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

[mourip]

1 hour ago, User471 said:

 

I live in an old rambling house which brings particular network and audio difficulties

 

I'm lucky enough to have fibre to the property, but it all goes downhill from there!

 

The 'Net enters in one room but all the hifi is in another some way away, so my only options for getting connectivity is either wireless or ethernet-over-mains. The house mains is old anyway and very noisy (I can tell when my wife is using her hair straighteners upstairs because my balanced transformer hums like a hive of angry robo bees!!)

 

I tried wireless first but my Netgear Orbi Mesh System uses 5GHz for all the backend stuff and connects to all the various phones, laptops etc using 5GHz too and I am unable to set up a dedicated wireless band for audio only, and the sound whilst perfectly serviceable is not as good as it might be with the audio sharing all that bandwidth (Paul Hynes LPS on the Orbi satellite helped a bit, but not much)

 

So I ended up with ethernet-over-mains to get into the room, copper to an HP ProCurve with iFi for the TV etc etc, then into a no-name FMC, MM fibre to a 2960 v2, thence copper to my endpoint. Server connects to the ProCurve too, so also upstream of the fibre link

 

Currently least bad option and certainly an improvement over wireless in my environment

 

Depending on the final announced costs I plan to swap the 2960 to the proximal end of the fibre segment and have one of the upcoming Sonore System Optique devices distally

 

Keeps me occupied !!!

 

 

If you already have coax into the room for your TV you might consider using MOCA adapters to pass ethernet into the room.

[mourip]

Thanks Larry.

 

If you have been running in ramroot with the USB stick unplugged can you plug it back in to save your new settings or do you need to make all of your changes and the save after a fresh boot with USB stick left in place?

[mourip]

1 hour ago, Metnoc said:

Hi my first post on this forum with my own impressions rather than a question.

So obviously I wanted to try Audiolinux as well since its held in such a high regard by many.

I have a Zotac 620 computer running Roon core, it has passive cooling, external power supply and two ethernetports, I use one of them for direct connection to my sms200ultra.
Usually I run roon core on win10 with fidelizer in purist/streaming mode, so I compared this to Audiolinux in ramboot mode.
Well, I must say that I agree with the guy behind Fidelizer with what he as written about the sound difference between the two OS.

https://www.fidelizer-audio.com/extreme-dual-pc-computer-audio-setup-shootout-between-audiolinux-and-windows-server-2019/
Audiolinux might have better transparency and sound a little snappier but it also sounds thin with quite poor harmonics. As a whole, AL doesn't sound very natural at all.
So I prefer win10/fidelizer over AL. 

 

There are so many variables in system setup that it is no wonder that outcomes vary. My experience has not been the same as the Fidelizer vendor but I can understand it. My theory after experimenting a lot is that it is a very revealing configuration and may not always play well with others.

[mourip]

3 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

There is a thread on Audiophile AO3.0beta running in WinServer 2019 Core .. I am one of the beta testers .. having been using WinServer 2016Core/Audiophile Optimizer AO2.2(I switched from Win10Pro)

It has nice tonality , superior handling of transients and decay of the music! Results in more precise imaging and better layering of tge Sound Stage

U hv to mess about with Microsoft Command Line, Powershell.. AO3.0 makes it eadier

Great upgrade from Win10Pro

 

I tried AL Ranroot/Extreme headless vs win10 NAA for HQPlayer .. Not my cup of tea

 

I was previously running Windows 2016 with AO in GUI mode using Dante AOIP to a Focusrite Rednet D16 DDC. I do not believe that I would have been able to get Dante working in Core mode. It was the best sound that I have encountered but I find that with some tweaking AL equals it in an absolute way but does have a different "character".

 

Sometimes the chase is as much fun as the capture!

 

Sounds like you have a nice system.

[mourip]

27 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

I'm not really sure I understand your comment since the sMS, not the tX, is being compared to the NUC.  In any event, my experience with high quality silver wire is exactly the opposite of what you describe.  While some people may prefer the tonality of copper over silver, I find your characterization of silver producing thinner, harder less, natural sounds to be completely inaccurate.  Perhaps lower quality silver wire has these attributes, but I have no such wire anywhere in my system.

 

His experience is not "inaccurate" it is just not the same as your own experience. People do hear differently and I doubt that his system is exactly the same as yours. He would not be alone in finding silver wire to be bright, especially in analogue interconnects and speaker wires. Not sure if wire has these same audible characteristics in digital circuits but our hobby is as much more like cooking that science.

 

BTW. He was trying to be helpful...

[mourip]

27 minutes ago, carlmart said:

OK, I'm just coming into this thread, which has an attention catching name to start with.

 

Please do not tell me I have to read all 524 pages of it.

 

Please at least browse all 524 pages of it before telling us not to tell you to read all 524 pages of it. Thanks.

[mourip]

2 hours ago, the_doc735 said:

Having been monitoring this thread for quite some time now and noticed the recent decline in NUC related posts, I'm wondering if the dust has finally started to settle a little?

 

I have searched this thread for: NUC/ENDPOINT/MEMORY and one or two other search combinations, but am unable to find a satisfactory answer, so I've decided to post up instead.

 

What are the most suitable NUC endpoints at the current time?

Whether to fit SSD/HDD, or non at all?

The optimum amount of memory (ram)?

Can optane be used with the NUC and what difference does it make?

Is the endpoint NUC more important than the server end?

 

I'm wanting to run AL from memory (boot from memory with a USB memory stick) F.Y.I.

If it turns out to be amazing I would even consider a fanless case as well.

 

I suspect a lot of people have searched for this cumulative & succinct answer (i.e. bring all of these pages down into one reply covering the most fundamental questions)? 

 

Many thanks in advance to you all!

 

You have asked the BIG question and one for which there is no, at least easy, answer. If you find it please let us know 🙂

 

One reason that activity has dropped off here could be that folks are now just listening to music?

 

I can only speak for myself but my plan has been to take the best tips from consistent and open minded posters and try them in my system. I have neither the time or patience to try out all of the combinations and permutations but the short version is that I now am very happy with my system.

 

Here is the short version:

1. AL running in ramroot extreme mode with USB drive pulled after boot.

2. NUC 7I5BNH with one processor dedicated to audio. Fan-less Akasa case

3. 8Gigs of memory - plenty

4. NUC running as Roon endpoint.

5. HDPlex LPS: 19v to NUC

6. No internal drives in NUC.

7. As many settings turned off in BIOS as have been recommended here.

8. My Roon Core is still running on Windows 10 Pro with Audiophile Optimizer. Fan-less case with another HDPlex LPS using 19v for board and 5v for internal SSDs. May try AL soon.

9. My Core server is relatively low powered as my Yggdrasil DAC only does 24/192 and so is not very processor demanding.

10. Clean side ethernet isolated from server and LAN using fiber optic media adapters. Clean side FMC powered by LPS.

11. Clean side AC isolated with an isolation transformer.

 

YMMV 🙂

[mourip]

5 hours ago, austinpop said:

tX-USBultra

 

Sorry to be dim but...

... is the tX-USBultra  modified to provide an external clock output back to the NUC which is also modified to accept that?

 

Also has anyone compared the tX-USBultra to a Mutec 3+ USB/REF10 combo or is this apples to oranges?

[mourip]

3 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

 

Correct, they were sent to SOtM for mods.  The sCLK-EX board which is included in the tX-USBultra has extra clock taps which can be leveraged for other devices.  There are internal cables run from the sCLK-EX to connectors mounted into the chassis of the tX-USBultra.  Then cables are run from those connectors to similar connectors mounted into the NUC case.  Cables run from each clock tap of the NUC board to those connectors mounted into the NUC.

 

Thanks. Any idea how much the mods cost?

[mourip]

3 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

If you already have an Ultra (tX, sNH-10G) unit with an sCLK-EX board with 3 free clock points, then the cost to mod the i7 NUC, reprogram the sCLK-EX board, and create the SMB inputs and outputs should be in the $600 ballpark. I got some other work done, so my cost was different.

 

Best is to email May with details. Every project is different.

 

Is the work done by the US distributor or do you need to ship to Korea?

[mourip]

22 hours ago, Johnseye said:

I also just upgraded my Persona 3F speakers to the 9H, and my projector to the new JVC 4k.  The speakers are a substantial, or in Roy's words HUGE, improvement and run at 96db which opens up some doors if I'd like to try some other stuff out.  Yes, I am gushing over these speakers.  It's my belief that speakers have the biggest impact on sound and these should be my endgame there.

 

Congrats also...

 

My experience is that everything matters but that once you have really good speakers all of the sudden you will start focusing on your front end because any change, either positive or negative, will be telegraphed downstream ...and heard.

 

Our hobby is a rabbit hole no matter how you look at it 🙂

[mourip]

39 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

It was a pleasure to visit Ray's amazing setup..... 

....However, I was most taken by those Omegas, especially listening nearfield (3-4'). Once I get my HMS/TT2, this may be my next (non digital) upgrade.

 

Glad to hear that someone else likes the Omegas. I have a pair of the Omega Audio Super Alnico High Output XRS have been extremely pleased with them.

[mourip]

On 3/16/2019 at 11:03 AM, Dutch said:

 

And you seemed to have missed my point!  My point is very simple: don’t compare apples and oranges, whether it be power cables, small computers or even different models of NUC’s. There is no ‘the NUC’, there’s dozens of models. If you have followed this thread you’ve read that the best results thus far come from the NUC7i7DN’xx’ models but all ‘sound different’.

 

In some ways this is the whole point of this great thread. Subjective opinions are encouraged and explanations based upon personal understanding of objective theory are not. There are plenty of other threads here to explore where objective theory is debated so no one needs to feel left out...

 

All we can really say as audiophiles is that something sounded great in our own system and then, to make this useful for others, we need to describe the exact details of our current system environment. Otherwise we are wallowing in the "apples to oranges" trap.

 

To use an analogy that has probably come up here before, our hobby is really closer to cooking than science.

[mourip]

4 hours ago, Ricardo007 said:

What is AL?

 

http://www.audio-linux.com/

[mourip]

5 hours ago, romaz said:

X Factor - Furutech Nano Liquid

 Upon completion of my build, I immediately tried powering on this server but it wouldn't power on.  My first thoughts were that this contact enhancer had somehow caused a short or ruined the board but I decided to wait 24 hours to see what would happen.  To my relief, after 24 hours, the board powered on but the board was only seeing one 4GB RAM stick and not the other.  

 

Great post. Thanks!

 

Regarding contact enhancers, I had a similar experience using Silclear, which is paste-like and contains silver. When I used it carefully and also sparingly on my vacuum tube pins the paste got pushed up to the top of the pins and caused enough electrical leakage that once I removed the Silclear I got a dramatic improvement in SQ! I have since removed it where I could.

 

I do believe that it can improve SQ but would caution that using too much can cause inadvertent bridging of electrical connections and definitely fry some types of devices...

 

 

[mourip]

20 minutes ago, Nenon said:

It's probably easy for the people who followed it on regular basis in the past two years, but good luck to new members/readers. 

 

Actually it is no easier for those of us who have been reading it from day one. We are also now getting lots of posts asking questions that have already been covered and folks are posting "new" ideas that have already been put forth.

 

The nice thing about this thread is that it is moderated but it is definitely getting long...

[mourip]

3 hours ago, elan120 said:

External DC power connection setup for Startech USB3.1 Gen2 PCIe card

 

Close up picture of added barrel connector:

Once cap burn-in is done, I will replace the current JSSG360 Gotham cable with silver Neotech JSSG360 cable from Audio Sensibility, recommended by @auricgoldfinger as a great quality cable to compare.  Hopefully the new silver cable will provide further improvements.

 

Very nice. Question. Does the card automatically disable power input from the bus when the SATA input is powered? How about bus power ground?

[mourip]

Thanks. I guess that the bottom line is whether the external supply improved SQ but I imagine that the best improvement would be from getting complete power isolation. I assume that is what one gets from the expensive JCAT card.

[mourip]

5 minutes ago, Dev said:

 

I am with you on this. Over all recent releases, Roon has been concentrating primarily on rich feature set and user experience rather SQ rather than SQ, which is same in itself. Many times it was requested in their forums for things like playback from Ram, etc, but all they have done is ignore them and add more features in their new releases. This is as if they already knew how to entrap folks (like you, me and many of us) with rich UI/library experience so that they can never go back to other audio players with far better SQ they have to offer 🙁

 

 

OK. As one who has been digging his way down the perfect sound rabbit hole for several decades I have a number of observations...

 

First, this particular forum is a very dedicated sub-forum of a web site where not even everyone on the site is quite as obsessed as we are. And CA/AS is somewhat unique among other audiophile forums, having a focus on computer based SQ. And in the broader world our pursuit is just a small speck on the broad canvas of mid-Fi. Most normal people just enjoy listening to music. They do not have our affliction. Let's face it. If you are reading this thread then you enjoy the chase itself.

 

We are all here for the relentless pursuit of something that cannot ever be finally achieved. As you get a system that is really, truly transparent and neutral you then start hearing recording imperfection and THAT rabbit hole is too vast to even contemplate.

 

I have spent some time on Roon Community looking for some pearls of wisdom or just plain helpful information and have found very little. It is almost as bad as the JRiver forum in regards to a lack of helpful and attentive admin participation. BTW. As a long time JRiver user I do think that Roon sounds much better.

 

 

I think that the combination of Roon/Qobuz running on AL-ramroot with a two box configuration using a network bridge is pretty near to perfection ...or at least a nearly perfect combination of user interface and excellent sound quality. The only playback scheme that I have found close to it is a well tweaked Dante system which had it's own issues but sounded wonderful. It has always amazed me that others here did not put as much energy into finding it's potential as with AL.

 

For most of us on the forum we have reached a point of diminishing returns. We are on the flat point of the curve having already struggled up the steepest part. At some point one just needs to pour a glass of adult beverage and enjoy some music.

 

Stepping off of soapbox now... I need to go research a better USB cable 🙂

 

[mourip]

10 minutes ago, bobfa said:

 I look at the software cost; $500 for Roon and $600 for a pair of Euphony licenses as a rather small part of a system design where there is say $20k to $30k of hardware. Also, consider that either Tidal or Qobuz at $20 are priced at month forever,...  I think we are spoiled with being able to use Audiolinux with $80 for two licenses. 

 

I am very interested in a couple of things.

 

1. Moving back to bridged networking, which is coming shortly from Euphony. 

2. Roon starting to pay more attention to this work. (They seem to have a different view on their direction)

3. What Power Supply system I have on my Server.  HDPLEX 200 +DC /ATX vs. Buying an HDPLEX 400.

4. Different ethernet switches such as the SoTM and the soon to be released EtherRegen.  

 

 

 

I recently moved to a bridged configuration from one were I used fiber to isolate my endpoint from the "dirty" side there my server resided which connected with copper to the same switch. I had two ethernet ports on my server, one was a good quality Intel PCIe card and the other was the on-board port. 

 

I changed to moving the server over to the "clean" side, bridging the two ports and connecting the Intel card to the endpoint. I still used fiber to connect the server back to the dirty side switch.

 

The improvement in sound was not subtle. More detail, quieter background, and much better dynamics.

[mourip]

54 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Very true, and important to keep in perspective. It's funny, I had a similar thought a few days ago, so much so that I felt compelled to add the following to the sticky post at the top of each page:

 

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.

 

That indeed qualifies as a sticky!

[mourip]

1 hour ago, Em2016 said:

 

Noted but respectfully, I was replying to Austinpop, not you, and I’m sure Austinpop understands where I was coming from, even if he may not agree (which is fine).

 

Spend enough time discussing with Rob Watts and Ted Smith and others about how/why things may sound “different” (maybe not technically “better”) and it becomes clearer.

 

Basically this is a remarkably friendly open forum with a specific focus on subjective evaluation of sound quality in the context of one's own system. Posts are seen by all. I think that the word "nutty" is used humorously to acknowledge that most here love working on the bleeding edge. It is not for everyone but great discoveries are found here. Do you have any specific ideas to contribute concerning advancing sound quality?

 

BTW. If you really did not want others to comment then perhaps a PM would work better for that goal. 

 

 

[mourip]

3 hours ago, tapatrick said:

I find recording quality more of an issue these days after setting up AL/NUC server and endpoint and I put more attention on choosing good recordings over tweaking. 

 

Watch developments at PS audio as Paul is bringing audiophile attention to the recording process....

 

Your system and mine probably have some similar qualities. We both have Topaz isolation, use Roon with AL, vacuum tube amps, and Omega Alnico speakers.

 

Ironically many of my favorite recordings are from the "Golden Age of Stereo" including RCA, Mercury, and Everest for classical and various other 50's and 60's jazz labels.

[mourip]

9 hours ago, atxkyle said:

I believe Roon ROCK is based on a minimalist Linux OS.  (Plenty of info about it on Roon’s website.)

 

It is similar, but having tried it, I found AL to easily exceed it. AL can run completely in ram, allows you to operate with no storage drives at all, and has many tweak options. Also ROCK is plug and pray, only officially supporting certain NUC models. AL can run on almost anything. I have run it on a Mac, a regular Windows desktop, a NUC, and a CAPS-like fanless box.

 

ROCK will probably meet the needs of many audiophiles but not the crazies that congregate here 🙂

[mourip]

7 hours ago, Iving said:

In a no moving parts pc a mobo whine near the cpu can be the result of antagonism between power settings in bios and the o/s respectively. I have changed mobos thinking them faulty or nffp before discovering this. Hope you have less trouble.

 

When I first started building fanless audio PCs I had one that had an audible physical whine. Those boards have inductors which I always suspected as being the culprit by physical vibration/oscillation. I was able to fix it buy replacing the DC-ATX converter. Oddly the most noise came when I had a monitor hooked up to them and was using a mouse to work in the OS. Perhaps this caused more current to pass through them. The NUC does not have the same separate ATX converter but it probably has inductors on the board.

 

What particular power settings did you find as the culprit and were you able to successfully eliminate the noise by making adjustments?