Article: CAPS Twenty | Part Two

[gmgraves]

Gorgeous computer, Chris; and well done. If one was doing video editing, 3D animation, or high-end CAD, this would be the computer to have. But, isn’t it rather overkill for a music server? I use a 2010 MacBook Pro with an Intel Core-2 Duo, a 1-Tb SSD and 8-Gigs of RAM, and even with just that, I feel that I’m wasting most of the computer’s capability running only Audirvana, Amazon Music, Audacity, and Audio Hijack (an app for capturing and recording audio from a web page; useful for capturing BBC PROMS concerts (in years when the BBC has PROMs - unlike this one). 
Too bad you’re lumbered with Windows, though. I don’t envy you that! If I had that hardware, I think I would turn it into a HackIntosh. 😉

 

[gmgraves]

15 hours ago, firedog said:

When you are running HQP upsampling to DSD 256 or 512, you need a LOT of horsepower. Especially if you also run convolution-DRC-DSP as Chris does, at least some of the time.

I have a Xeon 1243 and it can choke in Roon upsampling to DSD 256, depending on what else I'm running in DSP, even if it is minor. It's passively cooled, and also gets very hot when running like that.

I also have a PC about to arrive based on the same MB and a i7 10700k for that reason.

Thanks for answering. I don’t do DSD upsampling, so I didn’t realize it took so much horsepower!

Still, Chris’ new computer is nice hardware. But running Windows would sure queer the deal for me. Hell, even Linux is better and Is certainly more efficient.

 

 

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, bobflood said:

Chris mentioned that getting Roon and HQP to run together on the same machine was a major consideration and doing that with Linux OS variants might be a lot more difficult. Using Win 10 does give a lot of flexibility but it comes at the cost of added complexity. I have been using some form of Windows based system for almost 10 years now and have probably tried and used nearly every Windows enhancer out there and sadly they all make a noticeable improvement. This is likely due to the fact that Windows has so much extraneous crap running that it does detract from music performance. Win 10/64 Home has 160 processes running when idle. I have my machine down to 120 and it has made a noticeable improvement in the sound quality.

You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head! If you’ve ever seen the actual Windows 10 code You will notice literally thousands of branches that no longer go ANYWHERE! These are features and operation modes that have been changed, updated, or simply eliminated. Why the associated codes and branches haven’t been removed from the OS code in order to make the OS more compact (and certainly faster), is, to me, incomprehensible. It must be a cost-related issue. I can’t see any other reason...