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

[bibo01]

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

LMS has been around for quite some time, so is a pretty well grooved ecosystem. Just like Roon uses RAAT for its underlying communication, LMS uses SlimProto on top of TCP. As best I can tell, SlimProto is used for control, but the actually audio streams are sent over HTTP/HTTPS.

 

Point is - this is a pretty mature platform. It's just not as slick as Roon. Not by a long shot.

Marco, developer of C-3PO, is developing an interesting library manager for LMS that can work on all platforms.

https://www.nexthardware.com/forum/pc-top-software/90206-e-il-momento-di-leia-ovvero-la-library-manager.html

[lmitche]

I just spent the afternoon setting up and listening to a NUC i7 Optane running AL Roonserver with stock power supply, wirelessly streaming to an UpTone LPS1.2 powered Celeron NUC AL Roonbridge endpoint. Pure native with no upsampling or dsp.

 

The music sounds fantastic! This two box solution is a great combination. While I can't be sure until tomorrow, the NUC server may beat my i7-6700k rig.

[greenleo]

9 minutes ago, lmitche said:

I just spent the afternoon setting up and listening to a NUC i7 Optane running AL Roonserver with stock power supply, wirelessly streaming to an UpTone LPS1.2 powered Celeron NUC AL Roonbridge endpoint. Pure native with no upsampling or dsp.

 

The music sounds fantastic! This two box solution is a great combination. While I can't be sure until tomorrow, the NUC server may beat my i7-6700k rig.

How do you do the two box wireless streaming?

[lmitche]

5 minutes ago, greenleo said:

How do you do the two box wireless streaming?

The NUC streamer connects wirelessly to a WiFi router. The server is wired.

[rickca]

23 minutes ago, lmitche said:

the NUC server may beat my i7-6700k rig

In this comparison, is the i7-6700K also running AL, or is it running Windows 10/AO?

[lmitche]

Same Optane based image running on both.

[bibo01]

8 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

I think I’ve already mentioned that I don’t get the skipping issue with LMS. So yes, the problem is Roon.

 

But that’s not the point. I don’t want to use LMS. LMS is terrible from a UI perspective.

 

I’m try to see if there’s a way to tune the Roon squeezelite combo to eliminate or greatly reduce the problem.

Sorry I must have missed that LMS test.

[Middy]

My 13 month olds got chicken pox, so just had time to swap out the NUC into the Akasa case between cuddles...

 Lapped heat sink case, artic mx-4 thermal paste. 2 hours in is running at

39 oC  NUC6CAYB celeron. Music playing- web pages open.

Monitoring cores with 'Speccy'. 

Nothing but WIN10 and a  free player Dopamine. 

Swapping wasnt that bad. Take a photo and remove all cables. Be gentle and use an esd strap. 

You have to force the case a little with a little pulling.

A tip. remove the fan first as it exposes a last screw for the heatsink. 100% isoproply alcohol and scrubbing with a cotton bud/  cue tip on cpu. 

My akasa case was lapped and ultra sonic cleaned + MX 4 paste. I'll see in a few days if it was worth the effort in settling in. 38 to 40 oC isnt bad..

 

The big plus is that pesky fan. It does make a nice difference. 

Every small change helps and this was a nice one. Easy to discern the difference the fan was creating with the motor pulses. A tad more detail sharper and increase in sound stage.

 

Be a fanless fan.. its fantastic..   sorry

 

I am still nervous about going AL as I have no Linux experience or high priced software, what to choose?. May get another as a server cheap, second hand, while the finer points are hammered out at the sharp end.

 

Then bother people with the basics i dont understand yet. IPs submasks, a basic server, bridges. Linux basics.... eeek, everthing really.

 

As always thanks for the help gents. 

Have a lovely week.

Exhausted new dad...

Dave 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[greenleo]

2 hours ago, lmitche said:

The NUC streamer connects wirelessly to a WiFi router. The server is wired.

I see.  Thanks.

[greenleo]

1 hour ago, Middy said:

My 13 month olds got chicken pox, so just had time to swap out the NUC into the Akasa case between cuddles...

 Lapped heat sink case, artic mx-4 thermal paste. 2 hours in is running at

39 oC  NUC6CAYB celeron. Music playing- web pages open.

Monitoring cores with 'Speccy'. 

Nothing but WIN10 and a  free player Dopamine. 

Swapping wasnt that bad. Take a photo and remove all cables. Be gentle and use an esd strap. 

You have to force the case a little with a little pulling.

A tip. remove the fan first as it exposes a last screw for the heatsink. 100% isoproply alcohol and scrubbing with a cotton bud/  cue tip on cpu. 

My akasa case was lapped and ultra sonic cleaned + MX 4 paste. I'll see in a few days if it was worth the effort in settling in. 38 to 40 oC isnt bad..

 

The big plus is that pesky fan. It does make a nice difference. 

Every small change helps and this was a nice one. Easy to discern the difference the fan was creating with the motor pulses. A tad more detail sharper and increase in sound stage.

 

Be a fanless fan.. its fantastic..   sorry

 

I am still nervous about going AL as I have no Linux experience or high priced software, what to choose?. May get another as a server cheap, second hand, while the finer points are hammered out at the sharp end.

 

Then bother people with the basics i dont understand yet. IPs submasks, a basic server, bridges. Linux basics.... eeek, everthing really.

 

As always thanks for the help gents. 

Have a lovely week.

Exhausted new dad...

Dave 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Try AL, only $29, not expensive.  1st post has index that links to walk through.  Should be pretty easy.  

[the_doc735]

13 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

I think I’ve already mentioned that I don’t get the skipping issue with LMS. So yes, the problem is Roon.

 

But that’s not the point. I don’t want to use LMS. LMS is terrible from a UI perspective.

 

I’m try to see if there’s a way to tune the Roon squeezelite combo to eliminate or greatly reduce the problem.

LMS?

can't find it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS (click)

[pas]

3 minutes ago, the_doc735 said:

LMS?

can't find it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS (click)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech_Media_Server

[Superdad]

2 hours ago, Middy said:

My 13 month olds got chicken pox, so just had time to swap out the NUC into the Akasa case between cuddles...

 

Exhausted new dad...

Dave 

 

Congrats on being a dad Dave.  But whatever you do, avoid getting chicken pox as an adult!  A long time ago I got it from our daughter when she was 8.  It was horrible—I had boils all over my face.   And now, 15 years later I am rewarded with shingles (like being stabbed with an ice pick).

You can love and comfort your sad toddler, but be careful!

[JohnSwenson]

11 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

LMS has been around for quite some time, so is a pretty well grooved ecosystem. Just like Roon uses RAAT for its underlying communication, LMS uses SlimProto on top of TCP. As best I can tell, SlimProto is used for control, but the actually audio streams are sent over HTTP/HTTPS.

 

Point is - this is a pretty mature platform. It's just not as slick as Roon. Not by a long shot.

LMS definitely does NOT use HTTP for sending audio data. SlimProto is actually a very simple protocol and is used for sending the audio data. It supports several "native" formats, which are essentially the audio data in common file formats. (WAV, FLAC, MP3, probably a couple more). The rest of the file formats get converted in the server into one of these.

 

The only thing HTTP is used for is talking to the web server GUI that is part of the server. If you are using any of the other controllers (hardware or software) HTTP is not used at all.

 

LMS also uses UDP multicast to coordinate servers, controllers and players finding each other on a network, but after they are found the rest happens through SlimProto.

 

John S.

[austinpop]

32 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

LMS definitely does NOT use HTTP for sending audio data.

 

Apologies for the misinformation.

[the_doc735]

22 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

LMS definitely does NOT use HTTP for sending audio data. SlimProto is actually a very simple protocol and is used for sending the audio data. It supports several "native" formats, which are essentially the audio data in common file formats. (WAV, FLAC, MP3, probably a couple more). The rest of the file formats get converted in the server into one of these.

 

The only thing HTTP is used for is talking to the web server GUI that is part of the server. If you are using any of the other controllers (hardware or software) HTTP is not used at all.

 

LMS also uses UDP multicast to coordinate servers, controllers and players finding each other on a network, but after they are found the rest happens through SlimProto.

 

John S.

Hi John,

I have several things going on e.g. PC based mini-ITX one box solution with windows 10.

However, my latest start up project involves the microrendu 1.4  and synology ds218+ (+ laptop controller). Do you know what options are available in terms of software implementation? (& how to get these devices to talk to each other?)   ...software streamers/servers/controllers etc. bewildering choice out there! (i.e. free/paid). I may well be adding a ISO REGEN to this quite soon. Any setup instructions on here?

Many Thanks!

[MrUnderhill]

A few weeks ago I posted this on a thread I started about the SOtM stack:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/sotm-trifecta?reply=77314878523732546#77314878523732546

 

.........

You are right, in digital audio power is CRITICAL. In Naim-world this is mainly taken care of, at a price. I hope you don't mind if I answer this in a circuitous way.

When I got my microRendu I fell in love with the dynamics and the detail, but alongside it came EDGE. It took me 18 months to get that EDGE down to a level that I found acceptable; that is, only the edge that is in the recording!

The solution was in various parts which had a greater or lessor influence, although I found them to be additive. Here I will just discuss what I have done in my front end, not with my servers and files. The parts consisted of:

1. Grounding
   This was a journey. Initially I started out by using Isolation Transformers to try and form a barrier to noise. What I succeeded in doing was highlighting to myself the need for careful consideration of grounding - hums broke out all over!
   Ultimately I realised that I had a number of devices that were powered and used floating earths, in combination with devices that were earthed through their power cables. I bought a standard earthing block and ran a cable from a metal part of every floating earth device back to the block. I then ran a cable from the block to my pre-amp. My intention was to try and have one route to earth.
   This had a small positive effect.
2. LPSU
   I have run through a number of PSUs, including: SMPS cheapos; IFI iPower SMPS; Cheap Chinese LPSU; R-Core LPSUs; and, Uptone LPS-1.
   I have not gone to the expense of a Paul Hynes, but an SR7 is definitely on my wish list, and I have been in contact with Paul.
   I found that GENERALLY, but not always, making a larger current available led to good results; i.e. a 2A supply where 1A is the spec.
   I found cheap SMPS to be dreadful; but, they interestingly emphasised certain frequency ranges.
   The IFIs were a definite step up.
   Cheap LPSUs were on a similar level to the IFI.
   R-Core were better.
   The LPS-1 was detailed and dynamic, but I found I preferred an over specified R-Core overall - but this was a matter of taste.
   This had a moderate positive effect.
3. LT3045
   These cards remove noise, and having tried one I fitted them everywhere I could. You need to make them up in a hobby box with a bit of soldering.
   An R-Core + LT3045 became my PSU of choice, and enabled me to sell my LPS-1s without a worry.
   This had a moderate positive effect.
4. DC Cabling & PoE
   This is an interesting one. The cables used to connect the DC power have a ridiculous influence. The best I have found is a DUAL CAT arrangement using Power over Ethernet (PoE). The CAT cables do matter, and the best to date have been Audioquest. I am using Pearls, but Cinnamon is better. There are some cheap and very effect cables such as the 3M Vandersils CAT8 or Ibra CAT7. Cheap experiment and has to be heard to believe it.
   The DUAL CAT involves doing some DIY on a PoE distribution box to use all eight CAT wires, and then use one cable for +ve and one for -ve.
   This had a moderate positive effect.
5. Digital Cabling (USB/SPDIF)
   I have fought against cable foo for an age, but gave up a few years ago as I couldn't ignore the evidence of my own ears. Many cables are just different, better is another matter.
   In terms of USB I have found a cable that is just all round better to be the IFI Audio Mercury 3.0.
   A friend came around with a Cut Loose SPDIF. This is the cable that Audionote sells as the Black Pallas for large amounts of money. It is extruded silver coated in Palladium and constructed as a ribbon. In my system it had a superb effect ....but, at £2k I don't think so. I found a similar type of cable on ebay for £100, the Nimak Pulsar Mk 2. Not quiet as good but very nice, and not the  rip off I feared it might be.
6. Where to put the BEST power supply
   I played with this a lot. Ultimately I found the best place to be the last hop before my DAC, which in my case is the SingXer-F1. It needs 5V 0.5A. It is being powered by a a 6A 8V R-Core LPSU via DUAL CAT PoE into a 5V 1A LT3045; currently using 3M Vandersils CAT8 which I am testing in place of my usual CAT7 AQ Pearls. I will be also trying the AQ Cinnamon in due course.

Why repeat this all here?

A couple of pages ago it was suggested that streaming from my NAS may be better than having directly attached storage. This goes against the moves I have been doing for some time where I found an LPSU powered Raspberry Pi with attached USB sticks, hosted on a StarTech extender, was better than my NAS. I had then attached this StarTech to my AL/Prestige 2 LMS server. However, as we know that leaving a USB stick attached to the AL box degrades the sound quality I thought I would recheck my findings.

 

Surprisingly, to me, the sound quality from my NAS was a LOT closer now then it ever has been. Why? I suspect that it MAY be due to the Power over Ethernet (PoE) I have put in place. Either way on the whole I still prefer the USB hosted files, but it is by NO means a slam dunk:

 

NAS - Files sound slightly darker. A tad more thickness in the midrange. Some cymbal work splashier.
USB - More clearly defined detail. Bass more clearly delineated. Here further into the mix.

 

Depending on the file then I can occasionally prefer the NAS as the host.

 

As a final test I took the StarTech out of the loop (something suggested by a friend on another thread), and attached the USB3.0 Hub that I attach to it directly to the AL/LMS - I think it is a tad better again .....still listening.

 

My gut feeling is that a lot of the widgets I have used historically have been to handle the effects of badly managed power. That once that is sorted a lot of the props I have been using can be removed - just takes an OCD level of attention!

 

M

[the_doc735]

18 minutes ago, MrUnderhill said:

A few weeks ago I posted this on a thread I started about the SOtM stack:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/sotm-trifecta?reply=77314878523732546#77314878523732546

 

.........

You are right, in digital audio power is CRITICAL. In Naim-world this is mainly taken care of, at a price. I hope you don't mind if I answer this in a circuitous way.

When I got my microRendu I fell in love with the dynamics and the detail, but alongside it came EDGE. It took me 18 months to get that EDGE down to a level that I found acceptable; that is, only the edge that is in the recording!

The solution was in various parts which had a greater or lessor influence, although I found them to be additive. Here I will just discuss what I have done in my front end, not with my servers and files. The parts consisted of:

1. Grounding
   This was a journey. Initially I started out by using Isolation Transformers to try and form a barrier to noise. What I succeeded in doing was highlighting to myself the need for careful consideration of grounding - hums broke out all over!
   Ultimately I realised that I had a number of devices that were powered and used floating earths, in combination with devices that were earthed through their power cables. I bought a standard earthing block and ran a cable from a metal part of every floating earth device back to the block. I then ran a cable from the block to my pre-amp. My intention was to try and have one route to earth.
   This had a small positive effect.
2. LPSU
   I have run through a number of PSUs, including: SMPS cheapos; IFI iPower SMPS; Cheap Chinese LPSU; R-Core LPSUs; and, Uptone LPS-1.
   I have not gone to the expense of a Paul Hynes, but an SR7 is definitely on my wish list, and I have been in contact with Paul.
   I found that GENERALLY, but not always, making a larger current available led to good results; i.e. a 2A supply where 1A is the spec.
   I found cheap SMPS to be dreadful; but, they interestingly emphasised certain frequency ranges.
   The IFIs were a definite step up.
   Cheap LPSUs were on a similar level to the IFI.
   R-Core were better.
   The LPS-1 was detailed and dynamic, but I found I preferred an over specified R-Core overall - but this was a matter of taste.
   This had a moderate positive effect.
3. LT3045
   These cards remove noise, and having tried one I fitted them everywhere I could. You need to make them up in a hobby box with a bit of soldering.
   An R-Core + LT3045 became my PSU of choice, and enabled me to sell my LPS-1s without a worry.
   This had a moderate positive effect.
4. DC Cabling & PoE
   This is an interesting one. The cables used to connect the DC power have a ridiculous influence. The best I have found is a DUAL CAT arrangement using Power over Ethernet (PoE). The CAT cables do matter, and the best to date have been Audioquest. I am using Pearls, but Cinnamon is better. There are some cheap and very effect cables such as the 3M Vandersils CAT8 or Ibra CAT7. Cheap experiment and has to be heard to believe it.
   The DUAL CAT involves doing some DIY on a PoE distribution box to use all eight CAT wires, and then use one cable for +ve and one for -ve.
   This had a moderate positive effect.
5. Digital Cabling (USB/SPDIF)
   I have fought against cable foo for an age, but gave up a few years ago as I couldn't ignore the evidence of my own ears. Many cables are just different, better is another matter.
   In terms of USB I have found a cable that is just all round better to be the IFI Audio Mercury 3.0.
   A friend came around with a Cut Loose SPDIF. This is the cable that Audionote sells as the Black Pallas for large amounts of money. It is extruded silver coated in Palladium and constructed as a ribbon. In my system it had a superb effect ....but, at £2k I don't think so. I found a similar type of cable on ebay for £100, the Nimak Pulsar Mk 2. Not quiet as good but very nice, and not the  rip off I feared it might be.
6. Where to put the BEST power supply
   I played with this a lot. Ultimately I found the best place to be the last hop before my DAC, which in my case is the SingXer-F1. It needs 5V 0.5A. It is being powered by a a 6A 8V R-Core LPSU via DUAL CAT PoE into a 5V 1A LT3045; currently using 3M Vandersils CAT8 which I am testing in place of my usual CAT7 AQ Pearls. I will be also trying the AQ Cinnamon in due course.

Why repeat this all here?

A couple of pages ago it was suggested that streaming from my NAS may be better than having directly attached storage. This goes against the moves I have been doing for some time where I found an LPSU powered Raspberry Pi with attached USB sticks, hosted on a StarTech extender, was better than my NAS. I had then attached this StarTech to my AL/Prestige 2 LMS server. However, as we know that leaving a USB stick attached to the AL box degrades the sound quality I thought I would recheck my findings.

 

Surprisingly, to me, the sound quality from my NAS was a LOT closer now then it ever has been. Why? I suspect that it MAY be due to the Power over Ethernet (PoE) I have put in place. Either way on the whole I still prefer the USB hosted files, but it is by NO means a slam dunk:

 

NAS - Files sound slightly darker. A tad more thickness in the midrange. Some cymbal work splashier.
USB - More clearly defined detail. Bass more clearly delineated. Here further into the mix.

 

Depending on the file then I can occasionally prefer the NAS as the host.

 

As a final test I took the StarTech out of the loop (something suggested by a friend on another thread), and attached the USB3.0 Hub that I attach to it directly to the AL/LMS - I think it is a tad better again .....still listening.

 

My gut feeling is that a lot of the widgets I have used historically have been to handle the effects of badly managed power. That once that is sorted a lot of the props I have been using can be removed - just takes an OCD level of attention!

 

M

thanks for the great detail here! I won't pretend I understand everything you have said but to me it is very interesting overall.

[MrUnderhill]

A friend of mine is doing a lot of work using REW & convolution via Roon. For anyone who might be interested LMS HAD a plugin that allowed this sort of room correction. Some people are keeping it alive:

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?77084-RC-(Inguz-etc-)/page43

 

I might be tempted!

 

M

[mourip]

11 hours ago, lmitche said:

I just spent the afternoon setting up and listening to a NUC i7 Optane running AL Roonserver with stock power supply, wirelessly streaming to an UpTone LPS1.2 powered Celeron NUC AL Roonbridge endpoint. Pure native with no upsampling or dsp.

 

The music sounds fantastic! This two box solution is a great combination. While I can't be sure until tomorrow, the NUC server may beat my i7-6700k rig.

 

Great information. I my mind this thread has become the leading edge for innovation on CA.

 

Question. How do folks feel about the SQ of using the Roon Core as an endpoint also? It seems to make sense from a practical point of view unless there is some benefit from using RAAT to help isolate the music server from the endpoint?

 

I have sent a dozen hours this past week trying to get a 3 box system working with only baffling results. I wanted to have a ROCK CORE/server feeding two Audiolinux ramboot endpoints and one Windows 10 desktop endpoint. For some reason I just could not get both AL endpoints working at the same time. They would each work great independently but not show up on a Control PC at the same time. In desperation I moved my ROCK server to replace one of the AL endpoints and now everything runs like a Swiss train.

 

I have listen to and tried to follow suggestions both here and from Piero but nothing would fix this issue. It is easily possible that the solution is very simple but I just cannot find it. My next step is to set up a new Roon server using AL and see is that will work better.

 

I am trying to remind myself that for Audioholics the chase is as much fun as the goal ?

 

[Middy]

6 hours ago, Superdad said:

I am rewarded with shingles

You should have asked for a full album or a CD.

I had everything by 6.... by 7 i had to go to bed....?

 

@greenleo  does it have a free player in AL... nothing to buy or set up in AL ?.

Fear more than $29.

Never used a pc until recently for Audio.

Samsung phone, glad i tried, via you and others kind help.

Thank you..

 

 

[greenleo]

10 minutes ago, Middy said:

You should have asked for a full album or a CD.

I had everything by 6.... by 7 i had to go to bed....?

 

@greenleo  does it have a free player in AL... nothing to buy or set up in AL ?.

Fear more than $29.

Never used a pc until recently for Audio.

Samsung phone, glad i tried, via you and others kind help.

Thank you..

 

 

A trial version of HQPlayer for Linux is included which stops at every o.5 hr.  You may restart it and play the music files again.  No need to install and may run readily.  For testing the SQ, it's really good.

 

There are free software there as well.  You'd better ask Piero

[davide256]

Tried a comparison last nite after I added more RAM to my PC, allowing me to run LXQT version 2.1 in RAM; swapped endpoints back and forth between microRendu

and an RPI3B+ with AL. While the microRendu was more refined/detailed than RPI3B+, it sounded soggy compared to the RPI for transients, something that in the past I haven't found to be true of microRendu. And the chain sounded better without ISO Regen.

Booted the server back to Win10 with Roonserver, microRendu transients were fine, ISO Regen improved focus but the harmonic purity of AL server was lost.

 

 

 

[austinpop]

3 hours ago, mourip said:

Great information. I my mind this thread has become the leading edge for innovation on CA.

 

Whether or not that's true (I happen to agree), it's certainly the case that with an open mind, a willingness to trust what you hear, and a critical mass of contributors who are unafraid to experiment and honestly report what they hear, we have come far. Manufacturers should (and many do) pay heed to these empirical findings, and analyze the root cause for what we discover empirically. Because eventually, we want products that sound this good out of the box!

 

3 hours ago, mourip said:

Question. How do folks feel about the SQ of using the Roon Core as an endpoint also? It seems to make sense from a practical point of view unless there is some benefit from using RAAT to help isolate the music server from the endpoint

 

There is an attractive simplicity to the single box Roon server (Core + Player) that cannot be denied. My experiments with the Zenith SE suggest that even those who do not want to go to the distributed model of server+NUC streamer can improve their SQ by running AL headless in ramroot on their single server. Whether this improvement is dwarfed by the reported "goodness" of the NUCs is the big question for me.

 

Now, Larry has been telling me to quit futzing around and try the NUC already (I'm paraphrasing  ), so that will happen this week. The primary comparisons I will be doing are:

1. Relative to a baseline of standalone Zenith SE running Roon server, what is the SQ of:
   • Dell XPS 8700/AL Roon Core + SE as Roon Bridge. (already done. I liked standalone better)
   • Dell XPS 8700/AL Roon Core + NUC as Roon Bridge
   • Zenith SE running Roon Core + NUC as Roon Bridge
2. For the best NUC combo above, compare PSUs
   • SR-4, sPS-500, LPS-1.2 (if possible), and SR-7
3. Replace Roon Core/Bridge with Roon/squeezelite and/or LMS/squeezelite (not sure I'll do this - I just prefer Roon, and this is fiddly).

Before someone else says it - I get the irony! This is fiddly? As opposed to the hundreds of other wacky things I've tried?! Agreed - you got me there!

[lmitche]

3 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Larry has been telling me to quit futzing around

For the record,  I did not say futzing!