GentooPlayer

[antonellocaroli]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

 

Ciao Filippo,

I had the exact same problem when I was running mpd and upmpdcli under ArchLinux.

It looks like a problem with the Audirvana/DSD256/mpd/upmpdcli combination.

With HQPlayer/DSD256/NAA (networkd) it is going well,

mhhh

 

I tried audirvana on virtual machine to try, but I did not have the problem that you describe .... have you tried to update audirvana?

 

how much Ram do you have on windows? Audirvana seems to want a bit ...

 

[Madra]

3 hours ago, antonellocaroli said:

does not affect the partition with osx ...
but you should try if it works, I have no osx pc ...

if in case it works to restart osx or win just remove the usb ...

Great. Will try to install it overvthe Weekend.

[Madra]

3 hours ago, antonellocaroli said:

does not affect the partition with osx ...
but you should try if it works, I have no osx pc ...

if in case it works to restart osx or win just remove the usb ...

Great. Will try to install it overvthe Weekend.

[michaelvv]

I have been listening to gentooplayer for the last couple of days very intense.

I have been in and out of RamSystem, and I'm very happy with the sound quality.

 

I'm a 100% hardcore tubeamp guy , made my own amps and I have no SMPS in

my hifi chain. The Design looks like shit but I do not care.

 

Tomorrow I'll do some more testing between my own Chord 2qute DAC and a borrowed

Chord Hugo2. There might be a stability issue with the Chord Hugo2, but I don't think

it's because of gentooplayer.

 

Keep up the good work antonello , this is an insane great player....

 

[bodiebill]

5 hours ago, antonellocaroli said:

I tried audirvana on virtual machine to try, but I did not have the problem that you describe .... have you tried to update audirvana?

how much Ram do you have on windows? Audirvana seems to want a bit ...

 

I updated Audirvana and exactly copied the settings as in your screenshots. I will play some music tomorrow...

 

Just in case: which DAC are you using? And if it happens to have an Amanero board, which firmware version?

 

Thanks Filippo!

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, michaelvv said:

I'm a 100% hardcore tubeamp guy , made my own amps and I have no SMPS in

my hifi chain. The Design looks like shit but I do not care.

 

 

It looks great!

[michaelvv]

3 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

It looks great!

 

Thanks.

I mention I read that you have a very very fine DAC yourself.

 

I started this journey for almost 40 years ago, and today it's just unbelievable how far it is from back in time.

I had only been on the digital road for 10 years and today I'm fully satisfied with the outcome.

 

Do you feed your DAC from USB or from Toslink/Spdif ???

 

I'm curious if I could gain something with one of these fancy DDC. I really like my Chord 2qute DAC.

[antonellocaroli]

8 hours ago, bodiebill said:

 

I updated Audirvana and exactly copied the settings as in your screenshots. I will play some music tomorrow...

 

Just in case: which DAC are you using? And if it happens to have an Amanero board, which firmware version?

 

Thanks Filippo!

I have two self-built DACs, one with ak4490 and the other with chip pcm 1704 ... both with the usb Jlsound ...

[bodiebill]

11 hours ago, michaelvv said:

 

I mention I read that you have a very very fine DAC yourself.

 

I started this journey for almost 40 years ago, and today it's just unbelievable how far it is from back in time.

I had only been on the digital road for 10 years and today I'm fully satisfied with the outcome.

 

Do you feed your DAC from USB or from Toslink/Spdif ???

 

I'm curious if I could gain something with one of these fancy DDC. I really like my Chord 2qute DAC.

 

Usb I think is the only possibility for the Amanero board. In my case treated with SotM and Regen devices.

 

I am indeed very happy with the Lampizator Lite 7 DAC, but I must say only with the DSD chain. The PCM chain falls behind my previous DAC (Audio Aéro) which was the first device that made digital listenable for me. I still occasionally have PCM listening sessions, enjoying the Audio Aéro's wonderful creamy sound. (Yes, I never could part from it.)

 

I get the impression that now it is possible to almost match the quality of these DACs at a lower price point, and I have seen very good reviews of your Chord. I may find out soon as I am helping a friend to find a good affordable DSD DAC.

 

Do you upsample to DSD at all? Or upsample otherwise?

[bodiebill]

12 hours ago, bodiebill said:

 

I updated Audirvana and exactly copied the settings as in your screenshots. I will play some music tomorrow...

 

 

Interesting. I listened this morning with the upgraded Audirvana and settings as in Filippo's screenshots, using ramsystem modes 1 and 2 respectively. Twice the music just stopped after about 5 minutes. I then increased Audirvana's 'max. memory allocated' and I just played a 14 min track with no problems. Fingers crossed...

 

Oh, I forgot to say: the 'control pc' with Audirvana is an i7 with 16GB RAM. When upsampling to DSD256 it uses 80% cpu and 20% RAM.

 

P S Strangely enough, with Audirvana set to upsample to DSD256, when I play a DSD64 file, Audirvana still indicates DSD64 as output. I will ask about this on the Audirvana thread.

 

 

 

[michaelvv]

6 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

Usb I think is the only possibility for the Amanero board. In my case treated with SotM and Regen devices.

 

I am indeed very happy with the Lampizator Lite 7 DAC, but I must say only with the DSD chain. The PCM chain falls behind my previous DAC (Audio Aéro) which was the first device that made digital listenable for me. I still occasionally have PCM listening sessions, enjoying the Audio Aéro's wonderful creamy sound. (Yes, I never could part from it.)

 

I get the impression that now it is possible to almost match the quality of these DACs at a lower price point, and I have seen very good reviews of your Chord. I may find out soon as I am helping a friend to find a good affordable DSD DAC.

 

Do you upsample to DSD at all? Or upsample otherwise?

 

I do very little DSD as this is the weak thing on my Chord 2qute. It has some drop out issues and I have tried anything on linux.

I do PCM and I'm playing around with LMS and a plugin called 3-CPO, which upsample the PCM mostly Redbook to 24 bit and a

quite high sampling rate.

 

I think Chord strength is PCM if you are mostly interested in DSD, I would choose another DAC.

 

Listening to gentooplayer has brought more focus into the music specially when running in ramsystem.

[antonellocaroli]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Twice the music just stopped after about 5 minutes. I then increased Audirvana's 'max. memory allocated' and I just played a 14 min track with no problems. Fingers crossed...

 

I had the same problem when I dedicated to the virtual machine little ram (4gb), with 8gb I did not have more interruptions ...

 

 

 

[bodiebill]

8 hours ago, antonellocaroli said:

I have two self-built DACs, one with ak4490 and the other with chip pcm 1704 ... both with the usb Jlsound ...

 

Impressive!

[bodiebill]

5 hours ago, bodiebill said:

P S Strangely enough, with Audirvana set to upsample to DSD256, when I play a DSD64 file, Audirvana still indicates DSD64 as output. I will ask about this on the Audirvana thread.

 

To be precise, here is the result of

cat /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params

 

(1) Audirvana upsampling ro DSD256 (but not really):

access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: DSD_U32_BE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 88200 (88200/1)
period_size: 11025
buffer_size: 44100

 

(2) HQPlayer upsampling to DSD256 (looks OK)

access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: DSD_U32_BE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 352800 (352800/1)
period_size: 32768
buffer_size: 131072

[bodiebill]

Hmmm, I now also get the hissing sound with HQPlayer into NAA (networkd) after playing approx. 10 minutes.

 

Maybe I should look at my Amanero firmware (now using 2005be) and downgrade to a previous version. This involves opening the DAC and flashing the card...

[bodiebill]

Update:

 

I tried to flash Amanero firmware version 2005be again, hoping that it would be reset and the problem (hissing noise after 8-12 min) would be solved. But no, the problem was back and occurs with HQPlayer => NAA as well as Audirvana => upmpdcli => mpd. It looks like a problem with 2005be, at least its compatibility with GentooPlayer.

So now I am back to firmware 1099c.

 

As flashing Amanero is not straightforward, I have not tried this yet, but could the problem theoretically be related to using Alsa version 1.0.29?

[antonellocaroli]

58 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Update:

 

I tried to flash Amanero firmware version 2005be again, hoping that it would be reset and the problem (hissing noise after 8-12 min) would be solved. But no, the problem was back and occurs with HQPlayer => NAA as well as Audirvana => upmpdcli => mpd. It looks like a problem with 2005be, at least its compatibility with GentooPlayer.

So now I am back to firmware 1099c.

 

As flashing Amanero is not straightforward, I have not tried this yet, but could the problem theoretically be related to using Alsa version 1.0.29?

 

mhhh 

I do not think alsa 1.0.29 is the problem ...but you can try to upgrade...
and the kernel is the last available where amanero in dsd is supported like this:

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/sound/usb/quirks.c

 

/* Amanero Combo384 USB based DACs with native DSD support */
	case USB_ID(0x16d0, 0x071a):  /* Amanero - Combo384 */
	case USB_ID(0x2ab6, 0x0004):  /* T+A DAC8DSD-V2.0, MP1000E-V2.0, MP2000R-V2.0, MP2500R-V2.0, MP3100HV-V2.0 */
	case USB_ID(0x2ab6, 0x0005):  /* T+A USB HD Audio 1 */
	case USB_ID(0x2ab6, 0x0006):  /* T+A USB HD Audio 2 */
		if (fp->altsetting == 2) {
			switch (le16_to_cpu(chip->dev->descriptor.bcdDevice)) {
			case 0x199:
				return SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_DSD_U32_LE;
			case 0x19b:
			case 0x203:
				return SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_DSD_U32_BE;
			default:
				break;
			}
		}
		break;
	case USB_ID(0x16d0, 0x0a23):
		if (fp->altsetting == 2)
			return SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_DSD_U32_BE;
		break;

	default:
		break;
	}

you can see the usb id with the audio command

 

Quote

GentooPlayerSparky ~ # audio
AUDIO CARDS
CARD    TYPE            ADDRESS            NAME
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
card0    USB Audio card        usb4  --> 20b1:2023    XMOS JLsounds Hi-Rez
card0    STATUS  --> access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: S32_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 44100 (44100/1) period_size: 7335 buffer_size: 22005
 

 

[bodiebill]

18 minutes ago, antonellocaroli said:

mhhh 

I do not think alsa 1.0.29 is the problem ...but you can try to upgrade...
and the kernel is the last available where amanero in dsd is supported like this:

https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/sound/usb/quirks.c

 

you can see the usb id with the audio command

 

So does that mean that this kernel supports Amanero LE (little-endian) and BE (big-endian)? 

 

I am currently using this kernel:

GentooPlayer GNU/Linux, con Linux x86_64-4.19.5-rt-rt4-MIN-GP1

Maybe try another kernel?

 

Using the 1099c firmware and upsampling to DSD256, the audio command gives:
card0   USB Audio card          usb3  --> 16d0:071a     Amanero Technologies Combo384
card0   STATUS  --> access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: DSD_U32_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 352800 (352800/1) period_size: 32768 buffer_size: 131072

 

so this looks like 1099c is little-endian. And of course 2005be is big-endian.

 

Or maybe I should use an alternate setting 2 when flashing the 2005be firmware? 

 

A bit over my head, but I am happy to learn...

[antonellocaroli]

16 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

 

I am currently using this kernel:

GentooPlayer GNU/Linux, con Linux x86_64-4.19.5-rt-rt4-MIN-GP1

Maybe try another kernel?

 

 

try to upgrade alsa ... even if ...

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, antonellocaroli said:

 

try to upgrade alsa ... even if ...

 

You guessed right: upgrading alsa did not solve it.

[antonellocaroli]

7 hours ago, bodiebill said:

 

You guessed right: upgrading alsa did not solve it.

I imagined .... have you tried on another system?

[bodiebill]

When I find the time, I will built an Arch Linux system and see how it goes...

[Miska]

12 hours ago, bodiebill said:

 

So does that mean that this kernel supports Amanero LE (little-endian) and BE (big-endian)? 

 

I am currently using this kernel:

GentooPlayer GNU/Linux, con Linux x86_64-4.19.5-rt-rt4-MIN-GP1

Maybe try another kernel?

 

Using the 1099c firmware and upsampling to DSD256, the audio command gives:
card0   USB Audio card          usb3  --> 16d0:071a     Amanero Technologies Combo384
card0   STATUS  --> access: RW_INTERLEAVED format: DSD_U32_LE subformat: STD channels: 2 rate: 352800 (352800/1) period_size: 32768 buffer_size: 131072

 

so this looks like 1099c is little-endian. And of course 2005be is big-endian.

 

Or maybe I should use an alternate setting 2 when flashing the 2005be firmware? 

 

A bit over my head, but I am happy to learn...

 

There are both little-endian and big-endian versions of the Amanero firmware. 1099c is little-endian and then there was a separate big-endian version of that one. My driver code detects these correctly (as you can see from @antonellocaroli's post above).

 

Most of the Amanero problem started when people were lazy to fix their Linux software to work with little-endian hardware and demanded Amanero to support big-endian instead. Which created additional problem because the MCU on Amanero is natively little-endian (just like PC's). Well, now we still don't have a functional Amanero firmware. While fixing the Linux software to work correctly with little-endian devices would have taken like one hour of work. So here we go. </rant>

 

P.S. HQPlayer has always supported both big- and little-endian formats.

 

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

Most of the Amanero problems started when people were lazy to fix their Linux software to work with little-endian hardware and demanded Amanero to support big-endian instead.

 

Thanks for the explanation, Miska.

Isn't it surprising then that the problem described above (hissing noise after approx. 10 minutes) occurs with Amanero firmware 2005be, which is big-endian, and not with 1099c, which is little-endian?

[Miska]

22 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Isn't it surprising then that the problem described above (hissing noise after approx. 10 minutes) occurs with Amanero firmware 2005be, which is big-endian, and not with 1099c, which is little-endian?

 

Those small devices don't have so much resources, so more one tries to stuff there, harder it is to get everything fit and work properly. For those, all small things matter, for big computers like PC's same thing wouldn't be even noticeable.