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NUC/JRiver Optomization.


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On 1/20/2018 at 6:15 PM, zackthedog said:

I'm going to add my two cents about optimizing Windows.  I have tried Audiophile Optimizer several times on different machines and different Windows builds, and I have never been happy with what it does to the sound.  To me everything gets very raw and mechanical-sounding.  I have tried the the scripts on the Windows 10 optimization thread and found these to have a much more pleasant effect.  More transparency, sweetness and musicality.  These included running getblackbird (and restoring the LAN function) and running the series of optimizations and scripts provided by the original poster on that thread.  Also the suggestions about stopping logging functions.

 

The problem with AO in my opinion is that even if you restore services with the Service Tool, the initial "optimizations" are not reversible and you have to restore the original system.  That, and the price.

 

Bear in mind that none of the scripts on that thread are reversible, except the ability to restore a few needed services as noted, so you should create a restore point before launching, or be prepared to reinstall if you run into problems.  All that said, those optimizations were pretty straightforward and sound much more musical in my system.

 

my experience with a.o. is different than above -- i'm thrilled with what it does to be sound.  i'm experiencing much blacker backgrounds, and more texture to the sounds of instruments with a.o.

 

it is incorrect to say that the optimizations are not reversible -- they absolutely are  reversible.  what is true is that you can't uninstall a.o., but with the optimizations reversed, it would have no impact on your system. 

 

i'm sure that you can achieve much of the same thing with the various scripts that are available and they give you the opportunity to really dig into and understand what happening in the operating system.

(1) holo audio red (hqp naa) > chord dave > luxman cl-38uc/mq-88uc > kef reference 1
(2) simaudio moon mind 2 > chord qutest > luxman sq-n150 > monitor audio gold gx100
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25 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

 

my experience with a.o. is different than above -- i'm thrilled with what it does to be sound.  i'm experiencing much blacker backgrounds, and more texture to the sounds of instruments with a.o.

 

it is incorrect to say that the optimizations are not reversible -- they absolutely are  reversible.  what is true is that you can't uninstall a.o., but with the optimizations reversed, it would have no impact on your system. 

 

i'm sure that you can achieve much of the same thing with the various scripts that are available and they give you the opportunity to really dig into and understand what happening in the operating system.

 

A lot of people certainly seem to like it, so I'm probably in the minority.  I will say that, as far as I understand, certain initial changes it makes are NOT reversible, and I think they mention this.  You can restore services and some processes but I believe it makes some system changes that cannot be restored.  But I could be wrong.  But like any tweaking it's always good to have a restore point, backup , or just be prepared to do some reinstalls. ;-)  Also, the scripts on the volunteer thread don't address BIOS issues and certain system things like USB Power Management, etc., which AO does.

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3 minutes ago, zackthedog said:

 

A lot of people certainly seem to like it, so I'm probably in the minority.  I will say that, as far as I understand, certain initial changes it makes are NOT reversible, and I think they mention this.  You can restore services and some processes but I believe it makes some system changes that cannot be restored.  But I could be wrong.  But like any tweaking it's always good to have a restore point, backup , or just be prepared to do some reinstalls. ;-)  Also, the scripts on the volunteer thread don't address BIOS issues and certain system things like USB Power Management, etc., which AO does.

 

i'm pretty sure that the only thing that can't be reversed is the installation of a.o. -- all services and processes can be reversed.  also, a.o. doesn't make bios changes, but the installation manual does make some suggestions for changes.

 

i agree that it's good to always to have a way to restore if necessary.

 

@AudioPhil -- please correct me if i'm mistaken.

(1) holo audio red (hqp naa) > chord dave > luxman cl-38uc/mq-88uc > kef reference 1
(2) simaudio moon mind 2 > chord qutest > luxman sq-n150 > monitor audio gold gx100
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5 minutes ago, zackthedog said:

Page 44 of the manual for Windows 10 says that AO "applies many permanent and deep changes to your Windows installation, so be aware that the AO cannot be uninstalled once applied."

 

that does make the cannot be uninstalled part very clear, but doesn't say that services/processes can't be reversed -- it's pretty vague, i think.

 

hopefully phil can chime in.

(1) holo audio red (hqp naa) > chord dave > luxman cl-38uc/mq-88uc > kef reference 1
(2) simaudio moon mind 2 > chord qutest > luxman sq-n150 > monitor audio gold gx100
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Hello Folks

 

AO cannot be "uninstalled", that's right. But after a reset using the ServiceTool it could be deleted manually, and all would be fine again.

 

The core functionality of the reset in the ServiceTool is to revert all changes AO made to drivers and services. Through time the list of things the reset reverted got bigger and bigger, but it does not revert 100% of the changes AO makes to a system.

 

Hope this helps to clarify.

 

Best,

AudioPhil

ıllıllı [  ...AO 4.00 BETA... ] ıllıllı
____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Shop | Reviews | Reference System | AudiophileOptimizer 3.00 | PDF Guide

 

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9 hours ago, chauphuong said:

Current Nuc with AO being Roon Core, and a Rasp Pi with full linear LPs being Roon Bridge, the two connected directly via Lan cable, and that's it. Would cost you somewhere slighly below $1000. That is the clear, credited way to go.

As noted in post one, I don't want to use Roon. I would like to stay with JRiver Windows. But I need to figure out what is meant by the PI being used as a Roon bridge. I'm not sure what that is.

23 minutes ago, AudioPhil said:

AO cannot be "uninstalled", thats right. But after a reset using the ServiceTool it could be deleted manually, and all would be fine again. The core functionality of the reset in the ServiceTool is to revert all changes AO made to drivers and services. Through time the list of things the reset reverted got bigger and bigger, but it does not revert 100% of the changes AO makes to a system.

Thanks for that clarification. It sounds like with a bit of time invested you can get it back close enough to "stock" Windows where it wouldn't be noticeable. But, depending on the process, it could be just faster to re-install the OS. Hopefully uninstalling isn't necessary very often.

Before I do any commercial optimization, I want to work with the free scripts. As much for the learning experience as anything. My ISO Regen is going to ship Monday per Alex. I'll have it Wednesday. Again, I want to see what just that hardware upgrade will offer before I start any clean-up on the NUC.

Finally, with the NUC getting some hours on it, things are sounding pretty good even now. Again, I wonder if the $500 USB upgrade module I have in the amp isn't doing a lot of what is normally done before the input. We'll see...

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The ISO Regen will be here on Wednesday. Should be interesting.

I just came down from listening to records. I have a Thorens TD-165 I bought new in 1973. It has a Hana SL cartridge. I've upgraded the wiring on the TT. It feeds a WhestTwo.2 Preamp. That is going to the upgrade analog input module on the Lyngdorf. As good as the digial side of my front end sounds, which really-really good. All I can say is the digital side needs to step-up it's game because the analog side is kicking a$$ and taking names right now. I'm sure that is probably not a post that will be looked upon favorably in this forum... but it is absolutely the truth. Certainly that needs to be fixed!

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26 minutes ago, Bullitt5094 said:

The ISO Regen will be here on Wednesday. Should be interesting.

I just came down from listening to records. I have a Thorens TD-165 I bought new in 1973. It has a Hana SL cartridge. I've upgraded the wiring on the TT. It feeds a WhestTwo.2 Preamp. That is going to the upgrade analog input module on the Lyngdorf. As good as the digial side of my front end sounds, which really-really good. All I can say is the digital side needs to step-up it's game because the analog side is kicking a$$ and taking names right now. I'm sure that is probably not a post that will be looked upon favorably in this forum... but it is absolutely the truth. Certainly that needs to be fixed!

 

You've got your work cut out for you. ;-)  I personally don't try to compare my analogue with my digital.  Hell, I never tried to compare my analogue with my CD player.  The digital setup is for the terrabytes of stuff I have that has never been, and will never be, on vinyl. I just try to get it to sound as good as I can. ;-)

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22 hours ago, zackthedog said:

 

You've got your work cut out for you. ;-)  I personally don't try to compare my analogue with my digital.  Hell, I never tried to compare my analogue with my CD player.  The digital setup is for the terrabytes of stuff I have that has never been, and will never be, on vinyl. I just try to get it to sound as good as I can. ;-)

I totally understand. It seems to me the older recordings originally done on analog sound better on records. The newer, digitally recorded stuff sounds better in the digital domain. But that may just me being logical and having nothing to do with reality. Seems pretty consistent though.

The other curve I'll throw you is, the first thing my amp does to any analog input is an A-D conversion. Yet the Lyngdorf still out-preformed an Odyssey Kismet amp and a Linear Tube Audio amp with the same analog input. I know. It makes no sense. But not only did I hear it, but my wife, daughter and her husband, none of which are audiophiles or had ANY idea what they were listening to, came to the same conclusion. And I can tell you my wife and daughter can hear things bats can't hear. 

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19 minutes ago, Bullitt5094 said:

I totally understand. It seems to me the older recordings originally done on analog sound better on records. The newer, digitally recorded stuff sounds better in the digital domain. But that may just me being logical and having nothing to do with reality. Seems pretty consistent though.

The other curve I'll throw you is, the first thing my amp does to any analog input is an A-D conversion. Yet the Lyngdorf still out-preformed an Odyssey Kismet amp and a Linear Tube Audio amp with the same analog input. I know. It makes no sense. But not only did I hear it, but my wife, daughter and her husband, none of which are audiophiles or had ANY idea what they were listening to, came to the same conclusion. And I can tell you my wife and daughter can hear things bats can't hear. 

 

No, I think that's completely logical. ;-)

 

And I long ago learned to defer to my wife on component decisions.

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Nice! My wife is more likely to be enthralled by Bleachers, Imagine Dragons or Chainsmokers. She'll occasionally sit through Earl Klugh or Fourplay. But that's a stretch.

 

My grown son recently remarked, after driving his mom's car during a visit... "You know, your mother should never have a bunch of songs on her play list with "featuring" on them."

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Well folks, the ISO-Regen finally arrived yesterday. At this point I only have a few hours of burn-in on it. I really didn't expect much of an uptick, but I have to admit, it is a very noticeable improvement. The digital side is now doing a very good impression of the analog side. It sounds, well, more "analog". Much smoother and more natural. It offers more detail in the highs, better definition in the mids and a tighter low end. It's also noticeable in the staging. Especially the perception of depth in the stage. I haven't done any real A/B stuff yet, but I expect it will show itself very well.

So now I need to work on improving the NUC. Then after that the power supplies. Having fun now!

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