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

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29 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Typical 5.5 x 2.1/2.5mm D.C. connectors are rubbish and lose their mating qualities with repeated insertions. This also applies to the type with the split inner projection which closes up and goes high resistance, and you may need to rotate the plug to get continuity.

I have replaced several of mine with 3 pin mini XLR plugs and sockets.

 

I entirely agree.

 

I also have problems with some USB connections particularly to my iFi iDSD Micro ... the stupid OTG connector is loose (I use an AQ Dragontail). Its really hard to find OTG to USB 2.0 cables (not Micro!!!).

 

RCA isn't too bad but XLR is much better and Neutrik makes great connectors for chump change.

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12 minutes ago, mansr said:

The USB mini connector is flawed. The micro connector is a much better design. I'm a bit confused, however. The iDSD Micro doesn't have a mini-USB connector, nor does the Dragontail.

 

No, the Micro has an OTG connector on the input and typically you plug a Type A USB into the computer. OTG to Type A (full sized) are not common. Female Type A connectors can be used but the outer diameter means the fit into the OTG socket is variable, hence the problem...

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31 minutes ago, mansr said:

The Micro has a full-size male Type A connector. There is no full-size OTG (5-pin) connector, only mini and micro.

The DAC has full sized Type A *Male* on the device which is recessed into a cutout intended to be used with the full sized end of an OTG cable as depicted here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/general/accessories/review-ifi-audio-micro-idsd-usb-otg-dac-t3350114

 

The full sized Type A female connector is purely so you can power an external item such as a phone, from the internal battery.

 

Point being you can’t use a normal USB cable to plug the DAC into a computer. You can, however, use an AQ Dragontail cable. 

 

Trust me. 

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14 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

Here's Hugo M Scaler for £3495 and it's a much better upgrade than many tweaks according to @romaz

 

Artix-7 ... yawn ... low powered FPGA, a step up from the Spartan-6 no doubt but doesn’t have the horsepower to make great filters for DSD upsampling ... HQPlayer has access to vastly higher processing ... you’re better off for $$& looking at the SQ of the new CPU/GPU combos. 

 

That said the real deal Kinetix-7 series or Virtex-7 cost the same as the whole box (the Artix-7 is about $200). Just wait for the new RF-SoC/Ultrascale devices though ... now we would be talking.

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47 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

 

Lots of theories ... yawn ... @romaz actually compared HQPlayer to M Scaler and the latter one turned out to be superior as I quoted above.

 

Interesting comparison of software to hardware by someone. You will prefer what you wish which is fine as long as it makes you happy.

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On 7/21/2018 at 9:28 AM, seeteeyou said:

Too late to edit my post above, here's a little something

 

https://youtu.be/0BMk_dBIQjY

 

DC input is exactly 15V so that's perfect for the output voltage of LT3045

 

 

Oh I see, its the use of "massive game changer" as a descriptor! ?

 

Meh, 44K -> 705K PCM doesn't take that much horsepower. My dual Celeron J1900M ASRock board for $80 runs Windows 10 and XXHE just great. It also runs HQPlayer in PCM mode (but forget DSD that's what takes real horsepower). You can reclock it, LPS it, take it apart and rebuild it, replace caps etc. to your hearts content without breaking the bank ... in fact this is the board that I have multiples of which I used for my own experiments in reclocking, LPS etc. and to which I added an Intel x520 NIC and a reclocked Paul Pang USB out ... in fact since I moved to the ClearFog to interface my iFi Micro BL, I use this with my Phasure NOS1a/G3 so I'm not just talking theory, rather years of experience with many networks, clocks, etc. When did you first replace a clock? Have you ever built one? Ever soldered an LT3045? Ever built a discrete regulator? Ever designed one and then built it and then used it? Hardly just theory with me.

 

The best quote: "If this doesn't make you shit your pants, you aren't an audiophile!"

 

... brought me back to the 1970's marketing of "Crazy Eddie" if anyone here grew up in the Northeast USA ?

 

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9 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

Finally!  I can run my phased array radar system without stuff breaking down all the time ‼️

 

He he, or a multibit (12-14) DSD DAC that runs at 5 Ghz ... that's roughly DSD100000 ... really massive ?

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1 hour ago, lmitche said:

...

We can't discount the impact of a low latency OS in either environment. I don't know of a low latency OS in the ARM world, but haven't done much, if any research into this topic.

 

The ARM world is trending toward SoCs which can have network optimized hardware built into the same chip as the CPU. The Marvel Armada series is designed for network ops and I've used for audio streamers:

 

Solid-Run ClearFog has both an SFP input as well as RJ-45

Solid-Run MacchiatoBin has a set of SFP(+) input (10Gbe) as well as M.2

GlobalScale EspressoBin has an M.2 which allows for WiFi 802.11ac

 

Mine run with Realtime linux kernels... (4.18.12)

 

These pups are designed for low latency network I/O ... and cheap  

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16 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

The term low latency could be used quite casually, sometimes they might simply use that for marketing purpose without stating what the value is or maybe in other cases how a particular value is obtained.

 

Here's the latest from Mellanox with hundreds of nanoseconds

 

http://www.mellanox.com/page/press_release_item?id=575

 

http://www.mellanox.com/blog/2018/05/ethernet-storage-fabric-part-2/

 

http://www.mellanox.com/related-docs/solutions/SB-breaking-the-low-latency-trading-barrier-with-next-gen-intelligent-interconnect.pdf#page=2

 

Though their latest ConnectX-6 EN (Ethernet adapter) turned out to be much higher

 

http://www.mellanox.com/page/products_dyn?product_family=268&mtag=connectx_6_en_ic

 

Then there's always something like this

 

https://blog.metamako.com/how-to-measure-the-latency-of-a-4ns-switch

 

 

The Solarflare 7322F (which I have several of) has a rather low phase error onboard clock: https://www.solarflare.com/Media/Default/PDFs/SF-111380-CD-LATEST_Solarflare_SFN7322F_Product_Brief.pdf

 

Solarflare is known for low latency.

 

That switch looks nice but I can't justify that price ... all the 10 Gbe gear is pretty good  

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2 hours ago, taipan254 said:

The more I listen, the more I think Audiolinux booted from RAM is just a whole new league from what I've experienced

Given adequate RAM most Linux kernels run in RAM -- unless you are logging stuff to disc. Check out live-initramfs and for Ubunto the "toram" option

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1 hour ago, lmitche said:

Well nothing is going to beat ram speed and SQ. Did you pull the USB stick after your boot into ram? I can now recognize that something is wrong after ramboot when I forget to pull the stick out. Even when at idle, flash memory makes noise. USB flash, SDcards, HDDs, SSDs, & EMMC all make various levels of audible noise even at idle.

 

 

Agreed. Just FYI: https://askubuntu.com/questions/829917/can-i-boot-a-live-usb-fully-to-ram-allowing-me-to-remove-the-disk

 

audiolinux looks terrific as a prepackaged distribution. I tend to use armbian on ARM hardware, and then compile my own kernels using the realtime patches ... I know not everyone wants to do this, but just want to point out that Linux in general can run entirely from RAM using initramfs, and except for some logging IO tend to load the kernel into RAM and so 99% runs from RAM anyways. The realtime patches ensure lowest latency. Another option if you don't care to fiddle with plugging and unplugging drives, is to boot from network using iSCSI etc. I can assure you that Linux mostly runs from RAM because I've booted from network, the network including iSCSI server has gone down and rebooted, and the Linux NAA hasn't missed a beat.

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11 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Has anyone tried the LattePanda Alpha yet?

 

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1728.html

 

If we are going with coffee flavored NUCs then this has more caffeine  

 

http://macchiatobin.net/product/macchiatobin-single-shot/

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22 minutes ago, marce said:

Its a board designed to do a job, low noise audio is not one of them I suspect.

Don’t know and don’t have one. Designed and sold by Solid-Run which does have a surprising track record in audiophile products perhaps behind the scenes. I believe they use the Allegro design suite so perhaps the 3D is better than you predict?

 

However, this board doesn’t have an audio output so are you suggesting the USB output has high noise? (It certainly might) — that said it has a couple(!) Of 10G fiber slots so I’m assuming it meets 10GBase-X standards which are reasonable strict —- have to hit that 10G eye pattern  

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5 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

No, I’m not certain.  It looks like there might be backwards compatibility.  @jabbr would know.

I wouldn't use an SFP(+) module in an SFP port. The dual 10/1g modules are SFP(+) and can be used in the Solarflare NIC. You don't need to exactly match SFP modules on either side of a link -- just be sure they are compatible.