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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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7 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

 

Guys, 

 

I am running build 234 without any issues in bridged mode. The issue of "a music file loading slowly" reminds me of my original problems with bridging. My bridge was extremely slow when I used just 2 Ethernet adapters on my Windows 10 box. Not sure what OS you're on?

 

Like several others, I tried the suggested workaround of adding a wi-fi adapter to the bridge. This adapter needs to be "enabled" in Windows, but not connected to the network in any way. just its presence seems to fix some issue with Windows.

 

Thanks for the reply! Have you ticked all of the checkboxes in the bridge properties or just the one that has the internet connection?

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Thank you, austinpop, I may try that in the future. Yes, I run Windows 10 from a "Silent-PC" with two ethernet ports. The thing that surprises me is that everything worked fine before I updated to build 234. At the moment I just use the older Roon version. That is the easiest way.

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3 minutes ago, Tom75 said:

 

Thanks for the reply! Have you ticked all of the checkboxes in the bridge properties or just the one that has the internet connection?

 

Tom - technically, none of the adapters "has the internet connection." When you bridge, you're creating a new adapter object called "Network Bridge," which has the network properties, like IP address. The underlying adapters are listed at the top of the bridge properties (yes, they need to all be checked), and they go into "Bridged" mode.

 

1 minute ago, yellowblue said:

Thank you, austinpop, I may try that in the future. Yes, I run Windows 10 from a "Silent-PC" with two ethernet ports. The thing that surprises me is that everything worked fine before I updated to build 234. At the moment I just use the older Roon version. That is the easiest way.

 

Your choice. Build 234 of Roon is significant because it signals a major shift in the RAAT protocol, moving from UDP to TCP. See:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-1-3-build-234-is-live/26719

 

The section on RAAT Audio Streaming Optimizations is fascinating, especially where they talk about their design of delivering protocol code to the endpoints just in time. Very clever!

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8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Tom - technically, none of the adapters "has the internet connection."......

 

 

Got it! All I had to do is removing the manually entered IP, Gateway and Subnet values and keep it automatically. 

Thanks!!!

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Hi,

First, thanks everyone who contributing to this very informative and fascinating thread.

I'm planning to purchase a sMS-200ultra with switch mod.  That'll use up three of the four clock connections on the 200ultra.  I also plan on getting an Intel NUC7 as a music server running Roon's ROCK.  I wonder if it might be any way beneficial to have SOtM mod this NUC to utilize and accept the the last clock available on the 200ultra?  I'm not sure if this act is worth investigating or if there might be any draw back from doing so?  Also, what might happen to the modded NUC in the case if I not longer want to connect it to the 200ultra clock?

Thanks!

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18 minutes ago, hicr49 said:

Hi,

First, thanks everyone who contributing to this very informative and fascinating thread.

I'm planning to purchase a sMS-200ultra with switch mod.  That'll use up three of the four clock connections on the 200ultra.  I also plan on getting an Intel NUC7 as a music server running Roon's ROCK.  I wonder if it might be any way beneficial to have SOtM mod this NUC to utilize and accept the the last clock available on the 200ultra?  I'm not sure if this act is worth investigating or if there might be any draw back from doing so?  Also, what might happen to the modded NUC in the case if I not longer want to connect it to the 200ultra clock?

Thanks!

 

It would be worth it.  To what extent we don't know yet but you have an extra clock to use and only need to pay extra for the shipping.  I'd do it.

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1 hour ago, hicr49 said:

Also, what might happen to the modded NUC in the case if I not longer want to connect it to the 200ultra clock?

I think this is a good question.  In general, what happens to a piece of equipment with an SOtM clock mod if you divorce it from the component with the sCLK-EX board? 

 

Do we need a pre-nup to reconfigure?

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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2 minutes ago, rickca said:

I think this is a good question.  In general, what happens to a piece of equipment with an SOtM clock mod if you divorce it from the component with the sCLK-EX board? 

 

At least for my modded sMS-200 and switch - they don't function unless the tX-USBultra (host of the sCLK-EX card) is powered on.

 

The SOtM mods replace the device's own clock with the one sent from the sCLK-EX.

 

This is different than devices that accept a word or reference clock (loosely called a master clock) that improves on the built-in clock, but the device can function without them.

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2 minutes ago, austinpop said:

At least for my modded sMS-200 and switch - they don't function unless the tX-USBultra (host of the sCLK-EX card) is powered on.

OK, guess that answers that question!  That's what I expected.  

Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs

 

i7-6700K/Windows 10  --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's 

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11 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

At least for my modded sMS-200 and switch - they don't function unless the tX-USBultra (host of the sCLK-EX card) is powered on.

 

The SOtM mods replace the device's own clock with the one sent from the sCLK-EX.

 

This is different than devices that accept a word or reference clock (loosely called a master clock) that improves on the built-in clock, but the device can function without them.

Wow, didn't realize this would be the consequence of modding! Meaning a modified Intel NUC (or at least its LAN controller) or a switch or any other component in the chain being capable of modding  - would be dead without the sms200Ultra? 

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2 minutes ago, AmusedToD said:

Wow, didn't realize this would be the consequence of modding! Meaning a modified Intel NUC (or at least its LAN controller) or a switch or any other component in the chain being capable of modding  - would be dead without the sms200Ultra? 

 

Now you know.

 

Let me know when the howls of outrage die down.

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Just now, austinpop said:

 

Now you know.

 

Let me know when the howls of outrage die down.

Thanks for that. I will think twice about sending my components to Sotm now. There are not many people who would happily buy the modded components as a package due to the price. Modding a $50 switch is one thing, but modding a $700 Intel NUC is a whole different ballgame.

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Just now, AmusedToD said:

Thanks for that. I will think twice about sending my components to Sotm now. There are not many people who would happily buy the modded components as a package due to the price. Modding a $50 switch is one thing, but modding a $700 Intel NUC is a whole different ballgame.

 

Yeah - makes sense. I was just kidding about the "howls of outrage!"

 

This is the price of being on the bleeding edge. There just isn't a model for clock inputs for USB, LAN, and mobo clocks, on computers, switches, and USB reclockers. There exist word clock inputs for audio data (at audio rates of 44.1/48 and multiples), and even reference clock inputs (10MHz), but not for USB and LAN clocks at 24 and 25MHz.

 

For now, this is what you have to do. But it's not for the faint of heart! ;)

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5 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

This is the price of being on the bleeding edge.

 

Apparently so. But the price may be too steep for me to handle. And I'm thinking of investing in a better DAC as well. I might as well hold on to the brilliant little sms200Ultra for now and see how things further develop with these mods. Kudos to you and Ray for being the pioneers though!

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I'm not familiar with clock mod especially on computer, are there multiple clocks on a NUC? If so, which clock (main mobo, lan interface, etc) is best for mod to connect to the sMS-200ultra?

 

(Also, I'm still looking into this but according to SOtM-USA, the modded NUC will still be functional by itself even when not conmecting to the clock input from the ultra.)

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On 11.06.2017 at 5:36 PM, Cooler said:

I talked to @Marcin_gps 

if nic will work on gigabit speed with two ports, it needs 2A.

 

If i stay with seasonic, is j2 good enough, or what would you suggest? And what do you mean under "12v mobo"?

Typ current is 1.5A. Max current: 1.9A  (depending on operation condition) – I would say if somebody has 1.5A PSU then he can try to use it. If buy a new one then it is better to buy >=2A.

JPLAY & JCAT Founder

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Hi All,

 

There are several threads like this one, which have grown into monsters, albeit really helpful ones, over time. I've felt for some time that we need some kind of index/FAQ that could be pinned in some way, to which we can point folks to the "good stuff."

 

After some discussion and consideration of the possibilities with @The Computer Audiophile, he has just announced a new feature, that allows the OP to edit the first post in a thread in perpetuity.

This enables the creation of an index, but someone has to curate it. @romaz started this thread, so by default, he has the edit authority of the original post. However, Chris has indicated that he can manually assign edit authority to an alternate of the OP's choosing.

 

Roy, if you're still tuned in, your thoughts are welcome here. But I'm going to assume you do not have the bandwidth to curate this, so I am preemptively putting out a call for volunteers!

 

Would someone be willing to edit the first post and create an index - after Roy's initial writeup? This could be as simple as a bulleted list of links to important/useful posts, with perhaps an explanatory phrase or sentence.

 

Any volunteers?

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4 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Hi All,

 

There are several threads like this one, which have grown into monsters, albeit really helpful ones, over time. I've felt for some time that we need some kind of index/FAQ that could be pinned in some way, to which we can point folks to the "good stuff."

 

After some discussion and consideration of the possibilities with @The Computer Audiophile, he has just announced a new feature, that allows the OP to edit the first post in a thread in perpetuity.

This enables the creation of an index, but someone has to curate it. @romaz started this thread, so by default, he has the edit authority of the original post. However, Chris has indicated that he can manually assign edit authority to an alternate of the OP's choosing.

 

Roy, if you're still tuned in, your thoughts are welcome here. But I'm going to assume you do not have the bandwidth to curate this, so I am preemptively putting out a call for volunteers!

 

Would someone be willing to edit the first post and create an index - after Roy's initial writeup? This could be as simple as a bulleted list of links to important/useful posts, with perhaps an explanatory phrase or sentence.

 

Any volunteers?

 

Or create a new thread and sticky it, which contains all the pertinent info from this one.  There is some value in having this entire thread as a reference, but it has spider webbed into multiple topics, including custom built servers, USB clock, cabling, etc.

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11 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

Or create a new thread and sticky it, which contains all the pertinent info from this one.  There is some value in having this entire thread as a reference, but it has spider webbed into multiple topics, including custom built servers, USB clock, cabling, etc.

 

No one is stopping that. However it is a different thread at that point.

 

The point of this feature is to have an anchor - and the original post seems like the logical place - where particularly useful content can be stored and appended over time. There is nothing stopping the curator from organizing this in sections like "bridging," "clock mods," "custom server," "Adnaco" etc.

 

Frankly at this point, the most important consideration is finding someone who is willing to be the curator. They are welcome to use this new feature, or a separate sticky thread, or whatever they choose.

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Does anybody know what voltage the iso regen 575 clock is? 

Meitner ma1 v2 dac,  Sovereign preamp and power amp,

DIY speakers, scan speak illuminator.

Raal Requisite VM-1a -> SR-1a with Accurate Sound convolution.

Under development:

NUC7i7dnbe, Euphony Stylus, Qobuz.

Modded Buffalo-fiber-EtherRegen, DC3- Isoregen, Lush^2

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No, don't worry it is not for a different regulator. 

Meitner ma1 v2 dac,  Sovereign preamp and power amp,

DIY speakers, scan speak illuminator.

Raal Requisite VM-1a -> SR-1a with Accurate Sound convolution.

Under development:

NUC7i7dnbe, Euphony Stylus, Qobuz.

Modded Buffalo-fiber-EtherRegen, DC3- Isoregen, Lush^2

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