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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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2 hours ago, romaz said:

 

I never thought I would leave Roon having paid for a lifetime membership a number of years back.  It remains second to none with respect to library management and overall user experience but I have found the Stylus player to sound TOO GOOD to ignore and so I have made the switch. 

 

Roon by itself has a very good bloom and liquidity to it but it is at the expense of control resulting in considerable overhang and smearing of details, at least to my ears.  For vocals, Roon sounds more than just acceptably good but for orchestral music, it really is a mess.  Roon + SqueezeLite provides more of this control and much needed precision resulting in better damping and cleaner transients.  It's easier to hear when notes start and stop giving you the perception that the noise floor is lower but it also has a tendency to sound dry and mechanical.  While tolerable with orchestral music, with vocals and solo instruments, there is a sterility and thinness to SL (even with large buffers) that has always left me wanting.  The brain tells me all is well but the heart tells me differently.  Stylus is exceptional in it's ability to provide the bloom, liquidity, and tonal richness of Roon but also the the timing precision of SL.  In fact, to my ears, Stylus actually does all of these qualities better.

 

When I was doing my tests on AudioLinux, I found that ramping up CPU frequency resulted in better dynamics and an overall more muscular sound.  On an i7-8700K, this meant CPU frequencies as high as 4.7GHz and while this improved dynamics was very pleasing, it also came at the expense of harshness and an inability to convey delicacy and nuance.  As I set CPU frequency to the other end of the spectrum to a fixed 800MHz (and even 400MHz), delicacy and nuance was there in spades with no apparent harshness but the sound signature was thin and anemic sounding in comparison, similar to what I hear with an sMS-200ultra or ultraRendu.

 

Somehow, with the right CPU, Euphony is capable of providing both the benefits of high and low CPU frequency where it can do dynamics and expansive sound stage but also subtlety and nuance while never sounding harsh.  In hindsight, probably one of the worst features ever developed for AudioLinux is the Extreme2 mode because it forced you to a single frequency.  I think it's best to allow the CPU the flexibility to scale to whatever frequency is called for by the track.   While there is more to Stylus' magic than that, it is Stylus' ability to be both muscular and delicate that has forced me to rethink my digital front end once again.

 

While in Munich, I had a discussion with Jord Groen of Pink Faun about his decision to go with an AMD 1800X CPU.  It was his opinion based on listening tests that with his version of AL, CPU frequency was nowhere as important as the number of cores and so he never felt it necessary to move to a more powerful CPU with higher CPU frequency capability.  My experience is that CPU frequency definitely adds something but ultimately, harshness was the biggest trade off and so I presume this is what Jord meant.

 

With AudioLinux, I was forced to cap an 8700K at 3.8GHz because any speeds beyond this sounded harsh and so this supports Jord's comment.  But with Euphony and Stylus, I let the 8700K run with no cap whatsoever and notice that CPU frequency will typically reach 4.4-4.5GHz consistently, however, I get no harshness at all.  In fact, the higher the frequency a CPU is capable of, the better, and so I imagine the ultimate CPU at this time would be something like an i9-9900K that provides 8-cores and a max frequency of 5GHz and a TDP of only 95w.  I hope to be able to test this soon but what I will say is that with Euphony + Stylus on a single box 8700K machine, my reclocked i7 NUC driven by a 19V SR7 sounds absolutely puny.  Even with the 8700K server powered by an HDPlex 400W ATX LPSU and with no special clocking outside of my tX-USBultra, I prefer the big server to the i7 NUC but as I have figured out a way to independently power both the 8700K CPU and ATX motherboard (using a DC-ATX converter) with SR7 rails, the i7 NUC has now been officially retired.

 

Do I think that a powerful single box server running Euphony + Stylus is better than a dual box machine running Roon + StylusEP?  At this time, yes, no question.  Stylus is that good.  StylusEP contains a subset of Stylus but they aren't the same.  To my ears, Stylus sounds smoother and richer and better textured.  It is also ultra stable and Željko has done a wonderful job enhancing its feature set.  In fact, expect further enhancements in the coming days.

 

@romaz Appreciate you (and off-coarse others, like @austinpop) taking the time to make a detail post on listening impression. While I did my earlier post this morning, I have been listening to Stylus most ever since and I have to agree with what is been already said. It does sound exceptionally good in my system - the coherency of the sound is just phenomenal and the right amount of balance (and as you also said). I was already sold on StylusEP and was prepared to buy the license which is a bit cheaper than the full Stylus but now that I hear the goodies there is no going back. Having said that I would still like Željko to improve couple of things on the UI aspect without sacrificing any of the sound quality.

 

While I was pondering on what improvements I could further make to my digital system which primarily consist of i7 NUC (powered by JS-2 12v) and Matrix SPDIF2 (powered by SR-4), your post came in very timely - thank you. Since a single server has already won over me for its SQ and simplicity, it looks like a powerful server with i7/i9 running Euphony/Stylus will be the right step forward. I already own JCAT Femto NET and USB card and should I build the big server, they will be put into good use. I just need to decide on the motherboard and power supply (which seems the most critical and complex part).  

 
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41 minutes ago, RickyV said:

 

I have ordered this one 

99001403-AD78-4735-BCA9-5CD5BFB01C96.jpeg.29a2c77fe6bde390fe2f09719bdc0837.jpeg

8gb SLC memory the bare minimum for Euphony, no ecache. There is also 16gb.

 

@RickyV can you please remind me what would this Satadom benefit from ? Why not just use Optane for the Euphony drive ?

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38 minutes ago, RickyV said:

 

I have ordered this one 

99001403-AD78-4735-BCA9-5CD5BFB01C96.jpeg.29a2c77fe6bde390fe2f09719bdc0837.jpeg

8gb SLC memory the bare minimum for Euphony, no ecache. There is also 16gb.

 

That might be a good option. I guess it's just a SLC SSD drive. Does Euphony sound any better with it compared to other SSD drives? 

I recall a lot of discussions on storage, typically related to Roon installations, but I was also wondering if playing from RAM with Stylus changes what we've learn about storage somehow. I would be doing my own tests soon but wondering what other people have experienced. 

Industry disclosure:
https://chicagohifi.com

Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs

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1 minute ago, Dev said:

@RickyV can you please remind me what would this Satadom benefit from ? Why not just use Optane for the Euphony drive ?

 

He was responding to my question, which was related to storage in computers that don't/can't support Optane drives. I don't think we would prefer that option over Optane if it was possible to install an Optane.

Industry disclosure:
https://chicagohifi.com

Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs

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1 minute ago, Nenon said:

 

He was responding to my question, which was related to storage in computers that don't/can't support Optane drives. I don't think we would prefer that option over Optane if it was possible to install an Optane.

 

Oh..Got it.

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3 hours ago, romaz said:

as I have figured out a way to independently power both the 8700K CPU and ATX motherboard (using a DC-ATX converter) with SR7 rails, the i7 NUC has now been officially retired.

The essence of this is how to independently power the cpu? Could someone provide details guide? Could I also independently power cpu at intel NUC ? Thank you.

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19 minutes ago, lateboomer said:

The essence of this is how to independently power the cpu? Could someone provide details guide? Could I also independently power cpu at intel NUC ? Thank you.

 

I don't know about the Intel NUCs, but you can power any motherboard that uses ATX power supply by multiple rails by replacing the SMPS with linear power supply providing 3.3V, 5V, and 12V DC.

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK! And make sure you know what you are doing as many things can go wrong. 

The ATX connector wires are typically color coded: orange = 3.3V, red = 5V, yellow = 12V, black = common (ground). Here is the ATX connector pinout:

 

image.thumb.png.658320f9d0320796e5fdd6c071eb581d.png

 

As you can see, there might be multiple +3.3V, or 5V, or 12V. You can use a multimeter and do continuity check (on the motherboard side of the connector) to see if some of those are connected together (shorted) on the motherboard or they are all independent. You can supply each independent voltage with its own rail. The common (ground) on each rail are typically connected together. PG (Power Good) should be fed by +5V. You don't need a seperate rail for that, just use an existing rail. 

 

One of the issues here is that although the ATX spec are standard, what each pin is used for by the motherboard is not standard. So, I can't really tell you which pin feeds your CPU. That's motherboard dependent. Make sure you carefully read the motherboard manual before you attempt to do any of that. 

 

 

 

Industry disclosure:
https://chicagohifi.com

Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs

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3 hours ago, lateboomer said:

The essence of this is how to independently power the cpu? Could someone provide details guide? Could I also independently power cpu at intel NUC ? Thank you.

 

Powering the CPU with an independent rail makes a huge improvement. The key to doing this is to use a motherboard that has an EPS input. This is an 8-pin Molex connector that takes 12V. You then power this connector from an independent 12V rail.

 

Unfortunately, a NUC motherboard does not have an EPS input as far as I'm aware.

 

For details on how I powered my server (very similar to Roy) with an HDPlex 400W Linear ATX PSU, see my earlier post: 

 

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6 hours ago, Dev said:

 

@RickyV can you please remind me what would this Satadom benefit from ? Why not just use Optane for the Euphony drive ?

 

If you want to keep the m.2 slot free for a jcat net or usb card. What is the next best to optane ? 

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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8 hours ago, Nenon said:

Does Euphony sound any better with it compared to other SSD drives?

Way back in pre- optane, m.2 times @romaz did experiments to see what's best for sata. That was slc ssd.

 

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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Every time I'm ready to finally upgrade my laptop to a supa dupa new server, the conversation moves on again to something even more wonderful! Do you guys never stop? 🙂

 

With the recent talk of m.2 Optane drives and a single box Euphony server, I'm wondering if I can truely keep it simple by putting all my music files and OS on a single optane drive in a single NUC?

 

My compressed redbook FLAC files currently total under 180GB, and are unlikely to grow much more in the new streaming world.

And one can readily buy optane drives up to 500GB+ (although I don't know if the larger sizes will physically or logically work in a NUC environment). So what would stop this being a good idea?

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Previously I read about another guy here recommended a mini PC running i7-8550U which is capable for headless AL. So I searched along the net and came across this mini PC called Partaker B18 which running i7-8750H 6 cores 12 threads CPU and has 2 NVMe slots. So I wonder could this PC suited very well to run Optane ssd for Euphony and at the same time can do upsampling to dsd256? 

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3 hours ago, lateboomer said:

Previously I read about another guy here recommended a mini PC running i7-8550U which is capable for headless AL. So I searched along the net and came across this mini PC called Partaker B18 which running i7-8750H 6 cores 12 threads CPU and has 2 NVMe slots. So I wonder could this PC suited very well to run Optane ssd for Euphony and at the same time can do upsampling to dsd256? 

 

That is a lot of power but I would be concerned about support from a relatively unknown overseas (depending on your location) company. Also it uses a fan and probably does not have a third-party fanless case available for it. Personally I am more concerned about fan electrical noise than storage type.

 

Having dealt before with companies with no tech support within my own country I am increasingly focused on companies with a local support/service presence. The one exception for me is Ghent Audio. They are great.


"Don't Believe Everything You Think"

System

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18 hours ago, romaz said:

Do I think that a powerful single box server running Euphony + Stylus is better than a dual box machine running Roon + StylusEP?  At this time, yes, no question.  Stylus is that good.  StylusEP contains a subset of Stylus but they aren't the same.  To my ears, Stylus sounds smoother and richer and better textured.  It is also ultra stable and Željko has done a wonderful job enhancing its feature set.  In fact, expect further enhancements in the coming days.

Roy, thanks for the info on what you have done. I will look at brining my Xeon sever up and hooking the USB to my system.  I am pretty sure I had done something similar with AudioLinux but a lot has changed since then.   

 

Seems like we need a "current summary of findings".   We have spread this across a bunch of threads.  Partially my fault.  This is where a Wiki of some sort might be nice.  

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On 3/21/2019 at 8:39 PM, austinpop said:
I have a lot of interesting things to try next. I plan to move this server into my listening room, where it can benefit from better cabling and better power. We'll see how much of an uptick that provides. This is where the fanless chassis comes in really handy. There are some PSU experiments to try, but Roy has already explored these, and I'm inclined to trust him on these. I'll describe these later. Finally, there is all this buzz about Euphony, so at some point I should give that a whirl.
 
I will say, this may be as close to endgame in the digital streaming chain as I've ever felt I've gotten!

@austinpop Have you tried using your server as a single box?  Als have you considered something like the Jcat USB card for it?

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10 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I know going forward, I would be better off using a reclocked USB card like the JCAT, or the tX-USBexp. But that would require a mobo with 2 PCIe slots, at which point, perhaps an i9-9900K is warranted.

 

This is what I have been looking for as well - one slot for USB and another for Ethernet. Though I am using Wifi at the moment, but I would not like to loose the flexibility going forward. Mobo with 2 PCIe slot would require to step up to the m-ATX motherboard. I am also waiting for the release of i9-9900 in couple of months.

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Euphony Stylus vs Euphony Stylus  : NUC vs Xeon

 

As part of my playin' around this weekend I am going to spend some "Quality Time" with Euphony Stylus. 

 

Using my HDPLEX 400 I can swap machines between the NUC and the Xeon server I build.  All I have to do is move three cables. Two USB cables, and network.    I can test both USB files and NAS files along with Streaming.

 

I have the FMC hooked to its own LPS and then to a Ghent JSSG Ethernet.  My IsoRegen is connected to an LPS-1.2. with a Ghent JSSG3360 USB to the Kii Three Controller and a Transparent Audio HP USB to the computer of choice.


There are so many questions past this....   Off to do some gardening since we are dry for the last 24 hours...

IMG_1843.thumb.jpeg.7c114029bddc4e2845c42589f9364b78.jpeg

 

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20 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Remember, at this point, we are incrementally raising the high water mark on SQ. However, just because a new high water mark is achieved, it does not mean the last one was bad. Enjoy what you have, until the move to improve/upgrade strikes. It's the only way to retain your sanity and equanimity.

We are in such a crazy great place now.  Look back 12-18 months WOW a lot of bits have streamed down the audio river. 

 

What Is really amazing to me is how good the NUC sounds with Euphony.  I have a hard time doing anything more. But since I have it. Why not play.  SO,... I am doing Xeon vs  NUC compare this weekend.


 

My Dad's ducks are watching over the testing!

IMG_1843.thumb.jpeg.723dd5a8a97f00b630a4969a56aa1cc1.jpeg

 

 

 I am in NO RUSH to change things.  As for the near future.  I feel little need to do anything but change the DC power cables on the NUC and the Xeon.

 

  • I was going to play with Xeon processors in my current server but for now I will wait.  
  • I am sticking with the ISORegen for now.  The Q/A of JCAT USB and/or TXUSBUltra is down the road.
  •  If this goes where I think it will the NUC might just be my headphone system computer soon. 
  • The HDPLEX H5 case is really big for my LR system.  But it will work fine!  
  • Ghent Audio is going to get some more business from me!
  • Networking stuff is still in my future.  I will play with the TLS switch some more over time and see what UpTone does.

I am still fussing over Roon vs Stylus.  I see so much more attention to the user from Euphony!

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Also waiting for the i9-9900...

Does anyone have any details about the motherboard SOTM is working on? What socket will it have? What CPUs would it support? How many PCI-e slots? Will it have the ability to power up each component by separate rails? What clocks will they be using, etc.

 

Will this ever end? No... Digital advancements would never end. Was iPhone 1 the end? It was just the beginning :). Same here. 

 

But I would like to see/hear the new SOTM motherboard with JCAC Net Femto NIC, Pink Faun Ultra OCXO USB card, and EtherRegen switch running Euphony/Stylus and every component powered by an independent SR7 rail. 

Industry disclosure:
https://chicagohifi.com

Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs

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1 minute ago, Nenon said:

Also waiting for the i9-9900...

Does anyone have any details about the motherboard SOTM is working on? What socket will it have? What CPUs would it support? How many PCI-e slots? Will it have the ability to power up each component by separate rails? What clocks will they be using, etc.

 

Will this ever end? No... Digital advancements would never end. Was iPhone 1 the end? It was just the beginning :). Same here. 

 

But I would like to see/hear the new SOTM motherboard with JCAC Net Femto NIC, Pink Faun Ultra OCXO USB card, and EtherRegen switch running Euphony/Stylus and every component powered by an independent SR7 rail. 

I would love to see how good we can make a stand-alone NUC or the like sound with something on the USB and the "right" power supply.  Something that anyone can buy, get a warranty on and scale up over time.  No Soldering iron required..  

 

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1 minute ago, bobfa said:

I would love to see how good we can make a stand-alone NUC or the like sound with something on the USB and the "right" power supply.  Something that anyone can buy, get a warranty on and scale up over time.  No Soldering iron required..  

 

 

Good for you, but I want a lot more than that. Attention to details is important, and you can always improve things with a soldering iron... or make things worse :). But one can do a "new SOTM motherboard with JCAC Net Femto NIC, Pink Faun Ultra OCXO USB card, and EtherRegen switch running Euphony/Stylus and every component powered by an independent SR7 rail" without a soldering iron. The problem is two of those products don't exist yet and one is unobtainable. But with another power supply, it could be the next step up recipe from your NUC recipe for people wanting more. 

Industry disclosure:
https://chicagohifi.com

Dealer for: Taiko Audio, Conrad Johnson, Audio Mirror, and Sean Jacobs

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1 hour ago, austinpop said:

He is operating on a celestial plane

But there are seven heavens.

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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