Audiolinux Server configurations, Software, Hardware, and Listening Impressions

[Bricki]

1 hour ago, lmitche said:

 

Later, I changed the NUC server power setting in the bios to low power just the I7 endpoint. This change delivered the best presentation I have ever heard of "Midnight Sugar" from the Three Blind Mice. Breathtaking.

 

So there you go! Any questions?

 

Larry

Does the low power setting reduce the TDP to 10w from 15w? I left the power as is in my sonicTransporter i5 but I might try having a fiddle with it now...the BIOS on the sonicTransporter is a bit utilitarian compared to the nuc but hopefully I can find a similar low power setting.

 

Can a similar low power tweak be done on the NUC7CJYH? Or is the only option there the slider bars I mentioned in the other thread that you said were good if you wanted to power from an LPS 1.2 but had no effect on SQ?

[Bricki]

I have selected this Max battery setting in the BIOS of my sonicTransporter i5 AL roon server. Previously I have moved it from turbo to non-turbo and heard an increase in SQ.

 

After Larry mentioned low power mode (reducing the TDP) on his server was beneficial I decided to try some settings to achieve the same result.. after selecting Max battery I have heard a quieter sound with a darker background that has better separation and more depth. I am hearing more textures on vocals and more color in piano... I also think it is more relaxed...I won't be changing it back off Max battery that's for sure 😁👍

[Bricki]

5 hours ago, bobfa said:

I am thinking about how to follow in your footsteps a little bit.  I have a ST i7 DSP and I am going to try AL on it.  I will have to setup bridging but there appears to be some direction on how to do that.  

Yeah definitely try it and tell us what you think...Audiolinux on my sonicTransporter has had a very nice impact...and the BIOS tweaking is still going on 😁

[Bricki]

21 hours ago, gsquared said:

 

Yes I agree, that is excellent advice.

 

Thanks @LTG2010 for the simplest solution.

Sometimes I have had your issue and I have resolved it by simply going back into the BIOS and reselecting my USB stick as the primary boot device...it seems that sometimes if you go into the BIOS and make changes and then save them without your boot USB stick then the BIOS seems to automatically change your boot settings... Hopefully your USB stick isn't corrupted

[Bricki]

1 hour ago, gsquared said:

 

I just booted into BIOS with the working usb stick and I see under Boot Order UEFI the Boot Drive shows USB: SanDisk. When I restart with the original usb stick (the one containing my Roon DB) in BIOS it does not show the USB stick. Something is amiss with it. I think the only solution is to start over, then copy over my roon files to the new stick as suggested by @LTG2010 and @austinpop

Ok 🤔 sounds like your situation is a little more serious than mine was. I hope you can get it sorted soon 👍😁

[Bricki]

Ok I have divided the CPU in my sonicTransporter i5 into 2 sets using the new menu function...after reboot, I can see that I have 1 core in each set and Audiolinux is running as normal but when I select the menu option to enable roon server nothing happens and roon server won't run 🤔.... I have disabled the CPU core separation function and rebooted and roon server can now load as normal..

 

Has anyone else got the new function to work with roon server running?

 

[Bricki]

8 hours ago, hifi25nl said:

Try this: 

 

1) Enable isolated CPU cores

2) Reboot

3) Start roonserver in configuration menu.

4) If this stays forever on "Please wait..." type Control+C to exit menu

5) Type menu

6) Enable roonserver. You should see now roonserver2 in the final screen.

 

Is this working?

Ok thanks for this.

 

I will try this tonight when I get a chance 😁

 

Thanks

[Bricki]

6 hours ago, tapatrick said:

 

I must say the SQ is superb with recently adding bridging and the latest AL updates using CPU/core isolation on the server.

 

 

Have you tried the core isolation on the endpoint as well?

 

What effect did it have on the SQ of the server?

 

I might try and have another go getting it to work on my server. After my first attempt I got sidetracked with bridging and lots of ground cables for nuc and server

[Bricki]

1 hour ago, tapatrick said:

Hopefully this weekend I'm going to add core isolation on my endpoint to. I tried but didn't work so I've ordered another 4gb ram to see if that will solve it.

 

The core isolation on my server added a small improvement but interestingly also added several second delay before music plays after pressing the play button. I also set up bridging on the server which added an improvement too.

Hmmmmm... interesting...how much RAM do you have on your server with the isolated cores working? Are you running roon server?

 

My server has 8gigs of RAM and I was wondering if that was the reason I couldn't get roon server started after I originally got the cores isolated... I'll have to give it another try when I get enough time but I hope 8gig will be enough... I only have 4gig in my NUC7CJYH running roon bridge so I guess that's a no-go from your experience?

[Bricki]

I have now managed to get the isolated CPU cores working with 8gig of RAM with ramroot still working and running roon server. The CPU in my sonicTransporter i5 is the 5200u.

 

Initial impressions are a higher resolution sound with better image focus and textures, more space around the image and less compressed. It also sounds lower noise, smoother and more engaging. There is less bleeding between images and everything sounds cleaner in a natural way not a sterile way.

 

There is also more depth and you are able to better discern each sound to it's location in a seemingly larger sound stage (perhaps it's the same size but just seems like there's more space in there because the sounds aren't bleeding together)

 

I'm very very happy with this improvement 🤓

[Bricki]

1 hour ago, lmitche said:

Bricki,

 

How did you allocate the cores?

I selected half...the 5200u is only a dual core

[Bricki]

I have the isolated CPU cores working on my NUC7CJYH running roon bridge in ramroot with 4gigs of RAM with similar SQ results to the server.

 

If you haven't tried this already I highly recommend you put it on your to do list. I am very pleased with the results. 🔊😁👍

 

 

[Bricki]

41 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

Nice @Bricki!  We have the same NUC server - NUC7PJYH and Endpoint - NUC7CJYH. I have the isolated cores (4 total, 2 for audio) running on my server for a week but haven't been able to get the endpoint running with isolated core(s) after a couple of attempts.

 

There are only 2 cores on the endpoint, so I've tried half and one but won't show up or play. Not sure why this is and I've added 4GB ram to make 8 in total. I've gone back to headless/Ramboot 0.5 version on the endpoint which is completly stable. Sound is awesome none the less.

 

Which isolated setting have you got it working on? 

The way I got it working was:

 

1. On start up don't load the file system to RAM.

2. Disable ramroot and reboot.

3. Run the core isolation script and reboot. I selected "half".

4. Start and enable roon bridge.

5. Enable ramroot and reboot.

 

I have headless 0.7 with everything updated and 0.99 menu.

 

I hope this helps 😁

 

[Bricki]

After removing the internal os SSD in my server I was reluctant to add any local storage because I was finding it was just adding more noise... I had a Seagate 2tb portable HDD (not self powered) and I was finding that tidal streaming sounded better when there was no local storage on my server at all....tidal doesn't have a lot of my favorite music so I tried adding some local storage that didn't add any noise to my tidal streaming.... I tried a Samsung 128g USB 3.1 USB stick with very fast io speeds... even just having the stick plugged into my USB port on my server tidal streaming took a backwards step.

 

I am now using a micro SD card (obviously not much storage for an entire library) plugged into a USB 3.0 hub and I find that I can't tell the difference when it is plugged into my server or not. I have tried a tiny micro SD to USB adapter that plugs straight into the USB port but because it wasn't USB 3.0 (only USB 2.0) it sounded duller and flatter than the USB 3.0 hub...so @Superdad is definitely right that USB 3.0 hubs have better signal integrity. It was the same micro SD card

 

Thanks Larry for the suggestion of the self powered USB 3.0 enclosure with the HDD... I will try that in the coming months.

 

@lmitche have you found a difference between 5400rpm HDD and 7200rpm HDD? I am thinking of repurposing an older 5400rpm drive for this experiment so I don't want to hamstring the experiment from the start. Also I have run out of LPS's so I'm going to have to add a smps 😕....hmmm lots to think about and more money to spend 😅

[Bricki]

31 minutes ago, lmitche said:

 

2.5 inch HDDs sound terrible.

That explains why my portable drive didn't sound too good 😁.

 

Thanks for the info 👍

[Bricki]

On 4/5/2019 at 1:32 AM, lmitche said:

I did this same change here yesterday. The result was harsh, so as suggested I lowered real-time priority to standard and ended up with a better result than when I started

I followed your advice and got an increase in clarity as well.

 

I set real time priority back to standard in the menu...is it necessary to deactivate isolated CPU cores and choose standard priority for isolated CPU cores as well?? Been a while since I did that and I can't remember what the options were in the isolated CPU cores script but I thought that you had to select real time priority either standard or extreme when setting up isolated CPU cores?

[Bricki]

3 hours ago, lmitche said:

Bricki,

 

Good to know you duplicated my results.

 

I changed the real-time priority to standard on the server side as well. This resulted in a further improvement in sound quality. Percent idle has increased. I am hearing a distinct improvement in tonal contrast and detail in the mids that adds beauty to female vocals and brass instruments.

 

It still isn't as relaxed as I think it can be. Next I'll try moving boot from extreme to standard.

 

SQ is ridiculously good. Small changes are creating increasing returns.

Ok thanks

 

I will try going back to standard real-time priority on the server too.

 

Did you add the asound.conf file on the server as well?

[Bricki]

6 minutes ago, lmitche said:

No, it doesn't matter as there is no DAC.

Ok thanks 😁

[Bricki]

On 4/10/2019 at 10:36 AM, lmitche said:

I changed the real-time priority to standard on the server side as well. This resulted in a further improvement in sound quality. Percent idle has increased. I am hearing a distinct improvement in tonal contrast and detail in the mids that adds beauty to female vocals and brass instruments.

I have changed real time priority to standard on my server now as well with similar results.

 

I have also gone back into the isolated CPU cores script and selected standard for the boot priority... It still boots into BFQjail but I think BFQjail is running in standard mode. I think this results in another improvement.

 

Next step for me is to try BFQjail in standard mode on my endpoint.

 

For those who thought that isolated CPU cores sounded too bright, it might be worth a revisit running everything in standard mode... particularly selecting standard in the isolated CPU cores set up

[Bricki]

Hi Piero @hifi25nl

 

If I update the kernel and run BFQjail in standard mode, am I still using the NUMA disabled kernel? Or do I need to disable isolated CPU cores and boot into standard mode to use the NUMA disabled kernel?

[Bricki]

5 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Try this to verify numa or not. #numactl --sho

Ok thanks 👍. What should the output be if It's disabled? I will try that when I get home from work tonight 😁

[Bricki]

12 hours ago, lmitche said:

Yes, I could hear the change to ACPI from the first note. Nicely done Piero!

 

Clarity improves again. This is really getting ridiculous!

Yes I like what I hear as well... clarity is improved as if a layer of murkiness has been stripped away...

 

After selecting acpi on my Celeron NUC in the menu under the scaling driver field I have written " noorunknowncpufreqdriverisactiveonthiscpu"

 

However I still got an increase in clarity and I haven't even put ramroot back on and it already sounds better

 

 

[Bricki]

I installed the BFQ 5.2 kernel on my server and endpoint... the server worked fine... However the endpoint now won't start roonbridge.. I only have 4GB of RAM in the Celeron nuc so maybe this has finally become a problem.

 

@lmitche do you still only have 4GB of RAM in your endpoint? 

 

I might just have to try with a fresh install...

[Bricki]

54 minutes ago, lmitche said:

No, I run the endpoints with 8gb now.

 

I'd be surprised if that's the problem. What does $systemctl status roonbridge(2) say?

Ok thanks.

 

I'll check when I get home tonight... I had to pull it out for the time being and replace it with my SMS-200... But the 5.2 kernel is working well on the server 👍

[Bricki]

40 minutes ago, lmitche said:

If your are running isolated cores, you may need to configure it again.

Ok thanks...👍 after some of the updates I decided I was better off without isolated cores... At least on the Celeron... Do you still use isolated cores?