Challenge-Edit: Working out a confguration for a cheap digital source

I have been using an older i5 HP Elitebook 8440p running Win 7 and Foobar as my source for headphone use. A recent move of it down to the main speaker setup showed me how poor it really is compared to my
Mac mini setup. It sounded too warm, not as open and generally a bit rolled in comparison.

I have heavily tweaked the Win OS and hardware turning things off running only the dac from USB and even changing players. All have not helped enough. I run a 1tb disk connected by firewire to the computer and occasionally load albumss on an SD card which makes it a bit better.

My challenge is that I spent about $225 on this older $1600 laptop. I do not want to spend more to replace it. And I do not want to go the Linux route since I have been there and it has issues with a NTSF Firewire drive, cannot see the files. I can convert the drive to USB easily if that is part of a solution.

Any ideas on a more transparent source for around the same money, used, I would imagine. Tempted to explore Raspberry Pi and hifi berry. Wireless solutions have not been reliable in the past and there is not a way to get Ethernet to the HP setup location.

Thoughts, ideas, tweaks, other hardware, all welcome.

 

Firewire and Linux. I can sympathise. I did Linux firewire audio for a while... when I finally got it working.

 

If you are familiar with windows and perhaps the various OS tweaks like Audiophile Optimizer, Fidelizer, Jplay, etc the why not explore a NUC or perhaps an Atom based pc? These can be purchased for $300 or less and are fanless. Regarding wireless, I had the same issue as my music room on the first floor in the back corner of the house while my wireless router is upstairs in the front corner. The first thing I did was get a wireless bridge which was much better than the built it wireless of the pc. This in itself solved my wireless issues. When I then upgraded my wireless router to AC everything improved, primarily speed. Now I have absolutely no issues streaming DSD and a bit more reliability.

 

Good ideas @tboooe. I have not tried wireless streaming since I got my new router. Right now, all is direct, no need to turn on a wireless radio or ethernet for that matter. I suppose the benefit of wireless is disconnecting the attached drive and perhaps less noise. I'll do that today and see what benefit it might be.


I do like the idea of a fanless pc. Could that be adding that much electrical noise? My mini has a fan and does not seem nearly as restricted in the high end (typical effect of high freq noise pollution, from my experience). So your thinking is hardware then.

I have done a lot of tweaks that are similar to AO and Fidelizer, but not those specifically.

Any wireless low cost endpoints or renderers with coax out?

 

What doesn't convince you about this setup? Too easy or too inexpensive?

 

@bixby I only suggested a wireless bridge because you mentioned not being able to get an Ethernet drop at where pc location will be. I am not sure if wireless sounds better than wired. There are a bunch of different thoughts on wired vs wireless. I went bridge route because of the better wireless performance versus the pc built in wifi. Also wanted to isolate any electrical noise from my NAS. So with a bridge I got the electrical isolation but not any of the potential issues with having the wifi turned on in the pc. If you really want to try isolation, look into fiber. I am going to try this myself from my bridge to my pc to see if it makes anything sound better. Lots of folks said they heard improvement.

As Vastx said, Pi and Digi+ is good $100 option. Sonore makes the microrendu but I am not sure what it costs. In my opinion, if you are only looking for an end point, I would go with Pi and Digi+ or an Atom/NUC if you want to tweak things.

 

@Vastx hahaha my friend. Touche!

Where to start, first my frustration with Linux for one, players are okay, well deadbeef was. First it was wifi dropouts, then when I tried to go direct connected Hard Drive, everywhere I read said sure Linux works with Firewire and NTFS formatted drives, nope, ..................myth,............... no one could ever tell me how to get it to work. So that is my pain point. I do not want to fiddle with stuff to get it to be stable or working.

Second is: Is it really that good sounding? I do not know if those folks adopting the pi have enough background in well vetted very good sounding transports to offer a comparative opinion.

And finally cost is an issue. Raspberry pi and hifiberry seem reasonably priced, but then one has to get a "good" power supply. People are talking about using $395 HDPlex linear supply. Sure, you probably do not need to spend that kind of money, but add in a case, power, the boards, and what price point are we at?

And I still don't even know what the user interface may look like, monitor hookup, headless, controlling with another device, wifi, what player, will it play .aiff, how do you hook up your storage, etc.

Can you point me to a page that might have all the nits and grits about the pi and hifi for dummies?

So, while I appreciate the thought, I am hesitant. It does not seem that easy for me, nor that inexpensive.

 

No, I understand.

I first went wireless when I thought I would use a Router connected drive as my main storage for the mac system and pc, that was with Linux. Since that did not work out so well, I just use my backup drive connected directly to the Win laptop. No dropout issues to contend with. Now, it may very well be noisier and I wlll be testing that today. Which bridge do you use, btw? I t sounds cool to use optical to get the signal into the PC. I did not know any PCs had optical inputs.

The Microrendu seems like a possible solution but it is $650 or so, actually $800 with a decent power supply. If I know more about how it worked, I might give it a go on the main setup. The one page info sheet form Sonore seems way lacking to get people like me who want to see how it works, maybe screenshots, use case connection diagrams, etc. I have been down a few alleys before and tried lots of the commercial stuff like Squeezebox, Apple TV, Sonos, and like the simplicity, just the sound got surpassed when I went full computer.

 

I by no means have golden ear or the best SOTA audiophile system out there but I've been in this game for a while and feel good about knowing what sounds good to me. In the past I've had some pretty good transports and DACs from Esoteric and Cary Audio. I dont see any reason why a Pi3 cant be a good renderer or end point. If course like all things audio you need to pay attention to power supplies, vibration, etc. If you look at the audiophile playback software, HQ Player they even recommend using a simple renderer the like Pi. To me HQPlayer is as nichy an audiophile product as anything else out there.

As for simple directions to using a Pi, its as easy and "burning" an image to a micro sd card, plugging in power and you are up and running. For example, check out RuneAudio website on what you need to do. I havent done unix is a long time and I am a pretty literate pc hack but I still think its easy to get up and running with a Pi.

By the way, here is current 2 ch only system:
8TB NAS >> Wireless AC >> PC#1 - Server/Control PC >> PC#2 - Audio PC - CAPS Zuma >> Mutec 3+ USB Converter/Reclocker >> Luxman D-06 CDP/DAC >> Accustic Arts Power 1 int amp >> Sonus Faber Guaneri Evolution speakers + REL T/5i sub

Other components:
Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2 OS
Audiophile Optimizer 1.31
Fidelizer Pro
JPlay 6/JPlaystreamer
Minimserver UPnP Server
BubbleUPnP Control Point
PS Audio P3 AC regenerator
HDPlex 300W ATX Linear PSU
Light Harmonic Lightspeed Split USB cable
Synergistic Research Tungsten AC power cords
Tara Labs The One speaker cables
Tara Labs The Two Extended with HFX Station IC
Oyaide R1 outlets
Stillpoints Ultra Mini footers
Hi-Fi Tuning fuses
Vicoustic/RealTraps/GIK room treatments

 

@tboooe thanks for the rune audio reference.

Have you heard the pi yourself?

I see you have a nicely tweaked quiet pc feeding the Mutec. Where is the wireless bridge in all this and which one?

I have played with minimserver and bubbleupnp but did not get great results. Probably part wireless problem and limits of laptop hardware I suppose. I used an older HP 6930p at the time of those experiments.

 

Ever tried a usb defuckifier?

 

hahaha, is that supposed to be a joke?

 

I actually am trying out a Pi3 and Digi+ output board with nice results. This is now feeding my Mutec.

In my system, the wireless bridge is feeding PC #1 via ethernet cable. I am using the dlink DAP-1650 bridge with great results. The Pi3 acting as renderer is also attached to the bridge via ethernet cable.

 

The ideal would be finding the best i2s mini board, possibly an odroid or hummingboard and use i2s to an i2s dac such as a buffalo III or gamma 3 (they both reclock the i2s source). By pass all the s/pdif convertors and usb defukers.

 

Using a Pi as an upnp endpoint relieves you from the stress of the interaction of win\linux worlds. I understand you use and prefer using a notebook to control music. It is really very simple this way... It is like selecting the output of your player (wasapi, asio ks), you just have to select "upnp moode\rune\volumio". This is easy, supposing you already know how to format a microSD card, access a web browser with the local adress of the config page and select a few option (upnp on, raspberry output).

"Is it really that good sounding?"
No, it is not. There are better things, but they are more expensive. It is ridiculously good for the money though. We hope to improve with Micheal Kelly's speed2:
http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/raspberry-pi-i2s-to-spdif-hat.1990/

Talking bout money... the 395usd hdplex is obviously an overkill for the pi. @tboooe already used it for his hi-end pc (which in case you missed it he thought it to be on par with the Pi\digi+ combo) and had this on hand to try with the Pi.
If you look at the specs of the hdplex:
http://www.hd-plex.com/HDPLEX-Fanless-Linear-Power-Supply-for-PC-Audio-and-CE-device.html
you'll realize that it has a fuckton of voltage rails and amperes that are perfectly useless with the Pi. Furthermore it uses lt1083 regulators, they are not bad regs but there's a whole world out there of LDOs with better specs (especially PSRR and noise) that are relatively inexpensive and more suitable for digital stages.

Numbers, in euro cause I'm in europe:
35 euro the pi, 35 euro the digi+ (or wait for the hopefully better 55usd speed2), a 20\30VA transformer costs 25\35 euro, on a hopefully decent dual rail regulator kit I burnt 60 euro shipping included. A cheap case to house all the above material range from 15 to 30 euro. Add a iec plug with fuse, a on\off switch, etc.
In the end it all adds up to about 200 euro. You can barely buy a good usb cable and a defuckifier for this money.

User interface: Choose the player you like, as long as it can send upnp streams. Audio Formats go with the player. It will send converted PCM stream to the endpoint. Storage goes with the control pc. It is totally wrong to say but you can imagine it works like a ethernet (or wifi) soundcard for your use (as long as the player supports UPnP).

WIFI: As long as your wifi AP->adapter have the adequate speed bandwidth you can send streams up to 24\192.
Forget DSD with the digi and the other alike.

I hate to try to sell people on things I have and deem worthy. It makes me look like a typical headfier. But all you wrote as a premise sounded like you wanted this but you didn't know yet. Furthermore my offer for all the help I can give you is still on the table.

Still hesitant? Screw you and buy a 800$ micro rendu!

 

@Vastx - I truly feel like I have had "the spatula treatment", haha

While I am an old pc guy I can get some things working like Plex to stream to my Roku for example and yes the other stuff seems relatively easy. What I need sometimes is a little old fashioned guide to walk me thru some stuff.

You are channeling me down a path that looks interesting. One quick question then I will shut up and read some more and try to see some real world videos.
Can I have my usb connected 4 TB library of music on my main work PC accessible to the Pi or do I have to have it on the same device that I control the player software? I am a bit confused as I thought an Android device like a phone could be used to control the headless pi and now I am hearing I need a PC if I want to use storage.

Hope you enjoyed the Bill Murray paraphrase above

 

Of course I enjoyed the bill Murray paraphrase from "stripes"

Because it is extremely flexible, it may appear harder than it's in reality.
You can hook up your hard disk to the raspberry, to your main work PC, to the PC you use as a control device, As long as they are in the same network. You just have to share folders if you hook it to the work main pc and import (not transfer) the library in the player of control pc. If you hook it to control PC it is the same of local playback bUT you just send the stream. If you hook it to the raspberry you can use the direct browser interface of rune or... abilitate the dlna server on rune and take your files from the raspberry, play them in your control PC, and stream them back to the raspberry as an endpoint (this solution I Have not tried but I GUESS it is possible).

You don't need a pc to control. I thought you wanted it. You can use a smartphone.
You can use whatever you like. If you know a little about networking you can take any file from/ control the playback from/ stream to whenever you like in your network as long as you have bandwidth.

A little theory bout the concepts of media server/media renderer/ control point will make it easier:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/524-complete-guide-hifi-upnp-dlna-network-audio/

 

I am working through a potential change to a different setup for headphone listening. And I am breaking down parts of a potential configuration in my own logical (or not) way. And remember this is value oriented

1. Storage- Where do I want to keep and get the data for the SW player. My experiments with my Mac and Win system led me to the best sound vial an SD card for quick loading and very low noise electrically. Small ARM boxes like the pi and cubox are limited to USB connected hard drive, wifi, or Ethernet.

As far as assets go, I do have a self powered external 1 TB NTFS drive that can run either Firewire or USB 2.0

My test just today with wifi with just pulling a file from a shared drive via wifi and comparing to the SD card was not good. Lots more glare. I cannot confirm that ethernet would be all that much better since I cannot run Ether to the Win machine, but ran the Mac for years that way using a shared drive. Even with loading the file into memory play on A+, the sound was better when played off of the SD card in the Mini and with Ether disconnected. One might say, hey you need to deal with the rfi on the Ethernet cable or the lousy switcher on the router. Yes, perhaps and that may be one of the compromises I may need to make.

For me I think wifi might be out, just noisy. EDIT: But don't I need this on anyway since the control is being done headless? Or will things get worse when pulling files this way?

And Ethernet might be out, mainly because I cannot get it to the HP setup but I could use a Wireless bridge with an ethernet connection to the Arm based board at additional cost. And the pi seems to share Ethernet and USB so using a pure USB async dac might be out if I go that route. Best then to use a SPDIF HAT perhaps. And I understand there are some of these lower cost computers that have a separate Ether and US bus (Cubox?) that would be relatively quiet? My gut says there would still be a compromise like there is with my Macs separate buses for each.

More sections later, I welcome ideas on how I might address my specific situation as it relates to files storage and any potential new setup even if it is not an ARM based one.