Audirvana Studio

[Mike Rubin]

My NUC 10 i7 with Windows 10 typically runs at 50-70c even when streaming  music over DLNA to my Sonore Rendu devices. With Studio, however, upsampling to any DSD setting is pegging the cpu at 100c pretty frequently, if only momentarily.  I have a large library that Studio has been “analyzing” for weeks, so that is happening, too, while I am listening to Studio and I suspect it also is taxing the CPU.  
 

I have 16gb RAM installed, the unit sits on a desktop without obstruction, and the ambient temperature is very, very moderate.  Other than Studio’s DSD upsampling and scanning while “analyzing,” there are no variables that account for the momentary spikes in temp.

 

Google searching tells me that 100c is way too hot for any CPU, but the internet is all over the map on the effects of spiking.  Some people insist that any spasm into that temperature region is fatal to cpu life and others are just as adamant that steady temperatures are the issue, not spikes.  I can’t evaluate which side of the argument is correct although I am sure everyone can agree that it’s better not even to spike and that it’s dangerous to run a long time in that region.

 

My current solution is to disable oversampling, but, honestly, in my system, DSD (whether 1x, 2x or 4x) sounds more full-bodied than non-OS.  I now wonder what kind of system horsepower is needed for DSD at acceptable temperatures.

 

Are the rest of you finding that oversampling taxes the hell out of your processors?

 

For whatever it is worth, JRiver can upsample to DSD64 over DLNA (and can stream any DSD flavor natively if your DAC can handle it), but the temps rarely have exceeded 75c when upsampling.  Then again, I don’t think JRiver sounds quite as good as Studio.

 
For whatever it also is worth, Audirvāna 3.5 in my experience runs hotter than JRiver and cooler than Studio.  

[Jud]

I find AS to be much less taxing on my computer when oversampling to DSD512 or DSD256 than HQPlayer, but the latter for certain specific oversampling tasks will max out most machines.  Using a full-fledged desktop, AS doesn't come close to straining system resources.

I do remember running Audirvana Plus on the ASUS version of a NUC with an i7 CPU, and oversampling to DSD did tax that machine, so I can imagine AS makes the NUC work pretty hard.

 

As long as you've got something as nice as a Signature Rendu, you can feed it from pretty much any computer you want, so if you do like the sound when oversampling to DSD (I'm with you there), you might consider running AS on something with more resources than a NUC.

[Mike Rubin]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

I find AS to be much less taxing on my computer when oversampling to DSD512 or DSD256 than HQPlayer, but the latter for certain specific oversampling tasks will max out most machines.  Using a full-fledged desktop, AS doesn't come close to straining system resources.

I do remember running Audirvana Plus on the ASUS version of a NUC with an i7 CPU, and oversampling to DSD did tax that machine, so I can imagine AS makes the NUC work pretty hard.

 

As long as you've got something as nice as a Signature Rendu, you can feed it from pretty much any computer you want, so if you do like the sound when oversampling to DSD (I'm with you there), you might consider running AS on something with more resources than a NUC.

I have a Dell XPS8930 daily driver with more horsepower than the NUC, but it too runs really hot with any upsampling to DSD, so I decided to offload the music management to another computer.  I figured that having a dedicated music server would save the cpu from having to juggle a bunch of tasks at once.  The Roon forum people assured me that an i7 NUC would have more than enough horsepower to do anything I wanted with Roon, including DSD256, to the point of overkill.  After trying the NUC with Windows 10 and all of Roon, Audirvāna 3.5, and JRiver installed (but not running at the same time), I ended up running ROCK on the NUC land moving Audirvāna and JRiver back to the Dell.  One downside of ROCK is that you can’t monitor temps, but the NUC fan didn’t come on when I was using it.

 

I ended up reinstalling Windows on the NUC when I decided not to renew Roon, which I pretty much ended up despising by the end of my year with it.  Now, I have just AS and JRiver on it, the former for listening and the latter primarily for library management.

 

Unfortunately, I don’t have physical space for a second computer that is larger than a NUC.  I don’t think I am going to get much better performance from any other small form PC.  If you know of smallish hotrods, though, let me know!
 

[Jud]

9 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

If you know of smallish hotrods, though, let me know!

 

There's this little beast: https://www.amazon.com/MSECORE-Desktop-Computer-Monitors-Dual-Band/dp/B08RYCRJ85/ref=sr_1_12?dchild=1&keywords=Core%2Bi9-8950HK&qid=1625763633&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A17927742011&rnid=676578011&s=pc&sr=1-12&th=1

 

(Note the spec of 4GB of RAM is for the video card - there are 64GB of DDR4 RAM in this thing.)

 

Edit: Or if you want something insane - https://www.amazon.com/i9-9900KF-Dedicated-Graphics-Bluetooth-Multi-Screen/dp/B08RJG1SFB/ref=psdc_13896591011_t3_B08RYCRJ85?th=1

[Mike Rubin]

Wow!   Thanks!

 

You don't hear much mention of an i9 for music apps, but this definitely has horsepower, at least on paper.  I will look into it, although I have some bad history with non-mainstream computers. 

 

One thing that I wonder about with the smaller forms is whether ventilation ever can be adequate for upsampling. The fan is small and there is no room for a bigger or better one. It's risky to remove the NUC mobo for mounting in another case because it is easy to damage connectors and, anyway, there are only two aftermarket cases for the 10th gen NUC; the Alaska is fanless, so it is less noisy, but it doesn't reduce the internal temperature, and the HD  Plex is both expensive and looks beyond my skill level.  With the 11th gem out now, there won't be more cases as alternatives.

 

I have seen some mini-ATX PC's that might fit the bill and aren't as big as a standard desktop. I should look at those, too.  (Funny that we still call full-size computers "desktops." Who puts them on desktops? )

 

 

[bnbayer]

11 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

 If you know of smallish hotrods, though, let me know!

Headless Mac Mini with the M1 chip ???

[Mike Rubin]

Thanks, that would work for many, I am sure.  However, despite having worked at Apple for a dozen years, I no longer rely on the platform. 

[Jud]

Or you could build your own, even water-cool it. 🙂

[lucretius]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

 

There's this little beast: https://www.amazon.com/MSECORE-Desktop-Computer-Monitors-Dual-Band/dp/B08RYCRJ85/ref=sr_1_12?dchild=1&keywords=Core%2Bi9-8950HK&qid=1625763633&refinements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A17927742011&rnid=676578011&s=pc&sr=1-12&th=1

 

(Note the spec of 4GB of RAM is for the video card - there are 64GB of DDR4 RAM in this thing.)

 

Edit: Or if you want something insane - https://www.amazon.com/i9-9900KF-Dedicated-Graphics-Bluetooth-Multi-Screen/dp/B08RJG1SFB/ref=psdc_13896591011_t3_B08RYCRJ85?th=1

 

I don't believe these computers have a TPM chip (although I could be wrong), so they will not run Windows 11.  You can continue to run them with Windows 10 until October 14th, 2025, but that's not too far away.

[jdtitman]

I run a stock i5 NUC with absolutely no issues with anything I throw at it. The NUC sits on top of a display with all 4 sides open for ventilation. 

[Mike Rubin]

7 minutes ago, jdtitman said:

I run a stock i5 NUC with absolutely no issues with anything I throw at it. The NUC sits on top of a display with all 4 sides open for ventilation. 

All four sides of mine are open, too.  Do you upsample to DVD?  That’s where the temps spike for me, as mentioned.  CPU load is minimal, at less than 5%, usually, although it can spike into the 40% range. 
 

What temps do you usually run, if you do upsample?

[Boleary3]

Mike you also might want to talk to Larry at Pareto Audio. He built my W10 based server in January and it dramatically improved SQ. It's a dual boot system with Linux/Roon and W10/Audirvana. To my ears Audirvana sounds better. Here's the web address: https://paretoaudio.com/

[Mike Rubin]

38 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

I don't believe these computers have a TPM chip (although I could be wrong), so they will not run Windows 11.  You can continue to run them with Windows 10 until October 14th, 2025, but that's not too far away.

Deal killer if they aren't upgradable to W11. 🥲. Thanks for the heads up!

[Mike Rubin]

9 minutes ago, Boleary3 said:

Mike you also might want to talk to Larry at Pareto Audio. He built my W10 based server in January and it dramatically improved SQ. It's a dual boot system with Linux/Roon and W10/Audirvana. To my ears Audirvana sounds better. Here's the web address: https://paretoaudio.com/

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into this.

[Mike Rubin]

If no one else is having these issues, I have gotten the thread off-topic, so will just leave these screenshots for posterity.  All were taken during playback at DSD256, which sounds really good .

 

First is playing an mp3.

 

Second is playing a native DSD64.

 

Third is playing a 16/44 FLAC right after starting it up, which is when processor load momentarily peaks.

 

Fourth screenshot is playing the same FLAC a minute or so after loading. 

 

In these four, core #3 has an explanation point that means it previously pegged 100c.

 

Then, the Core-Temp app crashed out, When I restarted it, I reset the high/low temps.

 

The fifth is just a few seconds after the fourth.  CPU load is way up and Cores #1 and #4 have pegged 100c.

 

i don't see a long life for this CPU in this use case.  FWIW, as I mentioned, JRiver seems to be a lesser burden.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

 

I don't believe these computers have a TPM chip (although I could be wrong), so they will not run Windows 11.  You can continue to run them with Windows 10 until October 14th, 2025, but that's not too far away.

 

There are at least some Intel chipset mobos that can have TPM 2.0 turned on in BIOS without a hardware TPM chip. (The ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero, which I used to build my desktop, is one of them.)

[Mike Rubin]

If no one else is having these issues, I might just burn through this NUC and, when it dies, it dies.   It sounds fine and runs without a stutter, so I doubt I will get much more than greater longevity by switching to another PC-based solution.

[jdtitman]

3 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

All four sides of mine are open, too.  Do you upsample to DVD?  That’s where the temps spike for me, as mentioned.  CPU load is minimal, at less than 5%, usually, although it can spike into the 40% range. 
 

What temps do you usually run, if you do upsample?

I’ve never encountered clipping or any other issues. I’ve never upsampled to the levels you are using. 

[Mike Rubin]

3 minutes ago, jdtitman said:

I’ve never encountered clipping or any other issues. I’ve never upsampled to the levels you are using. 

The only issues I have are the temp spikes and generally only with Audirvana 3.5/Studio upsampling.  No playback quality issues at all.  To the contrary, the NUC sounds great with Audirvana.

[jdtitman]

14 minutes ago, Mike Rubin said:

The only issues I have are the temp spikes and generally only with Audirvana 3.5/Studio upsampling.  No playback quality issues at all.  To the contrary, the NUC sounds great with Audirvana.

Then “Let ‘er rip”!

[lucretius]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

 

There are at least some Intel chipset mobos that can have TPM 2.0 turned on in BIOS without a hardware TPM chip. (The ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero, which I used to build my desktop, is one of them.)

 

Hopefully your processor is on the supported list.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, lucretius said:

 

Hopefully your processor is on the supported list.

 

Yep, everything was good except no TPM 2.0, and Google turned up hardware and firmware options for implementing it with my mobo.  Rather than install new hardware, I made the indicated BIOS change.  (Intel refers to it as PTT, if that helps anyone.)

[Jud]

6 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

The only issues I have are the temp spikes and generally only with Audirvana 3.5/Studio upsampling.  No playback quality issues at all.  To the contrary, the NUC sounds great with Audirvana.

 

I ran AS while taking a look at CoreTemp.  With a watercooled 8900K CPU overclocked to 4-something GHz, while converting files to DSD512 and storing them in memory, AS used up to 32% CPU in Task Manager, and core temps occasionally spiked to 80+ degrees C, the max achieved by any core being one that spiked to 85 degrees.  These were quite momentary.  For the most part, temps ranged in the low to mid 40s.  Once the conversion phase was over and a file was being played from RAM, CPU in Task Manager dropped to 7% and the momentary temp spikes stopped.  This is with 5 real cores, so no single core would have been close to 32% utilization.

 

What I take from this is that the Core Temp app is extraordinarily sensitive to extremely fleeting temp spikes, and I doubt damage is being done to the CPU unless such temperatures are more sustained.  The fact that the momentary spikes you see are a bit higher I'd guess is accounted for by the difference between water cooling and air cooling in a small case.  So I agree with you and @jdtitman that you should just enjoy the music and not be terribly concerned.

[Mike Rubin]

Thanks, Jud, for looking into this.  

[Sonic77]

Audirvana Studio remote works for windows, just downloaded it.