Finding "That Goldilocks Moment!"

[bobfa]

 

Over the years, I may have been chasing rainbows or dreaming.  What I think I have been doing is trying to find is:  That Goldilocks Moment! -- The Porridge, the Chair, the Bed.  All perfect!

 

I feel there are many of these moments in my audio system journey.   At one point, it was an Akai Reel to Reel tape deck and some Koss Pro4AA headphones!  Simpler times?  Then it was a Phillips GA212 turntable, and Sony integrated amp and B&O speakers.  How many times did I spin The Dark Side of the Moon?  Today, things are changing faster than ever.  But I have found some exciting moments again.  The Schiit Yggdrasil DAC was one of them.  The Schiit Lyr3 Headphone amp is another.  While they are exciting moments, they are not centered well, they sit on the edges of things.  

 

At the core of digital music, playback are some fascinating components.  Like many others here on AS, there has been much focus on playback software, operating systems, and the associated hardware. I am on the backside of my review of the Allo USBridge Sig hardware.  This little box is the beginning of a new Goldilocks moment that is still dropping into place for me.

When I got the hardware in place, I knew I had found something special.  What I did not know is the journey it is still taking me on.  

 

 

The very first part of that journey was making the music play to see what it did.  What a learning experience, JUST WOW!  What I am finding is how much care goes into all of this software we are using.  Most of my focus has been on X86 hardware, macOS, Windows, AudioLinux, and finally, Euphony.  On the X86 platforms, I am sold that the Euphony Stylus software system is a Goldilocks moment.  That combination of a fan-less X86 box with Optane storage and a Linear Power supply is Magic!  

 

 

As I have been looking around the computer audio world, there is much focus on small low power computing systems that can sound great.  I have had a bunch of them in my systems over time as incremental improvements — the various models of rendu devices or the SMS-200 devices, to name a few.  In my systems, time has proven them to be great at improving the sound of my stereo!  

 

It was not till the arrival of the Allo USBridge Sig that I am at another Goldilocks Moment. There is more to the story. First, there is software.  Oh my is there so much software do deal with, learn, test, listen to, and manage.  Out of all of the work, I think I have found a center point to pivot around.  First, it is the Linux Music Player Daemon. MPD is the best sounding software I have heard in this space.  What is exciting is the MoOdeAudio has an excellent little system built around MPD that helps to create this moment.  I have circled the wagons multiple times, and MoOde stands out. I have been using their player software and as either a UPnP endpoint or a Squeezelite endpoint.

 

For local music playback from say a NAS or other local drive, the MoOde player in a web browser works very nicely. It has the bonus of a nice Internet Radio setup. You can also use other software to play to it for streaming services.  You can set it up for Airplay or Spotify Connect.  The real key here is the renderer software.  You can use LMS or Roon to the Squeezelite software or stick with UPnP and use Audirvana+.  I cannot wait to try Euphony Stylus to UPnP!

 

 

Over the last week I have been using Audirvana on a MacMini as the hub of this system for the user interface.  I have their A+ app on the devices in the house that play music on the stereo.

 

 

In the listening, I have done the combination of MoOde Software with the Allo USBridge Sig has become my latest Goldilocks Moment!

 

[matthias]

12 hours ago, bobfa said:

Over the last week I have been using Audirvana on a MacMini as the hub of this system for the user interface.  I have their A+ app on the devices in the house that play music on the Stereo.

 

Very curious about your impressions.

 

Matt

[Cebolla]

On 11/25/2019 at 9:43 PM, bobfa said:

The real key here is the renderer software.  You can use LMS or Roon to the Squeezelite software or stick with UPnP and use Audirvana+.  I cannot wait to try Euphony Stylus to UPnP!

 

You could also use LMS with the UPnP renderer, via the UPnP/DLNA Bridge 3rd party LMS plugin - may be an interesting exercise to compare the setup to LMS with Squeezelite.

 

BTW, are you sure you don't mean Euphony Stylus to Squeezelite rather than to UPnP? It doesn't appear to support UPnP renderers, but does support Squeezelite players:

https://euphony-audio.com/euphony-features/

[bobfa]

1 hour ago, Cebolla said:

 

You could also use LMS with the UPnP renderer, via the UPnP/DLNA Bridge 3rd party LMS plugin - may be an interesting exercise to compare the setup to LMS with Squeezelite.

 

BTW, are you sure you don't mean Euphony Stylus to Squeezelite rather than to UPnP? It doesn't appear to support UPnP renderers, but does support Squeezelite players:

https://euphony-audio.com/euphony-features/

There is a “alpha” test version of Euphony that is starting to work with UPnP.  Very Rough right now.  

 

[bobfa]

Goldilocks just got a Sound Quality Upgrade!

 

http://moodeaudio.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=1929

 

 

MoOde 6.4 is out.  UPGRADE, Your ears will thank you.👍🏻❤️👏

 

[the_bat]

As a matter of interest, what buffer settings are you using for the Squeezelite renderer under Moode for use with Roon, and have you found they make much difference?

 

I'd really miss Roon Radio and I'd like to get the best out of it.

 

Thanks

 

Alan

[bobfa]

18 minutes ago, the_bat said:

As a matter of interest, what buffer settings are you using for the Squeezelite renderer under Moode for use with Roon, and have you found they make much difference?

 

I'd really miss Roon Radio and I'd like to get the best out of it.

 

Thanks

 

Alan

I did not play with buffers.  Left them at their defaults.

[the_bat]

Thanks

 

[bobfa]

1 hour ago, the_bat said:

As a matter of interest, what buffer settings are you using for the Squeezelite renderer under Moode for use with Roon, and have you found they make much difference?

 

I'd really miss Roon Radio and I'd like to get the best out of it.

 

Thanks

 

Alan

With the new version of MoOde 6.4 I am going back and re-listening to a bunch of different configurations.  First up is Roon ROCK on a NUC to MoOde as a squeezelite endpoint.  

 

ROUND 10. Who will win?  Goldilocks, The Three Bears, or the Porridge?  I hope it is my ears!

[k-man]

I’ve had a few Goldilocks moments along the way, but my audio journey goes more like this:

 

 

 

 

[bobfa]

5 hours ago, bobfa said:

With the new version of MoOde 6.4 I am going back and re-listening to a bunch of different configurations.  First up is Roon ROCK on a NUC to MoOde as a squeezelite endpoint.  

 

ROUND 10. Who will win?  Goldilocks, The Three Bears, or the Porridge?  I hope it is my ears!

 

 

Goldilocks Redux

Now that I have found software that I love for sound quality, I have to figure out what I like for controlling the playback of music.

 

Over the past couple of months, I have been using Linux MPD, providing UPnP endpoint API.  While this kicks Roon out of the picture, other software works in this space. There are many lows and a few highs in User Interface and functionality.  

 

I am using the two best-sounding endpoints I have in-house, the Allo USBridge Sig and the Sonore Signature Rendu SE Optical.

 

On the Allo, I have found the MoOde OS sounds the best of what I have tested to date, and it has a rather lovely implementation of the player software. Using your web browser, you connect to the web-server in MoOde and control playback.  You have access to the local library and Internet Radio.  With the Allo, I can attach a keyboard, mouse, and display to do local and internet radio playback.  Note that a 4K display attached to the Allo was slowing operation down a lot.

 

On the Sonore, they have provided YMPD, which is a rudimentary folder browser and queue builder that also runs in the browser.  All I can say is that it plays music.  There is not a way to attach a display to the Sonore.

 

Trying to move up the ladder a bit, I add a smartphone or a tablet to the mix to run UPnP control apps. I have been using Bubble UPnP on Android and MConnect on iOS; both are very functional and bring in streaming services.  Neither of them can handle a library with 79,000 tracks of local music.  They are slow; they repeatedly re-fetch things from the library.  I do not use Android as a primary tool, so I spent less time with Bubble.  NOTE: I have tried several others, but these two rose to the top quickly for me.  I may be doing something wrong here, but this is just not fun.  

 

To bring the experience up a notch I had to add some additional computing hardware to the mix.  I have a 2014 MacMini and an Intel i7 NUC I can use. 

Since I had found that MPD was my "best" software play on the endpoint, I cannot merely run say LMS or Roon.  I started to play with Jriver Media Center, but it just feels old and weird to me.  It was not cooperating to play to UPnP, and I just gave up!  I had used Audirvana 3.2, so I updated it to 3.5, and I gave it a try. It very nicely finds the endpoints and makes music.  Their mobile apps seem to work well. I am glad they are paid for apps so that it hopefully supports their continued development.  I find some of the UX choices a bit different, or maybe odd.  The one thing I can do that is just so refreshing is to move around my library and streaming services a lot faster than even with Roon.  

 

So I paused and just listened for a few days and I wrote up the thread starter here. 

 

The beat does still go on; I am started to see how the Euphony Stylus with UPnP is coming along.

 

But WAIT, there is more!  REALLY!

 

This week MoodeAudio released MoOde 6.4, and the sound quality has improved rather markedly.  But, I do note that there is more "edge" to the highs I do not like.   With only a couple of days and not many hours of listening, I am trying a course change.

 

 I wonder if the Sound Quality improvements carry over to Squeezelite?  Just because I have the hardware, I installed Roon ROCK on my Fan-less NUC.  I connected an external HD for music and finally connected it to the Fiber Optic network with the Sonore opticalModule.  All powered by the HDPLEX-200. 
 
 I can now A/B with a software switch on MoOde between Stand-alone UPnP and Roon to Squeezelite.
 
We will have to wait for the listening results!

[soares]

Bob, thank for sharing your evaluations with us. I Have a pretty low level knowledge of informatics and I am not even sure if the question makes sense... I am currently use a Innous zen with Roon is squeeze mode with an uR with squeeze lite + iR before the Dac.  Between the zen and the uR an eR. The sound is sublime. Would it be possible to use this configuration with the Sig? If yes Bob, would you say that the Sig would improve the SQ I already have with the uR?

 Thank you, Jorge

[bobfa]

14 hours ago, soares said:

Bob, thank for sharing your evaluations with us. I Have a pretty low level knowledge of informatics and I am not even sure if the question makes sense... I am currently use a Innous zen with Roon is squeeze mode with an uR with squeeze lite + iR before the Dac.  Between the zen and the uR an eR. The sound is sublime. Would it be possible to use this configuration with the Sig? If yes Bob, would you say that the Sig would improve the SQ I already have with the uR?

 Thank you, Jorge

Jorge,

 

I cannot give you a direct comparison as I do not have an UltreRendu to compare to.   I have not gotten an etherRegen to put into my system so I do not know what it would do for me, yet..

 

My testing to date is as follows. Playback using only the USBridge Sig and MoOde OS.  Then with MoOde OS set in Squeezelite with Roon on my NUC (Roon ROCK). (I will update my system diagram today).  I have not tested bridging or much of anything else.    I have done a little swapping between Ethernet and Fiber Optic network connections on the USBridge Sig and I am not hearing any difference.  

 

I can make two definitive statements about my system.  No endpoint I have tested sounds better than the USBridge Sig running MoOde 6.4 stand-alone .  Second there is still a difference/improvement in sound quality running with Roon server to the USBridge Sig as a Squeezelite renderer.  

 

There are more folks out there listening to the USBridge Sig now.  I am very interested in what others say.

 

Bob

[matthias]

19 minutes ago, bobfa said:

Second there is still a difference/improvement in sound quality running with Roon server to the USBridge Sig as a Squeezelite renderer.  

 

Bob,

any comparison of this configuration vs. Audirvana > UPnP > MoOde 6.4/UBS?

Thanks

 

Matt

[bobfa]

That is one of the tests I have not finished yet.  Before I brought Roon back into the picture I do not think I could here any difference between using  any UPnP player to the USB Sig or just playing in the USB Sig on it’s own.  I am not sure I understand the network traffic completely on these configurations yet to develop a better sense of what is going on.  

 

I am surprised about what I am hearing with Roon.  I have to go back and get some time listening.   (Work getting in the way of music....)

[soares]

Quite helpful Bob. Thank you so much! Will continue to follow closely your observations.

Cheers Jorge

[pritaudio]

I am using the usbridge signature with picoreplayer lms and squeezelite.

I am using iPeng iOS and orange squeeze android and squeezelite x on win10.

The limitation is that I cannot have lms running alongside Roon.

So far I am disappointed in the quality of sound. My Sonos connect sounds similar but with less soundstage.

my other equipment is rme adi 2 dac and Hifiman ananda headphones.

no special ps5 used.

so I’m not sure if the partnering electronics is not resolving enough to identify the differences.

 

many more os to try though.

[bobfa]

Over time When I was using the USBRidge Sig I found that GentooPlayer linux worked pretty darn well.  I used it as a Squeezelite endpoint for Roon.  

 

I only really tested with the Shanti power supply.  

 

There are so many places where things can go sideways on you.  

 

[bobfa]

I just added a follow-up to my USBridge Sig review.  It is very applicable to this thread.  There are a couple of other updates around the forum that follow along:

 

The following is a Huge Goldilocks moment: