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

[seeteeyou]

FYI - the availability of Apacer D31.23185S.001 might become unpredictable once they're OOS

 

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Apacer/D3123185S001?qs=Cb2nCFKsA8prqNusSnCNZw%3D%3D

https://industrial.apacer.com/en-ww/NEWS/Apacer-Introduces-DDR4-High-Performance-Wide-Temp.-Memory

Quote

Now Apacer, the global leader for industrial-grade memory, after releasing the industry’s most complete wide-temperature 3D NAND PCIe product line, has introduced an industrial wide-temperature DDR4 2666 memory module, made exclusively with ICs supplied by Samsung to create product differentiation.

 

COVID-19 outbreak tops 600 in South Korea, Country on ‘red alert’

http://outbreaknewstoday.com/covid-19-outbreak-tops-600-in-south-korea-country-on-red-alert-71238/

Quote

The South Korea CDC reported in an update an additional 169 COVID-19 cases, bringing the outbreak total to 602, including five fatalities.

 

[flkin]

For those that are using Euphony in their systems, I've made a useful discovery to allow Stylus to play alongside Roon/StylusEP without having to switch from the menu.

 

Have fun! 😄

 

 

 

[mnuno10]

On 2/23/2020 at 2:29 AM, Chopin75 said:

U don't need a 250 GB SSD, it is too noisy.  The Euphony runs on 8GB minimum but you likely not store music files on the SSD (unless you will, but since you do tidal, I presume you won't store music files). Some use Optane M2 drive which is supposed to be quietest.  If you still want the EVO, maybe a lower GB would be be quieter.  You can also load music files (if not using tidal) into Ecache remotely file manager or external drive that can be detached afterwards,  so you won't need a large SSD. 

I presume you will have a LPS for the NUC ?

 

The goal is to listen only to Tidal(I really hope that Euphony improves the Stylus Player interface), so your recommendation makes sense. 

I plan to purchase a Keces P3/8 in a near future. I already have used one P3 and it sound really good, with the advantage that can power 2 devices at same time.

You don't have any recommendations for the RAM?

 

[lmitche]

13 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Why?

 

My recommendation for NAA usage with HQPlayer is specifically to have it, because it makes the Ethernet link much more quiet. It can deal with both the amount of power put on the wire, and also sleep when there is no data traffic.

 

I have it specifically enabled on all my links...

 

To each his own.

[StreamFidelity]

15 hours ago, Miska said:

My recommendation for NAA usage with HQPlayer is specifically to have it, because it makes the Ethernet link much more quiet.

 

Why? 😉

 

Jussi, with Windows you also recommend using the highest performance as energy saving plan. This avoids shutting down clockingfrequencis from CPU cores. 

 

Disabling of Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) ensures a constant power supply. In my experience, in addition to many other admins in Network Connections, this enables smooth music transfer with low latencies.

 

Look Ethernet JCAT LAN Music below. The data is transmitted in a stable manner over the network. There are no jumps in the diagram as is often seen.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

Disabling of Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) ensures a constant power supply. In my experience, in addition to many other admins in Network Connections, this enables smooth music transfer with low latencies.

 

802.3az (EEE) is better kept enabled, as it enables cable length detection and quiet idle. No need to blast at full power that would be needed on 200m cable if your cable is much shorter. I have it enabled on all my links that support it (not all Ethernet devices support it though).

 

3 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

Look Ethernet JCAT LAN Music below. The data is transmitted in a stable manner over the network. There are no jumps in the diagram as is often seen.

 

HQPlayer has it's own specific traffic pattern. But as long as jitter doesn't exceed about +-500 ms it should work fine, so most of the time it would work around the globe over internet.

 

[seeteeyou]

On 2/13/2020 at 4:43 AM, Nenon said:

How about EuphonyBridge  ? 

I have been thinking about this too, but I think networking is completely different than processing music. So what works best in one may not work best for the other. I personally would not go that route though. But I am up for modding a Buffalo switch. I even have a 25Mhz PinkFaun ultraOCXO clock. 

 

For devices with any ARM or maybe x86 processors that really don't consume too much power (i.e. relatively low TDP range when compared to those 65W / 85W / 95W mammoths) to begin with, GentooPlayer might seem to be a better bet

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55235-gentooplayer/page/38/?tab=comments#comment-1031413  

On 2/23/2020 at 1:26 PM, Lukasluis said:

I'm enjoying the Gentooplayer on my NUC with its increased dynamic contrast as well as better PRAT as compared to Euphony.

 

Let's say we're running GentooPlayer on Allo USBridge Sig since both software and hardware should be made for audiophiles, what if we're connecting either USB-to-Ethernet adapter to that already optimized USB port via 2020 Sablon Audio Reserva Elite USB cable?

 

http://www.iocrest.com/en/product_details571_a.html

http://www.lr-link.com/products/LREC3210PF-SFP.html

 

It's tough to beat that $250 giant killer

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/allo-usbridge-sig-review-r858/

Quote

I did an A/B with and without the txUSBultra connected between the Allo and the Kii Control.

 

While this did make a difference, it was not enough to even consider back ending a $1500 device on the Allo.  The USB side of the USBridge Sig does its job, Thank You Very Much!

 

In order to surpass that as well as NET Card FEMTO, maybe we'll have to go for NUC with this upcoming USB card from Marcin and a modified USB-to-Ethernet adapter while reaping the benefits of 2020 Sablon Audio Reserva Elite USB cable?

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/37151-jcat-net-card-femto/page/5/?tab=comments#comment-1025731

On 2/3/2020 at 9:01 PM, Marcin_gps said:

Yes, that was a tease

5ppb - no more details for now, sorry

 

Though the signal path might be jumping through too many hoops when we're talking about stuff like this?

 

Ethernet → USB → PCIe → M.2

 

OTOH, it might not be such a big deal

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/58164-building-a-diy-music-server/

On 1/11/2020 at 3:08 PM, Nenon said:

This M.2 to PCIe convertor is another compromise. It would have been better to have a second PCIe slot. But I have tested bigger motherboards with second PCIe slot, and they did not sound better. That's why I am sticking to this well tested recipe.

 

[mikicasellas]

Has anyone compare the Gotham JSSG360 vs the Neotech 7N JSSG360 for the DC cables in a server, would like to read your impressions about the sound signatures on each of these (both copper)

[StreamFidelity]

52 minutes ago, mikicasellas said:

Has anyone compare the Gotham JSSG360 vs the Neotech 7N JSSG360

 

Why not take both? 😀

 

I use

2 x DC-GAC4 Gotham GAC-4/1 11301 UltraPro Star Quad DC (JSSG360) Cable
Length: 1m, DC-2.5G to DC (7.4 / 5.0) it's for two Keces P8

 

and

 

2 x DC-7N18C Neotech UPOCC 7N Copper 18AWG DC (JSSG360) Cable
Length: 1m, USB Type-A to DC-2.1G it's for JCAT Net & USB Cards from Keces P8 5V / 1A USB Connection

 

This is a very significant improvement over the cheap accessory straps. I am looking forward to the cables from fis Audio in my new DIY Project High Performance Audio PC with high quality wiring.

[Chopin75]

On 2/24/2020 at 5:50 AM, mnuno10 said:

 

The goal is to listen only to Tidal(I really hope that Euphony improves the Stylus Player interface), so your recommendation makes sense. 

I plan to purchase a Keces P3/8 in a near future. I already have used one P3 and it sound really good, with the advantage that can power 2 devices at same time.

You don't have any recommendations for the RAM?

 

Sorry I was not able to FU your reply sooner as there are too many activities in these threads. Missed your answer.   Not sure why no one responded to your question. If you follow this gigantic  thread "A novel way to massively improve.." members have tested Apacer RAM to be best. It does make a great difference for most of us. Neon Summarized it somewhere (I just read part of it, or is it some other thread?? and of course it is impossible to find it again!)  Basically he said ECC-APacer is the best, industrial grade but that is not publicly available. If you use NUC with intel, it only works for  non-ECC Apacer RAM.  Again I am not sure how much improvement you get if you run tidal, as numerous people use it for for single box where lots of RAM is used. I use Euphony OS loaded RAMroot all in single  box, but I presume those using tidal or roon etc will also get enough  benefits.  U may want to ask someone who does similar to what you do with tidal. In general the more RAM activities you need the more important it is. I have 32GB RAM!  But that is because I use single box loaded the OS to RAMroot, and music (entire album) all buffered to RAM and use DSD256 huge files. I think most use 4-8GB RAM only. 

 

 

[Nenon]

On 2/12/2020 at 12:34 PM, seeteeyou said:

 

Both Buffalo BS-GS2016/A and Melco S100 seemed to look pretty much the same when we're comparing the PCB inside each unit, unfortunately the clock itself couldn't be seen without removing the heat sink as shown in the second link

 

https://www.hiendy.com/hififorum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=107184

http://my-hiend.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_5221mm.jpg

 

If that heat sink were actually removed, we couldn't really put it back on without messing with the thermal paste and therefore I'd rather stay from that.

 

I'm expecting that both Melco N100 and S100 would share a very similar type of clock from NDK since that should be a good fit under the heat sink of S100, either picture linked below is showing that 24MHz NDK clock for NEC / Renasys µPD720201 where "X17" could be found

 

http://my-hiend.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/melco_n100_002.jpg

http://my-hiend.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/melco_n100_006.jpg

 

I also have D10 and it's the big brother of D100 as shown in the following picture, 24MHz for NEC / Renasys µPD720210 on the left and 30MHz for µPD720231 on the right respectively

 

http://my-hiend.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/DSC_5221mm.jpg

 

They might have scratched the surface of the clock and there's no way to identify the model. However, NZ2520SD looked like a potential candidate to me

 

https://www.ndk.com/en/products/search/clock/index.html

https://www.ndk.com/en/products/search/clock/1190904_1433.html

 

Nowhere close to the performance of megabuck OCXO products like NDK DuCULoN or even MSB Galaxy, though it's still a pretty darn good deal for such an affordable option

 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/lks-audio-mh-da003.745032/page-20#post-12775721

https://www.arrow.com/en/products/nz2520sd-25.000000m-nsa3449e/ndk

 

It might be somewhat challenging to put Fidelity Audio C5 inside S100 because of that heat sink mentioned above, it's also requiring its own PSU and therefore I'd rather leave S100 as is.

 

OTOH, HFS1155 from JS PC Audio could be another avenue since it's so easy to replace the clock

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/sotm-snh-10g-network-switches-x2-the-new-king-of-usb-network-gadget-setup.27758/page-21#post-625621

 

Dimensions of C5 are 100mm × 55mm versus 230mm × 180mm for HFS1155, that Connor Winfield accepts either 5V or 3.3V but C5 needs at least 6.5V to operate

 

http://www.conwin.com/datasheets/cx/cx259.pdf

https://www.fidelityaudio.co.uk/c5-signature-low-jitter-clock-4461-p.asp

 

Of course there's also this 25MHz clock that costs as much as S100 itself

 

https://www.pinkfaun.com/shop/clock/67-ultra-ocxo.html

https://www.pinkfaun.com/shop/sheets/PinkFaunUltra25MHz.pdf

 

However good sounding S100 would seem to be, there's still a lingering question for me. All audiophile switches still have low power CPUs while some supervisor modules from Cisco are much more powerful

 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/switches/nexus-7000-series-switches/models-comparison.html

 

Since music servers with Xeon / Core i9 / Ryzen would tend to perform so much matter when compared to similar options with Pentium / Celeron / Atom, just wondering if a network bridge with Asus WS C621E SAGE + dual Xeon Scalable + Apacer wide temperature RDIMM + modified JCAT NET Card FEMTO were gonna totally smoke all switches out there

 

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set-and-manage-network-bridge-connection-windows-10

 

More about this great finding from @seeteeyou. I got one of these switches and powered it with a LPS. Haven't done any listening tests yet. As already mentioned the Buffalo switch looks identical to the Melco. The layout of the board is exactly the same. Every visible component is exactly the same (i.e. the Melco does not seem to have any special/upgraded "audio-grade" parts). None of that is surprising since Buffalo and Melco are related. 

 

It's super easy to remove the SMPS and install a 12V DC connector. Then you can power the Buffalo switch with a better power supply than the Melco. Of course the Melco switch is in a much nicer chassis, which I am sure is beneficial. The only question that remains open is have they actually replaced the clock or not? It is strange that I could not find any mention of a clock from Melco or any reviewers. I am starting to wonder if they have even done that. 

 

Here is how the Buffalo switch looks like with the heatsink removed.

 

I wish I had a Melco switch to peak under the heatsink. It's super easy to remove but there is thermal paste between the chip and the heatsink. I am glad I removed it, because the thermal paste was of pretty bad quality and not applied properly. I put some fresh Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste on mine. 

 

 

[Middy]

Just be carefull if you buy any metal based thermal pastes.. they are a conductive path if you spill any on the PCB and cause shorts..

 

I mentioned before but the Apacer DDR3 for my NUC did benefit the SQ, subtle but a touch more than changing from stock to  fanless case... it all helps but the extras now cost double the price of my Ebay Celeron NUC...

[bodiebill]

8 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

If you use NUC with intel, it only works for  non-ECC Apacer RAM.

 

Actually, some i3 processors do work with (and utilize) ECC RAM.

For instance, I am using Apacer wide-temperature ECC RAM with i3-6100T (35W TDP) and Supermicro X11SAE-M on a Spartan endpoint with just AL and NAA.

[auricgoldfinger]

8 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

More about this great finding from @seeteeyou. I got one of these switches and powered it with a LPS. Haven't done any listening tests yet. As already mentioned the Buffalo switch looks identical to the Melco. The layout of the board is exactly the same. Every visible component is exactly the same (i.e. the Melco does not seem to have any special/upgraded "audio-grade" parts). None of that is surprising since Buffalo and Melco are related. 

 

It's super easy to remove the SMPS and install a 12V DC connector. Then you can power the Buffalo switch with a better power supply than the Melco. Of course the Melco switch is in a much nicer chassis, which I am sure is beneficial. The only question that remains open is have they actually replaced the clock or not? It is strange that I could not find any mention of a clock from Melco or any reviewers. I am starting to wonder if they have even done that. 

 

Here is how the Buffalo switch looks like with the heatsink removed.

 

I wish I had a Melco switch to peak under the heatsink. It's super easy to remove but there is thermal paste between the chip and the heatsink. I am glad I removed it, because the thermal paste was of pretty bad quality and not applied properly. I put some fresh Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste on mine. 

 

 

 

I asked Melco about the clock and they will not answer questions about it. 

[Chopin75]

On 2/28/2020 at 7:36 AM, bodiebill said:

 

Actually, some i3 processors do work with (and utilize) ECC RAM.

For instance, I am using Apacer wide-temperature ECC RAM with i3-6100T (35W TDP) and Supermicro X11SAE-M on a Spartan endpoint with just AL and NAA.

Oh yes, I heard about that but apparently they run in non-ECC mode 

[bodiebill]

5 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

Oh yes, I heard about that but apparently they run in non-ECC mode 

 

no, they run genuine ECC:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/90734/intel-core-i3-6100t-processor-3m-cache-3-20-ghz.html

[Chopin75]

1 minute ago, bodiebill said:

 

no, they run genuine ECC:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/90734/intel-core-i3-6100t-processor-3m-cache-3-20-ghz.html

I see, thanks. 

[bodiebill]

handy list for ECC-compatible Intel processors:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/search/featurefilter.html?productType=873&0_ECCMemory=True

[Dutch]

On 2/28/2020 at 6:09 AM, Nenon said:

I got one of these switches

Hi Nenon, do you mean you got the Buffalo BS-GS2016/A (or the non /A version perhaps)?

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, Dutch said:

Hi Nenon, do you mean you got the Buffalo BS-GS2016/A (or the non /A version perhaps)?

The non /A version but according to one of the posts above it is the same switch with 3 changes:

-LLDP disabled (I always do that anyway)

-Hostname changed

-Half of the ports disabled

and comes with a better Lan cable.

 

 

[RickyV]

2 minutes ago, Nenon said:

The non /A version but according to one of the posts above it is the same switch with 3 changes:

-LLDP disabled (I always do that anyway)

-Hostname changed

-Half of the ports disabled

and comes with a better Lan cable.

 

 

Any ideas on its sound yet?

[Nenon]

7 minutes ago, RickyV said:

Any ideas on its sound yet?

 

Not yet. I would like to let it burn in for at least 200 hours before I do any critical listening. Initial impressions (a quick 2 minute A/B) were that it gave something and it took something away. That was after working for 20 hours only, so I decided to let it burn-in first. In the meantime I am trying to find if the Melco uses a special clock or not. 

 

But I am prepared to replace the clock and will most likely try that regardless of the Melco outcome. 

[bodiebill]

Following some posts on an ISO Regen topic here:

I just made this adapter that allows me to split usb power and signal. The thing on the left is a Chinese 5V/2A LT3045 PSU powered by batteries.

 

I made this in preparation for the Denafrips Terminator that I expect to receive in a few days. However, I already tried it on my Lampizator 'Lite/Big 7'. As the Lampi does not draw any current I just removed the little PSU, to bypass the power, and already I heard a slight step up in SQ.

 

[matthias]

On 2/12/2020 at 4:59 PM, Blake said:

I am loving my 2020 Sablon Reserva Elite usb!.  Transparency, air, resolution seem limitless, and it is all presented in a very natural organic way.  The sonic improvement is significant. Mark is really on to something here.  I will get a review in the epic usb cable comparison thread at a later date. In case anyone is wondering about that thread:

 

@Blake, thanks for sharing.

 

How much is the new Sablon USB and what is the length of your cable?

 

Thanks

 

Matt

[Blake]

2 hours ago, matthias said:

 

@Blake, thanks for sharing.

 

How much is the new Sablon USB and what is the length of your cable?

 

Thanks

 

Matt

 

Hi Matt,

 

1.2 meter, $750,  Mark does provide a discount for repeat customers.  The sonic improvements are stunning.