E is what has sounded the best.

 

Thank you Roy.  Now I realized that the 0.6W active power of X25M (as quoted in Intel's data sheet) can't be taken too seriously.

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2 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

I was basing those numbers from Intel's site. I can list some models if you'd like.  Comparing what they state for some m.2 drives and the x25-e. For what their spec literature is worth, they state active. 

 

That x25-e is a 32 gig drive which makes a difference.  Even if you have the 64G drive that's not much space and the power consumption will be slightly higher.  The review you pointed to also compares the 32G x25-e  to a 64G Samsung drive which does very well and beats it in some tests. They even have a streaming read power test where it beats the x25-e by almost half the consumption with twice the storage capacity. Did you happen to test that Samsung? 

 

Newer Samsung m.2 drives are also rated pretty well in power bench mark tests. Plus there's the benefit of not using a cable. 

 

I get the 5v vs 3.3v argument but if nothing else is going on with this server, meaning its services have been disabled to the point where it's only streaming music I don't how much it matters. There's little to nothing else on the bus. I'd personally prefer no cable especially since it appears there's some kind of impact from one. 

 

I'm curious to hear your compact flash results. 

1

 

Feel free to share which M.2 SATA drives you like.  My intention isn't to debunk them.  If you like them, that's all that should matter and there may be some who have no choice but to use an M.2 drive and so the information could be helpful.  

 

I definitely agree, with only one exception that I can think of, the best cable is no cable and for some time, I, too, had assumed mSATA or M.2 and especially M.2 NVMe would sound better than standard SATA.  While I understood there would be increased noise issues, I assumed the massively improved latency of NVMe would win the day but that has not been my experience thus far.  I suppose it's like overclocking a 16-core CPU to stream music files -- that type of speed and power just isn't necessary and the noise consequences are just too great.

 

With regards to the benefits of not having to use a SATA cable with an M.2 SATA or mSATA drive, like with all things, my recommendation would be to use your ears and decide what you like better in your system.  If you have zero plans to address your SATA cable issues, maybe you'll find that there isn't much difference or that you prefer the "cable-less" benefits of M.2 SATA or mSATA but having specifically compared an mSATA SSD vs a standard SATA SSD that was independently powered by a separate PSU in my NUC (even when using a cheap SATA cable), my preference was for the independently powered SATA SSD.

 

The reason for this, I believe, is even in the absence of other noise causing devices on the 3.3V bus, you still can't escape the fact that this is inherently the noisiest bus on most motherboards.  First, because it is generally the noisiest rail on many ATX PSUs and with some of the highly regarded ATX PSUs I've looked at, depending on the load, it can be more than 2x noisier than either the 12V or 5V rails.  Second, you simply can't escape the noisy switching regulators that are buried in your motherboard.  Unfortunately, any off-the-shelf motherboard is going to be a nest for noise and to bus power any device is seldom going to have positive SQ results.  Lastly, for every watt of power consumed by a 3.3V device and a 5V device, the 3.3V device will draw 1.5x more current.  It takes much less for a 3.3V device to generate noise.

 

As for 32GB or 64GB drives, yes, these are small volumes but the intention for these drives has always been to use them as OS drives.  In my testing, OS drives have the greater impact on SQ compared to music storage drives and this would make intuitive sense.  OS drives are always active and the noise they generate is random, which I believe is the worst type of noise since it's very difficult to adjust to noise that is randomly coming and going.  

 

Since many software players will buffer to memory (Roon buffers 1-2 tracks in advance, as an example), music storage drives will generally go idle and stay idle for longer stretches of time and so their impact on SQ is potentially less, that is provided that the storage drive you choose has very low current draw while idle.  The latest 2TB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe, for example, draws the same amount of current while idle than a 2TB Western Digital Blue SATA III hard drive draws while actively writing (about 340mA)!  In even more stark contrast, many compact flash cards while idle consume only 100uA.  That means that In this particular example, while idle, the Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD draws 3,400x more current than a compact flash card.  

 

With regards to that benchmark that had the Samsung SATA II MLC SSD pitted against the X25-E, the Samsung consumed 1/3 less current during sequential reads but they were essentially neck and neck during the workstation-type I/O benchmark which is the more important benchmark for an OS drive.  While I did locate a used Samsung SATA II MLC SSD that I could have purchased to try, I wasn't curious enough to want to spend the money or the energy to try it, especially since there are enough reports out there by people I trust (including Phil Hobi) who feel that SLC drives generally sound better than MLC drives.

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2 hours ago, romaz said:

In my testing, OS drives have the greater impact on SQ compared to music storage drives and this would make intuitive sense.  OS drives are always active and the noise they generate is random, which I believe is the worst type of noise since it's very difficult to adjust to noise that is randomly coming and going.  

 

Since many software players will buffer to memory (Roon buffers 1-2 tracks in advance, as an example), music storage drives will generally go idle and stay idle for longer stretches of time and so their impact on SQ is potentially less, that is provided that the storage drive you choose has very low current draw while idle

So Larry has me testing an all-in-one solution that has my OS (Windows 10) and music on the same hdd, partitioned in two.  I am testing this vs my SSD (older Sandisk) as OS separately powered externally.  The SSD is plugged into an M.2. adapter so being somewhat equal sq gives the nod, so far, to the hdd...but I am still wondering that in the long run the constant activity of one drive to do multiple tasks, including serving my music will not come back to haunt me.  I'd really never experienced the hf issues of SSD.

 

All that being said, I do, however, love the sound of local music vs my Synology NAS, and have chosen 90+% of my go-to music for local storage (6TB).  A "backup" is on my NAS, as is my other 2 channel completist stuff and my multichannel (9+TB).

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Funny Ted, when Chris first started CA, he had the first gathering in Berkeley.  Even back then, when he compared a NAS to a local hd, the local hd won everytime.  That's why I was using ext hd's till I got tired of the hassle and went for a NAS.  

Interesting, but above my head, conversation ;)

Ryzen 7 2700 PC Server, NUC7CJYH w. 4G Apacer RAM as Renderer/LPS 1.2 - IsoRegen/LPS-1/.2 - Singxer SU-1/LPS1.2 - Holo Spring Level 3 DAC - LTA MicroZOTL MZ2 - Modwright KWA 150 Signature Amp - Tidal Audio Piano's.  

.

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11 hours ago, romaz said:

 

Thanks for reporting your findings, Larry. Your comparisons are always of great interest.  

HI Roy,

 

Thanks for your comments.  Yes, I agree further galvanic isolation may not accomplish anything here. But this is CA and we won't know until we try.

 

Clearly the use of the m.2 sata adapter and the six inch Coboc SATA cable add up to less resistance by reducing the length of the connection between hard disk and PCH.  Clearly the Coboc cable is well built, but the edge must be due to lower resistance.  It is a step change from the 18 inch cable here.

 

The other surprise is the benefit of the second emosystems isolation transformer between the Asus wireless adapter and the Intel NIC card.  The impact here is from good to great, and removing one of the EMOs destroys the SQ draining all the pop away.

 

Audiolinux testing begins this week.  I'm anxious to learn if the latest kernel eliminate the 0 db pops evident in the past.  If so, I may say bye bye to Windows.

 

Larry

 

 

Pareto Audio aka nuckleheadaudio

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On 3/8/2017 at 7:23 PM, romaz said:

LAN Adapter Card - Intel E1G42ETBLK Dual Port PCI-Express Server LAN adapter ($145)

So my solution to Lee's statement was to bypass the dual Intel LAN ports built into the Gigabyte motherboard with this card. They incorporate Intel's slightly older but highly regarded server-grade LAN chipset, the E1G42ET. In contrast to their newer I350-T2 chipset, this one consumes less power (2.8w vs >4w) but is also devoid of Intel's integrated power saving feature. Because it is PCIE, it has a lower latency pathway to the CPU and each LAN port has it's own independent path. Moreover, instead of 2 separate clocks for each LAN port on the Gigabyte motherboard, this card uses only a single clock which leaves me with 2 free clocks. To my delight, Lee has told me he can also replace the switching regulators on this card with SOtM's ultra low noise voltage regulators and further add capacitors. This would be as close to an audiophile LAN card as I can think of and may possibly allow me to remove my reclocking switch from the direct path and reposition it between my router and music server.

 

 

 

Not sure if you bought this card but the BLK is a bulk sku.  You can get the same card for about $30.

 

On 3/12/2017 at 5:48 PM, romaz said:

I will now be abandoning this Gigabyte motherboard. Before sending it off to SOtM for clock modification, I felt it was important to build it first to make sure my selected components were compatible and I'm glad I did. Unfortunately, none of the newest boards that incorporate Intel's 1151 chipset is capable of SATA in pure IDE mode (only AHCI). Consequently, I am finding that it is not possible to use a CF card as a boot drive which is a deal breaker.

 

I will have to go backward to an older motherboard that utilizes an 1150 chipset and I have found several that I like although I presently have my eye on an Asrock server-class enhanced mini-ITX motherboard, the MT-C224, that has even fewer unnecessary ICs such as onboard audio and can still be powered from a single 12V lead from my SR7.

 

Using this older chipset will also force me to abandon my 7th generation Intel 7700T but the advantage of this server-class motherboard is that it can utilize a Xeon class CPU and ECC RAM. This motherboard is specifically compatible with an even lower power dual-core Xeon, the E3-1220L V3, with only a 13w TDP and yet still has a fairly generous 4MB of L3 SmartCache (meaning the entire cache is usable for a single core).

 

 

I'm curious, with a max of 1.5 GHz will the E3-1220L V3 be able to handle running Roon?  It looks like you're not interested in, or are giving up any ability to upsample for the lowest possible power spec.

 

I'm hesitant to even go down to the 35w 7700T because I'd like this server to be able to upsample.  That puts things at 65w and I'm tempted to give the Ryzen a try as it's 8 cores.  This is where I'm at in my search for optimal components.  My desire to upsample causes me to compromise.

 

Other than the X25-E hard drive what other components have you finalized for your build?

 

10 hours ago, romaz said:

 

Feel free to share which M.2 SATA drives you like.  My intention isn't to debunk them.  If you like them, that's all that should matter and there may be some who have no choice but to use an M.2 drive and so the information could be helpful.  

 

I definitely agree, with only one exception that I can think of, the best cable is no cable and for some time, I, too, had assumed mSATA or M.2 and especially M.2 NVMe would sound better than standard SATA.  While I understood there would be increased noise issues, I assumed the massively improved latency of NVMe would win the day but that has not been my experience thus far.  I suppose it's like overclocking a 16-core CPU to stream music files -- that type of speed and power just isn't necessary and the noise consequences are just too great.

 

With regards to the benefits of not having to use a SATA cable with an M.2 SATA or mSATA drive, like with all things, my recommendation would be to use your ears and decide what you like better in your system.  If you have zero plans to address your SATA cable issues, maybe you'll find that there isn't much difference or that you prefer the "cable-less" benefits of M.2 SATA or mSATA but having specifically compared an mSATA SSD vs a standard SATA SSD that was independently powered by a separate PSU in my NUC (even when using a cheap SATA cable), my preference was for the independently powered SATA SSD.

 

The reason for this, I believe, is even in the absence of other noise causing devices on the 3.3V bus, you still can't escape the fact that this is inherently the noisiest bus on most motherboards.  First, because it is generally the noisiest rail on many ATX PSUs and with some of the highly regarded ATX PSUs I've looked at, depending on the load, it can be more than 2x noisier than either the 12V or 5V rails.  Second, you simply can't escape the noisy switching regulators that are buried in your motherboard.  Unfortunately, any off-the-shelf motherboard is going to be a nest for noise and to bus power any device is seldom going to have positive SQ results.  Lastly, for every watt of power consumed by a 3.3V device and a 5V device, the 3.3V device will draw 1.5x more current.  It takes much less for a 3.3V device to generate noise.

 

As for 32GB or 64GB drives, yes, these are small volumes but the intention for these drives has always been to use them as OS drives.  In my testing, OS drives have the greater impact on SQ compared to music storage drives and this would make intuitive sense.  OS drives are always active and the noise they generate is random, which I believe is the worst type of noise since it's very difficult to adjust to noise that is randomly coming and going.  

 

Since many software players will buffer to memory (Roon buffers 1-2 tracks in advance, as an example), music storage drives will generally go idle and stay idle for longer stretches of time and so their impact on SQ is potentially less, that is provided that the storage drive you choose has very low current draw while idle.  The latest 2TB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe, for example, draws the same amount of current while idle than a 2TB Western Digital Blue SATA III hard drive draws while actively writing (about 340mA)!  In even more stark contrast, many compact flash cards while idle consume only 100uA.  That means that In this particular example, while idle, the Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD draws 3,400x more current than a compact flash card.  

 

With regards to that benchmark that had the Samsung SATA II MLC SSD pitted against the X25-E, the Samsung consumed 1/3 less current during sequential reads but they were essentially neck and neck during the workstation-type I/O benchmark which is the more important benchmark for an OS drive.  While I did locate a used Samsung SATA II MLC SSD that I could have purchased to try, I wasn't curious enough to want to spend the money or the energy to try it, especially since there are enough reports out there by people I trust (including Phil Hobi) who feel that SLC drives generally sound better than MLC drives.

 

Here's an example of an M.2 drive, and the most comparable in size to the X25-E at 48G.

https://ark.intel.com/products/94438/Intel-SSD-E-5400s-Series-48GB-M_2-80mm-SATA-6Gbs-16nm-TLC

 

Here's a 128G NVMe with a 100mw active rating

https://ark.intel.com/products/94910/Intel-SSD-E-6000p-Series-128GB-M_2-80mm-PCIe-3_0-x4-3D1-TLC

 

I could be comfortable with a 48G drive at bare minimum.  32G pushes it too close for my liking.  All my music is NAS stored so this drive is just for OS, Roon, JRiver and HQ Player. 

 

Unless I'm missing something, which is very possible, these drives have low power requirements.  I don't own them or have any skin in the game.  I'm just looking to make the right decision when I build my next server, just like you.

 

That Samsung 960 Pro is an example of a very power hungry drive.  A better example of a Samsung is the 850 Pro.  I think you have the 850 EVO but I believe the 850 Pro has even lower requirements.  Not sure why you chose the X25-E over the Samsung in that review you posted, but it looks like you trusted SLC better even though there was less power draw during reads.  Tradeoffs.

 

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14 minutes ago, lmitche said:

The new optane nvme sticks are going to be an interesting.  I'd definitely get an optane compatible motherboard for a new build.  The optane memory will be used for cache against a local drive.

 

At first look I don't think it would help much for streaming.  I'm not even sure it would be beneficial for upsampling.  It seems to target desktop applications providing a storage buffer between the drive and processor for faster access to common calls to application storage.  I can see its benefit for a lot of purposes, but just don't see any big gains for computer audio.

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Not everyone is looking to upsample, especially those of us with Chord DAC's.  Low power, low impedance server is our goal.

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

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10 minutes ago, ElviaCaprice said:

Not everyone is looking to upsample, especially those of us with Chord DAC's.  Low power, low impedance server is our goal.

 

No, not everyone is looking to upsample and not everyone has Chord DACs, but some people are looking to upsample.  I wasn't implying that everyone was trying to upsample, only that it wouldn't be possible when selecting components with only low power in mind.  Just something to consider when building a server.

 

There are people out there building high powered servers in order to upsample to DSD 512 without a hiccup.  It would be interesting to know how much noise is generated by not only having the components necessary but also pushing the system to do that upsampling.  What's the trade off in sound quality?

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19 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

my question is whether everyone should looking to upsample...

 

I think that's subjective and not a matter of everyone or no one.  If you like what you hear when you upsample then go for it, if you don't then that's that.  I personally don't do it right now.  I tried for a bit and wasn't overly impressed.  I have read a lot of positive experiences when upsampling to DSD512 but my DAC can't do that.  I'd like to hear what it's like and will eventually buy a DAC that can support it, which is why I'm considering server components that can.  I personally prefer PCM over DSD but that could just be because my DAC isn't as good at converting DSD as PCM.

 

or was that tongue in cheek Ralf?

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No, it's a real question.  One I hear discussed a bit here and elsewhere but not one I know the answer to.  OTOH, I am still moving my black monoliths around in the room...

 

Usually, when I hear something in audio is a matter of taste, I expect there to be several or more different factors involved in the SQ, and some factors are weighted more by some people; other factros weighted higher by other people.

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2 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

my question is whether everyone should looking to upsample...

 

It's a real question and one that we have to decide upon before setting course on component choice.  Unfortunately it's a moving target where every component upgrade can change the outcome.  Personally I buy into the Chord argument to allow the DAC filtering perform the heavy lifting and internal upsampling, but I can understand the HPQ argument of allowing the PC to perform this function and not be caught stuck with a singular DAC's design. 

I'm not convinced that the advantage for upsampling by PC is worth the damage to the audio stream through increased function and power needs, thus I'm more inclined to want to seek a lower power server build as small as possible, almost to renderer size.  Unfortunately the choices for mobo is limited with audio not in design intentions.  Until we get an audiophile mobo we are stuck making compromises and feeding clean power to a design intent on creating dirty power within.

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

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18 minutes ago, ElviaCaprice said:

 

It's a real question and one that we have to decide upon before setting course on component choice.  Unfortunately it's a moving target where every component upgrade can change the outcome.  Personally I buy into the Chord argument to allow the DAC filtering perform the heavy lifting and internal upsampling, but I can understand the HPQ argument of allowing the PC to perform this function and not be caught stuck with a singular DAC's design. 

I'm not convinced that the advantage for upsampling by PC is worth the damage to the audio stream through increased function and power needs, thus I'm more inclined to want to seek a lower power server build as small as possible, almost to renderer size.  Unfortunately the choices for mobo is limited with audio not in design intentions.  Until we get an audiophile mobo we are stuck making compromises and feeding clean power to a design intent on creating dirty power within.

 

I too am not convinced that upsampling by the computer is worthwhile. I suppose that does depend on the DAC you are using. I believe the DAC I use, the Yggdrasil, upsamples better than the software I currently use which is Audirvana Plus.

 

Because general purpose computer systems are not great options for playing music, I am tempted to to go with the microRendu. Yes, it is USB which I loath. But, it is a damn good USB when the microRendu is powered by a quality LPS like the UpTone Audio LPS-1.

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8 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

Not sure if you bought this card but the BLK is a bulk sku.  You can get the same card for about $30.

 

1

 

Too late.  Thanks for letting me know, nonetheless.

 

8 hours ago, Johnseye said:

I'm curious, with a max of 1.5 GHz will the E3-1220L V3 be able to handle running Roon?  

 

 

Roon works well with this CPU.  In fact, I shut off Turbo Boost, Speedstep and Hyperthreading and so my CPU is locked at 1.1GHz and never comes close to reaching 1.5GHz.  With only 2GB of DDR3 at 1066MHz and a SATA II SSD, as I went online to download some drivers, even with a stripped down version of Windows 2012R2, the machine ran like molasses.  Super duper slow, but trust me, this is exactly what I want and I've been here before.  This machine will be run headless and the control device will be my Mac Pro or an iPad and so from a control standpoint, I never experience any slowness.  I've tested it thoroughly already and I can play all my files including DXD and DSD256 without a hitch.  Even without my new clocks and without my SR7 PSU powering it, in many ways, it was already was sounding better than my Mac Mini before I sent it off. 

 

When I get this motherboard back from SOtM, I will see if I can dethrottle the CPU down further to 800MHz and still remain operational and stable.  I also plan to dethrottle my RAM from its native speed of 1066MHz down to 800MHz so CPU and RAM will run at the same frequency.  In a previous build, I found this ratio to work very well and in fact, it was at these exact speeds that this machine sounded its best.  Because of the lower draw of this CPU and if I can get my OS to boot from compact flash, the draw from this machine should be my lowest yet.  Like I said, I am not on a typical path and so I don't expect many to follow me here but I can assure you, I wouldn't be doing it without good reason.  

 

9 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Other than the X25-E hard drive what other components have you finalized for your build?

 

 

Nothing is ever completely final.  As better things come to light, they will be explored.

 

9 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Here's an example of an M.2 drive, and the most comparable in size to the X25-E at 48G.

https://ark.intel.com/products/94438/Intel-SSD-E-5400s-Series-48GB-M_2-80mm-SATA-6Gbs-16nm-TLC

 

Here's a 128G NVMe with a 100mw active rating

https://ark.intel.com/products/94910/Intel-SSD-E-6000p-Series-128GB-M_2-80mm-PCIe-3_0-x4-3D1-TLC

 

 

 

These sound like great drives with excellent specs.  My preference is still to power my OS drive independently although should an M.2 to PCIe adapter become available that has the option for external power, my interest will be rekindled.  At this time, I still believe compact flash will sound best but I am open to being proven wrong.

 

9 hours ago, Johnseye said:

That Samsung 960 Pro is an example of a very power hungry drive.  A better example of a Samsung is the 850 Pro.  I think you have the 850 EVO but I believe the 850 Pro has even lower requirements. 

 

 

Yes, I'm aware the 850 Pro has less draw and during an A/B test in 2015, a few of us actually determined that the 850 Pro sounds a little better than the 850 EVO but when I sold my CAD CAT, the 850 Pro went with it.  The sonicTransporter I purchased last year came with the 2TB 850 EVO and so when I went away from the sonicTransporter, I transferred that SSD to my Mac Mini and made it a Thunderbolt drive.  I actually own a 4TB 850 EVO also and it's even noisier and so it now has found a new home in my TIVO box.

 

9 hours ago, Johnseye said:

Not sure why you chose the X25-E over the Samsung in that review you posted, but it looks like you trusted SLC better even though there was less power draw during reads.  Tradeoffs.

 

 

That pretty much sums it up.  With the X25-E, I found a new one on E-Bay for $80.  The Samsung I found was used and would have cost me more.  When it first came out, the 64GB X25-E was selling for $800 and was the belle of the ball in its time and in some ways, it is still superior to many of today's SSDs.  The X25-E is an enterprise drive with the capability of 100k erase-write cycles.  For my purposes, should I decide to stay with it, it should last forever.  The Samsung has only 10k erase-write cycles which is standard for all non-SLC SSDs including those that are made today.  As an enterprise drive, there was reason to believe the X25-E might have better internals including a better controller with better error-correcting and wear-level algorithms and so there might be more at play here than just low current draw.  And, yes, there were enough people I trusted that said SLC sounded better.  Ultimately, I bought this to compare against compact flash not believing I would be sticking with it but I felt I needed to do my due diligence.  Thus far, I am pleased with it.

 

9 hours ago, Johnseye said:

I'm just looking to make the right decision...

 

 

You and me both, brother.

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9 hours ago, Johnseye said:

It looks like you're not interested in, or are giving up any ability to upsample for the lowest possible power spec.

 

I'm hesitant to even go down to the 35w 7700T because I'd like this server to be able to upsample.  That puts things at 65w and I'm tempted to give the Ryzen a try as it's 8 cores.  This is where I'm at in my search for optimal components.  My desire to upsample causes me to compromise.

 

 

I fully believe in upsampling, it's just I prefer to do it within my DAC but that's a whole other story and rather than repeating myself, I'll point you to a previous post on this thread:

 

The bottom line is I prefer what I get from my Chord DAVE when fed native files.  Not a judgment at all on those that prefer it another way, just a different philosophical approach but the advantage of this approach is that it frees me up to build a minimalist server.

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