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

[jean-michel6]

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 Unless the LT3045 have additional larger value (not Low ESR) electrolytic filter capacitors fitted in parallel, they WILL result in added HF detail which includes added harshness, or an increase in sibilance, as well as a boost in any existing HF noise  from the source material .

Any PSU which has a markedly decreasing impedance at >100kHz will result in this. This applies to Digital as well as Analogue applications . 

 The output impedance of a power supply should be as low as possible , and as flat as possible between DC and >100kHz, and preferably 1MHz. 

 If you used those boards without the additional filter capacitors in parallel , at least at their Input, for powering an Audio Amplifier you would almost certainly find this added HF detail too.
 Note also that Micael has been using daisy chained LT3045 PCBs to obtain an increase in HF detail with streaming, and his experiments in this area are well documented.

 

P.S.

 In the PSU that I showed in my photo previously, if I hadn't used a parallel combination of a normal type 4700uF capacitor in parallel with a Low ESR 4700uF capacitor in the Capacitance Multiplier section., but used 2 x parallel Low ESR type 4700uF instead, I would also have had too much HF detail DESPITE the PSU being used in a Digital area. In fact, I still have a minor increase in HF detail with both A and V, which helps to make up for generational copying losses.

I understand your comment and may be the psu I am using may mean an increase in hf detail but not in hf noise. 

Since  my SSD psu are totally separate from the mobo psu , it seems to mean that the harshness was coming from the data side of rhe SSD .

[jean-michel6]

On 3/26/2019 at 8:47 PM, Nenon said:

 

That would be very interesting. The content in a file is the same no matter where it is stored. I am guessing the audible differences we hear are due to some noise generated while pulling the file from its storage media. Does anyone have a better explanation? My guess is if can get to the bottom of that we might be able to create a buffer/reclocker/regenerator/whatever-you-want-to-call-it for files. If we can get those files to the RAM from any storage media without that noise, and play them from the RAM, I am guessing the storage would not matter that much.

A while back I was using ssd to store my music and experimenting with external hdd (usb connected ). 

My server is run on Daphile who can load the music in ram and play it from ram.  

 

I was loading in ram the exact same music file coming from ssd and hddd. 

 

The music was always better coming from hdd !

[jean-michel6]

On 3/26/2019 at 8:34 PM, austinpop said:

 

Many thanks to Kevin @elan120 for whipping up a Visio of my crude sketch during a boring conference call at work!

 

 

 

Please see the position of the NAS in my topology above. It is a stock Synology 4-bay with HDDs and stock SMPS. I have a pending test to compare a track pulled from the NAS to the same placed in RAM (somewhere in the root partition) to the same read from the Optane SSD. My hope is that with my new topology, the SQ from the NAS is as good as the other 2. I'll update once I know.

Rajiv ,

 

I can see from this schematic that you are running your tx ultra at 12v .

Is it better in term of sq than running at 9v. If yes what does it brings in term of sq. 

 

May  from SOtM says they were recommending 9v. 

[jean-michel6]

5 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

hmm. so I guess I can tell him what I need - e.g what my server is, how many amp I need etc and he may be able to build one then? I hope he is more reliable than Paul Hynes. From your article it takes 6 months to get the Server+ LPS !  A LPS to separately supply the CPU, ethernet etc. I already have a separate DC supply to SSD & USB bridge. 

I had also one psu DC3 2 time 12V 5A built by Sean Jacobs . 

This psu works flawlessly in my dual pc set up and dealing with Sean Jacobs what just pure pleasure . Very responsive to answer questions ans set up my psu design and delivery deadline was met right on time .

Sean Jacobs is the way to go for very good psu . 

 

I had previously a disatrous experience with Paul Hynes . I had ordered an SR7 from Paul Hynes  it was supposed to be delivered after roughly 3 month according to his commercial conditions  . After 6 month , I was getting only excuse … and no product or even an expected delivery date .

Hopefully I had paid the 4% paypal fee to be covered and after long and unfair exchanges from Paul , I was able to get my money back from Paypal.

 

I then went to Sean Jacobs and everything worked wonderfully .

[jean-michel6]

A small miracle ! 
 

I have been for several years in this game of building a very good server-player pc system . 
I went through the 626 pages of this thread and exchanged with several of you . 

You can have the detail of my system on my profile .  I have achieved very good musical results with this system.

 

However , I felt it was too complex and I wanted to make it simpler . I made two changes to my system :

 

1- I replaced the quite complex optical switch and optical network by an UpTone etherregen.

 

2- The pc player with its clocks driven by SOTM clock board , SOTM usb pcie card ,SOTM tx usb , SOTM hd usb (usb to spdif ) were all replaced by an upnp/dlna renderer from engineered . A small company in Switzerland who is selling it’s network renderer to Dartzeel , Soulution , CH ,Audiomat ....

https://www.engineered.ch/products/ered-dock/

 

My system now is : 

- server: Super micro x10 sba under daphile with an upnp dlna plug in 

- etherregen switch 

- player : engineered network card 

- 2 very good 12v psu and 2 at 5 volt.

 

Results : It is much simpler than my previous system but the small miracle is that the sound quality is much , much better than what I did get before . It is so much closer to the real performance. It is truly amazing. 
I could write many many things about the sq....
It cost much less than what I had before therefore an amazing move. 
 

Both the etherregen and the engineered card were key in achieving those results. 
I really encourage you to explore this road , the reward is exceptional .

 

[jean-michel6]

On 1/20/2020 at 1:22 AM, Superdad said:

 

Hi Jean-Michel:

 

Glad to hear that you are so happy with your new combination of EtherREGEN plus eRED-DOCK. The company engineered SA has always been an interesting one to me as they started out with people from Anagram Technologies, then formed abcPCB, and also CH-Precision.

We studied some of the abcPCB modules earlier (NMR and USB), and I have been watching with interest the new eRED series. Funny thing is, their web site still shows the eRED-DOCK as not being available until March of this year. So you managed to get one early? 

 

As with most all Ethernet endpoints, the audio streaming protocols it works with can be a limiting factor when it comes to choice of player software. Clearly Roon RAAT and HQ Player NAA are out for eRED endpoints. Can Roon see it at all as a UPnP/DLNA renderer?

 

If you built the box with jacks in your photos, you might consider using a piece of 75-Ohm coaxial cable for the internal link from the board to the jack (though I see you use an RCA jack instead of a BNC so for that it might not make much difference).

 

Cheers!

--Alex C.

 

Quote

 

 

Hi Alex , 

 

Yes , i bought it early December and it was still available . My friends in « Bordeaux «  who are now ready to move in that direction will have to wait ....

I am using it with Daphile on the server side , it is really a very nice and good Linux audio software and allows to stream from ram and delivers really nice sq . The engineered board nowadays is only upnp/dlna compatible .

I had an exchange with engineered and they confirmed they are working on Roon compatibility(endpoint). it will be just a firmware update .

quote Can Roon see it at all as a UPnP/DLNA renderer? I need to test that .

 

in fact I am using AES/EBU to feed to my Dac . The wire is so short 3 to 4 cm ( Neotech occ )that I did not bother to use a 110 ohms very tiny wire . Also those 2.54 mm pin connections to the board are rather fragile and I did not want to mess up them.

 

One interesting result , I was at a friend’s home yesterday . He has the top APL dac with APL CD player linked by a proprietary digital connection. 
This is a 60 000 euros combo....and the player alone is 20 000 euros . 
We compared his player to my source using etherregen and engineered card . 
We were overall at the same level of sound quality for both sources and on some criteria the engineered based source was better .

Not bad for this inexpensive 400 euros board 😊😊

I should say that the 2 Ethernet câbles that I used on my source cost a total of 3 euros 😂

On top of that I have  a few easy upgrade idea that should make this source 20 to 30% better .

 

This is why I call this move a small miracle . Digital life is a funny and enjoyable ride 😊
 

 

 

[jean-michel6]

15 hours ago, RickyV said:

 

Wow, so everything SoTM is obsolete and replaced with the reed-dock, yields better SQ for 420 euro. That is not only a miracle it's a bargain too. It's pity it doesn't have USB and or i2s out.

 

15 hours ago, audio.bill said:

Actually it does support I2S as stated on the product page with connection details specified in the datasheet download.

Yes you are right , it does support i2s . But then it need to be integrated in the DAC and I do not have the technical knowledge to do that .

It will probably sound a little bit better this way and allows DSD  files playback.

 

Anyhow the sq using AES or spdif is truly already outstanding , read my previous post .

 

 

[jean-michel6]

2 hours ago, soares said:

jean-michel6 What Kind of box are you using? From the web page it seems that they are just selling the logical plate + circuits. Thank you

Engineered is just selling the boards . I did bought the aluminium box from this web site https://www.audiophonics.fr/fr/ they have a lot of good products for Audio DIY ( in Europe ) .

However there are many options on eBay .

[jean-michel6]

6 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

@jean-michel6 What is the percieved benefit split between etheregen / eRED-DOCK in your system?  Which one would you buy first?

Very difficult question to answer . Both the etherregen and the engineered are excellent products which raise significantly the SQ of digital audio . 

To answer your question it depends on what is your system today . you can PM me if you wish 

[jean-michel6]

Follow up on the engineered board , etherregen small miracle .

 

I was yesterday at a friend's home who has a very nice audio system . His digital front end is an APL CD player and the APL DAC that are linked together by a proprietary I2S style connection . This top APL combo sells for 60 000 Euros in Europe 😓.

 

We did compare my front end ( Supermicro server under Daphile , Etherregen , Engineered renderer  PSU  Sean Jacobs DC3 and Uptone 1.2) , this front end was connected to the APL DAC in AES using a kubala sosna emotion digital cable .

We compared that to his system using the APL drive .

 

The overall SQ in his system( speakers are Martin Logan CL 15 A , by the way a wonderful speaker ) is already extremely good .

Both front end were very enjoyable and in the same ball park  level however  on several criteria the engineered/etherregen was better ( timber, transparency on top end , lack of sibilance ...) and overall the six audiophile present did preferred  the engineered/etheregen combo .

 

That is truly an excellent results to have this roughly 2500$ set up challenge successfully a 20 000 Euros drive !

 

This is the DAC used https://www.hifilink.fr/boutique/sources-hifi/convertisseurs-dac/apl-dsd-mr-dac/

This the CD player used https://www.hifilink.fr/boutique/sources-hifi/lecteurs-et-drives-cd-sacd/apl-dtr-mr-transport-cd-sacd/

 

 

 

[jean-michel6]

4 hours ago, dtossan said:

Very impressive jean-michel

So you were comparing FLAC or DSD files played on your supermicro server, eR and eRED-DOCK chain against the APL CD/SACD Transport?

What did the APL play - files or discs?

We did use the same piece of music either from a cd on the APL CD player  or the same file ripped from this cd and written on   the usb hdd of the server.

[jean-michel6]

1 hour ago, Nenon said:

There were some really good USB to SPDIF DDCs that did an excellent job when you power them with clean power, use good cables, etc. But I could always hear some digital artifacts of doing that. This is when I discovered the PinkFain SPDIF bridge and their ultaOCXO clock. 

In fact one of my audio friend is now using on the player side a super micro board with matrix pcie usb and then the engineered usb to spdif board all with good psu.

The engineered usb to spdif board is also excellent and easily outperform the SOTM or the matrix .

 but this set up was outperformed but the engineered upnp card by a very significant margin .

This friend is now moving to the engineered upnp card .

Its disappointing that the card is not available before March as I have several audio friends moving in that direction .

[jean-michel6]

8 hours ago, soares said:

Hi guys!

Following a long search for an Apacer 8GB memory for my Zen MKIII, I finally received it. Quite expensive (200$) and arriving from Slovakia after almost 3 weeks waiting. Let me say first that some companies on line (e.g. Price Blaze) despite announcing Apacer memories,  they send you Kingston’s or other brands... so be careful.

First impressions:

I went through a couple of favorite tracks:

Amália Rodrigues “Com que voz”

António Zambujo “Nem que seja”

Pedro Barroso “Em Sagres”

Mariza “Ó gente da minha terra”

Camané “Sei de um Rio”

Pablo Alborán/Carminho “Perdóname” (en português)

Vinicius de Moraes/Maria Creuza/Toquinho “Eu sei que vou te amar”

Joel Xavier “Lusitano” 

Adnan Joubran “Beat the drum”
Música Nuda“passione”

Dead Combo “Quando a alma não é pequena”

Etc...

As you might have guessed from my musical tastes I am not an English native speaker so I am not going to elaborate much on the SQ. I would just say that the differences are subtle but notable, timbres are better and the instruments sound  a little bit more crispy. Please take my evaluation with a grain of salt because my system is very accourate. Should You buy it? It’s up to you, but I will keep it.

Cheers Jorge

I bought myself a 4g  APACER ram and I like it also. 

I did got a nice sq boost : better bass , a little more detailed treeble and a little better soundstage.

For my system most significant improvement was the bass .

Could you give a link on where you bought it ?

Thank’s

[jean-michel6]

21 hours ago, skatbelt said:

Apart from the fact that the Taiko server has its origin in a DIY project that got a bit out of hand and (along the way) got funding to take it to the current level, what I don't understand is the idea of keeping a server which - independently of how good measures are taken to keep this to a minimum - basically is an EMI/RFI and other noise polluter by design. So what makes the Extreme extreme is that it is able to minimise the evil.

 

Especially now, after the arrival of the EtherREGEN and alike, the way to go in my humble opinion is to keep streamer hardware before the DAC as minimalistic as possible and keep server (computer) hardware far out upstream. I know Emile from Taiko experimented with all kinds of audiophile switches but in my view in the wrong place. Before in stead of after the server.

Fully agree with you . 
i have now after the etherregen a minimalist engineered e-red dock upnp/dlna streamer and I have really an absolutely outstanding sound quality .

The server before the etherregen is a supermicro low power x11saa board running daphile . 
I will try to experiment with some super micro Xeon mobo to see what high power server brings in term of sq.

[jean-michel6]

1 hour ago, Middy said:

Has anyone tried the ERed-dock yet?

I was wondering if i can use it from my NUC ? From the port to the ERed.

I was waiting to see it it got any traction, but if you can do a little basic soldering the initial set up in a case seems doable...

Break away from the usb chain using Euphony..

Cheers

Dave.

 

 

 

Check my post written on this thread  a few weeks ago on this . I am now using the ered dock as an end point running daphile on the pc server .I am now getting absolutely stellar results in term of sound quality .

Here locally my audiophile friends are adopting this ered dock after listening to my system !

 

[jean-michel6]

18 hours ago, Middy said:

Thank you  Jean Michael, it was your excellent report that made me ask if any more experienced here have tried it. 

I've been so invested in a USB chain i am nervous about trying something different.  Plus have the cash....

 

Good luck

 

Dave😀

Hi Dave , 

My usb chain was quite extreme 

supermicro mobo with clocks clocked by sclkex clock board 

sotm pcie usb card clocked  by sclkex board

Sotm tx usb ultra clocked  by sclkex board

dx usb hd clocked  by sclkex board

and all the associated psu .

without the psu the hardware alone was other  3 000  $

Now I have e-red dock 440$ , etherregen 650 $ and jcat netcard 440$ 

Total cost is 1500$ only 50% of previous set up and sound quality is much much better and it is simpler to use !

FortunatelyI was able to sell my previous dual pc set up and also several unused psu.

 

In this case simpler is clearly better .

 

[jean-michel6]

14 hours ago, henke said:

Hello Jean Michel,

I wonder how your ered-dock etherregen and jcat netcard(server) are connected to each other and to the LAN? How do you stream to the ered-dock? Where are the music files stored?

In fact this is quite simple , you need to have an Ethernet switch . You need to use a good switch either an audiophile switch ( the etherregen for me is really excellent and good value) or an old Cisco switch like the meraki mx60 ( 60 $ used ) . The lan output of the jcat netcard and of the ered-dock are connected to the switch .You need also one line going too your router . 
I am today using very inexpensive cat 5e utp cable (4€ for 2 cable ) with excellent sq results . I used to try very expensive SOTM  cat 7 cable they were slightly better than my cheap cable , I probably need to try again as it was in a different setup.

For usb it is an other story as you need to use expensive audiophile cable to get any decent result.

 

The music files are stored on a 3tb 2.5”hdd connected in usb to the pc server running with daphile software . Music files are stored into ram and then streamed from there .

[jean-michel6]

13 hours ago, Middy said:

Wow thats a heavy investment for a USB cable replacement 😀. Jean Michael 

 

I used to be time rich and cash poor,  my 2 year old boy changed that... to just poor..

If its as simple as an NUC> ethernet cable> into the Ered using Euphony i may start saving. 

Its knowing what to do, ive become a little fearful of asking the basics.. Its not Whats best forum here, but alot of the time above my knowledge level...

 

Thank you for your reply..😀

I do understand... i have also toddlers but they are my grandchildren. Therefore I have some time and hopefully some cash 🙂

Foreword : if I advertise about this ered dock it is not to brag about my findings but really helping the community discover a product that deserves recognition . Contrary to the high end community this engineered company is having decent prices when you consider the hardware and human ware they have invested in their products.

 

It is really as simple as going from the nuc then to the switch then to the ered dock .

I don’t know if euphony can send music to upnp/dlna endpoint i will ask them .

I am using daphile , it is really easy to use , sound quality is very good with this software and it is free !

 

You need some knowledge to run daphile but it is not very difficult and there is instructions on daphile web site .

[jean-michel6]

12 hours ago, matthias said:

 

Hi Jean-Michel,

 

did you compare Daphile vs. Audirvana, both via UPnP/DLNA ?

 

Thanks

 

Matt

I tried Audirvana but it was running from my Mac mini where Daphile is run on Linux from my dedicated audiophile pc server  .Daphile does sound better but it is not a very fair comparison.

Undortunately Audirvana does not have a Linux version  

 

[jean-michel6]

4 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

See my post above.  Also, try Gentoo Player - it does uPNP out.  Hopefully we can both support the same line of enquiry and bring further progress to the group.

Hi Gavin ,

 

These new route are very interesting. 

In my set up I am not I think at all at the limit of what it can do .

I can still experiment with psu even though I already have very good ones .

I think I will try dual mp audio module one ac-dc module followed by one dc-dc one . You achieve dual regulation with outstanding psrr values . I will try that both on ered dock or jcat netcard .

One other route is to test Euphony and Gentoo compared to Daphile .

Last one will be maybe to try a high power mobo , the X11saa I am currently using is pentium 4200 . I may try the supermicro Xeon boards with 8 core cpu .

 

[jean-michel6]

5 hours ago, elan120 said:

I put one together short time ago with different enclosure, and here is the post with one internal picture.

Hi Kevin  

I see that there is an evox capacity on the picture of your psu . Where is it used ? At the output of the mp audio module ? 
Does it helps with sq ?

Thank’s 

[jean-michel6]

Thank’s , what is the reference of the thread where you report your experiment ?

[jean-michel6]

7 hours ago, Exocer said:

 

In other news, my Buffalo BS-GS2016P has arrived:

 

Hi ,

 

About the buffalo , you purchased the 2016p which is the Poe version of the 2016 .

 

Does it use the same Broadcom chip as the 2016 and can you deactivate the Poe function to make it work like a regular 2016 ?

[jean-michel6]

13 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

Unfortunately it's not that simple. There is more than the noise coming from the network cable to be considered, especially when you stream Tidal / Qobuz. I have been comparing two identical Buffalo switches in the past couple of days - one with the stock clock and one with upgraded clock (PinkFaun ultraOCXO).

You can do that same test in my system, and although you disconnect the cable while playing, the buffered tracks using the switch with the upgraded clock sound much better. In other words, even if you disconnect the network cable, whatever good or bad things your network does is already embedded in the buffered track somehow. Don't ask me how or why... I wish I could explain all that, but I can't. 

Sorry to tell you that, but I don't agree with your simple theory. I wish it was that simple, but it's a lot more complex than that.

BTW, replacing the clock on this switch made almost as much difference with streaming services as replacing a clock on a USB card... go figure

I made similar experience in a different context . I used to have a dual pc set up and the music files were stored on an ssd on the server pc , the music files are buffered in ram before being sent through the network to the pc player . As a trial I did stored also mt music files on a small hdd connected through usb to the pc server .

I did buffer in ram the exactly same music file either coming from the ssd or the hdd .

Every time the file coming from the hdd was sounding better . ...

It is obvious that I had in ram exactly the same info coming either from the hdd or ssd , it means that something (some noise ... ) is embedded in ram withe the digital info .

Mysterious but real ....

[jean-michel6]

6 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 

SSDs need to have their cases securely connected to the 0 volt ("Earth") from the PSU, with their power leads screened too if possible as they emit far more RF/EMI back into the PSU, as well as radiate HF rubbish even into the Wi Fi region. (see attachment)

 They also sound better if their supply is pre -regulated down to a very low noise +5V from the the main supply rail to help further isolate them from the rest of the PSU area. Their PSU needs to have as low and flat an output impedance from almost DC to 1MHZ,.otherwise HF noise and detail will be accentuated.(Low ESR Electrolytic capacitors, by design, have a much lower Impedance at 100kHz than the VF range )

14A2-B4.pdf 384.34 kB · 3 downloads

I really did take good care of my ssd : 

 - they were the best Samsung pro 

 - power was with a dedicated 5v psu mpaudio lt 3045 with good shielded diy psu cable 

- sata cable was the excellent Pachanko pure reference which is heavily shielded 

- the case of the ssd was attached to a heavy aluminium bloc as I did found it sounded better like that , however the case was not grounded as you recommend .

 

Even with all that hdd was better and no specific care for the hdd ( usb powered and ordinary usb cable ) 

 

Thank’s for the interesting attached document .

Altogether sata on mobo is also an EMI nest and noisy. I have totally disable sata on my demat pc’s with great sq results .