GentooPlayer

[antonellocaroli]

27 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

 

 

You may also want to disable sd-card polling....

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, antonellocaroli said:

You may also want to disable sd-card polling....

 

Thanks! Done.

[Dandou]

I received the Christmas gift of a renewal of my free trial to Audirvana Studio. This player is still very buggy. 

In my set-up, it works with UpMpdCli, but not with GmediaRender. Audirvana Studio sees GmediaRender at its output selector, but when I launch the playback it does not play the track. 

 

I use all my players in bit-perfect mode. And in my set-up, with UpMpdCli, Stduio sounds exactly the same as all my other UPNP/DLNA players (Foobar, JRiver, Audirvana Plus). Not better nor worse. All these UPNP players sound exactly the same as the renderer itself, the MPD, when it plays its local files. 

[bodiebill]

With moOde I got slightly better results booting from a usb stick rather than from an SD card, and playing music from the SD card instead. Would this be possible with GP also? If yes, anyone tried?

 

Edit:

I found

27/09/21 IMAGE UPDATE V. 6.40

-update sytem
-update/software install fastest
-Rpi: boot from usb without having to modify files

-other minor fix

So I guess I will try...

[bodiebill]

46 minutes ago, Dandou said:

I received the Christmas gift of a renewal of my free trial to Audirvana Studio. This player is still very buggy. 

In my set-up, it works with UpMpdCli, but not with GmediaRender. Audirvana Studio sees GmediaRender at its output selector, but when I launch the playback it does not play the track.

 

Strange, here it (Studio UPnP to gmstreamer) works without flaw.

 

 

46 minutes ago, Dandou said:

I use all my players in bit-perfect mode. And in my set-up, with UpMpdCli, Stduio sounds exactly the same as all my other UPNP/DLNA players (Foobar, JRiver, Audirvana Plus). Not better nor worse. All these UPNP players sound exactly the same as the renderer itself, the MPD, when it plays its local files. 

 

Here the SQ difference between JRiver and Studio is unmistakable (to my ears). JRiver is a bit closed, canned. Studio is much more open with more HF detail. And playing local files with PlayDir (from RAM, network disabled) sounds even better.

 

[Dandou]

26 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Here the SQ difference between JRiver and Studio is unmistakable (to my ears).

Audirvana players sound better than some other UPNP player in a noisy set-up. They play with a big buffer, which makes their stream less sensitive to the interference of the electrical noise. But when the set-up is fully optimized and silent, all UPNP players sound the same in a Bit-perfect mode. They sound like the renderer. 

 

I also get a better sound with PlayDir in RAM, but I don't use it, because the Allo USBridge is a RBi3, and it does not have a lot of RAM. 

[bodiebill]

9 minutes ago, Dandou said:

Audirvana players sound better than some other UPNP player in a noisy set-up. They play with a big buffer, which makes their stream less sensitive to the interference of the electrical noise. But when the set-up is fully optimized and silent, all UPNP players sound the same in a Bit-perfect mode. They sound as the renderer.

 

Could that explain it?

Even though I have the PC far away from the audio, and the hard wired ethernet connection is part optical fiber, I can still hear that the network connection (inluding the noise generated by the downstream switch I guess) is detrimental to the SQ. But less so with Audirvana Studio apparently.

 

9 minutes ago, Dandou said:

I get also a better sound with PlayDir in RAM, but I don't use it, because the Allo USBridge is a RBi3, and does not have a lot of RAM. 

 

Thanks for confirming.

[Dandou]

All key devices in the network must be powered by LPS, and all power chords of the devices in the "clean side" must be of a good quality. Otherwise, noise will reach the DAC through the streamer. 

[bodiebill]

5 minutes ago, Dandou said:

All key devices in the network must be powered by LPS, and all power chords of the devices in the "clean side" must be of a good quality. Otherwise, noise will reach the DAC through the streamer. 

 

All boxes checked. The switch is powered by a Paul Hynes SR4T and power chords and conditioner are top notch. Still I prefer no network for serious listening. 

[Dandou]

I was also preferring local playback over network stream, before my set-up was optimized. 

It's enough to have a single weak element in the chain, and the difference becomes audible. At the present, it doesn't matter in my set-up where the tracks are stored or by which player from which device (Mac, PC, phone, Allo) they are streamed. Same tracks sound exactly the same with the same renderer. 

Only Roon has a slightly different sound signature, because I use it with Squeezelite as a renderer. 

[bodiebill]

Do you have a very resolving system?

What I mean is: not hearing a difference is not the same as there not being a difference.

[Dandou]

I have a good R2R DAC, but if I use one of my Delta-Sigma DACs, even an old one, I get the same result. Same tracks sound the same with the same renderer. 

I must admit that I was very surprised to reach this result. During many years, I was comparing between players for my computers in order to see which of them sounds better. And I was wondering why there were differences in their sound in Bit-perfect mode. I was asking myself if Bit-perfect does exist in practice. But actually the sound difference between the players is only in the way they stream. Some work in a way that makes their stream less sensitive to the interference of the electrical noise. 

[bodiebill]

I see now you are using the Musician Pegasus, which I am familiar with. Quite resolving indeed! I still have it but now play with a Holo Audio Spring 3.

Is the magic you achieved mainly due to the optical ethernet, audiophile switch and good LPS, you think?

[Dandou]

You have a very good DAC. If I upgrade my DAC in the future, I may also buy a R2R DAC from Holo Audio. 

 

I think that the most important element that upgraded my set-up was the optical Ethernet. 

The upgrade of the power chords was second in importance. 

The switch is not necessary to achieve the result that we are talking about. I got it, before buying Pegasus, and before upgrading my set-up. With my Delta-Sigma DAC, its addition made the stream to sound more dynamic. With Pegasus, it provides only very slightly more body to the streamed sound. I use it, just because I have it already. 

[bodiebill]

Thanks. And apologies that we drifted somewhat OT...

 

Back to GP: I succeeded booting from a usb stick and everything sounds great -- not that I can hear a difference with booting from SD card. Which by the way would be remarkable as I am playing from RAM :-)

[falco henri]

For me the best way to get the  better sound with gentooplayer IS to use MOC player with a SSH console and local disk. You Can  play files from ramdisk with mocp too. For serious listening without compromise that IS the best way with gentooplayer 😉

[Dandou]

This is true. MOC sounds the best for me too. 

Unfortunately, I don't know how to use MOC and SSH with my Mac. I only know how to do it with my PC, but I use this computer less often. 

[bodiebill]

Interesting! Any pointer to instructions how to use MOC player with GP?

I got this error:

[falco henri]

Try to open before the ssh console with Putty in a PC

[bodiebill]

I am using a Chromebook and have ssh-ed into GP using Secure Shell. When trying to use Play2Dir I also get the fatal error.

 

And via ssh:

 

 

Maybe it cannot be used with Pi2AES (Hifiberri Digi+ Pro as soundcard)?

[falco henri]

Yes it s possible... Try to ask to Antonelli.

[bodiebill]

@antonellocaroli Is Pi2AES (Hifiberry Digi+ Pro) as soundcard not compatible with MOC Player? Any way around this?

[bodiebill]

Solved, the music is playing now, after I chose the default:CARD instead of the hw:CARD option on the Play2Dir page.

 

[falco henri]

Ok cool !!! 😉👍

[antonellocaroli]

5 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Solved, the music is playing now, after I chose the default:CARD instead of the hw:CARD option on the Play2Dir page.

 

hw is better, but if it doesn't work better plughw, default last....