Streamer to kill the big boys for under $250

[Blizzard]

Yes, I think it is a PCIe card. So I can't use it with this streamer then, tough luck.

I think you'll be happy as is. The USB bus on this unit may be just as clean as from that unit anyways. The power supply does make a difference though. Do you have an LPS laying around already?

I have learned a few things about power supplies over the last bit that's been a real eye opener. SMPS's can actually outpreform LPS's, if you have very good quality voltage regulators after them. A SMPS actually has far better isolation from grit in the mains supply than LPS's. This is why we are starting to see SMPS's powering 20K plus DAC's.

I may decide to come up with a SMPS power supply that uses these very good voltage regs. This will allow a me to build a very compact supply of the highest quality. Also very reliable over a long life span.

 

[lateboomer]

I have got enough LPS to use. My brother builds them for me, which uses normal brick transformer and cascade down/regulate the voltage twice to achieve required voltage. We also employ 10Kva balanced power supply to supply our audio system and to these LPS. I think SMPS has great potential, just that we don't know what are the good voltage regs to use. You know they said the devil is in the details.

 

[Blizzard]

I have got enough LPS to use. My brother builds them for me, which uses normal brick transformer and cascade down/regulate the voltage twice to achieve required voltage. We also employ 10Kva balanced power supply to supply our audio system and to these LPS. I think SMPS has great potential, just that we don't know what are the good voltage regs to use. You know they said the devil is in the details.

Well different types of Voltage regulators are better for SMPS. You need to look for the ones with very high PSRR and CSRR ratings. As this is what filters out the switching noise. And since the supply itself is good at rejecting mains interference, you end up with very clean power. You also get extremely fast power on demand. The caps get charged almost instantly when power bursts drain the power from the supply. You can really notice with amplifiers. Listen to the Sheffield drum and track disk with a big power hungry full range pair of speakers. When you get to some of the powerful drum bursts at very loud volume levels, even with some very powerful high capacitance linear supplies, the energy from the supply will be drained and depleted before they have enough chance to charge up to deliver full power. Not with the big SMPS's like Hypex's SMPS1200A700. The drum hits are so solid and articulate, that it's astonishing. Absolutely no smearing together. Also still pin point on the soundstage. I've been listening to that album for 20 years, and has always been a test disk for me. Well I've reached a plateau here that's far beyond anything I've experienced before.

 

[lateboomer]

Sheffield drum and track disk is my fav test disc also. But you raised something interesting about playing the tracks in big volume which I will go and test it out for transient response and power.

 

[Blizzard]

Sheffield drum and track disk is my fav test disc also. But you raised something interesting about playing the tracks in big volume which I will go and test it out for transient response and power.

You need to hear the DXD version Bruce B mastered from the master tapes! Wow, stunning!

 

[lateboomer]

Where to get the DXD version? From HDtrack? The version I have had is ripped from a pirated cd from another guy long time ago.

 

[Blizzard]

Where to get the DXD version? From HDtrack? The version I have had is ripped from a pirated cd from another guy long time ago.

You can get a CD version of the DXD remaster on Amazon. I'm not sure if they decided to release the DxD master yet.

 

[lateboomer]

Blizzard,

You said to do dsd256, it is good to go for i7 processor. I checked there are 4th, 5th and 6th generation i7. Which is the one to choose, is it i7-6700 processor? What ram size to choose, 16 GB DDR4?

Like this:
http://www.dell.com/my/p/xps-8900-desktop/pd?oc=w210813myw10&model_id=xps-8900-desktop#overrides=

But it has MS office, antivirus, blu-ray drive combo which I don't need.

Could you recommend i7 CPU for running HQplayer?

 

[Blizzard]

Blizzard,

You said to do dsd256, it is good to go for i7 processor. I checked there are 4th, 5th and 6th generation i7. Which is the one to choose, is it i7-6700 processor? What ram size to choose, 16 GB DDR4?

Like this:
http://www.dell.com/my/p/xps-8900-desktop/pd?oc=w210813myw10&model_id=xps-8900-desktop#overrides=

But it has MS office, antivirus, blu-ray drive combo which I don't need.

Could you recommend i7 CPU for running HQplayer?

Anything 4th gen or up with i7. More powerful the better of course. I grabbed a cheap mini tower with 4th gen I7 4790 processor and it worked fine. Only 25-30% CPU load converting redbook to DSD 256. Minimum 8gb or ram recommended.

Something like this or faster is fine.


http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=83-159-355

 

[Blizzard]

I forgot to mention in this thread that lots of guys who go with the optical isolation are using the Ifi Ipower to power the Fibre media converter's on the DAC end (FMC)

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-322395-ifi-ipower-outboard-supply.aspx

 

[Blizzard]

I ordered the TP link optical setup I posted the links to. I'll have it all by the 17th. I'll let everyone know what I think.

I should have the new image ready by tomorrow. We are just finishing up the final touches with AirPlay. I'm hoping to do this all before the end of the day today.

 

[amirm]

Anything 4th gen or up with i7. More powerful the better of course. I grabbed a cheap mini tower with 4th gen I7 4790 processor and it worked fine. Only 25-30% CPU load converting redbook to DSD 256. Minimum 8gb or ram recommended.

A word of caution in going by those percentages. They can be quite misleading. See this article I wrote on this: http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/MultiCoreCPUs.html

If HQplayer is multithreaded, then the percentages can be a good barometer but otherwise not. I use Roon for resampling DSD to PCM at 25% CPU usage, it is already maxed out and I get glitch once in a while.

My recommendation on CPUs is to always buy the later generations. Intel Skylake is it right now.

 

[Blizzard]

A word of caution in going by those percentages. They can be quite misleading. See this article I wrote on this: http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/MultiCoreCPUs.html

If HQplayer is multithreaded, then the percentages can be a good barometer but otherwise not. I use Roon for resampling DSD to PCM at 25% CPU usage, it is already maxed out and I get glitch once in a while.

My recommendation on CPUs is to always buy the later generations. Intel Skylake is it right now.

Yes of course newer and faster is always better. But for those on a budget, I tested the I7 4790 processor in a cheap HP tower with 8gb of RAM and preformed flawlessly for this application. Best of all something like this can be had for $500

 

[amirm]

Yes of course newer and faster is always better. But for those on a budget, I tested the I7 4790 processor in a cheap HP tower with 8gb of RAM and preformed flawlessly for this application. Best of all something like this can be had for $500

I am all about "what is best" and nothing else.

 

[Blizzard]

I am all about "what is best" and nothing else.

Why didn't you go with an I7 or Xeon then?

 

[adyc]

3.12 beta allows CUDA Nivda GPU off loading. Anybody who wants to get a new computer better get a CUDA Nivda graphics card. GPU is much more powerful than CPU.

 

[Blizzard]

3.12 beta allows CUDA Nivda GPU off loading. Anybody who wants to get a new computer better get a CUDA Nivda graphics card. GPU is much more powerful than CPU.

I guess it all depends on what you're trying to do with HQplayer. A $500 basic computer with I7 4790 can resample any PCM to 2 channel DSD 512 with ease.

However if your doing multichannel using the convolution engine for room correction etc, that may be a good option.

Here's an option for a decent price that could take advantage of the CUDA offloading feature:

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-X8700-17...=UTF8&qid=1450049554&sr=1-20&keywords=i7+4790

 

[Folsom]

I bet Linux handles the conversion better, on lesser machines. I can run Linux on a netbook and it's often faster than new windows computers because they're so loaded down typically.

In fact maybe another NUC/thing, a bit higher powered, would do it.

 

[amirm]

For compute intensive tasks like HQPlayer, the OS plays no role. So the amount of CPU required for Windows would be the same as Linux. It is a different situation than using Linux for everyday computing.

 

[Blizzard]

For compute intensive tasks like HQPlayer, the OS plays no role. So the amount of CPU required for Windows would be the same as Linux. It is a different situation than using Linux for everyday computing.

Piero does claim the greatest benefits with Audiolinux can be reaped by using it on the HQplayer server. However I haven't tried yet. He's been optimising the OS specifically for HQplayer for a couple years now.