[MartinWT]

Windows is a general purpose Operating System, it was never designed for audio streaming.

Most dedicated streamers have a flavour of Linux as their OS, highly streamlined for a single purpose.
Sonicorbiter in the Sonore Rendu series, for instance, sounds excellent and is very stable.

 

[Jake2]

Okay got to suggest this very strongly. Dive into this thread...backtrack a bit and check this out. Software that is FREE! to reduce jitter in computer RAM. Inceed! http://jplay.eu/forum/index.php?/topic/3063-pink-hq-minorityclean/page-210. Learn, Inhale, Ingest and implement it. You will not regret it. This is a Jplay forum and that is how I discovered this. But you don't need Jplay to implement. I don't even run Jplay at the moment. Works with all of your audio software and enhances it. You must have Process Lasso to properly implement it. Oh but when you do, you will fall out of your listening chair. I have been playing with it for months. But now with Hungry Bears latest trusted Installer to load it and more people discussing it. It is easier than ever to get it running. I have been running in the loaded default state. There are 3 specific programs. which you can use seperately or in combination to acheive significant tuning and optimization. Finally understood how to properly implement CPU priority settings with these programs in Process Lasso and good as it was...and it was. I fell out of my listening chair when I optimized the CPU priority of each program. I run all three! Check it out and I will be happy to share my experience. But they are very DIY helpful on the site! Sounds like I upgraded my DAC a few levels and then some. Somewhere between half to 2/3 level of improvement as throwing the U18 into my system, now that I have it optimized. And Orya who designed it offers it for free, but he does not support it, so you have to learn and share.

OMG. Gobsmacked!

jgwtriode

This is very interesting thanks.

Do you or anyone else know if there are equivalent programs for Mac OS?

 

[Dandoudou]

This is very interesting thanks.

Do you or anyone else know if there are equivalent programs for Mac OS?

They do not exist, because they are not necessary for macOS.

 

[Jake2]

They do not exist, because they are not necessary for macOS.

I’ll defer to your greater experience here, I’m a Mac newbie, I asked as I’d read a number of comments suggesting that although Macs are better than PCs, they’re still not necessarily as good as optimised higher end music servers. And that there’s some potential improvements like say running Roon on one Mac Mini and HQP on a second Mini (which one poster on another forum swears brought a big improvement - will try to find it FYI) or reducing running services, other apps. Both of which made me wonder if someone had written any audio optimisation software for Mac.

Edit. - here’s the guy who did the Mac Mini x 2 experimentation (he has ER + UltraRendu), an interesting read with discussion of switch use too. Conclusion supported by a second poster.

 

[Dandoudou]

I’ll defer to your greater experience here, I’m a Mac newbie, I asked as I’d read a number of comments suggesting that although Macs are better than PCs, they’re still not necessarily as good as optimised higher end music servers. And that there’s some potential improvements like say running Roon on one Mac Mini and HQP on a second Mini (which one poster on another forum swears brought a big improvement - will try to find it FYI) or reducing running services, other apps. Both of which made me wonder if someone had written any audio optimisation software for Mac.

If you look at my signature, you'll see that I'm actually using the Mac as a server on which my players run. It streams to a NUC that is configured as a Host with an audiophile Linux OS. The Host renders the sound, and streams it through the LAN to the streamer with a Japanese protocol named Diretta. There are no renderers on the streamer. The renderers run on the Host.

The sound quality in this configuration is the same as if I was running the players on the Host itself. But I run them on the Mac, because it is a more practical for me this way.
The result is the same, if I stream to the Host from an iOS device or an Android device. There's no drop in sound quality.

However, if I stream to the Host from my Windows PC, with the same version of the players that I use on the Mac (Roon, Audirvana, HQPlayer…), there's automatically a dramatic drop in sound quality. It's due to Windows. Windows geeks could not fix this issue with countless tweaks and optimizations of the OS. They could only improve things.

 

[Jake2]

If you look at my signature, you'll see that I'm actually using the Mac as a server on which my players run. It streams to a NUC that is configured as a Host with an audiophile Linux OS. The Host renders the sound, and streams it through the LAN to the streamer with a Japanese protocol named Diretta.

The sound quality in this configuration is the same as if I was running the players on the Host itself. But I run them on the Mac, because it is a more practical for me this way.
The result is the same, if I stream to the Host from an iOS device or an Android device. There's no drop in sound quality.

However, if I stream to the Host from my Windows PC, with the same version of the players that I use on the Mac (Roon, Audirvana, HQPlayer…), there's automatically a dramatic drop in sound quality. It's due to Windows. Windows geeks could not fix this issue with countless tweaks and optimizations of the OS. They could only improve things.

Cheers, yes I’d seen your Diretta & host/renderer refs to which you have referred previously, but had forgotten about. Am not super familiar with Diretta but I think I grasp the basic concepts.

Incidentally I found the post I referred in case it’s of interest… added it to my post but only after you replied:

Edit. - here’s the guy who did the Mac Mini x 2 experimentation (he has ER + UltraRendu), an interesting read with discussion of switch use too. Conclusion supported by a second poster.

 

[Dandoudou]

Edit. - here’s the guy who did the Mac Mini x 2 experimentation (he has ER + UltraRendu), an interesting read with discussion of switch use too. Conclusion supported by a second poster.

Sorry, I can not read your link, because I get this message:

Oh no ...
You've reached the limit of pages you can read without becoming a member.

But don't worry, registration is free, easy, and worthwhile!

 

[Jake2]

Sorry, I can not read your link, because I get this message:

Oh no ...
You've reached the limit of pages you can read without becoming a member.

But don't worry, registration is free, easy, and worthwhile!

Ok, here’s an excerpt from one of the posts from OP Tobes:

Firstly, let me say that I find it baffling that separating these functions can have an effect. I only do pcm upsampling and it doesn't use that much cpu grunt. ​

An M1 Mini running Roon and HQPlayer with pcm upsampling would typically be using around 5% CPU resources - though a sizeable chunk of memory is in play.​

I'm sure there are plenty of people running Roon+HQP on an M1 who are perfectly happy - I think it sounds fine.​

​

That said when comparing Roon+HQP to HQP standalone (with its own minimalist player) some significant differences are apparent. At least to my ears, in my setup.​

HQP without Roon sounds more transparent. The depth and space around sound sources is clearer and there is more focus and texture/timbre to sounds which makes music sound more realistic and present.​

So, IME, HQP sounded better standalone than with Roon - this was true even when I separated HQP onto an M1 Mini and ran Roonserver on the LPS powered i7 Mini (both connected to the Etherregen network switch) and the UltraRendu acting as the endpoint to my usb DAC.​

So it was a surprise to find that Roonserver running on a stock M1 mini with HQP running on a second M1 mini, along with the Roon GUI, didn't show the same deficit. I'm not sure why since resources wasn't an issue with i7 Mini.​

​

Edit - and his conclusion from another post:

​

For perspective, the change from i7 Mini Roonserver to the M1 Mini Roonserver was much bigger and more obvious than the addition of the EtherRegen. But would it have been as obvious if I didn't have the EtherRegen in place first? Hard to say.​

 

[Dandoudou]

Ok, here’s an excerpt from one of the posts from OP Tobes:

Firstly, let me say that I find it baffling that separating these functions can have an effect. I only do pcm upsampling and it doesn't use that much cpu grunt. ​

An M1 Mini running Roon and HQPlayer with pcm upsampling would typically be using around 5% CPU resources - though a sizeable chunk of memory is in play.​

I'm sure there are plenty of people running Roon+HQP on an M1 who are perfectly happy - I think it sounds fine.​

​

That said when comparing Roon+HQP to HQP standalone (with its own minimalist player) some significant differences are apparent. At least to my ears, in my setup.​

HQP without Roon sounds more transparent. The depth and space around sound sources is clearer and there is more focus and texture/timbre to sounds which makes music sound more realistic and present.​

So, IME, HQP sounded better standalone than with Roon - this was true even when I separated HQP onto an M1 Mini and ran Roonserver on the LPS powered i7 Mini (both connected to the Etherregen network switch) and the UltraRendu acting as the endpoint to my usb DAC.​

So it was a surprise to find that Roonserver running on a stock M1 mini with HQP running on a second M1 mini, along with the Roon GUI, didn't show the same deficit. I'm not sure why since resources wasn't an issue with i7 Mini.​

​

Edit - and his conclusion from another post:

​

For perspective, the change from i7 Mini Roonserver to the M1 Mini Roonserver was much bigger and more obvious than the addition of the EtherRegen. But would it have been as obvious if I didn't have the EtherRegen in place first? Hard to say.​

Thank you for posting the excerpts.
The experiment of this guy is interesting, but it relates to a completely different issue.

There's a drop in the sound quality of HQPlayer when you use it in an integrated mode with Roon. (Roon being the library manager for HQPlayer.) The sound is better, if you use HQPlayer alone. I know this problem for a longtime, and it happens both on macOS and Windows. Something in this integrated mode deteriorates the sound.
The same thing happens when Audirvana is used in an integrated mode with Music (iTunes). (Music being the library manager for Audirvana). In this integrated mode too, there's a drop of the SQ when compared to Audirvana playing the files of its own library.

If you post the excerpt that explains how this guy managed to create an integration between Roon and HQPlayer on two different computers, I will try to reproduce it with Roon running on the Mac and HQPlayer running on the NUC (GentooPlayer OS). But the CPU of the NUC is not powerful enough for DSD upsampling by HQPlayer.
I have two M1 Mini, I can also reproduce the experiment with Roon running on one Mini, HQPlayer on another while streaming the sound to the NUC (GentooPlayer).

 

[EMINENT]

Sorry to interject here but I have noticed no difference in sound quality between Roon or HQP in my setup either when I had U18/R26 or May. I am connected directly to my pc via USB. Of course YMMV and most have different setups going on.

 

[Dandoudou]

My last A/B comparison is at least one-year-old.
It's possible that the integrated mode was improved with the release of Roon 2.0.
I'll do a new A/B comparison to check.

@Jake2 ,
How old is the experiment of this guy who run Roon and HQP on separate computers?
What is the date of his post?

 

[Jake2]

Sep 2022 is the date of his posts.

 

[Dandoudou]

Sep 2022 is the date of his posts.

Roon 2.0 was released on September 20, 2022.

I'll make a new A/B comparison.

 

[ChJL]

Absolutely - it's ALL about the music

That's a P3, right? P10 beneath?

Let's say you hypothetically would be forced to give up (invest in first, if you had none) either the power plants or your DDC+masterclock "upgrade"... Which would it be? Not considering money, only performance, sound improvement.

thanks!

 

[MartinWT]

That's a P3, right? P10 beneath?

Let's say you hypothetically would be forced to give up (invest in first, if you had none) either the power plants or your DDC+masterclock "upgrade"... Which would it be? Not considering money, only performance, sound improvement.

Yes, P3 for the digital electronics, P10 for the power amp.

The hypothesis is a bit flawed as I built up the power side while I designed the digital side since clean power is a part of getting the digital playback chain as noise-free as possible. I wouldn't be without either as I have the system performing really well.

If forced, and I could keep the power cables (which cost as much as the regenerators), I would lose the regenerators and leave the digital chain as-is.