Pi 2 Design Mercury Streamer

[bobfa]

5 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Thanks glad to know no urgency for me to upgrade after just owning the pi2aes for 1 year.

I have had a lot of fun with software, power supplies, and cables to round out the Pi2AES.  I am not done yet.  For me, I am looking at Mercury as a Server and a Streamer.  Avoiding the USB external drive on Pi4 systems.  

 

 

[dericchan1]

6 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I have had a lot of fun with software, power supplies, and cables to round out the Pi2AES.  I am not done yet.  For me, I am looking at Mercury as a Server and a Streamer.  Avoiding the USB external drive on Pi4 systems.  

 

 

I have played around with it for quite a bit as well, first in my main rig with moode in sd card, played around with some kernel tweaks, then tried boot in usb flash drive, tried stock meanwell psu vs afterdark 24v lps (with jumper) and ipower x or allo shanti on the pi (without jumper), tried lan with a Cisco catalyst 2960 vs wifi, now moved to my bedroom system as a hqplayer NAA coax out to my Marantz hdamp1 @ 24/192. Sound fabulous where ever and however I put it with!!!

[dericchan1]

Actually it was never connected to a usb hdd, it has always been connected to my pi4 samba server with a 14tb hdd

[bobfa]

9 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

Actually it was never connected to a usb hdd, it has always been connected to my pi4 samba server with a 14tb hdd

What I am trying to do is to build an optimized system that is a server/streamer with storage.    I have been running with Two Pi4's one as LMS with attached USB drive and the other as Squeezelite.  I have been VERY happy that.  With the Mercury I am even more interested in the combo.  

 

 

[dericchan1]

2 hours ago, bobfa said:

What I am trying to do is to build an optimized system that is a server/streamer with storage.    I have been running with Two Pi4's one as LMS with attached USB drive and the other as Squeezelite.  I have been VERY happy that.  With the Mercury I am even more interested in the combo.  

 

 

That sounds like a great idea with the nvme built-in with the CM4. you have the choice to disable WIFI, BT, USB ports also to make a true LAN server

[Ghettocowboy23]

Finally the users have the option to mount an internal storage drive on a RP base streamer. Hope future development makes a new case to accommodate users to use PCIe card for further expansion. 

[bobfa]

4 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

That sounds like a great idea with the nvme built-in with the CM4. you have the choice to disable WIFI, BT, USB ports also to make a true LAN server

I have found that the WiFi sounds better than ethernet.  Do not discount it.  The CM4 has USB disabled by default.

 

 

[dericchan1]

10 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I have found that the WiFi sounds better than ethernet.  Do not discount it.  The CM4 has USB disabled by default.

 

 

I got to be honest with you, as much as people suggest to use lan, I can't really tell any differences between Lan or wifi.

I am using a google nest mesh network so its technically a wifi network throughout the house (other than each mesh point serves as a "network switch" with ethernet port to connect to devices.

[Ghettocowboy23]

Does the internal M.2 drive recognized by Picoreplayer or Volumio. Hope it supports variety of drives up to 8 tb. Can you copy music files directly to the internal SSD drive via external USB drive or you have to do it via another computer through your own network like Volumio/internal storage or you have to load songs on the drive before mounting it into the Mercury streamer? Can you please compare SQ of the Mercury as a stand-alone music player playing songs directly from the internal SSD drive vs it is being used as a streamer/server. My purpose is to use it as a player with large internal storage for storing all of my songs into the SSD drive and not streaming or networking. Unless streaming sounds much better than I have to get 2 units.   
 

 

[dericchan1]

22 minutes ago, Ghettocowboy23 said:

Does the internal M.2 drive recognized by Picoreplayer or Volumio. Hope it supports variety of drives up to 8 tb. Can you copy music files directly to the internal SSD drive via external USB drive or you have to do it via another computer through your own network like Volumio/internal storage or you have to load songs on the drive before mounting it into the Mercury streamer? Can you please compare SQ of the Mercury as a stand-alone music player playing songs directly from the internal SSD drive vs it is being used as a streamer/server. My purpose is to use it as a player with large internal storage for storing all of my songs into the SSD drive and not streaming or networking. Unless streaming sounds much better than I have to get 2 units.   
 

 

I have owned the predecessor unit PI2AES and used it 1) with an external USB HDD VS 2) stream to a local raspberry pi 4 samba server with 14TB hdd. I don't notice any differences and there is no real reason why they should sound different one way to the other.  Having said that, I read in some forum discussions that things sound a bit better stored in a nvme ssd as compared to an external USB ssd. Even if its true, I highly doubt we are talking about significant improvements, if any.

 

Even if you need to do networking/local streaming, you won't need to buy 2 units, you will only need a Mercury as a streamer and a NAS - synology, QNAP or as simple as another raspberry pi with a HDD connected to the LAN.

 

 

[bobfa]

Slow down a bit here folks.  This is currently BETA!  Here is what I know and what I have done with volumio so far:

 

1. installed a 4TB m.2 NVME drive in the Mercury

2. tested with NTFS Format and now working on ext4

3. changed config to allow usb drives (works)

4.changed config to mount the internal drive and smb share it.

 

In the process of copying 3TB of data from external USB to internal NVME.

 

Sound Quality testing reports will come out over time.

 

Please note that I am reporting here and on SuperBestAudioFriends as that is were the beta is being loggedd.

 

 

[dericchan1]

5 minutes ago, bobfa said:

Slow down a bit here folks.  This is currently BETA!  Here is what I know and what I have done with volumio so far:

 

1. installed a 4TB m.2 NVME drive in the Mercury

2. tested with NTFS Format and now working on ext4

3. changed config to allow usb drives (works)

4.changed config to mount the internal drive and smb share it.

 

In the process of copying 3TB of data from external USB to internal NVME.

 

Sound Quality testing reports will come out over time.

 

Please note that I am reporting here and on SuperBestAudioFriends as that is were the beta is being loggedd.

 

 

Thanks, look forward to the sq report!!!

 

Deric

[bobfa]

 

I have been thinking about and re-writing this end-of-the-day summary from  Sunday for most of the afternoon and evening, and I have just delayed till Monday!

 

While the hardware is getting a little break-in time, I have played with different OS variants, etc.  After about three days of testing, a few things are starting to settle in.  I have not finished PiCorePlayer or Audiolinux configurations, and I am preserving the Volumio environment for listening and studying.

 

I configured one of my Pi2AES units to run Volumio for direct comparison to the Mercury.  My Volumio Primo is running to my Audioengine A2+ speakers as a baseline.  I am working on getting all test systems on LMS and Squeezelite as my best success on the Pi4 was with that software.  The K50 is even just that little bit better there too.

 

Sunday morning, I put the Ayre Codex DAC on the Mercury while working on other OS issues.  I moved between the K50 and the Mercury using TOSLINK.  Then I decided to put the Ferrum HYPSOS on the Mercury, and all other work screeched to a halt.  I could not stop listening.  I did not change tracks in the middle; I just listened.

 

My feet were getting cold, I had to use the facilities, yet I kept listening.    I started getting chilled, and I kept listening.    Volumio was not playing my Qobuz playlist correctly; it skipped tracks; I kept listening.  Finally, Mother Nature and the chill sent me upstairs.

 

A day later, I think about what I heard/felt.  Rarely do just the right mix of engineering, software, and hardware come together to make something special.  I am not sure I have ever had this happen to the degree I heard this morning.  

 

I have worked very hard for several years, and I have not been able or lucky enough to get to where I am today.  I am just getting started here; I will take it off the test bench and apply it to the whole system.  

 

Many Thanks to Michael Kelly!

 

 

Monday Notes

 

I had to go back and verify what I have done.  I listened again, and YEP is it GREAT.  I built a new Volumio SD card to see if I could fix the issue with playlist and album track skipping.  I shut off all of the different sources in Volumio, making it sound worse.  I played my test list from Qobuz, and I have duplicated my efforts.  Thinks are going rather nicely!  I have re-formatted the internal 4TB drive to ext4 and re-mounted everything; I am copying files from a USB attached drive and the network.  

 

 

By tomorrow, I hope to listen to the Mercury with my Heavenly Soundworks 517 speakers directly with AES and into the Dali Sound Hub S/PDIF input to square off with the Bluesound Module.  The Sound Hub feeds a pair of Calisto 2C speakers over their wireless network.

 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, bobfa said:

Slow down a bit here folks.  This is currently BETA!  Here is what I know and what I have done with volumio so far:

 

1. installed a 4TB m.2 NVME drive in the Mercury

2. tested with NTFS Format and now working on ext4

3. changed config to allow usb drives (works)

4.changed config to mount the internal drive and smb share it.

 

In the process of copying 3TB of data from external USB to internal NVME.

 

Sound Quality testing reports will come out over time.

 

Please note that I am reporting here and on SuperBestAudioFriends as that is were the beta is being loggedd.

 

 

 

Thanks for the info

 

Of the 4 things you listed which 'if any' do you think will effect sound quality?

 

I've done some testing myself over the years. Volumio, like MoOde etc are GUI's on top of Debian Linux using MPD and ALSA for sound. They each have minor tweaks here and there [kernel parameters etc] but its really small. I wrote a script that the users of MoOde seem to really enjoy...of course it works on Volumio too, it being Debian.

 

I too am on the list for the M-Streamer....I would compare it to the Allo USBridge Sig. They are both purpose build Raspberrypi Compute Module boards designed for audio. At both of their cores is your standard Raspberrypi Compute Module. I've owned a couple of the Allo USBridges too.

 

My interest is to see if their board can have a positive impact on the Raspberrypi. Other products which are essential the same but use a different ARM processor/board is the Bluesound Node N130. I also own two of those, it uses Arch Linux and is purpose built for audio. Currently I have 3 custom built Linux kernels ArchLinux, Debian and TinyCore [piCore/ARM].

 

 

 

[bobfa]

Most of my testing has been around eliminating software and network traffic.  So for local files no NAS. I have been very happy with PiCorePlayer and LMS.  

 

I have also been fussing over power supplies.  I am not sure where that is going.  

 

I have two USBRidge Sig devices that I am no longer using as I try really hard to get out of using USB for my personal systems.  USB does provide some interesting  advantages for folks that are upsampling, etc..

 

This is not "all" about sound quality.  The UI/UX is also important. There are a lot of players out there.

 

I have NO conclusions yet on the Mercury Streamer.  First real listening session was an accident and a happy one.    There are a couple of OS issues that may be CM4 related on Audiolinux and PiCorePlayer.  Too early to tell right now.

 

 

 

 

[Ghettocowboy23]

That’s awesome. Thank you for the hard work. My plan is to use to play local files only. USB has no use for me since my DAC only takes BNC and it is a NOS DAC. I came from Volumio but I want to try Picoreplayer since it has the down clock option. 

[dericchan1]

10 minutes ago, Ghettocowboy23 said:

That’s awesome. Thank you for the hard work. My plan is to use to play local files only. USB has no use for me since my DAC only takes BNC and it is a NOS DAC. I came from Volumio but I want to try Picoreplayer since it has the down clock option. 

If only playing local files, I would suggest to give moode audio a try. It may very well be just my preference but I have consistently found moode to sound slightly better than Volumio. 
 

I have now moved on to hqplayer and upsample everything to 24/192 pcm with my pi2aes, it will likely work well for you nos dac as well

 

 

[bobfa]

When I was reviewing the USBridge SIG I tried several OS variants.  But it was down to MPD for sounding the best:

 

 

The UI/UX was OK.  I keep moving on and testing.  I am not sure there is an end.    I also reviewed the Volumio Primo which is still rather interesting and I have in use.  I am testing Volumio 3 which has a few nice features.  My first blush was to not go further because it really did not sound better,...  They turn on all their sources which seem to greatly degrade the sound quality.  Way too many things to test.

 

 

 

[Guest]

I was on the waiting list for the Mercury.

 

Think I'm going to pass.

 

 

 

 

 

[Superdad]

2 hours ago, Dynobot said:

I was on the waiting list for the Mercury.

Think I'm going to pass.

Excellent! Maybe that will bump me up a spot. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

Excellent! Maybe that will bump me up a spot. 

 

LOL....hope so, buy two....I was going too.

 

Usually I buy one to experiment with and one to use.....have fun!

 

👏👍

[bobfa]

Wow the Queue is geting rough out there.

 

The Tuesday Report 2-22-22.  I could wait until 2222 hours if you want?  Mabye I will... TTFN

[Superdad]

22 minutes ago, bobfa said:

The Tuesday Report 2-22-22.  I could wait until 2222 hours if you want?  

Yes it certainly is a tutu Twosday!  

[bobfa]

2-22-22 22:22

 

Today I did not have much time to work on the Mercury.  I am working on a couple more optimizations on the Volumio system.  I am removing SAMBA as I do not need it with FileZilla and SSH.

 

I did fire up the Raspberry Pi Imager to build a microSD card of Gentoo Player.  I have not used the OS in quite a while, and the improvements in the system setup are noticeable.  I did everything I needed from the menu system in a web browser.  I have SSH turned on, NVME Drive mounted, Some more music transferred, WiFi linked up.  LMS and Squeezelite installed and running.  And never touched the command line.  NICE.

 

Shout out to @antonellocaroli for his fine work.  

 

 

 

I have only had time to do a quick A then B comparison between the Sunday setup with Volumio and Tuesday with Gentoo Player.  I know I am getting used to listening to the first setup, which is a slightly different character.  The hardware is really in there, and it lets the software do its thing.

 

 

I need someone else to back me up on this listening.  I hope that time will allow going upstairs tomorrow on the speaker system.

[bobfa]

Oh another discovery Squeezelite-R2 sounds better on Gentoo Player!