Diretta audio protocol

[Philippe Bill]

"Diretta is a new audio transmission technology over LAN (network line). This technology aims to improve sound quality by keeping the load on the receiver constant, with the sending side of the sound source as the "host" and the receiving side as the "target".

https://www.diretta.link

Sforzato support Diretta https://sfz.world

Development : https://www.megatech.tokyo/products/

[matthias]

On 1/1/2021 at 6:55 AM, Philippe Bill said:

"Diretta is a new audio transmission technology over LAN (network line). This technology aims to improve sound quality by keeping the load on the receiver constant, with the sending side of the sound source as the "host" and the receiving side as the "target".

https://www.diretta.link

Sforzato support Diretta https://sfz.world

Development : https://www.megatech.tokyo/products/

 

I think the best is to load files into RAM and then turn off network completely during playback.

This can be done easily with Wi-Fi but there are new developments with software players which can minimise network activity to nearly zero with copper or fiber ethernet too.

 

Matt

[Patatorz]

You are right this is a very good approach as soon as you can put the right level of data in ram (DSD files...). I have in mind that audirvana provide this kind of RAM loading/reading, not sure about the other. 
any way having a diretta protocol to feed the ram when it is needed could be a bonus.

[matthias]

1 hour ago, Patatorz said:

You are right this is a very good approach as soon as you can put the right level of data in ram (DSD files...). I have in mind that audirvana provide this kind of RAM loading/reading, not sure about the other. 
any way having a diretta protocol to feed the ram when it is needed could be a bonus.

 

I think all of the best players provide loading into RAM, Euphony and TAS as well.

Very interesting is the approach of Taiko Audio Server (TAS). This player seems to be able to "clean" the files from network artefacts before playback so the question is if Diretta can improve the SQ further.

 

Matt

 

[Patatorz]

All the « best player » is your view. What I point is that the idea is nice, implementation is perhaps more difficult depending on the kind of files you are playing and how the ram feeding is done if ram is not enough to feed (Qobuz/tidal streaming, local streaming....).

Thanks for mentioning TAS as I though they were using roon which is not reading from ram if I understanding well.
 

BR

[matthias]

10 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

What I point is that the idea is nice, implementation is perhaps more difficult depending on the kind of files you are playing and how the ram feeding is done if ram is not enough to feed (Qobuz/tidal streaming, local streaming....).

 

Agree,

at the moment I have only 1GB RAM allocated for tracks pre-load with Audirvana (Qobuz only) and it works fine.

 

Matt

[Patatorz]

1Gb allocated to files pre-loading is what... 2-3 albums in hirez ? Perhaps more than enough for most of the users and usage. 
ot makes sense where the player running audirvana or euphony or... is connected to the Dac. If you are using these softwares as servers perhaps a solution like diretta could help. Let me try again :-)

[matthias]

19 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

ot makes sense where the player running audirvana or euphony or... is connected to the Dac. If you are using these softwares as servers perhaps a solution like diretta could help. Let me try again :-)

 

You mean a DAC with Diretta input connected to a server with Diretta output?

But even then you have always some network activity between both.

 

Matt

[seeteeyou]

Maybe it ain't THAT simple then?

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/page/691/?tab=comments#comment-1072512  

On 8/7/2020 at 3:40 PM, Nenon said:

You can do that same test in my system, and although you disconnect the cable while playing, the buffered tracks using the switch with the upgraded clock sound much better. In other words, even if you disconnect the network cable, whatever good or bad things your network does is already embedded in the buffered track somehow. Don't ask me how or why... I wish I could explain all that, but I can't.

 

Pulling the network cable out could help quite a bit, though it might not be necessarily the answer to all problems?

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/61249-the-ultimate-network-solution/

 

OTOH, it would be mighty interesting to insert the network switch between this USB extender

 

http://www.icron.com/products/icron-brand/usb-extenders/lan/usb-2-0-ranger-2304ge-lan/

Quote

Music Server → USB Cable → Input of USB Extender → Network Cable → Network Switch → Network Cable → Output of USB Extender → USB Cable → USB DAC

 

Some network switches actually came with more than 1GB of RAM, that means theoretically we might be able to disable USB on the music server if enough tracks were stored inside a somewhat "unusual" network switch

 

https://mikrotik.com/products/matrix

https://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/data-sheets/en/Documents/ESG-Dell-Force10-S60-Spec-Sheet.pdf

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-Force10-S60-44t-AC-Switch-44-Port-4x-Mini-GBIC-752-00587-01-w-R17GD/163972906818

 

In other words, wouldn't the buffer be getting several steps closer to the USB DAC?

[matthias]

@seeteeyou

Therefore I mentioned that TAS seems to be able to remove network artefacts from the files. That would explain that the files with the better switch sound better even when the network is disconnected (Nenons post).

 

What about the clocking with Diretta, it is not asynchronous like USB.

 

Matt

[plissken]

2 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

You can do that same test in my system, and although you disconnect the cable while playing, the buffered tracks using the switch with the upgraded clock sound much better. In other words, even if you disconnect the network cable, whatever good or bad things your network does is already embedded in the buffered track

 

Just FYI this is 100% horse-pucky. Nothing gets embedded in the data. Data is the data.

[matthias]

Here the info from an earlier thread with valuable comments from @Miska:

 

Matt

[Patatorz]

4 hours ago, matthias said:

 

You mean a DAC with Diretta input connected to a server with Diretta output?

But even then you have always some network activity between both.

 

Matt

Hi Matt, i was not clear enough. I mean there is a lot of different architecture for computer audio. The best way to use the files in RAM is to have a Player/streamer directly linked to a DAC in USB/AES/SPDIF....in this case no need of Diretta protocol as you have a direct link between the player and the dac. The only connected point is with internet in order to bring the streaming from platforms like qobuz. 

If you have an architecture with a server (what Diretta calls HOST) and a renderer (what Diretta calls TARGET) meaning an ethernet connection in between, in this case whereever you have a server managing RAM reading you need to go through an ethernet distribution so Diretta (or other can still makes sense). 

When you mention that TAS (or PinkFaun) could be a good solution reading from RAM it is also because you have the server and renderer in the same platform.

 

Hope i was a bit more clear :-) 

 

Take care.

 

Ludovic 

[Patatorz]

4 hours ago, matthias said:

...

What about the clocking with Diretta, it is not asynchronous like USB.

 

Matt

Don't know....

[plissken]

23 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

Hi Matt, i was not clear enough. I mean there is a lot of different architecture for computer audio. The best way to use the files in RAM is to have a Player/streamer directly linked to a DAC in USB/AES/SPDIF....in this case no need of Diretta protocol as you have a direct link between the player and the dac. The only connected point is with internet in order to bring the streaming from platforms like qobuz. 

If you have an architecture with a server (what Diretta calls HOST) and a renderer (what Diretta calls TARGET) meaning an ethernet connection in between, in this case whereever you have a server managing RAM reading you need to go through an ethernet distribution so Diretta (or other can still makes sense). 

When you mention that TAS (or PinkFaun) could be a good solution reading from RAM it is also because you have the server and renderer in the same platform.

 

Hope i was a bit more clear :-) 

 

Take care.

 

Ludovic 

 

How is this different than say JRiver's play from RAM feature?

[R1200CL]

This protocol is IPv6 only. 
https://www.hifistatement.net/tests/item/2594-diretta-audio-protokoll?start=0

[Patatorz]

Yes

[R1200CL]

Since I noticed many people don’t read links provided, posted text from website. 
My understanding is that the whole point with the protocol, is to reduce rapid changes in power requirements in the digital chain.

So by using ipv6 you get a fixed header? length of 40 instead of ipv4 that varies between 20 to 60, seems to be the key here.

 

So you pay €500 for the SW, and you’re god to go or ? Well, it seems there is a huge lack of HW supported item that can understand the protocol.

 

It also seems the company requires you to purchase HW from them, but I’m not sure. I just studied sketches here. https://support.diretta.link/doku.php?id=diretta:start

A new protocol may be a good idea, if it does what is says, but RAAT and NAA is free, so I’m not sure they will succeed. 
 

”Its philosophy is totally different from that of existing protocols.
Many factors affect the sound quality of audio players. Power-supply noises generated by digital blocks on circuits significantly affect the sound quality.Usually, capacitors and inductors are placed at power sources to reduce the noises.
In this way, we can configure low-pass filters and reduce spike-like digital-specific noises.
However, as you can see from the fact that low-pass filters are used, any low-frequency fluctuation passes through.
It isn' t necessary to filter it out because it isn' t a noise, and you can' t see it even if you observe it by focusing on voltage.
But, if you observe it by focusing on electrical current, you can detect noises that affect the audio frequency band of a constant cycle.
It is absolutely difficult to electrically eliminate the noises. 

We thought that we might be able to significantly improve sound quality by controlling these noises. However, it is very difficult and unrealistic to adopt constant current configuration, such as class-A amp, for all CPUs, etc. If we can solve this problem in a software-based approach, we can expect that implementation will be realized.
There is only one way to achieve this goal: averaging of processing and reduction of fluctuations in power consumption. But, existing protocols couldn' t realize it.

By means of Diretta, we would like to propose an answer to this problem. Please suppose that a player with an analog part is the Target and that a server with storage, etc., is the Host.
The Target and the Host are designed based on separate concepts.
With regard to the Target, processing is minimized and simplified to enable averaging. The Target is configured by means of simple processing, like hardware processing by FPGA.
 

The Host operates in synchronization with the Target to average processing by the Target. Packets are transmitted as often as possible at constant short intervals in order to average processing.The transmission is controlled by forecasting Target buffers.
In this way, fluctuations in power consumption of a player as the Target is averaged as much as possible.

 

We don' t say that this method is definitely better than other transmission systems. But, we would like to propose one different approach. 
It is similar to USB synchronization, but the Target doesnt change speed because the Host synchronizes.There is no buffer/flow control like USB ansynchronization. Completely insulated connection can be used and fibers and other cables can be adopted because it is Ethernet.No complicated processing like UPnP file range requests is required. No complicated processing to synchronize many devices like AES67 is required, either.
We are committed to evolving Diretta with the highest priority on sound quality and minimizing influence over analog blocks.”

[Patatorz]

Raat and naa are free when you have paid for roon and hq player if I understand well.

 

what do you mean by « Well, it seems there is a huge lack of HW supported item that can understand the protocol » : completely unclear.

 

it is clear that it is not a solution for everybody and by chance....you have the choice.

[R1200CL]

6 hours ago, plissken said:

Nothing gets embedded in the data.

This is maybe where some disagree with you.
In this matter you and John Swenson are on different planets  😀

Ref. also his white paper that still lacks measurements. (Your response is that buffers will solve this, so I created a tread The magic of buffers)

It would be interesting to know if John agree upon a smart implement protocol in IPv6 will reduce rapidly power variations, and then overall noise in the circuit.

And if so, maybe it can be done without the use of Diretta. Couldn’t this as well be implemented in NAA and/or Roon IPv6 support ?

Is HW changes a requirement ?

[plissken]

3 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

This is maybe where some disagree with you.
In this matter you and John Swenson are on different planets

 

I've never seen John hold a position that the data at-rest itself contains noise. I think he said everything he had to say with the 'paper' and that paper is simply a proponent to go 10GB, optical Ethernet, with an end point that can buffer entire tracks or even albums. I shot a video of my setup doing this 5-6 years ago. @Jabbr has been banging on this drum potentially even longer.

 

Anyone is welcome to disagree. I've no problem tearing apart unsubstantiated statements that go against the building blocks of data transfer.

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, Patatorz said:

what do you mean by « Well, it seems there is a huge lack of HW supported item that can understand the protocol » : completely unclear.

https://support.diretta.link/doku.php?id=usb-dac
 

However the Diretta site seems to mix several products, as well as ways of transferring data. One sketch indicates a master clock in a separate line as well, but it seems it has been removed the last hour.

 

The mix of USB and ethernet, and lack of UPnP, is confusing for me.

What about zones ? Is it supported ? 
 

I have requested Diretta to participate in this tread. If they doesn’t show up, it’s maybe just another scam equal to MQA. 
 

1 hour ago, Patatorz said:

it is clear that it is not a solution for everybody

Very few it seems 😀

But I would like to understand limitations and requirements.

YouTube DirettaSviluppo

This explanation how software and use of IPv6 can reduce noise is interesting. 

[R1200CL]

35 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Very few it seems 😀

Edit. 
Seems working with Roon. And more ?
https://www.hifistatement.net/tests/item/2910-diretta-target-usb-bridge

Use Chrome for auto translate. 

And JRiver

[R1200CL]

11 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I have requested Diretta to participate in this tread.

I got a response and they / he won’t. 

They prefer FB. (I think a group of 84 members). 

I can just hope he change his mind. I find FB hard to use as a discussion forum. 

 

I’m not sure, but he thinks he have to pay a fee in order to join here at AS.  I can’t find any information here at AS that you have to pay if you are a company.

@The Computer Audiophile I can’t find anywhere your terms and conditions about requirements for users representing a company, and if a fee is required. Where is the requirement listed ?
 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I got a response and they / he won’t. 

They prefer FB. (I think a group of 84 members). 

I can just hope he change his mind. I find FB hard to use as a discussion forum. 

 

I’m not sure, but he thinks he have to pay a fee in order to join here at AS.  I can’t find any information here at AS that you have to pay if you are a company.

@The Computer Audiophile I can’t find anywhere your terms and conditions about requirements for users representing a company, and if a fee is required. Where is the requirement listed ?
 

 

We have no such requirement. 

 

We have sponsored forums that require payment from manufacturers. If other manufacturers participate in the regular forum they just ned to be careful not to boast about their brands. Answering user questions about products is always welcome.