At one time I used a macbook and a dell laptop. I've also used Daphile and a lot of other programs. To get going, Daphile is a great program, an easy way to get started in pc audio, especially if you've used the old logitech squeezeserver software.
I also played a little with linux, but I'm not a linux guy, and to me, it was too much trouble, so I went with server 2012 and AO.
The problem with laptops is that you really can't tweak them, where if you go with a standard PC motherboard, there is a lot you can do.
But, there is stuff I haven't tried, and I'll admit I'm on the lunatic fringe here, but there are guys that have done more than me too.
I have not tried replacing clocks or supplying ram power (bypassing the dc - dc converter on the mb that generate the ram voltage) to name a few.
Randy
I also played a little with linux, but I'm not a linux guy, and to me, it was too much trouble, so I went with server 2012 and AO.
The problem with laptops is that you really can't tweak them, where if you go with a standard PC motherboard, there is a lot you can do.
But, there is stuff I haven't tried, and I'll admit I'm on the lunatic fringe here, but there are guys that have done more than me too.
I have not tried replacing clocks or supplying ram power (bypassing the dc - dc converter on the mb that generate the ram voltage) to name a few.
Randy
Did you try IanCanada or Acko front end ? Seems noone can hear a difference of streamer with their front end as far they are bit perfect... and all are.
My understanding is as far as you didn't isolate the noise and greatly reduce it with good supply of the front end then reclock and buffer the signal with FIFO, différences can be heard !
No servers even the famous japoneese one BHE can replace such front end for sound quality ! If there are, I should be happy to know it if abx tested !
Could be fun if Daphile was compatible with the remote of the Duet Squeezebox Duet : miss me a lot
My understanding is as far as you didn't isolate the noise and greatly reduce it with good supply of the front end then reclock and buffer the signal with FIFO, différences can be heard !
No servers even the famous japoneese one BHE can replace such front end for sound quality ! If there are, I should be happy to know it if abx tested !
Could be fun if Daphile was compatible with the remote of the Duet Squeezebox Duet : miss me a lot
Did you try IanCanada or Acko front end ? Seems noone can hear a difference of streamer with their front end as far they are bit perfect... and all are.
My understanding is as far as you didn't isolate the noise and greatly reduce it with good supply of the front end then reclock and buffer the signal with FIFO, différences can be heard !
No servers even the famous japoneese one BHE can replace such front end for sound quality ! If there are, I should be happy to know it if abx tested !
Could be fun if Daphile was compatible with the remote of the Duet Squeezebox Duet : miss me a lot
I'm using the Soekris dac which has an isolator, and with the design of that dac, I don't think the ian fifo will make a difference.
And I'm not here to debate whether others can hear a difference, I'm just telling the op what I did. I'm not going to argue the merits of what I did. IMHO, people should try things for themselves, and they can decide if it's worthwhile.
Randy
Dear Randy,
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing of what you rudly say in the questions I asked to you. Indeed you are free to do what you want, I'm not judging you, etc !
In fact half of my inputs were to inform the op about streaming and sounding, maybe I would had to writte @OP in the middle of my post ! Sorry my bad !
Well, your answer is your hear a difference with the Fifo of the Soekris DAC with different streamer ! I believe it's an interresting testimonial both for us and for the OP.
I disagree people have NOT all time and money to try all, but it's not because I disagree I'm against you or what you are saying. The sense of the OP is to have a return of experience. That's what we did
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing of what you rudly say in the questions I asked to you. Indeed you are free to do what you want, I'm not judging you, etc !
In fact half of my inputs were to inform the op about streaming and sounding, maybe I would had to writte @OP in the middle of my post ! Sorry my bad !
Well, your answer is your hear a difference with the Fifo of the Soekris DAC with different streamer ! I believe it's an interresting testimonial both for us and for the OP.
I disagree people have NOT all time and money to try all, but it's not because I disagree I'm against you or what you are saying. The sense of the OP is to have a return of experience. That's what we did
Dear Randy,
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing of what you rudly say in the questions I asked to you. Indeed you are free to do what you want, I'm not judging you, etc !
In fact half of my inputs were to inform the op about streaming and sounding, maybe I would had to writte @OP in the middle of my post ! Sorry my bad !
Well, your answer is your hear a difference with the Fifo of the Soekris DAC with different streamer ! I believe it's an interresting testimonial both for us and for the OP.
I disagree people have NOT all time and money to try all, but it's not because I disagree I'm against you or what you are saying. The sense of the OP is to have a return of experience. That's what we did
Sorry Eldam, my bad.
I've seen too many "bits are bits" type of posts, and too many posts about the lack of abx, or about flawed abx testing.
While I understand why, it's always up to the "tweakers" to prove their changes make a difference. No one asks the "other side" to prove it can NOT make a difference.
And for full disclosure, I made most of my PC tweaks when I was using a dacend dac
version 1 of this dac
And version 1 did not have isolation, which may be significant.
The problem is at this time, it would be too much work to disconnect my linear supply to compare it to something else.
Randy
Hi,
The 8" or 10" windows based tablet are now quite cheap and even cheaper 2nd hand or refurbished.
I bought a Lenovo 8" Miix Window 8.1(upgraded to Win 10) running in fanless operation(most of the time in battery mode)) with software JRiver(V20.0) and Fedelizer(V6.1) running, the result excellent sound quality.
The 8" or 10" windows based tablet are now quite cheap and even cheaper 2nd hand or refurbished.
I bought a Lenovo 8" Miix Window 8.1(upgraded to Win 10) running in fanless operation(most of the time in battery mode)) with software JRiver(V20.0) and Fedelizer(V6.1) running, the result excellent sound quality.
I agree, plus my English is difficult to understand as well with a cruel lack of subtility, grammar and even vocabulary (so thanks to read it
)... I believe in fact we advise the same to the OP ! He has a full scale fro the simpliest to the best refinments.
I used to have the Soekris as well but was to difficult to me to wait the excellent work you all made with it ! Soekris is equally Lucky to have you all even if the board was cheap.
Your advises are always welcome and readed by me
cheers
Bits are bits though, this is how digital signal transmission works... and all that encompasses getting a digital signal from a to b is understood, it is called signal integrity, people like Howaqrd Johnson, Eric Bogatin and lee Richley (to name a few) have written books on it, books that I have read because my job involves designing boards etc. that ensure the bits go from a to b correctly. Noise and noise control is another issue, again Henry Ott, Ralph Morrison Keith Armstrong are the people to look for here.
There are two sides to the digital coin, signal integrity and EMC (noise) and a thorough understanding of these issues and the gear to measure both and the resultant effect on digital signals is the way to go.
With any claim it is always up to the claimant to provide the data to back up the claim, again that's how it works.
I use a bog standard PC with an AMD processor that I got a few years ago as my music server, it runs Squeezebox server and the data is picked up by squeezeboxes and a couple of adapted tablets throughout the house... so I have full isolation from any noise in the PC, the PC just runs the SB server nothing else and the SBs and Tablets pick up the data and feed the various systems in the house. I am looking to change my basic systems down stream of the SBs at some point whether I use some DACs I did a layout for (The JP one Eldam, if you remember) or something else I don't know yet. I would like to build an all in one unit so that every room can benefit as I need to down size everything.... Main system is Valve mono blocks with 8" full range and tweeter and 2X15" per side for the woofers, doesn't fit in my current house very well.
There are two sides to the digital coin, signal integrity and EMC (noise) and a thorough understanding of these issues and the gear to measure both and the resultant effect on digital signals is the way to go.
With any claim it is always up to the claimant to provide the data to back up the claim, again that's how it works.
I use a bog standard PC with an AMD processor that I got a few years ago as my music server, it runs Squeezebox server and the data is picked up by squeezeboxes and a couple of adapted tablets throughout the house... so I have full isolation from any noise in the PC, the PC just runs the SB server nothing else and the SBs and Tablets pick up the data and feed the various systems in the house. I am looking to change my basic systems down stream of the SBs at some point whether I use some DACs I did a layout for (The JP one Eldam, if you remember) or something else I don't know yet. I would like to build an all in one unit so that every room can benefit as I need to down size everything.... Main system is Valve mono blocks with 8" full range and tweeter and 2X15" per side for the woofers, doesn't fit in my current house very well.
Now I would like to build a proper music server with a decently designed main board, say 12 layer plus done with on board isolation etc of USB outputs etc using Picor and Vicor power options... That's where you want to look if you want to cut noise down, linear does not do that much....
Simeltaneous switching noise is one of the main culprits in PCs and you cant cure that unless you turn the thing off.
Simeltaneous switching noise is one of the main culprits in PCs and you cant cure that unless you turn the thing off.
Hello Marce,
Of course I remember, I even succeed to attach uf-l connectors on the front end vias (ah my bad I talk about the Painkiller one and you the Jean-Paul one) . The genuine chips from Rochester costed me a lot... (Painkiller DAC).
So you talked about in fact of your JP adaptation you had no time to finish IMHO because some limitation of the ES9023, you may give up (I talked bout the embeded current to voltage converson) : better to beginn from scratch like the good one Painkiller made with some external resistor for I/V conversion : here you should try yourself to believe it (with ears) the difference between a resistor : Rohpoint wirewound for Aerospace, Sussumu smd, old AllenBradley carbon comp, good normal metal Vishays : full of Learning, but I assume more EMC than in a chip? !
Sure: which is good with nano pc à la Pi is you have not this switching PS noise ! It's simple to feed it with a battery, because here we are sure to no inject noise : the modern LiPo or LiPoFe4 are good for that !
As you say us, simple dyers have not for most of us both the knowledge and the costly Equipment to hunt EMC...
I will be be defintly in as beta tester if you want to make Something here as a little server (have some ideas on the functions, of course not the electronic, either the layout where you excell)
Have to tell for having also tried all the front end of IanCanada that THIS IS SOMETHING ! Very good !
In such projects there are two sides : the soft and the hardware ! I like non commercial softs but they are a mess up if you are not a Linux guy : for instance : you want to have room eq and phase correction in the digital domain : you have to load in an existent distro some soft à la BruteFir; open pipe, etc..(look at my question to Tim Curtis about Brute Fir and RePhase : it will ask him a lot of time to embeded it with a nice GUI in his good Moode distro ! Not easy.... )
Et vive le Camembert Electrique !
PS : Marce if having a TDA1541A chip, you SHOULD go to Audial, there is few boards of AYA 2 2014 DS edition (cheap price thanks to Pedja Rogic's gift to DIY communauty)! It is my benchmark for listen to audio music with the Ian's Front end.... clock & EMC is the POINT (and powersupply type!); Andrea Mori is working as well on a good OCXO with a sota phase noise ! I use myself 957 XO from Crystek...
Sorry folks for the OT....
Of course I remember, I even succeed to attach uf-l connectors on the front end vias
(ah my bad I talk about the Painkiller one and you the Jean-Paul one) . The genuine chips from Rochester costed me a lot... (Painkiller DAC).So you talked about in fact of your JP adaptation you had no time to finish
IMHO because some limitation of the ES9023, you may give up (I talked bout the embeded current to voltage converson) : better to beginn from scratch like the good one Painkiller made with some external resistor for I/V conversion : here you should try yourself to believe it (with ears) the difference between a resistor : Rohpoint wirewound for Aerospace, Sussumu smd, old AllenBradley carbon comp, good normal metal Vishays : full of Learning, but I assume more EMC than in a chip? !Sure: which is good with nano pc à la Pi is you have not this switching PS noise ! It's simple to feed it with a battery, because here we are sure to no inject noise : the modern LiPo or LiPoFe4 are good for that !
As you say us, simple dyers have not for most of us both the knowledge and the costly Equipment to hunt EMC...
I will be be defintly in as beta tester if you want to make Something here as a little server (have some ideas on the functions, of course not the electronic, either the layout where you excell)
Have to tell for having also tried all the front end of IanCanada that THIS IS SOMETHING ! Very good !
In such projects there are two sides : the soft and the hardware ! I like non commercial softs but they are a mess up if you are not a Linux guy : for instance : you want to have room eq and phase correction in the digital domain : you have to load in an existent distro some soft à la BruteFir; open pipe, etc..(look at my question to Tim Curtis about Brute Fir and RePhase : it will ask him a lot of time to embeded it with a nice GUI in his good Moode distro ! Not easy.... )
Et vive le Camembert Electrique !
PS : Marce if having a TDA1541A chip, you SHOULD go to Audial, there is few boards of AYA 2 2014 DS edition (cheap price thanks to Pedja Rogic's gift to DIY communauty)! It is my benchmark for listen to audio music with the Ian's Front end.... clock & EMC is the POINT
(and powersupply type!); Andrea Mori is working as well on a good OCXO with a sota phase noise ! I use myself 957 XO from Crystek...Sorry folks for the OT....
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About the mini Pi like servers/players and layout :
You should have a look at the pretty good enough Odroid C1+
Most of the plug&play Linux Distro (Volumio 1.5; maybe the comming Volumio 2 ; RuneAudio are working good on it ; there is a lot of support on it on forum now !)
The Odroid C1+ as an I2S 5 pins plug direct from the IC ; unfornatuly the gnd pin is standalone and the 3 I2S lines are folowing each others (last pin is + 5V). So you have a way to do a little IC/plug with uf-l connections : the pin plug has just 2 cm of traces before the IC ! so short (dunno where is the gnd pin on the IC !)
RasberryPi has an I2S on the 40 pins plugs and there is a gnd pin near each of it ! IanCanada sells a plug with a little board with uf-l connectors.
So there is a way to match the impedance ! And with the external LiPo cells phones which are 5V most of the time you have an economical way not to inject noise when supplying them.
I assume you has a look an the excellent work of IanCanada : it's isolator boards makes isolation after a fifo and he reclock with very quiet clock board (mine is feeded with LiPoFe4 which noise floor is the lowest of avaliable cells with long life : A123 brand seems the best due to some "brevets")
For the dac chip, you should have a look at some AK... they have already programmed module as well : so compact layout with sota supply are possible ! I know you will not agree but each time it's possible I would bet for PPS smd caps instead X7R or even NPO class 1 ; despite the bigger esl due to the bigger size, I don't know at scope but on dac chips I can hear a difference with a low 0.1 uF ! Don't hit me please.
Be carefull with SqueezeBox server on a PC : the last supported by Logitech ressample all no pure 16/44, so all above that, at 24/96 ! Noi sport ! Most distro above play what they see (but can't play more than 192 K Hz because their layout ! Frankly most of us don't hear difference between 24/192 and 24/384 oversampled. Which is good with the distro above (there are some other like Moode Audio, etc) is you can from a GUI choose your oversampling on the fly if you want : for me who has most red book 16/44 in my Library, it's magic !
So you can certainly start from a cheap server with an I2S IC output pluged (IanCanada one being already made for RasberryPi or BananaPI -with this last compatibel you have in plus a plug for sata 2.5 hard drive : true server, no DNLA needed : the nano pc is both server & player with better management than the USB plug you can use for a wifi usb key e.g. ... no cat5/6 wire... what about wifi and EMC ? you know, I don't ! )
So for me the sport remains : doing a sota dac with sota clock, sota PS, sota isolation from the nano-Pi pc.... sound signature being just the analog stage after the dac chip ! last AK seems to beat the last ESS chips...
But no good dac without sota dac chip output... the analog part even most even the engineers without experience miss (viewing more the scope than listening lso with ears : don't shoot me again ! )!
DSP are also interresant, and I'm sure some will pm you if programmation is needed ! But this is an other story !
I'm sure this post is not OT and will inform some readers... If the little pc boards are good most of the time the little dac they putt on it is not good enough (in fact it's good for the price : good QP) for us fanatics here, despite it uses the I2S connection ! Because powersupply is bad and is coming from the mother board, layout as well, parts, etc .
Now you have excellent USB cart with isolator chip like the one of Lucian : Wave I/O (it has a little jitter but very little); it has also an output non isolated on uf-l ! Putt Daphile on your PC and you have a clone of your squeezeBox soft ! Putt your dac with uf-l inputt.... and you have already a 9/10 DAC on the scale of the DAC !
Me choosig the BanaPi with Ian I2S plug... but if some one want to do an I2S plug with uf-l on it, for the better Odroid C1+ like IanCanada made for the Pi/Banana (less electrical noise on the Odroid c1+ because better layout than the Pi !.... there are also some good but much expensive boards : cubitrucks, etc)
You should have a look at the pretty good enough Odroid C1+
Most of the plug&play Linux Distro (Volumio 1.5; maybe the comming Volumio 2 ; RuneAudio are working good on it ; there is a lot of support on it on forum now !)
The Odroid C1+ as an I2S 5 pins plug direct from the IC ; unfornatuly the gnd pin is standalone and the 3 I2S lines are folowing each others (last pin is + 5V). So you have a way to do a little IC/plug with uf-l connections : the pin plug has just 2 cm of traces before the IC ! so short (dunno where is the gnd pin on the IC !)
RasberryPi has an I2S on the 40 pins plugs and there is a gnd pin near each of it ! IanCanada sells a plug with a little board with uf-l connectors.
So there is a way to match the impedance ! And with the external LiPo cells phones which are 5V most of the time you have an economical way not to inject noise when supplying them.
I assume you has a look an the excellent work of IanCanada : it's isolator boards makes isolation after a fifo and he reclock with very quiet clock board (mine is feeded with LiPoFe4 which noise floor is the lowest of avaliable cells with long life : A123 brand seems the best due to some "brevets")
For the dac chip, you should have a look at some AK... they have already programmed module as well : so compact layout with sota supply are possible ! I know you will not agree but each time it's possible I would bet for PPS smd caps instead X7R or even NPO class 1 ; despite the bigger esl due to the bigger size, I don't know at scope but on dac chips I can hear a difference with a low 0.1 uF ! Don't hit me please
.Be carefull with SqueezeBox server on a PC : the last supported by Logitech ressample all no pure 16/44, so all above that, at 24/96 ! Noi sport ! Most distro above play what they see (but can't play more than 192 K Hz because their layout
! Frankly most of us don't hear difference between 24/192 and 24/384 oversampled. Which is good with the distro above (there are some other like Moode Audio, etc) is you can from a GUI choose your oversampling on the fly if you want : for me who has most red book 16/44 in my Library, it's magic ! So you can certainly start from a cheap server with an I2S IC output pluged (IanCanada one being already made for RasberryPi or BananaPI -with this last compatibel you have in plus a plug for sata 2.5 hard drive
: true server, no DNLA needed : the nano pc is both server & player with better management than the USB plug you can use for a wifi usb key e.g. ... no cat5/6 wire... what about wifi and EMC ? you know, I don't ! )So for me the sport remains : doing a sota dac with sota clock, sota PS, sota isolation from the nano-Pi pc.... sound signature being just the analog stage after the dac chip ! last AK seems to beat the last ESS chips...
But no good dac without sota dac chip output... the analog part even most even the engineers without experience miss (viewing more the scope than listening lso with ears : don't shoot me again
! )!DSP are also interresant, and I'm sure some will pm you if programmation is needed ! But this is an other story !
I'm sure this post is not OT and will inform some readers... If the little pc boards are good most of the time the little dac they putt on it is not good enough (in fact it's good for the price : good QP) for us fanatics here, despite it uses the I2S connection ! Because powersupply is bad and is coming from the mother board, layout as well, parts, etc .
Now you have excellent USB cart with isolator chip like the one of Lucian : Wave I/O (it has a little jitter but very little); it has also an output non isolated on uf-l ! Putt Daphile on your PC and you have a clone of your squeezeBox soft
! Putt your dac with uf-l inputt.... and you have already a 9/10 DAC on the scale of the DAC !Me choosig the BanaPi with Ian I2S plug... but if some one want to do an I2S plug with uf-l on it, for the better Odroid C1+ like IanCanada made for the Pi/Banana (less electrical noise on the Odroid c1+ because better layout than the Pi !.... there are also some good but much expensive boards : cubitrucks, etc)
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As for most of what we've all been talking about, "programming" is never a requirement. The software already exists and in many cases is available for free. Personally, I don't do any programming at all, but have set up MPD to run my system on three different systems, and I'm close to having an Orange Pi Plus ready to install. More of a task than I expected, but progressing nicely.
Thanks guys for all the input. I am still concerned about all the tweeks especially a linear PS but think this is primarily for playback. Like Marce says, "bits are bits." Dropouts are a concern on recording if the Op system "Windows" is interrupted. Thus I think I will start with Daphile/Linux on my desktop to download my CD's on to an external dedicated HD (FLAC files). I'll playback from here with my USB DAC for awhile and if satisfied will move permanently to a NUC which I hope will read the previously recorded music from the HD. Am I on the right track?
If your laptop is a Windows, yes you can go for Daphile and can choose to boot it from an usb key to avoid to install it on your laptop : read the Daphile site... But your usb dac has to be tied to ... an usb key plug on your laptop ! If no dedicated pc for your hifi system, the less expensive is a BananaPi with a sata disk + the dedicated wire between the two or a RasverryPi/Odroid C1+ with a usb HDD. Some distro uses also DNLA and you can plug a HDD on your Internet provider Box if this Box is DNLA compatible and have a dedicated USB for plugin a HDD disk. Of course if you have a network HDD (like a NAS e.g.) compatible DNLA, you can plug this network disk via RJ45 plug to the provider box (with a network cable cat 5 or 6).
Up to you to choose the system in relation to the wallet you have and the ergonomic options you want. As far quality sound is a concern, because of driver, the best is to avoid Windows ! But before to be able to listen the difference, one must have already a very good Hifi system and very good DAC...
regards
All music server distro but Apples' plays .flac (while AUdirvana 2 is now flac compatible if you want to pay you a Mac for some reasons...)
Up to you to choose the system in relation to the wallet you have and the ergonomic options you want. As far quality sound is a concern, because of driver, the best is to avoid Windows ! But before to be able to listen the difference, one must have already a very good Hifi system and very good DAC...
regards
All music server distro but Apples' plays .flac (while AUdirvana 2 is now flac compatible if you want to pay you a Mac for some reasons...)
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ah OK! thanks
I'm looking for a low power (5v) x86 Daphile-compatible machine, equipped with USB and 1 Gb ethernet, that could serve as client and be powered with a linear PSU.
5v probably could limit noise generated by internal switches that converts 19v to 5-12v of ordinary thin clients..
any suggestion?
Most internal circuitry uses <= 3.3V, the most consuming ones (CPU, memory) about 1.5V. 5V power supply will spare virtually no onboard power supplies as 5V is not widely used in thin clients circuitry.
I have great experience with refurbished x86 thin clients from FS (FS Futro) and HP. Also Dell makes these. They cost between 10 and 50 EUR incl. >=1GB RAM, >=1GB CF card/mSATA, quality power adapter. Some come with PCI slots, some with PCI-e slots. They usually sport at least one native SATA/mSATA port, 6 USB ports, gigabit ethernet, VGA/DVI/DP, etc. Great reviews are at Repurposing Thin Clients .
Of course they do not have enough CPU power to run up-conversion from PCM to DSDxxx which has become a fashion recently. For plain PCM/DSD playback they are fully sufficient.
I have great experience with refurbished x86 thin clients from FS (FS Futro) and HP. Also Dell makes these. They cost between 10 and 50 EUR incl. >=1GB RAM, >=1GB CF card/mSATA, quality power adapter. Some come with PCI slots, some with PCI-e slots. They usually sport at least one native SATA/mSATA port, 6 USB ports, gigabit ethernet, VGA/DVI/DP, etc. Great reviews are at Repurposing Thin Clients .
Of course they do not have enough CPU power to run up-conversion from PCM to DSDxxx which has become a fashion recently. For plain PCM/DSD playback they are fully sufficient.
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