[kennyb123]

Really? I thought it would rip SACDs. Well there you go cheers

I use an inexpensive Sony blu-ray player to rip mine. I wish it was easier but I really can’t complain.

 

[frankensmurf]

i thought I was also perhaps happy with Roon + HQP on the k50. This was using HQP + NAA but with no up sampling, in other words just using the player function of HQP + NAA. But then i swopped to HQPD for file selection instead of Roon 1.8 and realised I was fooling myself into thinking Roon was listenable to. Even worse was using Roon on the k50 server and Roon on the k50 player.

I just want to probe on this a bit. I am in the middle of trying to get Roon & HQP (CX) > NAA (EX) > Innuos Phoenix > P2 > HDMI > PS Audio DirectStream working.

In your opinion, Roon (CX) to Roon Ready (EX) is the worst I'm assuming.
>> Have you tried Roon (CX) to Squeezelight? This is what I'm using now, and it's noticeably / substantially better than Roon Ready.
Next level up in SQ, if I guess correctly, is Roon & HQP (CX) > NAA (EX)?
And you are saying that (for local file playback anyway) turning off Roon Server and using the (very basic) HQP UI to load and play files is noticeably / substantially better than Roon/HQP > NAA?

Sigh. Please confirm, and I will experiment with that. : )

Has anyone else confirmed the same? It's not that I don't believe it, I'm just tired of messing around. : D
And of course the Roon UI is much more pleasant.

 

[frankensmurf]

I am in the middle of trying to get Roon & HQP (CX) > NAA (EX) > Innuos Phoenix > P2 > HDMI > PS Audio DirectStream working.

And, sorry, separate question i guess:
Since my DAC does its own complicated oversampling, I am actually just looking to get bit-perfect playback of PCM and DSD (that sounds better than Roon) out of HQPlayer, at least initially. Anyone know what settings I should be using?

I have playback of redbook right now, but I can't get anything highres to play. : /

 

[frankensmurf]

And, sorry, separate question i guess:
Since my DAC does its own complicated oversampling, I am actually just looking to get bit-perfect playback of PCM and DSD (that sounds better than Roon) out of HQPlayer...

And, apologies for all the questions at once: given that I'm not looking for upsampling from HQP, which Antipodes player / renderer provides the best sound quality (and secondarily the easiest setup / reasonably good UX)?

Thanks.

 

[atya35mm]

I just want to probe on this a bit. I am in the middle of trying to get Roon & HQP (CX) > NAA (EX) > Innuos Phoenix > P2 > HDMI > PS Audio DirectStream working.

In your opinion, Roon (CX) to Roon Ready (EX) is the worst I'm assuming.
>> Have you tried Roon (CX) to Squeezelight? This is what I'm using now, and it's noticeably / substantially better than Roon Ready.
Next level up in SQ, if I guess correctly, is Roon & HQP (CX) > NAA (EX)?
And you are saying that (for local file playback anyway) turning off Roon Server and using the (very basic) HQP UI to load and play files is noticeably / substantially better than Roon/HQP > NAA?

Sigh. Please confirm, and I will experiment with that. : )

Has anyone else confirmed the same? It's not that I don't believe it, I'm just tired of messing around. : D
And of course the Roon UI is much more pleasant.

Hi there, I did quite a bit of messing around since I got the K30, and following Triode's and Clive's posts in this thread.

What I found is similar to Triode User, where Roon Server / Player seem to be the darkest / warm / muddy sounding combo. Roon / Squeeze is much better with overall music getting quite a bit brighter. Although from previous post by Triode, it seems Roon is creating lots of traffic and performance use in the background.

I can confirm this, where using CPU load diagnostic tool in the my antipodes page, the CPU load for all 4 cores jump up to 7 - 12 %, sometimes 20% when I just use an iPad to browse Roon, and going through different pages, albums etc. So this confirms that Roon is using quite a bit of performance and probably sending quite a bit of network data so you can speedily browse it's very nice interface that you pay for.

And from what I can tell, SQ wise, it's best to keep CPU and Network traffic as low as possible.

So if I ever want to get as much SQ out as possible, I would switch to using MPD as player, and downloading an iPad app called "mconnectHD" to browse the music. It seems to work easier than getting HQPcontrol to work. The music just pops up automatically in mconnect vs HQPcontrol where you have to go HQP interface to do a manual refresh. I have to anyway in my basic understanding of how the app works. Using this combo, the server computer CPU load stays around 0 - 2% sometimes 3%.

Anyway, my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

 

[kennyb123]

Since my DAC does its own complicated oversampling, I am actually just looking to get bit-perfect playback of PCM and DSD (that sounds better than Roon) out of HQPlayer, at least initially. Anyone know what settings I should be using?

I have playback of redbook right now, but I can't get anything highres to play. : /

I would skip HQPlayer because your DAC does its own scaling. Roon/Squeeze is about the best Roon will sound. I believe there is a video on Antipodes' website describing how to set it up.

I agree though with @atya35mm above that MPD is the best sound quality. You lose the feature richness of Roon but gain much better sound quality.

 

[Progisus]

Will AMS3.1 by itself (no EX/CX upgrade) bring a sonic improvement over sonicorbiter 2.7/2.8 or just a different gui?

 

[Clive101]

Hi there, I did quite a bit of messing around since I got the K30, and following Triode's and Clive's posts in this thread.

What I found is similar to Triode User, where Roon Server / Player seem to be the darkest / warm / muddy sounding combo. Roon / Squeeze is much better with overall music getting quite a bit brighter. Although from previous post by Triode, it seems Roon is creating lots of traffic and performance use in the background.

I can confirm this, where using CPU load diagnostic tool in the my antipodes page, the CPU load for all 4 cores jump up to 7 - 12 %, sometimes 20% when I just use an iPad to browse Roon, and going through different pages, albums etc. So this confirms that Roon is using quite a bit of performance and probably sending quite a bit of network data so you can speedily browse it's very nice interface that you pay for.

And from what I can tell, SQ wise, it's best to keep CPU and Network traffic as low as possible.

So if I ever want to get as much SQ out as possible, I would switch to using MPD as player, and downloading an iPad app called "mconnectHD" to browse the music. It seems to work easier than getting HQPcontrol to work. The music just pops up automatically in mconnect vs HQPcontrol where you have to go HQP interface to do a manual refresh. I have to anyway in my basic understanding of how the app works. Using this combo, the server computer CPU load stays around 0 - 2% sometimes 3%.

Anyway, my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

Strange....

OK, I have the K50 but only have 0-1 % on the sever with Roon and 0-1% on the player with squeezelite.

My CPUs are almost idle. There is now way this should be ongoing 7-12%

The odd occasion the usage is similar on the server with Roon but it is a glitch and I have to power off and on then the problem is sorted.
The issue is with Roon stop it under the software and restart sometimes it also resolves the issue.

For the avoidance of doubt my K50 is at room temperature.

Had the same issue a few times.

Has anyone else had the same issue ?

 

[frankensmurf]

I would skip HQPlayer because your DAC does its own scaling. Roon/Squeeze is about the best Roon will sound. I believe there is a video on Antipodes' website describing how to set it up.

I agree though with @atya35mm above that MPD is the best sound quality. You lose the feature richness of Roon but gain much better sound quality.

Thank you both. I've spent $8.49 on mconnect for iPhone and another $8.49 lol for the iPad version (I wish my other tweaks cost this much) and have TIDAL and Qobuz playing through the EX MPD player.

I've installed DLNA Server and Bubble UPnP on the CX (and disabled the horrifying default public internet share in Bubble) and I'm playing local (CX) high-res PCM files. The SQ is definitely good; I will keep listening as my confirmation bias is hopping up and down right now. I cannot play DSF files -- they are simply not shown in the mconnect HD UI. Does anyone know if this is possible? I can't find any settings related to DoP or whatever in this app.

Meanwhile, the user experience of navigating through my badly-organized folders leaves much to be desired. Roon will certainly still have a place for parties / casual listening. I can certainly improve the mconnect UX with some playlists and favorites, but it obv only goes so far.

I will investigate HQP setups for bit-perfect / non-upsampled playback and report back here -- to me this is the optimal combination of excellent SQ (I hope?) and the deliciously easy Roon UX.

 

[magnuska]

Will AMS3.1 by itself (no EX/CX upgrade) bring a sonic improvement over sonicorbiter 2.7/2.8 or just a different gui?

I really hope that. Like Innuos did with their new 2.0 software. Most users I have seen says SQ improved there.

 

[atya35mm]

Strange....

OK, I have the K50 but only have 0-1 % on the sever with Roon and 0-1% on the player with squeezelite.

My CPUs are almost idle. There is now way this should be ongoing 7-12%

The odd occasion the usage is similar on the server with Roon but it is a glitch and I have to power off and on then the problem is sorted.
The issue is with Roon stop it under the software and restart sometimes it also resolves the issue.

For the avoidance of doubt my K50 is at room temperature.

Had the same issue a few times.

Has anyone else had the same issue ?

It does seem excessive although that’s just my experience from one listening session. Where I quickly flip between myantipodes cpu usage and roon to see how browsing roon impacts performance. The jump to 7-12 % only lasted few seconds after browsing Roon, and settles back to 2-4% if I didn’t flip back to Roon on the iPad. I could probably do more testing on this to see if it’s a glitch like you said, but currently loving it too much just using MPD playing local SSD files.

I’m really liking the quality of SSD vs. streaming of the net at the moment. It could be because I haven’t spend any $ optimising my network connection. The K30 just gets connected via the black stock ethernet cable it comes with to my wireless network point. Have you guys got good experience with buying good quality after market cables? With the costs of some of these cables like the AQ Vodka / Shunyata range, I’m debating whether I should just use the fund to buy more high res albums to add to the SSD collection. Qobuz having some nice discounts at the moment.

 

[frankensmurf]

It does seem excessive although that’s just my experience from one listening session. Where I quickly flip between myantipodes cpu usage and roon to see how browsing roon impacts performance. The jump to 7-12 % only lasted few seconds after browsing Roon, and settles back to 2-4% if I didn’t flip back to Roon on the iPad. I could probably do more testing on this to see if it’s a glitch like you said, but currently loving it too much just using MPD playing local SSD files.

I’m really liking the quality of SSD vs. streaming of the net at the moment. It could be because I haven’t spend any $ optimising my network connection. The K30 just gets connected via the black stock ethernet cable it comes with to my wireless network point. Have you guys got good experience with buying good quality after market cables? With the costs of some of these cables like the AQ Vodka / Shunyata range, I’m debating whether I should just use the fund to buy more high res albums to add to the SSD collection. Qobuz having some nice discounts at the moment.

This is a fascinating topic. To the extent that we are implying that CPU usage is inversely related to SQ (which seems reasonable to this non-techie), should we be outsourcing heavy lifting (HQP upsampling certainly, and even Roon serving) to a different box which is disconnected from the (in my mind) more impactful renderer (i.e. the last thing that touches the DAC)? I'm curious in a sense how Antipodes would characterize their current top-line products when running HQP upsampling vs running barebones MPD / DLNA server (MinimServer i guess?).

I can confirm your impression of local file playback trumping streamed files. In my experience (and don't ask me to somehow prove this) the delta between local and streamed is smaller with high res files than with redbook. YMMV.

And in terms of cleaning up your network feed, absolutely yes. If you have trouble sleeping, somewhere above in this thread I've detailed some of my experiments. The TLDR is: Something like an EtherRegen makes a big difference, particularly the 'B' side which is a single, extra-isolated 100MBps ethernet port (the 'A' side has 4 gigabit ports, also cleaned up). In my case I actually put the CX on the A side and the EX on the B side, which I found to sound a bit better than plugging the CX into the B side and the EX into the second ethernet port on the CX. (that's pretty concerning if you think about it). There is an additional benefit to daisy-chaining two ERs -- I have another on order to put next to my router.

And... yes, even with an EtherRegen (I also have the Uptone LPS 1.5 powering it), upmarket cables make a difference. I previously used an AQ Cinnamon, then upgraded to an AQ Vodka -- worthwhile. Then an industry buddy brought over Nordost Blue Heaven, Heimdall 2, and Valhalla 2... The prices are stupid, but there were clear, surprising differences as we went up the line (both into AND out of the ER). Notably these improvements were audible playing back local as well as streaming files. (sigh)

Honestly for my money I would buy a good bang-for-buck $200 ethernet cable -- or a price point in line with the rest of your digital cables -- plus one ER. At that point I would say you have (very approximately speaking ) gotten rid of the worst of the problems coming through ethernet. It's still worth experimenting -- upgrade the PS, maybe play with clocks (the EtherRegen accepts an external 10MHz clock which some people say makes it the best thing since sliced bread; I haven't tried that yet), and better ethernet cables.

AFAIC this is all bad news -- do not try this stuff (partic kilobuck cables) unless you are comfortable with the spend. And obviously if your system isn't already very well tuned this is a waste of time/$.

 

[Presence]

I just tried Roon Server[CX]/Squeeze[EX] for the first time last night. I heard a more open midrange and treble but it didn't seem to improve on transient and midrange blur that I am also used to with what I hear as a more closed in sound from Roon/RoonReady. Mark J mentioned the new power supply will significantly improve on transient delivery.

I don't mean to stir the pot here but last fall there was some talk from the US support center that a new LINUX version was out that would improve SQ but the upgrade needed to be performed at the service center. At the end of last year the story for the delay was that it needed to be regression tested/certified with the "new" Antipodes OS SW. No clarification was provided as to whether that was integration with 2.8 or the unannounced [at least to me at that time] AMS v3.1.
The topic of the new LINUX update seemed to fade away and I recently inquired about it with Mark Cole. His response was that the SQ improvements were to come from the PS upgrade and my inquiry pertaining to a factory performed LINUX upgrade was not responded to. Since [per Mark C] the AMS v3.1 will be pushed out to existing CX/EX users who don't send their units in, I presume there is no new LINUX update. Perhaps this was only a smoldering rumor that I picked up from last year.

I was looking in the CX Roon Server Diagnostic Event Log line items for the % processor usage and didn't see it. Any clarification to help me find it would be appreciated.
Also, on Antipodes' website, with the MPD support video "under construction", what is the recommended server option and how do you transfer files from the music library to a "playlist"? Is the "Playlist" location part of the MPD renderer app?
Sorry for the basic questions...

 

[frankensmurf]

I was looking in the CX Roon Server Diagnostic Event Log line items for the % processor usage and didn't see it. Any clarification to help me find it would be appreciated.
Also, on Antipodes' website, with the MPD support video "under construction", what is the recommended server option and how do you transfer files from the music library to a "playlist"? Is the "Playlist" location part of the MPD renderer app?
Sorry for the basic questions...

I just figured this out.. it is NOT straighforward lol (at least not compared to Roon).

If you have an EX, install MPD/DLNA, and set it as your player. If you only have the CX, install it there. Download mconnect HD (the free version works to try it out) on an iphone or ipad on the same network. Once you've selected MPD on your player (EX or CX) you should be able to see the 'Antipodes' Player in the 'Play To' feature on mconnect. You may have to switch players on the Antipodes and restart the app a couple times, but it worked eventually.

To play back local files, you have to install MinimServer or DLNA or Bubble UPnP server on your CX. Once that's installed and running it will show up in the 'Browse' screen of mconnect.

 

[Progisus]

I just tried Roon Server[CX]/Squeeze[EX] for the first time last night. I heard a more open midrange and treble but it didn't seem to improve on transient and midrange blur that I am also used to with what I hear as a more closed in sound from Roon/RoonReady. Mark J mentioned the new power supply will significantly improve on transient delivery.

I don't mean to stir the pot here but last fall there was some talk from the US support center that a new LINUX version was out that would improve SQ but the upgrade needed to be performed at the service center. At the end of last year the story for the delay was that it needed to be regression tested/certified with the "new" Antipodes OS SW. No clarification was provided as to whether that was integration with 2.8 or the unannounced [at least to me at that time] AMS v3.1.
The topic of the new LINUX update seemed to fade away and I recently inquired about it with Mark Cole. His response was that the SQ improvements were to come from the PS upgrade and my inquiry pertaining to a factory performed LINUX upgrade was not responded to. Since [per Mark C] the AMS v3.1 will be pushed out to existing CX/EX users who don't send their units in, I presume there is no new LINUX update. Perhaps this was only a smoldering rumor that I picked up from last year.

I was looking in the CX Roon Server Diagnostic Event Log line items for the % processor usage and didn't see it. Any clarification to help me find it would be appreciated.
Also, on Antipodes' website, with the MPD support video "under construction", what is the recommended server option and how do you transfer files from the music library to a "playlist"? Is the "Playlist" location part of the MPD renderer app?
Sorry for the basic questions...

I did the 2.7 to 2.8 upgrade a year ago. I did not notice a sonic upgrade. The software player upgrades were definitely worth it. I have had many hqplayer updates and some mpd. MPD does not require a server and using a controller app will provide direct play which is the best sonics imho.