Pi 2 Design Mercury Streamer

[Superdad]

59 minutes ago, congofather said:

Absolutely.. Roon Server on Euphony loaded to RAM on a seperate machine which communicates with RoonBridge on Mercury(using realtime kernel and ramdisk) is also very very good.

Yes, my RoonCore server on AudioLinux is RAMroot loaded also.

 

59 minutes ago, congofather said:

Which realtime kernel do you prefer :) ?

I'm just using the Kernel that you mentioned: 5.15.36-GentooPlayer-RT-MIN-NOGRAPH-EUPRCU-rt41+  Have not experimented with any of the dozen others. Who has the time?

 

59 minutes ago, congofather said:

And did you apply different tweaks other than the ones that I shared? If you find some other tweaks, I would be very happy and would like to try them if you share.

Not really.  I chose RAM Mode 6 (though GTP's System Info screen calls that Mode 9 for some reason; but there is no Mode 9!), and I uninstalled a bunch of the apps and wifi stuff not used. Have not even played with any of those Affinity or NiceLevel tweaks for RoonBridge. Again, not much time and I am always looking for the "big wow" changes.

 

Thanks again for your guidance and enthusiasm.

[zackthedog]

Okay, well now.

 

I just mounted Gentooplayer's media folder on the SD card, enabled Samba and transferred an Oscar Peterson album ("Girl Talk") to it, then opened the Persephone MPD client and hit play.  O. M. G.  Compared to streaming the same tracks from Audirvana, the soundstage doubled in size and I moved from a corner of the studio to a seat next to the pianist.  Wow.

 

So I really need to get an m.2 drive in there and play my media from there.  Either that or I need to seriously upgrade my ethernet setup.  Damn.  I feel like I've only heard a fraction of what the Mercury is capable of.  For starters, I guess a good LPS has to be added to my budget.

[Powerman]

40 minutes ago, zackthedog said:

Okay, well now.

 

I just mounted Gentooplayer's media folder on the SD card, enabled Samba and transferred an Oscar Peterson album ("Girl Talk") to it, then opened the Persephone MPD client and hit play.  O. M. G.  Compared to streaming the same tracks from Audirvana, the soundstage doubled in size and I moved from a corner of the studio to a seat next to the pianist.  Wow.

 

So I really need to get an m.2 drive in there and play my media from there.  Either that or I need to seriously upgrade my ethernet setup.  Damn.  I feel like I've only heard a fraction of what the Mercury is capable of.  For starters, I guess a good LPS has to be added to my budget.

That sounds awesome. When you get it figured out just tell me what to do. I didn't need a new hobby. :) There was a bit of a wait, but I am certainly happy with the results!

[oneguy]

12 hours ago, zackthedog said:

 

I don't know what you've tried, but if you want it up and running quick, Ropieee works great and is Roon-ready.  Or maybe you know that.

Nope didn’t know that. I’ll try Ropieee and Gentooplayer this weekend hopefully if not early next week. I had a new audio rack delivered today and that means I need to re-setup a bunch of cables and re-arrange a bunch of records. 

[congofather]

8 hours ago, zackthedog said:

Okay, well now.

 

I just mounted Gentooplayer's media folder on the SD card, enabled Samba and transferred an Oscar Peterson album ("Girl Talk") to it, then opened the Persephone MPD client and hit play.  O. M. G.  Compared to streaming the same tracks from Audirvana, the soundstage doubled in size and I moved from a corner of the studio to a seat next to the pianist.  Wow.

 

So I really need to get an m.2 drive in there and play my media from there.  Either that or I need to seriously upgrade my ethernet setup.  Damn.  I feel like I've only heard a fraction of what the Mercury is capable of.  For starters, I guess a good LPS has to be added to my budget.

 

Due to compute Module 4 limitations, as far as I learnt, you can not get the best from very fast SSDs. But you'll benefit from it. I prefer using a fast external NAS with SSDs which communicates with other devices over a fiberoptical network with 2 high-performance switches one of which is an audiophile grade switch. In such a setup, I decided not to use a built in SSD for Mercury. As a result, I can say that a good & efficient network setup will also help you achieve good results. In addition to this, caching the songs before playing directly to RAM  will improve overall performance significantly (regardless of using built-in SSD or fast ethernet network).

[zackthedog]

3 hours ago, congofather said:

 

Due to compute Module 4 limitations, as far as I learnt, you can not get the best from very fast SSDs. But you'll benefit from it. I prefer using a fast external NAS with SSDs which communicates with other devices over a fiberoptical network with 2 high-performance switches one of which is an audiophile grade switch. In such a setup, I decided not to use a built in SSD for Mercury. As a result, I can say that a good & efficient network setup will also help you achieve good results. In addition to this, caching the songs before playing directly to RAM  will improve overall performance significantly (regardless of using built-in SSD or fast ethernet network).

 

Okay, thanks, that's interesting.  I need to break this down a bit:

 

1) When you say fiber-optic, do you mean using ethernet>fiber-optic converters, like this?

 

https://www.computercablestore.com/Fast-Ethernet-Media-Converters-577

 

I have one pair of those and a 1 meter cable that I haven't put to use yet.  How would I convert my whole listening chain (NAS, Mac Mini, Mercury) to fiber optic?

 

2) I have a clunky but adequate home-made NAS.  Presumably a Synology or something more sophisticated is needed.

 

That's a long-term upgrade, I think.

 

In the meantime, I'll assume playing from an SSD in the Mercury is better than using the OS SD card for playback, right?

 

I'm using Gentooplayer with MPD and upmpdcli.  How do you cache the songs before playback in that instance?  I don't think MPD has that option.  What's a good way to do that?  I'll look into it.

[bobfa]

Let us not overthink this.  Audio system networking using Fiber Optic networking is a big step.  A commercial NAS is another direction.  internal storage on the Mercury is a third direction.

 

The CM4 does not have all the lovely PCiE lanes that some computers have.  This means it cannot run NVME drives and their fastest speed.  But it is WAY MORE than you would ever need for a single audio stream!  Remember we have been using Slow SD cards or SATA drives for a long time.

 

There are a couple of Gentooplayer threads here on AS were you can ask questions about that OS and its features.   (That reminds me I need to go work on some Gentooplayer stuff myself). TTFN

 

[zackthedog]

10 minutes ago, bobfa said:

Let us not overthink this.  Audio system networking using Fiber Optic networking is a big step.  A commercial NAS is another direction.  internal storage on the Mercury is a third direction.

 

The CM4 does not have all the lovely PCiE lanes that some computers have.  This means it cannot run NVME drives and their fastest speed.  But it is WAY MORE than you would ever need for a single audio stream!  Remember we have been using Slow SD cards or SATA drives for a long time.

 

There are a couple of Gentooplayer threads here on AS were you can ask questions about that OS and its features.   (That reminds me I need to go work on some Gentooplayer stuff myself). TTFN

 

 

Thanks, Bobfa.  That puts things in perspective a bit. :-)

[congofather]

1 hour ago, zackthedog said:

1) When you say fiber-optic, do you mean using ethernet>fiber-optic converters, like this?

 

https://www.computercablestore.com/Fast-Ethernet-Media-Converters-577

 

I use Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 10X(https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-EdgeSwitch-10-Port-Passthrough-ES-10X/dp/B07L29568Z) which has both SFP and ethernet port. It's a good managed switch and you can prioritize, configure & monitor the audio traffic by using the switch software. I use this transceiver(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0747WZ8LZ/) with EdgeSwitch10X.

 

There's another audiophile switch that I use with the same transceiver above. It's SOTM SNH-10G (https://www.sotm-audio.com/sotmwp/english/portfolio-item/snh-10g/) with a LPS(linear power supply) which also supports both fiber-optic and ethernet connection. Mercury and Euphony server is connected to this switch. Synology NAS(I use fast SSD for audio), Internet Router is connected to the other switch. These two switches are connected to each other using a fiber-optic connection.

 

I use Supra CAT8 short ethernet cables to connect the devices to these switches. Such a network setup will help you for galvanic isolation and as bobfa mentioned, it's a big step for digital audio. 

 

1 hour ago, zackthedog said:

In the meantime, I'll assume playing from an SSD in the Mercury is better than using the OS SD card for playback, right?

 Yes, playing from ssd instead of OS SD Card will be much better.

 

1 hour ago, zackthedog said:

I'm using Gentooplayer with MPD and upmpdcli.  How do you cache the songs before playback in that instance?  I don't think MPD has that option.  What's a good way to do that?  

 

I cache the songs on Euphony. But it is also possible to do that in Gentooplayer..

 

Using ramdisk is one way of doing it..

 

You can alter the MPD config from the commandline using putty. There are some settings related with audio buffering.

 

[zackthedog]

1 hour ago, congofather said:

 

I use Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 10X(https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-EdgeSwitch-10-Port-Passthrough-ES-10X/dp/B07L29568Z) which has both SFP and ethernet port. It's a good managed switch and you can prioritize, configure & monitor the audio traffic by using the switch software. I use this transceiver(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0747WZ8LZ/) with EdgeSwitch10X.

 

There's another audiophile switch that I use with the same transceiver above. It's SOTM SNH-10G (https://www.sotm-audio.com/sotmwp/english/portfolio-item/snh-10g/) with a LPS(linear power supply) which also supports both fiber-optic and ethernet connection. Mercury and Euphony server is connected to this switch. Synology NAS(I use fast SSD for audio), Internet Router is connected to the other switch. These two switches are connected to each other using a fiber-optic connection.

 

I use Supra CAT8 short ethernet cables to connect the devices to these switches. Such a network setup will help you for galvanic isolation and as bobfa mentioned, it's a big step for digital audio. 

 

 Yes, playing from ssd instead of OS SD Card will be much better.

 

 

I cache the songs on Euphony. But it is also possible to do that in Gentooplayer..

 

Using ramdisk is one way of doing it..

 

You can alter the MPD config from the commandline using putty. There are some settings related with audio buffering.

 

 

AH!  Ramdiskmusic in GP.  Of course, thanks for that and the other options.

[Riccitone]

sorry to ask such a noob question here...

 

I'm currently using Volumio and the control app on iPhone for current rig, and have my Mercury preloaded with it (it's still on the way).

 

Haven't ventured into other software, and have only done a little copy/past of code via ssh. What would be options or would be involved with using something like Gentoo, or anything else that might provide a bumb in sq? Hoping for something that could still be controlled via phone app if possible. was even looking into ways to even go without an OS straight with upnp - or at least I think I saw that as a possibility.

 

For Gentoo after a flash - heavy install and config or pretty straightforward? Could it be managed with an app?

 

Other configurations ans setup options to consider?

 

Thanks in advance and learning as I go!

 

 

[bobfa]

I would start out with Volumio, Backup the SD card.   Listen to the system.  Then turn off all the sources you are not going to use.  Listen for a while. Very Low Stress way to start out.  

 

You can create another SD card with Gentooplayer and start learning that, but fall back to the Volumio card if you have trouble!    

 

Bob

[Riccitone]

Great advice,

 

I've gotten a pack of SD's on hand, wasn't looking to lose that preload! Good reminder to take it slow and not go crazy. Let things settle in and listen. I was just curious for down the road, to maybe learn/tinker. Which may just be flirting with disaster, entering the rabbit hole.

 

 

[Powerman]

Well I had no idea of the depth of yet another rabbit hole to get lost in. For now I'll pass. As far as the Mercury, so far I like Volumio. I am going to try tidal native and offline downloads to nvme drive. My phone connected instantly and I don't even need to fire up the computer (even though unlikely).

 

I would not have a problem trying other OS on other SD cards for easy switches. I would definitely love to get everything I have optimized to run best. That will take a little time.

 

So it's been mentioned that Roon with roon bridge works great with volumio which is what I am running. However, I am not married to Roon... What is the advantage of going through roon over running other services native on mercury? That is other than multi room/setup which I don't do.

[zackthedog]

49 minutes ago, Powerman said:

Well I had no idea of the depth of yet another rabbit hole to get lost in. For now I'll pass. As far as the Mercury, so far I like Volumio. I am going to try tidal native and offline downloads to nvme drive. My phone connected instantly and I don't even need to fire up the computer (even though unlikely).

 

I would not have a problem trying other OS on other SD cards for easy switches. I would definitely love to get everything I have optimized to run best. That will take a little time.

 

So it's been mentioned that Roon with roon bridge works great with volumio which is what I am running. However, I am not married to Roon... What is the advantage of going through roon over running other services native on mercury? That is other than multi room/setup which I don't do.

 

Roon is...well, Roon. ;-)  A lot of people like the fancy interface and the sound.  I don't care for either.  And it's quite expensive.  I find plain old MPD just fine, either controlled from Audirvana or from any number of free client apps, desktop or mobile.  I also use Qobuz, and that's also easy to access with Gentooplayer, Moode or (I think) RopieeeXL.

 

Another option is Logitech Media Server, which is an option with RopieeeXL and Gentooplayer.  LMS has a wide variety of options and plugins.  I prefer the sound of MPD, but LMS (or Squeezelite) is very popular.

[Powerman]

21 minutes ago, zackthedog said:

 

Roon is...well, Roon. ;-)  A lot of people like the fancy interface and the sound.  I don't care for either.  And it's quite expensive.  I find plain old MPD just fine, either controlled from Audirvana or from any number of free client apps, desktop or mobile.  I also use Qobuz, and that's also easy to access with Gentooplayer, Moode or (I think) RopieeeXL.

 

Another option is Logitech Media Server, which is an option with RopieeeXL and Gentooplayer.  LMS has a wide variety of options and plugins.  I prefer the sound of MPD, but LMS (or Squeezelite) is very popular.

Thank you. I didn't know about LMS being squeeze lite. I originally got roon with other equipment to render MQA... Which now is not necessary for me. I understand it is for easy one point access, but it is irritating to spend time in roon organizing for it just to be in roon. You have to go to services and do the same. Regardless, simply for functionality, I can do the same with others, and I don't use roon for all the power it has to be home media center.

 

I have used Qobuz, but not impressed. Not thrilled with aspects of tidal and MQA voodo, but fact is it is a better service for me. I do use it mobil (vehicle, work). Right now I'll see how far I can take it with volumio and I might be able to ditch roon and qobuz. I've been evaluating qobuz, but it's about time for a decision.

 

Honestly I didn't know about any of this... But I am really enjoying my Mercury and what it can do. Pretty cool. I'm almost positive I'll get the mercury 2 with pi5 and 4x pci. 😂

[bobfa]

LMS stands for Logitech Media Server, originally Squeezebox Server/SlimServer

Squeezelite is a software package to play music from Squeezebox Server aka LMS

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezelite

 

https://forums.slimdevices.com

 

A very long history of software above.

 

LMS is a tweakers paradise:  Open source, great community, endless settings and addons.  Oh by the way it can sound very very good.  

 

Pick your OS carefully.

 

 

[zackthedog]

Well, I found an m.2 drive I bought for something a while back, installed it in the Mercury. Went to Gentooplayer's "Format disk" utility but the drive isn't showing up.  Any ideas, anyone? ;-)  I posted in the GP forum but thought I'd ask here too.

[zackthedog]

Okay, it's pretty easy.  NVME drive installed in slot, boot Gentooplayer.  You must be running the basic ST kernel for this to work, for now.

 

Go to Utility>Format Disk, find the drive listed (the size should be a giveaway, mine was 128G).  Format as ext4.

 

Go to System Base Config>Mount Local Drive.  Under "List Disk" choose nvme01n.  Under "Select Disk Partition" choose nvme01np1.  Under "Type mount folder", name it whatever you like, mine is "MPD".  Choose enable at boot.  Execute.

 

Go to System Base Config>Samba Share, choose enable, under "Select directory to share" choose "media."  Name it whatever, "MPD."  Execute.  You can now go to another computer and connect to the IP address of your Mercury.  Name/password is root/gentooplayer.  Mount your music folder.  Add it to your Favorites or whatever  Now you can load music onto the drive.

 

That's it.  The drive is now /media/MPD.  Both MPD and Minimserver will automatically see the music stored there when you update the client database.

 

You can now switch back to your preferred kernel.

 

Sounds great!

[RichardSF]

12 hours ago, Powerman said:

Well I had no idea of the depth of yet another rabbit hole to get lost in. For now I'll pass. As far as the Mercury, so far I like Volumio. I am going to try tidal native and offline downloads to nvme drive. My phone connected instantly and I don't even need to fire up the computer (even though unlikely).

 

I would not have a problem trying other OS on other SD cards for easy switches. I would definitely love to get everything I have optimized to run best. That will take a little time.

 

So it's been mentioned that Roon with roon bridge works great with volumio which is what I am running. However, I am not married to Roon... What is the advantage of going through roon over running other services native on mercury? That is other than multi room/setup which I don't do.

 

I came from the opposite direction and began with Tidal and Qobuz on Volumio before going to Roon. I'm guessing that you don't have a Volumio Premium subscription; otherwise you would have already tried Tidal directly through Volumio. It is worth trying Volumio Premium to get a perspective of a Raspberry Pi implementation compared to Roon. Volumio Premium has a 14 day free trial, followed by a monthly or annual subscription.

 

Volumio's own UI interface provides basic access to your favorites, playlists, and the entire catalog of the streaming service. For myself, the UI interface is too basic and limiting for exploring music. Volumio also supports Tidal Connect, which gives a richer experience by using the phone/computer Tidal app as the UI interface. Unfortunately Qobuz Connect doesn't exist yet (they say that they are working on it).

 

I went to Roon because it gives me the best user experience for the way I listen to music. However that's a personal thing, which is why I suggest trying Volumio Premium so you can gain an understanding of what works for you. Roon does require a lot of baggage, notably running a server. I didn't like needing to have my laptop running just to listen to music, and I ended up with setting up a dedicated NUC computer running Roon Rock.

 

 

[Powerman]

8 hours ago, RichardSF said:

 

I came from the opposite direction and began with Tidal and Qobuz on Volumio before going to Roon. I'm guessing that you don't have a Volumio Premium subscription; otherwise you would have already tried Tidal directly through Volumio. It is worth trying Volumio Premium to get a perspective of a Raspberry Pi implementation compared to Roon. Volumio Premium has a 14 day free trial, followed by a monthly or annual subscription.

 

Volumio's own UI interface provides basic access to your favorites, playlists, and the entire catalog of the streaming service. For myself, the UI interface is too basic and limiting for exploring music. Volumio also supports Tidal Connect, which gives a richer experience by using the phone/computer Tidal app as the UI interface. Unfortunately Qobuz Connect doesn't exist yet (they say that they are working on it).

 

I went to Roon because it gives me the best user experience for the way I listen to music. However that's a personal thing, which is why I suggest trying Volumio Premium so you can gain an understanding of what works for you. Roon does require a lot of baggage, notably running a server. I didn't like needing to have my laptop running just to listen to music, and I ended up with setting up a dedicated NUC computer running Roon Rock.

 

 

Thank you. No, not yet. I've been reluctant to get rid of stuff, but it's time for Amazon HD and Qobuz to go, and roon is probably next. I saw My Volumio but wasn't ready to jump. If it's necessary for native tidal, then I guess I'll be trying. It's all just software clients. Find one that works the best for you.

[zackthedog]

13 hours ago, zackthedog said:

Okay, it's pretty easy.  NVME drive installed in slot, boot Gentooplayer.  You must be running the basic ST kernel for this to work, for now.

 

Go to Utility>Format Disk, find the drive listed (the size should be a giveaway, mine was 128G).  Format as ext4.

 

Go to System Base Config>Mount Local Drive.  Under "List Disk" choose nvme01n.  Under "Select Disk Partition" choose nvme01np1.  Under "Type mount folder", name it whatever you like, mine is "MPD".  Choose enable at boot.  Execute.

 

Go to System Base Config>Samba Share, choose enable, under "Select directory to share" choose "media."  Name it whatever, "MPD."  Execute.  You can now go to another computer and connect to the IP address of your Mercury.  Name/password is root/gentooplayer.  Mount your music folder.  Add it to your Favorites or whatever  Now you can load music onto the drive.

 

That's it.  The drive is now /media/MPD.  Both MPD and Minimserver will automatically see the music stored there when you update the client database.

 

You can now switch back to your preferred kernel.

 

Sounds great!

 

I should add that Antonio points out that if you are using ramdisk and don't want to load the system down with Samba, you can also use an FTP client to access the music share:

 

https://sites.google.com/view/gentooplayer-documentation/fags/transferring-files-two-pcs

[Ghettocowboy23]

Have anyone tried this:

format the NVME drive and load music files on it before mounting to the Mercury?  Either doing it on a computer that has extra NVME slot or buying an external ssd conversion kit and do it via external SSD drive via computer USB connection. Then mount the drive with music files on them into the Mercury streamer and boot up from Volumio image from microSD drive and to see if it works without any tinkering?

 

 

[oneguy]

I tried installing Ropieee and have it working for 44.1k files but for anything else it plays for a fraction of a second of audio output then stops. However, the time counter in Roon still continues. Any idea which setting is causing this?
 

Gentoo player is streaming but nothing is coming out of the AES output. Is it possible to force output through the HAT vice USB?

[congofather]

4 hours ago, oneguy said:

Gentoo player is streaming but nothing is coming out of the AES output. Is it possible to force output through the HAT vice USB?

@antonellocaroli may help you for Gentoo player. You probably have missing/wrong configuration related with your player or audio output settings. For a simple test, play a basic 16-bit song instead of a DSD file if you are testing with a DSD file.

I also use Gentooplayer and AES output of mercury streamer without any problem.