The true experimental tweak thread

[mozes]

2 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

While looking for speaker stands I stumbled across the IsoAcoustics ISO-PUCK http://www.isoacoustics.com/iso-puck/ 

 

Looks very interesting to these eyes! ? However, if I want to use three of them under the speakers (on the top plate) and the Soundcare Superpikes under the speaker stands as I have planned I'll better look for a 50cm stand instead of 60cm. Hmmm? ?

 

 

Check their Gaia feet, made for speakers. I auditioned them in a show and they work very well. Tighter bass, cleaner vocals and focused image.

you may only need the smallest Gaia 3

[mozes]

1 hour ago, jean-michel6 said:

Hi All ,

 

Does anybody has tried the LT 3045 regulator board with either an SPS-500 or a LPS-1 ?

 

To power what and What was the results ?

 

Thank's

I found that the LT3045 adds a bit of clarity when used with LPS-1 to power my switch. The improvement is subtle, in contrast going to a silver thicker gauge on the DC wire is by far more effective. 

[mozes]

36 minutes ago, Cornan said:

 

Thanks Moussa! ? A tip is to try to ground the DC input to the switch to your Silver Minimus. See my latest post with the single ps (LT3045).

I already have the switch chassis grounded to the Entreq.

[mozes]

8 minutes ago, Cornan said:

 

Me too,  JSGT at the DC input as well as chassi ground makes it even better in my setup. However, what I ment was that the LT3045 could benefit from it.

So you mean to ground the negative of the DC input to the switch?

[mozes]

1 hour ago, Cornan said:

Today I turned my attention to my main router. It was about time it got its own 12v/1A LT3045. Before I started I monitored the current draw for 10 minutes. I was really surprised how little it pulled since it have a quite big original SMPS of 12v/2.33A. It kept steady around 90mA and would rarely pass 120mA. Anyway, pretty safe with 1A board to say the least, so I plugged it in post Voltcraft floating LPS set to 13v and had a initial listen to Tidal tracks!

 

 

A definate improvement with more details emerging from the dark. The airial room is bigger. Greater. Quieter. Better separated and detailed in widht and depht. LT3045 is great and router end power improvements and isolation always seems to pay off in my cloud based setup.

 

Now I cannot wait to try the single ps in series (14v>13v/3A>12v/3A) pre my Brooklyn DAC. I hope to have time to get it done on Saturday before I go to a live concert with Iron & Wine! ?

 

Great tweak to your router!

How do you measure the current draw of the router?

[mozes]

A free and effortless tweak

 

I usually leave my system always on. Needless to say it sounds wonderful. 2 days ago I decided to switch off everything for a full day. I switched on today and gave it a couple of hours and then listened to some of my favourite  tracks. I was stunned with pristine sound that I have never heard before in my system. The clarity and dynamics are off the roof. 

Could be static build up? I am not sure, but if you are like me with a system that is on 24hrs, try this trick.

 

 

[mozes]

I like this thread as I can share anything I want  

 

On the grounding of the negative output of PSUs It is important to realize that not all grounding solutions are equal.

 

When I tried grounding the negative outout of my LPS-1s, I wasn’t sure I detected any imporvement. I was grounding it to the safety ground in the receptacle using a pure silver wire.Then it occured to me that I should try grounding it to my Entreq silver minimus box, and what a big difference!

It was magical, the emotions in the music were lit in a way that made listening such a delightful experience. I then tried grounding the negative output of the sps-500 that feeds my server and again, great results. Smoother, darker and more 3D presentation. I mentioned it before, but boxes in my system will come and go, but Entreq is here to stay!

[mozes]

15 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

BTW. Have you seen the new Entreq Olympus Ten? http://www.entreq.com/products/ground-boxes-17667704

There is Entreq´s own take on it: 

 

 

Not cheap. It is roughly double the price to Silver Minimus, but it surely looks like an interesting one for me when I finally decide to pull the plug on another one!  

Thanks I have seen it.  Very interesting, from my experience you can’t beat the value of the silver minimus with everest plug. I compared that to the Olympus minimus. Very close

[mozes]

1 hour ago, Cornan said:

Here is an interesting thing that have taken me by surprise since I put the two single ps in series. I power my BluWave USB to Spdif converters galvanicly isolated output with a TP Link Vivid battery supply at the moment. Earlier, even with a single ps, it sounded better without the battery charging at the same time as playing music. It sounded airier without it. Now, with two single ps in series, it actually sounds BETTER with the charger connected. It could be a proof that the DC path is passing less noise and that the charger actually provides additional grounding. This makes me curious to try to ground the TP Link Vivid USB micro input to my Entreq Minimus grounding box. I like to follow leads like this! ?

Good thinking! I power my wireless bridge with a 12V lithium battery which then connects to a sCLK modded switch powered by LPS-1. Whether charger is connected or not, it makes no difference to SQ.

[mozes]

5 hours ago, Cornan said:

Thanks Moussa! However, I think you'll need to understand the whole story to judge it. The BluWave INPUT is powered by ISO Regen powered by LT3045 in series.  Very clean! It is just the GI output that is powered by the TP Link Vivid. Now, that input is surely the weakest link in my setup if any. I have a Y-split from my Gophert waiting for it, but as you know I am waiting for a reply from @JohnSwenson if a LT3045 at the input and two LT3045s single at each leg will improve things or not? I am just waiting for a confirmation before I pull the plug. Expecting it to be better than battery supply, but want to ensure it before I'll try! ?

I fully understand that each system is different. I just wanted to share that in my system I hear no difference. I should have elaborated that my message is that you should always test anything in your system as the results could be different depending on gear and system toplogy

[mozes]

37 minutes ago, Cornan said:

Therefore it is much more important to get clean power there than for example a wireless bridge which is usually not in direct contact with the DAC.

Agree ? 

[mozes]

@Cornan I know you rely on your ears and not specs. Do you feel that Tidal MQA tracks sound better than the same non MQA tracks on Tidal?

[mozes]

27 minutes ago, agladstone said:

I have done A/B comparisons of Tidal MQA and Non-MQA of same albums, I feel like most of the time, the MQA version sounds best, but just the same as any newly remastered hi-res or DSD version of an album, it’s sound quality is highly dependent on which mastering version used to make the hi-res or MQA version. 

Thanks for your input, I am waiting for MQA upgrade on Android and iOS to start using it. On my Desktop setup I prefer the sound of Jplaystreamer with Bubble DS for Tidal, so no MQA till now

[mozes]

8 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

I agree with @agladstone that MQA usually sounds better than FLAC through Tidal. A great mastered MQA, like for example Bahamas- Earthtones, sounds really really great to these ears.

My rig have stepped up a lot lately and all streaming sounds really great. Heck, even Spotify sounds pretty good. Still, one of the best sounding albums is Hunter Sounder which is a cloud stored (Google Drive) FLAC played through BubbleDS Next via LightningDS platform. I am certainly going to add more cloud stored FLACs in a Hall-of-faim-folder. Starting with Mimicking Birds- Layers of Us. ?

I like the idea of the cloud storage. You can have your own Tidal service tailored for you  

[mozes]

38 minutes ago, Cornan said:

 

Yeah, I have just ordered the album Mimicking Bird - Layers Of Us on vinyl and got the download for free in almost any file format that I want plus unlimited streaming via the Bandcamp app. I downloaded it as a FLAC file into Google Drive a couple of hours ago and will make a head-to-head comparense between it and the same Tidal FLAC album tomorrow. So far I have only had FLAC files that are not available on Tidal in my Google Drive. This will be the first time I make a shoot-out apple-to-apple. I will post my findings here when I have tested it out using my own ears!  

I think I´ll need to post a question if Roon could be used with a cloud PC at the Roon forum if this turns out as good as my gut feel. https://shadow.tech/gben/technology

 

 

You can also set Jriver to stream your music library over the internet.

[mozes]

4 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

I actually have purchased Jriver many years ago (probably a very old version by now). I was´nt that fond of it back then, but I am sure it is a thousand times better now (also since you seems to like it a lot). Do you know if it could work on a cloud PC or is this a question to Jim? I doubt that it will work myself though. I prefer to find a no-hardware-PC@home-solution if possible. 

Not sure about that, I find it be the best for my priorities. 1-SQ 2-Customization and control of my library 3-format support

[mozes]

1 hour ago, agladstone said:

Have you tried Roon (with HQPLAYER on backend)? Roon has a 60 day trial offer now (go to music direct website, they have 60 day offer code on the website). I know Roon integrates tidal MQA. I personally have an Aurender music server / streamer, so I’ve not tried it myself and the Aurender’s Conductor iOS app has Tidal MQA integrated already. 

A few of my friends finally gave into my advice and are on the Roon free trial and have signed up for HQPlayer and have it running on the backend of Roon and set to upsample everything to DSD128 and they think it sounds amazing, so maybe worth the free trial ? HQPLAYER also has a free trial (I think it needs to be restarted every 30 mins on free trial? ) 

I can’t wait for MQA on iOS !! I will use it for my car and for when out and about and will most likely get the new Mytek Clef to use with it! 

I tried Roon twice and I always find my way back to Jriver. Jriver sounds better to my ears and doesn’t task my CPU like Roon does. 

[mozes]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

I resisted going to Roon for a long time, for all the usual reasons. But now, I cannot go back.

 

Here's how I described it to someone - when I was using Squeezelite, and then MinimServer, I always had this nagging task of "someday, I need to go fix all my tags." My library was never "complete."

 

With Roon, a few hours of grooming, and I now have a pristine, complete, library. The other tipping point was that Roon 1.3 added major improvements for classical music, that made it perfectly usable for me.

 

Hard to put a value on that, but it was worth it for me. I have not regretted it for a single second.

 

As I struggle with Squeezelite on the Zenith SE, and iPeng9, I just shudder at this atrocious experience, compared to the beauty and simplicity of Roon. 

 

YMMV.

Glad you like it, it is an excellent software no doubt. For me, once Roon beats Jriver in SQ, I will buy myself a license immediately. 

[mozes]

I successfully tried Tidal MQA today on my iphone with Mconnect player at 24Bit/48Khz.

I find it odd that Tidal native app doesn’t support MQA!

[mozes]

32 minutes ago, Monge said:

I find it odd too, when Tidal app on desktop do.

I hope the Tidal app for IPhone/IPAD in the future will support MQA. Better be soon.

What is your opinion on The Mconnect player app?

Thanks in advance.

Regards Monge

I still didn’t do any comparison with Bubble or Tidal app. For non MQA, Bubble always sounded better

[mozes]

1 hour ago, Cornan said:

 

Yeah, it is strange indeed. Probably a bit more complicated to get it working for mobile use? I'll guess 2018 will be the year for the MQA app release though. Touch wood! ?

 

Let’s see, I only use Tidal all on the iphone with bluetooth in the car, so I doubt I can hear any difference with MQA or non.

[mozes]

4 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

For me this is how I rate the control points with FLAC that I have tried.

 

1. BubbleDS Next 

2. LightningDS

3. BubbleUPnP 

4. Kazoo

5. Lumin

6. Mconnect 

 

Overall if GUI, usabillity, features, performance & SQ are all put together LightningDS wins. Very close in SQ to BubbleDS Next, but the latter have a tad more "natural" to LightningDS more "clinical" sound signature. On better recorded music I prefer LightningDS while BubbleDS is more forgiving.

I hope Auralic will release their web based LightningDS platform for any streamer as they have hinted about some time ago.

Thanks for the ranking. I still find Mconnect flat sounding vs Bubble DS Next  or even Bubble UPNP

To clarify MQA is only available on Mconnect Control and not Mconnect player

[mozes]

44 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

 

I’m quite sure this has to do with Apple, not Tidal. 

Maybe that will change when the announced SW upgrades to Home Pod gets available. But I don’t expect it to happen. 

I don’t think it has to do with Apple as the Android Tidal app also doesn’t support MQA.

[mozes]

3 hours ago, Cornan said:

 

I just got a Tidal MQA update on the Anroid tablet. So far it is only for LG V-series mobile phones but it does seem like MQA on Tidal app is just around the corner now!  

This is interesting!

[mozes]

9 minutes ago, Cornan said:

Today I installed my audio setup in another spot since I’ve got a Sony oled TV taking up most of the space originally intended for the audio corner.

 

 

Not the perfect spot, but the spot that I have got. I just got my new cousy sofa and a couple of bits and pieces.

 

 

Now I am just relaxing and enjoying the music for the first time since my move. It sounds really great! 

 

 

?

 

Don’t worry about the aquard TV bench. A new one is coming next week! ?

Looking good!