Streamer Selection - Thoughts Requested Please!

Norust.

I respect everyone's opinions who have moved on to more expensive streamers. But I did what you did and stopped at the Bluesound Node with PD Creative PS and Denafrips Pontus 12th anniversary. It sounds so good to me but when I wanted to step up- I went with a Bluesound Node X and a Teddy Pardo PS which has not arrived yet. I like the Bluesound ecosystem and OS as well....

I've been enjoying using Roon with a Musica Capella III connecting with an I2S output to a Holo May Dac.

Sweet!

 

 rbstehno

you have a lot of misconceptions

"iMO, Mac minis are much quiete"r no they are not we are not talking about fan noise but electrictrical noise which is what EVERY dedicated server is. Also, I believe these factors that weigh heavily on sq:

a server of any kind in your audio room is bad, no this is wrong if the server has been designed for low noise rfi t makes no difference where the server is located

 

Our servers combat noise in a number of ways first the cpu is a low noise cpu designed to run Roon efficiently without requiring an excessivily fast cpu the greater the cpu’s processing power the greater the noise

We employ a 3d printed all copper cpu shield designed to shield the cpu and eliminate rfi radiation.

 

Our OS is one of the keys to running roon to maximize sound quality

We run Roon in its own CPU core

We run machine housekeeping on its own CPU core

We employ a third core for fille allocation and caching.it is for all of these reasons a dedicated server will outperform a mac mini, a mac mini is a great little computer but it has not been designed or sound quality.

lastly i2s is not better then USB as there are no standards between

manufacturer’s so i2s doesn’t mean everything will work, where usb is guaranteed to work.

 

so it comes down to design by the way the server is built

We have sold and tested: Aurender, auraylic, Sotm, baetis and laufer tehnnik,lumin and Innous al vs mac minis and custom pc solutions

 

so long story short we have years of actual testing.

 

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect nj

us importers 432evo music servers

@audiotroy - I am a new here but believe your above response was directed at comments by @rbstehno so I have linked him by the @ here so he can view your post.  

From your earlier post on page one I see that you are a vendor and from what I could pick up from the verbiage, the streamer you are suggesting is the 432 EVO music server. I have no issue at all with vendor responses and welcome information to assist me in my selection.  In this case I had to take the initiative by doing the work myself to figure out who you were, the product represented and seek out the reviews/info as there were no links in your post.  I had a bit of confusion in following your comments.  I went to the review in the Absolute Sound review and figured out that the $7,800 price for the EVO server you mentioned was EVO's middle tier offering and not their entry level offering.  A bit of time in searching showed that  EVO designates their entry level server as the Standard for $3,500 - which is in my range.  You did point out the platforms upgradeability which would be a big plus. 

Net is the user management software of either LMS or Roon for the EVO is not in my wheelhouse at this time.  I also understand that in addition a to whatever management software is selected, a local player would be required to access Roon or LMS in order to establish the EVO's operating parameters.  I am not ready to take all this on and simply want to add a streamer to utilize Tidal. 

I am sure that EVO servers are top tier products and wish you success in your marketing efforts.  

let me step in here. Audiotroy, you are wrong on many fronts and don't understand how hardware/software works.

"electrictrical noise"? You bring up cpu's when you tried to explain noise. The cpu's that any 3rd party server uses are not specifically built to run Roon. For example, Auralic runs/used to use the Tesla G1 cpu. Do you think the Auralic engineers went to the Tesla chip manufacturer and told them to make a unique processor to run Roon? Do you think Aurender engineers went to Intel to ask them to build the chip they use to specifically run Roon? Come on, nobody believes that, and Intel/Apple/AMD would laugh at somebody that would come in to ask them to build a specific chip to run a specific app that you would only sell a few thousand of them, if Intel/Tesla would design/build such a cpu, it would cost millions of dollars for each cpu. Aurender claims they run a low powered Intel chip and you stated the same, but if you compare Intel cpus to Apple or AMD Ryzen cpus, intel is not low powered, why do you think Apple went away from Intel. 

Another misconception you have is your statement: "We run Roon in its own CPU core". You have no control over this, it's how Roon is built, its out of your hands. Roon uses multithreading which utilizes a single cpu, it isn't written to multitask/parallel process over multiple cpu's. This is why the bigger the music library is/ or the more endpoints you have, Roon will eventually saturate the cpu its running on, that's why if you have a large music library, you will need a faster cpu. Most enterprise software multitasks/parallel processes over all the cpu's in the server to prevent such bottlenecks.If you look at your system resources running Roon, you will notice that cpu is getting saturated whereas the other cores are idle.

Your years of testing are flawed IMO. What would you test?  What does your testing actually consist of? You bring up cpu's, do you actually test the noise difference between an M2 Apple cpu vs a Tesla G1 cpu vs the low powered Intel cpu? No. Do you actually benchmark different flavors of linux? No. Every streamer is a server, it has a cpu, memory, and an OS. How many iterations of each of these components have you tested? Did you test the Tesla G1 cpu using Ubuntu v18 vs Ubuntu v20? How about Fedora? 

Bottom line, you don't know which cpu is the noisiest. You don't know which OS is the most efficient or the best OS for say USB or i2s. I do know that most of the streaming servers run a proprietary/tainted version of Linux, and with this, you either have to have the manufacturer update/or fix any OS issues, or if they are out of business, you will have to hire a Linux hacker to tweak the system. I don't use any hacked/proprietary/tainted Linux on any of my servers. 

PS Audio AirLens. Great streamer with I2S output.  

Audiotroy, I used to use USB many years ago. Sure it worked, that doesn't mean much when the sq of USB is so bad! Why are there tens/hundreds of tweaks from companies to try to improve the sq of USB? Have you heard of the reclocker? How about the off-ramp device? Femto clock? Jitterbug? IFI cable that separates the power from the data? IFI Ipurifier? Regen? I can go on, but why.

Also, in some of the recent stereophile reviews of high end dacs (even the review years ago stating the dcs network module sounds better than usb), the reviewer preferred the sq using the other inputs other than USB. Also, some of the best 2023 dacs don't even include USB. 

Since you are a dealer. if somebody buys a dac and uses USB, you will be right there to recommend 1 of many tweak products to make usb sound better.

@rbstehno 

You have long believed USB is categorically bad. Tech keeps on evolving, if one is using a dedicated streamer with USB output, USB is equally capable of delivering higher performance equivalent to SPDIF/AES and i2S. The final sound quality would also depend on implementation of these protocols within partnering DAC. Jitterbug was specifically designed for applications where general purpose laptop or computer being used as streamer as general purpose computers are inherently noisy. 

i2s requires careful selection of components as handshake between the two components is not given. I guess these handshake issues pave way to DDC re-clockers. IMO, they are totally unnecessary if you are using a high quality streamer + DAC. 

DAC’s with Ethernet cards (renderer) are the way to the future for anyone looking for one box solution. I agree, this type of component has a potential of a very high resolution sound. But then again, someone with deep pockets may disagree, you know that separates vs one box argument.

When it comes to streaming, there are so many ways to skin the cat! 

When it comes to streaming, there are so many ways to skin the cat! 

@lalitk So true!  I tried a Jitterbug with my Dragonfly Red in my HeadFi system years ago and it totally sucked the life out of the music and I returned it.  Also, I’ve read that Holo DACs are actually optimized for USB, so there ya go. 

@lalitk  A voice of reason when it comes to this complicated subject of digital streaming/DAC's and the various tradeoffs!  I appreciate your wisdom on this thread and the knowledge I have gained.  Closer to a decision ........

no rust 

you don't need any additional end point you just plug in the server to your dac

you can run Roon or lms tocontrol the server

 

yes our entry level is $3500 it is a complete Roon core and Endpoint  you need an ethernet connection and a usb cable.

 

Rhbsterno the reason there are so many usb tweeks is because many people  are attempting to use a  LAPTOP OR PC instead of a dedicated server, so you need some of these tweeks to prop up a pc or Mac

 

As per Roon you can direct the cpu to allocate its own core to running the  program 

as per low noise we use a particular intel chip known for low power low noise applications.

It is  not a special chip just one that most people don't use 

Hope that helps

ave and Troy

audio intellect NJ

US importers 432Evo music servers

 

I have an Ayre Acoustics QX Twenty DAC, with a built-in streamer.  Expensive?  Yes.  But, the built-in streamer is of the highest quality, and the unit sounds extraordinarily refined and amazing.       

Question on the connectivity out from the streamer to the Yggy DAC as noted by @mrmojo. As I understand it, the Aurender only provides USB out. Should I factor in SPDIF out? - I see that the Lumin Pulse offers SPDIF output in addition to USB. Will the accuracy of the clock in the streamer make the difference in an environment such as mine streaming to the Yggy?

Regarding your last question here, I don’t know the answer to this but I sure would like to. Anyone?

I can vouch for the Innuos PULSE. Best streamer I’ve ever owned. The bonus is their Innuos Sense app (streaming Qobuz). Double bonus is their exceptional support. I’ve even gotten rid of Roon lately. Enjoy your journey!

The streamer selection is done and dusted!  Thanks to all who were part of this thread and offered advice, "coaching" and further education - especially want to thank @lalitk and @blisshifi  

I decided on Aurrender and took my time in searching for a lightly used N200 which I recently found.  It arrived last week and is now up and running.  I am streaming Tidal and experimenting with Conductor which to me is pretty straightforward.  Took the advice offered here and running the N200 in Critical listening mode.  

That's what I got. I've had mine a month or so. I think you will like it the longer you have it.

@norust @doodlebum 

Any updates that you can share.  How do you like the conductor app?  Any noticeable difference is sound quality?  Any sense of a warmer sound or brighter sound?  Thanks.  

Conductor drops out on my iPad every few minutes so I am constantly reconnecting, a major PIA! Other than that it's fine, not as good as Roon but the sound quality is great. Warmer or brighter? No coloration that I perceive. I hope to somehow get the kinks worked out with the connection issue.

I am really enjoying the N200.  A vast improvement in the sound quality overall.  As noted by @doodlebum I am not hearing any coloration in the music.  I am not having any connectivity issues with my iPad to the Aurrender.  I did make sure I was running the most recent release and its been 100%. Have been using primarily TIDAL but also Conductor.  

norust

Congrats on your choice and setup. Happy listening.

@doodlebum  Be sure your cable is secure and well connected.  My buddy has something similar and the big heavy network cables were loose.  Eithernet jacks were not designed for some of these heavy weight cables.  

@12many   Thanks. I am assuming that's the problem. I am using a consumer grade cable now and plan to upgrade very soon.

 

Hi all,

I’m getting an N150 in January and read that porting iTunes library metadata fails because of its directory structure. Has anyone solved this problem? Also, I saw a member who is an Aurender dealer but don’t remember their name. Any help is appreciated greatly.

George

I have a Jriver MC Library I’ll need to port. Has anyone done this port successfully?

 

"Aurender is definitely good more neutral sound, but it can be bright, depending on the electronics, with the right ones it is a great option. Innuos it’s a little warmer and I like that,..."

" I had the Innuos Zen MK3 for a while, nice app and also a roon endpoint, but I found it harsh compared to the Aurender."

😉