[DaveRedRef-III]

Out of interest, when the control software was updated were there also changes in the player software? I suppose at some level there must have been.

Hi Lgn3
With version 1.44 software on the Innuos Statement they improved the kernel and the engine. Apart from the improved SQ (notably the clarity) this also delivered faster handling of music data when searching for albums and artists.

 

[Lgn3]

Hi Lgn3
With version 1.44 software on the Innuos Statement they improved the kernel and the engine. Apart from the improved SQ (notably the clarity) this also delivered faster handling of music data when searching for albums and artists.

Thanks for the info. So that explains the improvement in SQ rather than any changes to the control software.

 

[DaveRedRef-III]

It controls the importing of files, searching of files, editing and management thereof but i can see now how the term could be misleading Lgn3

 

[adrianm]

Even more possibly you broke something, or there is a bit of debris in the OPT1 socket.

Well i tested the Qed optical cable vs the one in the box. And i can't hear a difference between them, the stock one click in more securely than the QED in the OPT2 , the QED doesn't click in at all into OPT1. I might be losing my mind here but i think both of them sound slightly better out of OPT2, i'm not sure if something could've been damaged, or if i was even using OPT1 before. The difference between them is so small though that i can't even be sure it's there. I might be suffering from ptsd from the old cable fit.

 

[Lgn3]

It controls the importing of files, searching of files, editing and management thereof but i can see now how the term could be misleading Lgn3

Having gone to the Innuos website I see one change listed which could impact SQ as well as the improvements you mention.

Upgraded player engine to have higher priority in OS processes, reducing latency.

 

[AndrewOld]

Having gone to the Innuos website I see one change listed which could impact SQ as well as the improvements you mention.

Upgraded player engine to have higher priority in OS processes, reducing latency.

Why would lower latency necessarily be a good thing? The best filters on the M Scaler have the highest latency. High latency gives you the possibility of larger buffers filled more smoothly. The music on a hard drive has been there for quite possibly years. Low latency is only really important in some studio contexts, eg live playing - musicians want to hear what they are playing as soon as they play it.

But even if Innuos have changed the latency of playback, it is still hard verging on impossible to understand how playback imitated by iPeng could sound different from playback initiated by Squeezepad.

 

[Lgn3]

Why would lower latency necessarily be a good thing? The best filters on the M Scaler have the highest latency. High latency gives you the possibility of larger buffers filled more smoothly. The music on a hard drive has been there for quite possibly years. Low latency is only really important in some studio contexts, eg live playing - musicians want to hear what they are playing as soon as they play it.

But even if Innuos have changed the latency of playback, it is still hard verging on impossible to understand how playback imitated by iPeng could sound different from playback initiated by Squeezepad.

I agree with all of the above but was just trying to isolate any software changes that could impact SQ because clearly changes to the control software only would not. Your analogy to the TV remote in a previous post nicely illustrated the point that using different control points with the same player software could not possibly effect SQ.

 

[sm60]

That doesn’t make any sense. IPeng and Squeezepad are both control points. They just tell LMS what to play. They are not involved in the signal path. It is close to impossible to construe any reason, even one scraped from the lunatic fringe of audiophile voodoo, that could explain why they would have an effect on sound quality. Prove they are not involved in the playback chain by completely turning off your iPad or whatever you are using to run them on.

I used iPeng and Squeezebox extensively for about 10 years, but ever since I signed on to a lifetime membership with Roon, I view LMS and iPeng as quaint relics from yesteryear. My various Squeezebox Touch devices are in my garage waiting to be junked.

I agree about Roon having essentially *zero* effect on sound quality, unless you start fooling around with various lossy types of DSP. You can of course go silly with upsampling, and upsample everything to DSD 512, but all you're doing is increasing global warming by burning up CPU cycles. There's no evidence I know of that shows high bit rate DSD upsampling does anything to "improve" the sound. Mathematically, DSD conversion incurs a huge amount of ultrasonic noise, so there's in fact evidence to show you're making things worse by moving from PCM space to DSD space (noise wise, 24 bit 192Khz PCM has far lower noise than any DSD format).

Ignoring sonics, Roon transforms listening in ways I could have scarcely imagined 20 years ago. With a subscription to Qoubuz, I can now stream tens of thousands of high bit rate classical recordings, and every evening, I sample several new recordings, and can also read liner notes through the PDFs that Roon/Qoubuz make available. I can never imagine going back to iPeng or Squeezebox. It's like playing eight track tapes or digging out my old VCR or Betamax!

 

[adrianm]

I used iPeng and Squeezebox extensively for about 10 years, but ever since I signed on to a lifetime membership with Roon, I view LMS and iPeng as quaint relics from yesteryear. My various Squeezebox Touch devices are in my garage waiting to be junked.

I agree about Roon having essentially *zero* effect on sound quality, unless you start fooling around with various lossy types of DSP. You can of course go silly with upsampling, and upsample everything to DSD 512, but all you're doing is increasing global warming by burning up CPU cycles. There's no evidence I know of that shows high bit rate DSD upsampling does anything to "improve" the sound. Mathematically, DSD conversion incurs a huge amount of ultrasonic noise, so there's in fact evidence to show you're making things worse by moving from PCM space to DSD space (noise wise, 24 bit 192Khz PCM has far lower noise than any DSD format).

Ignoring sonics, Roon transforms listening in ways I could have scarcely imagined 20 years ago. With a subscription to Qoubuz, I can now stream tens of thousands of high bit rate classical recordings, and every evening, I sample several new recordings, and can also read liner notes through the PDFs that Roon/Qoubuz make available. I can never imagine going back to iPeng or Squeezebox. It's like playing eight track tapes or digging out my old VCR or Betamax!

Well what do you feel like Roon offers over the Qobuz or Tidal native app user experience wise?

 

[Triode User]

I agree about Roon having essentially *zero* effect on sound quality, unless you start fooling around with various lossy types of DSP.

I started this conversation in relation to the Innuos streamers and so I have swopped emails with Nuno from Innuos. He tells me that experimental mode uses Squeezelite with different parameters when using iPeng compared to the Roon implementation of Squeezelite. Nuno has offered to look at things with me in a few weeks when he is less busy to see if we can find what sounds best to me. I admit I would like to use Roon because it is so user friendly so I’m hoping to end up with Roon sounding at least as good as anything else but for me it is not there yet (I don’t use any Roon processing at all).

 

[Triode User]

Well what do you feel like Roon offers over the Qobuz or Tidal native app user experience wise?

It curates the locally stored files as well as seamlessly integrating streaming services such as tidal / Qobuz.

 

[adrianm]

It curates the locally stored files as well as seamlessly integrating streaming services such as tidal / Qobuz.

Yeah, i know that part, but as someone with no files i find it kind of pointless. Especially with Tidal connect coming out soon. Though i am getting fed up with them gradually transforming everything in my playlist to MQA and deleting the non-MQA versions. I think even playing them as flac it might be doing some funny business.

 

[iamoneagain]

Well what do you feel like Roon offers over the Qobuz or Tidal native app user experience wise?

This would be something I’d say would require testing it out for the 14 days to see if it’s for you.

For me, it allows my streamer to work seamless without any messing around. And can send to various endpoints like Apple TV, computers, and old iPods. Can group endpoints together to play in different sections of the house. And without a family account can play multiple streams from either Tidal or Qobuz at once at home. My only gripe would be no mobile solution but since been at home most of the year, not urgent.

 

[adrianm]

This would be something I’d say would require testing it out for the 14 days to see if it’s for you.

For me, it allows my streamer to work seamless without any messing around. And can send to various endpoints like Apple TV, computers, and old iPods. Can group endpoints together to play in different sections of the house. And without a family account can play multiple streams from either Tidal or Qobuz at once at home. My only gripe would be no mobile solution but since been at home most of the year, not urgent.

It's probably not, none of that sounds useful to me. I'm just getting sick of Tidal but Qobuz has an even worse interface. Have high hopes for amazon ultra hd music

 

[iamoneagain]

Yeah, i know that part, but as someone with no files i find it kind of pointless. Especially with Tidal connect coming out soon. Though i am getting fed up with them gradually transforming everything in my playlist to MQA and deleting the non-MQA versions. I think even playing them as flac it might be doing some funny business.

I lasted less than 2 days switching back Tidal. In roon I created a filter to show all the MQA albums and then looked for the cd versions. I only made it through to about 1/4 of those MQA albums to find over 50 albums only offered in MQA. I also found several Tidal albums only in AAC format. Was kind of shocked by that. Quobuz doesn’t have anything less the cd quality. So canceled Tidal and right back to Qobuz.

Qobuz app interface is terrible but doesn’t matter when used thru roon. So that’s the one plus to Tidal if using their app.