Audiolinux Server configurations, Software, Hardware, and Listening Impressions

[luisma]

Thank you Larry @lmitche for starting this thread, I believe I can move over here instead of posting on the HQP and NAA and Novel SQ threads, this can be the specific thread alternative for hardware tinkering.

 

I have seen your posts here and there before and I wanted to ask you something (which I believe the answer is YES but just confirming)

 

Before using AL were you using custom Ubuntu install with @Miska s boot image? if so then you consider AL to be better suited for Server+NAA combination than of the shelf Linux running custom kernel, packages etc. because of the nature of AL itself? I'm curious to know the answer?

 

If you don't mind I will try to contribute to this thread myself, I have a similar configuration like many of you and I have been gradually improving my system to the point it sounds nothing like it did before when I started, which brings me to another question, since you all already stated and confirmed that the server plays an important role in SQ (I know we cannot quantify that percentage of influence right now) wouldn't be advisable to run servers with low TDP at the expense of using simpler upsampling filters (HQP and ROON)? that would be another question what represents more in terms of SQ? a simpler filter with a low TDP server or a better more resource intensive filter on a high performance workstation? assuming the power supplied to such server is coming from a good SQ LPS in both cases.

 

I know you are undergoing drastic system changes and testing new hardware so it is hard to evaluate, I just moved from a house with GREAT high ceiling big spaces sound to a smaller place with low ceiling, even different tiled floors etc. and my system is completely different sounding so I lost my reference. I even replaced the tubes on my pre amp which changed all sound as well so I am trying to stabilize everything (I have new speakers coming in next week so I feel like running chicken without a head

 

 

[luisma]

14 hours ago, lmitche said:

No, I have never run Ubuntu here

Thanks for the reply, I am currently running Ubuntu so don't really know (unless I try it) if AL represents an improvement, somehow I got the feeling it should not but you never know unless you try  

 

14 hours ago, lmitche said:

I am surprised that Roon running in native mode sounds so good

Well let me start saying I don't consider myself one of Jussi's "groupies" but his product is definitely outstanding and my ears will prefer it over Roon's for some margin.

 

14 hours ago, lmitche said:

So, at least at the moment, I'm running a low tdp NUC endpoint and a high tdp server configured in low tdp mode, all bit perfect in Roon. 

Well said, and seems the high TDP server configured with low TDP settings might create some differences, I'm planning on keep running HQPE but with not so intensive filters and with low TDP settings like you are doing, I agree Roon filters are even less intensive in CPU usage than HQPE. Also filters will affect more the CPU if upsampling DSD256 than upsampling PCM 384 by a lot and I prefer DSD upsampling myself.

 

Thank you again

 

[luisma]

Will try to post a schematic of my system now and my system in 1 / 2 weeks from now with the new speakers etc. it will help to keep everything track for the forum and my own purposes.

[luisma]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

My bootable images are not related to Ubuntu in any shape or form. And they are not off the shelf Linux either, but completely custom built. AudioLinux is based on ArchLinux (?) AFAIK, so it is closer to off the shelf Linux than my bootable images?

Apologies, I mistakenly thought the  images were based on Ubuntu by exchanged emails and forums posting with you when I started using HQPE, that's why I decided to go with Ubuntu and your custom kernel. By off the shelf I was referring to Linux packages and kernels not Linux entire distributions.

 

So the bootable image contains HQPE I assume, or is it Linux HQP? maybe I would be better of running the bootable image which is already optimized

 

5 hours ago, Miska said:

Depends how much you are trading on the filters. By using -2s filters you are not practically losing anything. While bigger changes have drastic and measurable differences in the DAC output. With a good DAC, server has very small or no impact on DAC output.

 

I rather use high power server to run all the DSP and then low power NAA for connecting to the DAC when the DAC connection is sensitive.

That answers my question about the server then, when you say "good DAC" I guess it means the AC power supplied and circuit quality and design inside the DAC, not so much the actual DAC upsampling capablities.

 

[luisma]

Thank you, I understand now, I have Roon and HQPE running along on the same server 18.04 NUCi7 and Roon Bridge / NAA on Celeron with 18.04.

 

I am going to try the bootable image as well to see if there are any differences (at least noticeable) on SQ

 

[luisma]

11 minutes ago, lmitche said:

More like off topic.

 

My write-up was about the $485 Hdplex 200 watt AC to DC power supply used in combination with the Hdplex 250 watt DC to DC supply to power a standard motherboard and processor. The latter is out of production and has been replaced with a 400 watt version.

 

Are there other power supplies that could be used for this purpose? Yes of course, many power supply manufacturers have solutions that could be used for this purpose including the Hdplex solution that you reference. Is it possible that they will sound better? Maybe, I wouldn't know until they are heard in my system.

 

I would be pleased to test and write-up any of these potential solutions. In the meantime the Hdplex 200 watt solution is very musical and enjoyable. With it's multi-rail design this power supply is also a great candidate for powering a NUC server and/or server side peripherals like network gear, or external hard drives.

Thank you Larry for the update. I have been using wifi for streaming from the beginning and I am very pleased with the results. However would like to get validation and your opinion. 

I have an i3 fanless NAA connected with xover cable to a core i7 nuc running roon and HQPE on Ubuntu. The server has wifi on the other leg so it isolated from the network and only connected to the other device. Both are powered by uptone js2. 

This is different that your setup I know but would you consider that's enough isolation? The DAC is a denafrips connected USB to the naa. 

 

[luisma]

3 hours ago, lmitche said:

Luisma,

 

Good question. Until recently I had a similar setup. Let me explain.

 

My system is on the third floor. With no cable to the first floor cable modem and router, I have to use a network extender to get internet service up there. A side benefit of this is isolation from the cable system running into the house. It sounds like you have that isolation with your setup as well.

 

In the prior one box world, I ran a cable from the extender to the server. Later I learned that having a switch ala Mr. Swenson's Netgear fs105 with a ground shunt added value between the server and extender. I was looking forward to replacing this with the EtherRegen someday.

 

Then the NUC endpoint arrived with a WiFi card included in the kit. So rather than add another cable and bridging server NICs, I merely enabled the WiFi card to talk to the extender at 5ghz. This second, or third if you count the wifi backhaul, bit of isolation has worked well. SQ is awesome.

 

When the EtherRegen arrives it will be interesting to replace the NUC wifi link with a wired connection and to compare SQ.

 

I hope this makes sense. It is a bit complicated.

 

Larry

 

It makes perfect sense, I run high quality wireless at my house and speed is excellent that's why I opted for bypassing the ethernet cable to the router but I have wanted to experiment with minimal hardware configs removing wireless, ssd and stuff (bios settings, turbo boost, etc) from the system, I have a fanless computer nuc type as naa and the smaller allo Bridge sounds a little better. Now I am in a path to convert this small nuc in a more minimalistic piece of hardware removing wireless etc and the bios is highly customizable (although rather buggy). 

And since you were trying different settings with power etc wanted your opinion on the isolation thanks 

 

[luisma]

3 hours ago, jcn3 said:

I've been playing around with AL on my NUCs for the last week.  It's been great fun learning a bit about Linux, digging into the BIOS, and of course listening.  

 

Before giving my impressions, a bit of background:

 

* My progression on CA started with a basic CAPS server.  Played around with adding a better USB and a decent R-Core 12V LPS off eBay.  Used JRiver is a single box configuration with music on my Synology NAS.

* Next step was to move to a "two box" approach -- putting Minimserver and BubbleUPNP on my NAS, using JRiver as a simple endpoint.

* Next, replaced the CAPS with a NUC6i5 and a fanless case, ultimately buying AO and Fidelizer (still using Minimserver on my NAS).

* Finally, added Roon and Dirac Live, installing ROCK on a NUC7i5 (with another LPS off eBay) to be the server.  That left the NUC6i5 as the endpoint running Win 10 / AO / Fidelizer / Dirac / Roonbridge.  This has sounded fabulous to me.  My signature shows the rest of my gear -- nice stuff, but clearly at the lower end of the high end.

 

In trying AL, I wanted to see what stripping everything down to the bare minimum would do.  First put AL on the NUC6i5 running Roonbridge.  Stripped down the BiOS as has been recommended, running in memory, Extremed mode, etc.

 

The difference between AL on the endpoint and the Win 10 setup was clear -- AL put sharp edges around everything, clearly delineating instruments in the soundstage (which I liked).  In some ways, the soundstage seemed deeper, too.  Unfortunately, I also lost some low end energy and, more importantly, lost the lushness and beauty of the Win 10 / AO / Fidelizer / Dirac setup -- strings particularly were sharp and edgy.

 

To get the full AL experience, I also got a fanless case for my NUC7i5, increase RAM to 16g, and set up AL as the Roon core, doing all of the optimizations I did on the endpoint.  The difference in doing this was much more subtle, mostly providing a bit more of the etched sound that AL on the endpoint started.

 

As much as I wanted to love AL, for now I've gone back to my Win 10 / AO / Fidelizer / Dirac configuration for the endpoint.  I've got the lushness and beauty back, and the great benefits of Dirac.  I'm keeping AL on the NUC7i5 as the server, allowing me to keep some of the clarity it provides.

 

I know we all hear differently, have different equipment, and of course different rooms.  I'm game to make more changes to make AL work, but I'm not sure where to start.

 

Would love thoughts, recommendations, opinions.  Thanks!

What you are reporting correlates to what others have heard, I suspect it may be related to the DAC used as well, still have to try it. Now I have too many nucs and devices. 

[luisma]

6 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Actually we do, and by the half-dozen: Buy 5 and get the 6th one free! (All in one order; not a retroactive deal.) 

Well it is certainly a deal if you ever plan to use a few more. 

 

BTW what happened to some project of aggregating several LPS 1.2? I remember were serial connected to provide more voltage right? 

[luisma]

On 4/2/2019 at 6:35 PM, LTG2010 said:

On 4/2/2019 at 6:35 PM, LTG2010 said:

To disable it:
Create a file in /etc directory:

asound.conf

the following parameters for the file:

pcm.!default {
        type plug
        slave.pcm hw
}

 

This file exists in the latest version but in /opt/configuration/asound.conf so is the /etc file deprecated? and thank you for posting

 

[luisma]

On 6/14/2019 at 8:34 AM, hifi25nl said:

3 is for CPU0 and CPU1, if all other cores are isolated (CPU2 CPU3 etc.)

 

If you have all cores less the first (CPU0) isolated, the right value should be 1 

Hello Everyone, I'm trying to optimize my AL config following this thread, I have followed Piero's comments and others but still need some help.

 

ENABLING CORES FOR AUDIO (italics are actual text from AL)

How many cores do you want to use exclusively for audio?
1) All but the first
2) Half
3) Only one (random, excluding first)
4) Disable

I select 1 as I would like to use 3 cores for audio and 1 for system

But it shows this

ISOLATED CPU CORES FOR AUDIO: 1

Which confuses me as I understand only ONE core for audio, which statement is correct in this case?

And even more confusing is the cpumask output which is not a number but an F

[audiolinux@alsvr ~]$ cat /sys/bus/workqueue/devices/writeback/cpumask
f

 

ENABLING REALTIME EXPERT CONFIG

This specific option is on the default, what is your experience with it? leave it on or off?
echo 0 >/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck3/check_interval

 

Thanks

[luisma]

Yes I did, this is the menu output

 

cpumask remains at f

 

Edit: ramroot is disabled as I don't have enough memory

 

[luisma]

24 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

How many physical cores do you have? If you have only 2 this is correct.

Isolated cores will disable hyper-threading so if you have core0 and core1 only, if you select all but the first, you should have only the second core (1) isolated.

 

If you have more than 2 physical cores, for example 4, please check the file /boot/loader/entries/audiolinux.conf

You should have isolcpus=1-3 in the kernel line

Thanks Piero, of course HT is disabled, only 2 cores so 1 used for audio

 

It is correct, thanks for the assistance

 

Oh this option

echo 0 >/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck3/check_interval

Is it recommended?

 

 

[luisma]

2 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

I would try all...:

 

echo 1000 > /proc/sys/vm/stat_interval
echo 0 > /sys/bus/workqueue/devices/writeback/numa
echo 1 > /sys/bus/workqueue/devices/writeback/cpumask
echo -1 > /proc/sys/kernel/sched_rt_runtime_us
echo 0 >/sys/devices/system/machinecheck/machinecheck3/check_interval
echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/watchdog
echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/nmi_watchdog

echo 1500 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs
 

The line echo 1 > /sys/bus/workqueue/devices/writeback/cpumask should be used only in your case (general purpose cpu equivalent to CPU0)

Perfect, thank you so much for clarifying

 

 

[luisma]

On 7/4/2019 at 10:33 AM, Gavin1977 said:

BEST

Euphony

Audiolinux (RAM Boot / Extreme)

.

.

.

.

Roon Rock / Audiolinux (Boot from USB)

.

MacBook Pro

WORST

Pardon me asking, when you did this comparison from BEST to WORST did you followed the same exact testing for all OS's and conditions? meaning consistently using the same player (from your 3rd line) in this case ROON? I'm asking because to me these is a difference between ROON playing and STYLUS playing in Euphony (I prefer Stylus) and would like to know your opinion. Thanks

[luisma]

1 hour ago, frederick184 said:

You joined the SR7 club? 😀

Please don't tease Larry, you don't need an SR7 to get good SQ

[luisma]

12 hours ago, lmitche said:

With AL 5 the 4 port Startech Asmedia card has stopped working

Hey Larry, why aren't you running headless 1.4.0? I'm sure you have a valid reason running the full version that's why I'm asking. I was under the impression headless with minimal footprint would "enhance" some things even more.

 

[luisma]

8 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

Convetional wisdom would be that the 8+2 phase design would offer an advantage in terms of power quality & ripple.  A 6 Phase system will reduce ripple by 50%.

Good point, conventional wisdom like you mentioned states that more phases = better voltage regulation but there is also a consensus that the component quality used for the VRM's is critical, all I'm saying is "it is not only about # of phases". Ultimately Larry should be able to tell.

Thanks for providing the phase info on both boards.

 

 

[luisma]

3 hours ago, seatrope said:

Has anyone updated to the 5.2.0rt1 bfq kernel? I’ve done this twice and it kills my Ethernet port... no lights on Ethernet and I lose network connection after update. 

@hifi25nl any thoughts?

If new install update 1st the packages, then the kernel

 

[luisma]

2 hours ago, seatrope said:

Weird. So every time I reboot on kernel 5.2.0 I have to manually reactivate Ethernet using up link set up enp2s0. 

 

That is very strange. @hifi25nl

That's happened to me as well, only on new installs. 

[luisma]

5 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Hey Luismaz who said I was not running headless 1.4.0?

 

Since you mentioned this

12 hours ago, lmitche said:

With AL 5 the 4 port Startech Asmedia

Thought you were referring to 3.5.0

wrong assumption

[luisma]

8 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

What power supply are you using in both cases

Good experiment with the vrms, really it would be something else to stack on top of all this. I'm using different things. As a source mainly a nuc core i7 and most of the time different Naa's fanless core i3, fanless Celeron, allo Bridge. Everything powered by uptone js-2 

 

I'm in the process of getting a fanless chassis to build my ryzen, waiting for the 3950x to be released as I run HQPE and the new modulators are very good but power hungry. Trying to get a turemetal up5 or up10 for this build. Power for this chassis I still don't know what to use, no LPS is capable of powering this at this moment, maybe a fanless seasonic? Still debating. 

But I'm interested on the vrms findings, I was thinking gigabyte for the build 

 

[luisma]

2 hours ago, lmitche said:

I haven't seen a Linux X-windows GUI here since AL headless was introduced

I was the one assuming, sorry, you were referring to kernel 5, thanks for posting 

 

[luisma]

2 hours ago, latenz said:

What would you recommend for highest soundquality in Audiolinux Roon Hqplayer--Setup

Which DAC do you have? that's kind of important here

[luisma]

1 hour ago, latenz said:

Lks 004 with amanero...

Cool so it has its own power no LPS application there. It is a DS DAC so definitely you want to send DSD from HQP to it, DSD512 with the new EC modulators you could use some CPU power so your gaming board and CPU should do at least for DSD256, 512 I'm not so sure, separating Roon's database most of the people in this forum have found it does improvement.