Popular Post guiltyboxswapper Posted May 13, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted May 13, 2020 2 hours ago, Hauser said: Nenon's server build thread has inspired me to consider building my first server, not that I'm unhappy with the Aries, but curious to see what more may lie ahead. I had an opticalRendu with the MPAudio LSIB PSU. My host system, a Ryzen 3900X with a dirty SMPS PSU but Apacer industrial RAM, armed with a JCAT USB XE and the same MPAudio LSIB powering the XE card sent the opticalRendu packing. The sonore opticalRendu / Signature Rendu optical is very well "received" by many as well. The real shocker is the fact I can run HQPlayer from the same "noisy" machine and it still exceeds the opticalRendu and not in a small way at all. With the previous gen JCAT USB card, using a previous gen CPU/Mobo (intel 6800K), running a 2 box setup was the ideal path for HQPlayer. For HQPlayer it seems sending 50mbit/s over the network to another endpoint - even by optical - means a huge loss in dynamics across the spectrum. Colour me surprised. Iving, matthias, Marcin_gps and 2 others 5 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 3 hours ago, Nenon said: There is no comparison between the Sonore products and the custom DIY servers we are building. But our hand built servers are quite more expensive too. Oh yes, not even price comparable really nor the effort. Also took some fiddling to make my cooling quiet enough to stick the PC near everything. Not entirely happy about SMPS next to hifi stuff, but I do have 6x https://ifi-audio.com/products/ac-ipurifier/ in place which really do make a difference. On another note, has anyone tried purchasing an EMI/RFI sensor? I have tried one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B071WPV8YK/ but I think its time to find something even better. Quite the eye opener in terms of observations. Gavin1977 1 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 3 minutes ago, Foggie said: Aren't these comparisons of the extreme and similar a bit skewed? 99.9% of the people will never have / afford such a device. Agree. 4 minutes ago, Foggie said: I am genuinely curious though and have toyed with the idea, just haven't found a conceivable way to test the "theory". I think there has been an advancement in recent tech; I was previously a endpoint type till JCAT XE + Ryzen 2900X came along. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 1 hour ago, Foggie said: Yeah for sure. Sounds like a great setup you have I can assure you there's nothing special about my server 🙂 hence puzzled it even worked. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 6 hours ago, seeteeyou said: USBridge Sig was the very first but it's only good for Compute Module 3 Lite Don't get too excited, it was alright "for its price point" but easily beaten by other ARM streamers with quite some ease. 6 hours ago, seeteeyou said: At last we'll have something with x86 instead of ARM, could that actually meet / beat ASUS WS C621E SAGE or what? It's not all about power... there's something going on with modern x86 architectures that no ARM device to date I've heard can match whatsoever. And I was for quite a while feeding the x86 system with a "dirty" SMPS (but USB card powered externally) and it was still night/day. Link to comment
Popular Post guiltyboxswapper Posted October 25, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted October 25, 2020 20 minutes ago, seeteeyou said: LOL, you just made a certain claim about X without bothering to specify what you actually did. How about stating what kinda apples-to-apples comparison was done? Volume matching? Same distro? Same kernel? Same software player on the client / server side? Same network tweaks? Same PSU with the same voltage? Same cables? Same input on the same DAC? Game on! No that's a fair point Tried USB Sig with: - Shanti PSU and no EtherRegen; PSU is certainly weak point. - Shanti PSU and with EtherRegen and GentooPlayer "stock" kernel (HQPlayer NAA) - Shanti PSU and with EtherRegen and GentooPlayer with RT kernel, and "run from memory" mode (HQPlayer NAA again) - MPAudio PSU and with EtherRegen and GentooPlayer with RT kernel, and "run from memory" mode (HQPlayer NAA again) Tried it on 2 DACs, same USB cables, able to match volume no problem. Different kernel combos as ref'd above. The baseline comparison was the opticalRendu and opticalModule in comparison using the same PSU set at 7v instead of 5v, same network etc... it wasn't close. Yes the Sonore stuff costs more, for sure. Honestly its great "for the money" and I'm sure it'll beat older gen stuff no problem (such as the Aurender mentioned). But to laud it as some kind of magical device that beats all current stuff? Nah. This is something that gets thrown about re: Allo products, but I've now tried many of them, and again good VFM but nothing that special. PS: the Shanti PSU is a real let down compared to MPAudio. I thought I was having issues with mine, but others with the same Shanti PSU were finding their MPAudio modules were also walking past it too. Gavin1977 and Exocer 1 1 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 21 minutes ago, seeteeyou said: FWIW running a (WAY) stripped-down OS with the right CPU affinity etc. turned out to make a HUGE difference I tried this too.... its not very stable! I found it cut out a lot with not only NAA DSD rate, but even PCM content. Unlistenable. @seeteeyou did you own any of this Allo stuff? Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted October 25, 2020 Share Posted October 25, 2020 27 minutes ago, seeteeyou said: Quote You‘ll enjoy the USBridge Sig! I‘ve got mine, along with the Shanti LPS. The combo beats my Aurender N100H hands down (this unit costs 3,000 €!)! In my system, Roon sounds very sweet with this unit! https://darko.audio/2015/09/aurender-n100h-music-serverstreamer-review/ The Aurender is a 2015 unit. 2015 ! Ofcourse it beats the Aurender.... I'd be sad if a new 2019 design didnt. Link to comment
Popular Post guiltyboxswapper Posted January 11, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted January 11, 2021 I have one of the first HDPlex 500w units, which has proven to be very decent (though I don't have anything else to compare it to that's not SMPS!). I dont use the LT3045 outputs mind. One of the biggest surprises however is using both 12v outputs (PCIE and CPU EPS) to feed both ATX12v sockets on my motherboard (x570 + Ryzen 3900x). Instead of placing most of the CPU 12v load on a single rail, its now spread across the 2 rails which clearly results in a obvious across-the-board uptick in sound quality with HQPe running. It also means I have a good upto 25amps available to the CPU. And as always for me at least, the shortest cables ATX cables win. NanoSword, Gavin1977, lmitche and 3 others 5 1 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 4 minutes ago, Nenon said: The Taiko ATX is a game changer in my opinion. Cheaper and better in most cases, especially for this dual Xeon server build... I would not be surprised if it makes all other high-end ATX power supplies obsolete in the future. Time will tell. It's particularly interesting for those of us who upsample using HQPlayer, which can be particularly current heavy. This design already appears much more power efficient too. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 10 minutes ago, Nenon said: It can do 40A continuously on the 12V rail if that's of any use to you. And it's 99% efficient. Depending on the input voltage and the load, it can get up to 99.3% efficiency. In fact the most inefficient component I have in the prototype is the transformer. Absolutely heavenly. Some linear designs barely get to 50% efficient. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 6 minutes ago, Nenon said: And the new AMD CPUs look very promising Has there been any reports on 5000 series from a sound quality perspective yet? I have a 5800x in my workstation (couldn't get a hold of 5900x at time) and can swap in place of 3900x, but not seen much to motive me yet. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 19 hours ago, Nenon said: The last comment I want to make is that no matter how advanced the SMPS technology becomes, to me a well designed LPS is still the best option for powering low current devices. I do power my USB card on my server with a Sean Jacobs DC4 LPS and that makes a hell of difference. To be honest what very high quality SMPS options do we have at low voltages? The likes of Benchmark Audio have been using SilentSwitchers to achieve this with SMPS, but they're often not implemented in any high (1a+) current form nor do they get much attention on the whole. So yes certainly for now LPS is the way to go. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 Have any of the Solarflare SFN8522 or similar users tried https://github.com/Xilinx-CNS/onload ? As described it allows Linux apps to bypass the core networking stack for Onload's ultra high performance and highly configurable network stack instead. Installing is relatively easy, simply clone + run /scripts/onload_install provided your Linux distro has the necessary build tools. I've installed the latest version to find another uptick in SQ, especially in musical transients / flow. This was in AudioLinux, using the standard latency profile and LTS 5.4 RT kernel. There are many other profiles, some will even allow you to cache/buffer more in-memory (throughput profiles), amongst other things. Highly customisable. https://github.com/Xilinx-CNS/onload/tree/master/scripts/onload_profiles Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 36 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said: The Solarflare SFN8522 is absolutely awesome! A dream in terms of sound. I reported here: Its worth making an effort with OnLoad - you're only half utilising the card at the moment 😊 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 1 minute ago, StreamFidelity said: Can OnLoad also be set in Windows? As far as I know, this only works on Linux. Linux only. Uses some of the newer kernel features (express data path) as well as eBPF to essentially "intercept" network calls and push them down its own accelerated/optimised path. It was pretty easy to install, so well worth a try should you be tempted. StreamFidelity 1 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 5 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said: The JCAT NET Card FEMTO is well behind Solarflare. I don't have the XE version. Did you externally power your NET Femto card too? Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 6 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said: I was happy to get it to run well. According to the manual, I have set the network card adapter to the lowest possible latency. Have a look at this: DSD 256 x 48. The sound is fantastic. I would also try the "max throughput" option as that invokes a certain amount of in-memory caching/batching. I'll be trying that myself sometime this week. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 5 minutes ago, seeteeyou said: Just wondering if WSL 2 were any good for OnLoad? Nah, as the Linux kernel runs virtually on top of Windows OS (hence subsystem), so no real benefits to be honest. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 1 minute ago, StreamFidelity said: Yes, with the JCAT Optimo 3 Duo. An absolutely excellent LPS. And yet, powered by the motherboard, the Solarflare 8522 card is so much better. I have pondered whether its worth buying another one of these Solarflare cards and seeing if we can externally feed it DC, given how good it is from just motherboard power alone. StreamFidelity 1 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 Just now, StreamFidelity said: I think that runs contrary to low latencies. The manual says: There are three metrics that should be considered when tuning an adapter: • Throughput • Latency • CPU utilization Transactional (request-response) network applications can be very sensitive to latency whereas bulk data transfer applications are more dependent on throughput. ... Turning off interrupt moderation wants: - generate the most interrupts - give the highest CPU utilization - give the lowest latency - give the biggest reduction in peak throughput. Yes, however in doing so it will have a different processing behaviour to the latency profile so worth a try. In my case it'll only take a few mins to switch over. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 1 minute ago, StreamFidelity said: Linux scared me off too. I don't know about it. if I then read through the numerous Linux installation problems with the HQPlayer, I don't feel like doing it. Solarflare provides the appropriate Windows drivers. Except for OnLoad, everything can be used. 1 minute ago, StreamFidelity said: 10 minutes ago, MarcelNL said: I also toyed with the idea of installing an SFP based network card, but I'm dreading the fight with Linux... For the Solarflare cards, recent kernels already have a (slim, non-onload) network driver installed ready to go. FWIW I find HQPlayer embedded to be absolutely rock solid under Linux, dont have to tweak it for weeks at a time, but yes can understand there's a bit of a learning curve. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 1 minute ago, MarcelNL said: good catch, on the brink of ordering...I read it as the 8552 is compatible with SFP+ which should mean it is compatible with the 1Gbit SFPs I have in transit. I think myself and @StreamFidelity use the non-plus version. MarcelNL 1 Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 1 minute ago, StreamFidelity said: I don't have the plus version. And I'm just noticing that this card doesn't support OnLoad at all. One less reason to switch to Linux. 😄 Odd my kernel logs show the card being picked up and accelerated, also in the release notes SFN8522 is listed as a supported Onload card. Link to comment
guiltyboxswapper Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 57 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said: I don't have the plus version. And I'm just noticing that this card doesn't support OnLoad at all. One less reason to switch to Linux. 😄 Here is an overview: 8000 Series 10/40GbE Network Adapters https://www.xilinx.com/publications/product-briefs/SFN8522-product-brief.pdf "Capabilities such as ultra-low latency, Onload® kernel bypass, class-leading clock synchronization accuracy providing MIFID II readiness, ServerLock® NIC-based firewall, SolarCapture® and more, can be enabled to run on any SFN8500 adapter on the network, making this the one Ethernet adapter to deploy across your data center or cloud infrastructure." OnLoad is available to all 8500 series it seems, looks like website's wrong. It's not a hardware feature per say, its a software feature designed to work with Solarflare cards. Looks like you might have to dust off a USB memory stick and give Linux a try someday @StreamFidelity 🤣 Link to comment
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