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

[elan120]

17 minutes ago, Bricki said:

These are the chips on the Apacer RAM... I think they are Samsung but I don't know for sure

Yes, you are correct, they are Samsung memory chips - SEC = Samsung Electronics Corporation.

[frederick184]

Here's another glowing report on the Apacer ram.  Thanks, Nenon!  I purchased two 4GB sticks of non-ECC Apacer ram for my i7 DNBE NUC and two 8 GB sticks of ECC Apacer ram for my Asus B450m/Ryzen 2700 server.  I previously had Hyper X Fury ram in the NUC and Corsair Dominator Platinum in the server.  

 

I swapped out the ram in the NUC first and I had no idea it would make such a difference.  The improvements were pretty much as Bricki described above.  More air around instruments and voices, and just a general uptick in realism.  I waited a few days for it to settle in, then changed the ram in my server.  I really did not expect a difference on the server.  The Corsair Dominator Platinum ram has Samsung chips also.  What I got was more of the same, in fact there was a bigger improvement on the server than there was on the NUC.

 

This change was well worth it.  There was no wondering if I was imagining the change or not.  It came through loud and clear. 

 

Colin

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Bricki said:

These are the chips on the Apacer RAM... I think they are Samsung but I don't know for sure

 

Yes, I also suspect it is Samsung.

 

Kingston uses chips from varying different vendors. So they vary depending on manufacturing time and model. I suspect it is the same case for Apacer as well. I've had Kingston memory with Samsung and Hynix chips as well.

 

While of course Crucial uses only Micron chips...

 

There are not that many memory chip manufacturers in the world...

 

[lwr]

18 minutes ago, frederick184 said:

Here's another glowing report on the Apacer ram.  Thanks, Nenon!  I purchased two 4GB sticks of non-ECC Apacer ram for my i7 DNBE NUC and two 8 GB sticks of ECC Apacer ram for my Asus B450m/Ryzen 2700 server.  I previously had Hyper X Fury ram in the NUC and Corsair Dominator Platinum in the server.  

 

I swapped out the ram in the NUC first and I had no idea it would make such a difference.  The improvements were pretty much as Bricki described above.  More air around instruments and voices, and just a general uptick in realism.  I waited a few days for it to settle in, then changed the ram in my server.  I really did not expect a difference on the server.  The Corsair Dominator Platinum ram has Samsung chips also.  What I got was more of the same, in fact there was a bigger improvement on the server than there was on the NUC.

 

This change was well worth it.  There was no wondering if I was imagining the change or not.  It came through loud and clear. 

 

Colin

 

Add me to the list of very pleased beneficiaries of having upgraded i7DNBE NUC ram from Hyper X Fury ram to Apacer ram.  Highly recommended. 

 

 In your Asus B450m/Ryzen 2700 server ram upgrade, are you comparing Corsair Dominator Platinum ram non-ECC ram to ECC Apacer ram?

 

Wayne

[Chopin75]

14 hours ago, Bricki said:

Wham Bam Thank You RAM😁

 

First of all, a big thank you to @Nenon for organising the RAM group buy. I'm sure he's helped many people get a nice sound quality bump to their systems.

 

 

I replaced my standard Kingston ram stick with the new apacer wide temperature industrial RAM that @Nenon sourced. It is a non ECC sodimm. It was installed in my endpoint NUC7CJYH running roon bridge and Audiolinux 2.1 in ramroot.

 

I have never compared any RAM sticks before and I had no idea that different RAM sticks could impact the sound at all. So I had no idea what to expect when I swapped my sticks. 

 

When I pressed play after swapping, the first few seconds I was confused because it sounded as if my amp had been turned down... Then a vocal kicked in and it sounded set back further in the soundstage than I remembered... Then I realised that there was a whole lot more space back there in the soundstage... This was in the first 30 seconds and things were sounding very fresh and not settled... As I changed tracks there was more space in every song I played... instruments weren't crashing into each other and each instrument was seemingly occupying more space. This was quite a big change and a lot bigger than I was expecting. In the first couple of hours the sound opened up more and I could notice a reduction in hardness that I didn't know was there before. The old RAM seemed to accentuate some of the more prominent parts of a recording and brush over some of the subtleties. The new apacer RAM set those prominent parts, like lead vocals, back into a more refined and larger soundstage that allows you to hear quieter instruments in the background and hear more subtleties and nuances in the main instruments. The images themselves have more of a 3 dimensional quality to them that makes them seem bigger in the front to back plane. The bass is also more rounded, tighter and has more impact.

In the track "bass and drum intro" on Nils Lofgren band live, there is part of the song where the bass guitarist plays harmonics and those harmonics are very hard to reproduce properly on HiFi... I haven't heard them quite so coherent and realistic before installing the apacer RAM. 

 

On the Eric Sumo album "My Rocky Mountain" the first track "slow" has some amazing electronic sounds that have opened up enormously to fill a much larger space but also have a lot more texture and character to them in the reverb.

 

I don't know if the Kingston RAM I was using was particularly bad or if this new

Apacer RAM is significantly better than every other consumer RAM... What I can say is that the new apacer RAM completely obliterates the Kingston RAM on nuance, tone, realism, refinement, ease and soundstage space. I never would have thought I would write that sentence about a RAM stick 😂

 

It's very hard to quantify changes like this but as far as tweaks go I think this is a large one. My system sounds noticeably more refined with the apacer RAM. When you can hear small subtleties and nuance in your music more clearly, it makes for a much more enjoyable and emotional experience. I feel closer to my music and I'm enjoying every song all the more, and that's what it's all about 👍😁

 

Thanks for the detailed report. I also have similar findings from non-ECC G.Skill  switched to ECC APacer, using AMD MB/CPU  & Euphon/stylus RAMroot single box setup. The old RAM has a bloated upper mid range which comparing to the Apacer may be giving more warmth. It was kind of nice but the Apacer which has a leaner sound gives a more refined tone and that likely has corrected this bloated presentation. Layering of sound/instruments are clearer and attack is faster where as before it was more sluggish with the old RAM. With Apacer the very high frequencies are more prominent, a but brighter than I like but I think it tends to settle after burning in for few hrs or a day. It is a cleaner/more focused sound, where is the old RAM was "fuzzy" relatively.  The sound improves as it is warming up & burning in but it deteriorates when you take out the RAM, so it was hard to do AB comparison since it cools down when swapping back and forth.  From my recollection, the Apacer may be more immune to AC noise (so less variation as the day passes), hard to prove. 

[frederick184]

1 hour ago, lwr said:

 

Add me to the list of very pleased beneficiaries of having upgraded i7DNBE NUC ram from Hyper X Fury ram to Apacer ram.  Highly recommended. 

 

 In your Asus B450m/Ryzen 2700 server ram upgrade, are you comparing Corsair Dominator Platinum ram non-ECC ram to ECC Apacer ram?

 

Wayne

Yes, Corsair Dominator Platinum non-ECC ram vs Apacer ECC ram in server.

 

Colin

[RickyV]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, I also suspect it is Samsung.

 

Kingston uses chips from varying different vendors. So they vary depending on manufacturing time and model. I suspect it is the same case for Apacer as well. I've had Kingston memory with Samsung and Hynix chips as well.

 

While of course Crucial uses only Micron chips...

 

There are not that many memory chip manufacturers in the world...

 

Miska do you have idea what the differences are between consumer ram and the industrial wide temp apacer ram? Staying with the same chip brand, is the inside of the chip different, is pcb different so what makes it wide temp range?

i do not think Samsung consumer ram sounds the same as the industrial ram.

[rickca]

40 minutes ago, frederick184 said:

Yes, Corsair Dominator Platinum non-ECC ram vs Apacer ECC ram in server.

57 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

I also have similar findings from non-ECC G.Skill  switched to ECC APacer

 

OK so is the better sound quality due to industrial Apacer vs other commercial grade brands, or is due to ECC vs non-ECC?

[dminches]

For Apacer, is "industrial" the same as "wide temperature?"

 

I am currently running a Xeon-based server with the normal temperature Apacer ECC ram but will soon be trying out the wide temperature ram.

 

[Miska]

27 minutes ago, RickyV said:

Miska do you have idea what the differences are between consumer ram and the industrial wide temp apacer ram? Staying with the same chip brand, is the inside of the chip different, is pcb different so what makes it wide temp range?

i do not think Samsung consumer ram sounds the same as the industrial ram.

 

I don't know about the sound. But industrial chip variants just have wider temperature range than commercial (there is no consumer grade). If you want even wider, go for automotive (which is usually something like -55..135 C). There are two temp grade of this chip, "C" would be commercial and this one is "I" which is industrial.

 

Based on the part number on the chip you can check the datasheets. Here's a link to datasheet of that RAM chip:

https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global.semi/file/resource/2017/11/4G_E_DDR4_Samsung_Spec_Rev1_6_Jan_17-0.pdf

 

So temperature ranges are C=0..95 C and I=-40..95 C. Thus, the industrial version can also operate inside freezer...

Both are rated for storage temperatures of -55..100 C.

 

It also says

Quote

Some applications require operation of the Extended Temperature Range between 85C and 95C case temperature. Full specifications are guaranteed in this range, but the following additional conditions apply: a) Refresh commands must be doubled in frequency, therefore reducing the refresh interval tREFI to 3.9us. b) If Self-Refresh operation is required in the Extended Temperature Range, then it is mandatory to use the Manual Self-Refresh mode with Extended Temperature Range capability (MR2 A6 = 0b and MR2 A7 = 1b).

 

Refresh settings have adjustment for Normal, Reduced and Extended temperatures. Refresh cycles are the same for both commercial and industrial variants at all temperatures, except for both twice as high when operating between 85 and 95 C.

 

So specification wise there's not really much difference between C and I versions.

 

 

[auricgoldfinger]

9 minutes ago, rickca said:

OK so is the better sound quality due to industrial Apacer vs other consumer grade brands, or is due to ECC vs non-ECC?

 

Until someone buys Apacer in both ECC and non-ECC form for A/B testing in the same machine, we won't know for sure.  Care to be the guinea pig? 

[rickca]

2 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

Care to be the guinea pig?

Nope.  My current system doesn't support ECC memory.

[Chopin75]

5 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

Until someone buys Apacer in both ECC and non-ECC form for A/B testing in the same machine, we won't know for sure.  Care to be the guinea pig? 

If someone send me  Apacer 8GB 2x non-ECC then I can compare with my ECC on same machine but I gather most of you guys have 4 GB RAMs only. I also have large music files that can stress the system out haha.

[Nenon]

29 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

Until someone buys Apacer in both ECC and non-ECC form for A/B testing in the same machine, we won't know for sure.  Care to be the guinea pig? 

 

I have provided my report on that a couple of weeks ago. But I did not give enough break-in hours for the non-ECC RAM. So far all reports from the group buy say that it gets better after the first 72-100 hours. I will have to redo the test at some point and will report back again. 

 

On 11/8/2019 at 5:53 PM, Nenon said:

Update on ECC memory:

 

As you probably know from some of my previous posts here, I have been running an Asus / Ryzen 7 3700x computer with Apacer ECC RAM for some time.  Since my motherboard supports ECC and Non-ECC RAM, I ordered some Non-ECC Apacer RAM to compare. I was always curious if my memory upgrade was so good because I used industrial RAM or because I used ECC RAM, or both. 

I removed the Apacer ECC RAM and installed Apacer Non-ECC RAM. I let it run for about 30 minutes (not sure if RAM needs break-in time / if that is enough or not). My impressions so far:

- Non-ECC and ECC sound different. 

- I like the ECC RAM better in my system. My immediate impression is that it opens up the soundstage and there is more air around the instruments. 

- The industrial Non-ECC is still a step up from the consumer memory. 

Disclaimer: My ECC memory has been running for hundreds of hours (perhaps a 4-digit number), and the Non-ECC is brand new. So if RAM takes time to break-in, that's not a fair test. I will let the Non-ECC RAM break-in and repeat the test in a month. It would probably be good to get some consumer grade ECC RAM and include in the test. A good test would be to compare Apacer Non-ECC RAM vs. consumer (non-Apacer) ECC RAM. 

 

 

[elan120]

1 hour ago, RickyV said:

Staying with the same chip brand, is the inside of the chip different, is pcb different so what makes it wide temp range?

Comparing with previous Apacer RAM, although they both are using Samsung memory chips (see below), the latest release sound better.

 

Apacer 75.B93GJ.G010B:

 

Apacer D21.23180S.001:

[RickyV]

59 minutes ago, rickca said:

OK so is the better sound quality due to industrial Apacer vs other commercial grade brands, or is due to ECC vs non-ECC?

 

46 minutes ago, rickca said:

Nope.  My current system doesn't support ECC memory.

i only went from commercial to industrial sodimm. From 4Gb Corsair vengeance to G.Kill Ripjaws to apacer industrial wide temp allsounding different. Also went from 8GB to 4GB which mabe a difference to imo, smaller step.

[Gavin1977]

Just for reference the Apacer 75 P/N offers a fixed BOM and Ext Temperature (-40/+85*c).  For Apacers non-commercial offerings (e.g such as NOX) the BOM (Including ICs) can change without notice.  So it would be difficult to get the same performance from different modules or manufacturer.

[RickyV]

24 minutes ago, elan120 said:

Comparing with previous Apacer RAM, although they both are using Samsung memory chips (see below), the latest release sound better.

 

Apacer 75.B93GJ.G010B:

 

Apacer D21.23180S.001:

 

Mine where ordered from SoS electronic and have have sec713 on them. 

 

What is the technical  difference between your two types? And sq wise?

[auricgoldfinger]

2 hours ago, Nenon said:

I have provided my report on that a couple of weeks ago. But I did not give enough break-in hours for the non-ECC RAM. So far all reports from the group buy say that it gets better after the first 72-100 hours. I will have to redo the test at some point and will report back again. 

 

Sorry I forgot about your earlier report.  Thanks for the reminder. 

[elan120]

2 hours ago, RickyV said:

What is the technical  difference between your two types? And sq wise?

Apacer 75.B93GJ.G010B is 2400 DDR4 RAM, where Apacer D21.23180S.001 is 2666 DDR4 RAM.  Using D21.23180S.001 show a bit more detail, smoother, richer, and more musical.

[RickyV]

1 minute ago, elan120 said:

Apacer 75.B93GJ.G010B is 2400 DDR4 RAM, where Apacer D21.23180S.001 is 2666 DDR4 RAM.  Using D21.23180S.001 show a bit more detail, smoother, richer, and more musical.

 

ah I just found it post 15089. Thanks

[elan120]

7 minutes ago, RickyV said:

 

ah I just found it post 15089. Thanks

Here is the chip number difference:

[RickyV]

Old version in stock again at SOS electronics. 10 pcs, read post 15245.

 

https://www.soselectronic.com/products/apacer/75-b93gj-g010b-307859

[luisma]

Currently have this NUC7i7BNH, on specs doesn't support ECC ram so I guess ECC could be ruled out, anyone using a ram chip which makes a difference in sound with industrial specs non-ECC?

[Miska]

2 hours ago, elan120 said:

Here is the chip number difference:

 

Has someone tested a lower latency memory? At least HyperX (Kingston) Impact DDR4 offers faster CAS latency 15 for DDR4-2666 speed.