Ask for feedback to my solution / system

[v.koutensky]

Hi guys,

first of all - hello from Czech Republic and thank you very much for your inputs. This web is a fascinating source of information for me.
(and sorry for my English, even I am trying to do my best, it’s not my native).

My topic is following - I am a huge fan of digital music, and trying all the time to play/enhance my system. So far I have developed something, and I would appreciate a feedback or discussion, if you find my setup interesting/ok/idiotic. Sometimes, all of us got stuck in "operational blindness" and we don’t see obvious.

I have a decent collection of music (about 30000 files) of all quality (from 96kbps mp3 stored for nostalgia reasons, to DSD128). I have spent huge time to have my metadata polished, even with proper cover arts, etc... I listen also from Tidal and Spotify.

In general, I have all my music stored on Synology NAS (this is more-less fixed point, as I use it also for photo/movie/file storage for the rest of my family)
My amplifier is Marantz PM15 (which I like a lot), with Xavian speakers (Czech brand, price comparable to Marantz).
I tend to operate my audio from a smartphone, rather than from PC, because of ergonomics suiting me better.

The digital solution follows: I have Allo Usbridge with Topping D50 connected via USB (D50s is on the way). I have used direct play from Synology (operated via Bubble UPNP on android phone). Several weeks ago I have added a fanless PC NUC with Jriver running, and I operate it via M0 4Media android App - the only reason for this device, is ergonomics/medial library style of Jriver, that suits me better than using only Synology media center. All the components (except phone) are hardwired to 1Gbps LAN.

So the whole chain is: From my android phone, I operate my Jriver PC to take a music from Synology and play it to Topping D50 via Allo USB sparky.

I have tested ROON for trial time, but I had not found any value over Jriver for me. The zones/renderers stuff seems similar to me, and as I have tidiness in my metadata, the biggest advantage of ROON is not so huge for me. So with respect to Roon excellent capabilities, it makes me not enough sense to spend 500 bucks for it.

My questions are:
- do you see any critical week point of such setup, especially in a term of sound quality?
- I am thinking about the necessity of Allo Sparky - if I connect a Topping D50 directly to Jriver PC it do the same work, removing one device from the chain. Do you think that difference between quality of USB output from Usbridge and NUC will be significant/audible?
- If thinking about upgrade/enhancement of such setup, what would be a scope of your interest?

Thanks’ for all the inputs, if any.
Yours Vit.

 

[BillG]

I am thinking about the necessity of Allo Sparky - if I connect a Topping D50 directly to Jriver PC it do the same work, removing one device from the chain. Do you think that difference between quality of USB output from Usbridge and NUC will be significant/audible?

Personally I'd try to keep the signal path as clean as possible to the D50, and since it already accepts USB input, the Allo Sparky seems redundant to me. From the review below, one can see that the D50 produces very clean audio when using its USB in:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...iew-and-measurements-of-topping-d50-dac.2403/

As to whether you'll hear any actual improvement in audio when removing the Allo from the signal path, I can't say as I've never seen a performance analysis conducted on it. However, I can't imagine that its removal would degrade the quality, unless it's doing some extraordinary electrical filtering that the D50 can't do on its own - unlikely...

 

[BDWoody]

Hi guys,

first of all - hello from Czech Republic and thank you very much for your inputs. This web is a fascinating source of information for me.
(and sorry for my English, even I am trying to do my best, it’s not my native).

My topic is following - I am a huge fan of digital music, and trying all the time to play/enhance my system. So far I have developed something, and I would appreciate a feedback or discussion, if you find my setup interesting/ok/idiotic. Sometimes, all of us got stuck in "operational blindness" and we don’t see obvious.

I have a decent collection of music (about 30000 files) of all quality (from 96kbps mp3 stored for nostalgia reasons, to DSD128). I have spent huge time to have my metadata polished, even with proper cover arts, etc... I listen also from Tidal and Spotify.

In general, I have all my music stored on Synology NAS (this is more-less fixed point, as I use it also for photo/movie/file storage for the rest of my family)
My amplifier is Marantz PM15 (which I like a lot), with Xavian speakers (Czech brand, price comparable to Marantz).
I tend to operate my audio from a smartphone, rather than from PC, because of ergonomics suiting me better.

The digital solution follows: I have Allo Usbridge with Topping D50 connected via USB (D50s is on the way). I have used direct play from Synology (operated via Bubble UPNP on android phone). Several weeks ago I have added a fanless PC NUC with Jriver running, and I operate it via M0 4Media android App - the only reason for this device, is ergonomics/medial library style of Jriver, that suits me better than using only Synology media center. All the components (except phone) are hardwired to 1Gbps LAN.

So the whole chain is: From my android phone, I operate my Jriver PC to take a music from Synology and play it to Topping D50 via Allo USB sparky.

I have tested ROON for trial time, but I had not found any value over Jriver for me. The zones/renderers stuff seems similar to me, and as I have tidiness in my metadata, the biggest advantage of ROON is not so huge for me. So with respect to Roon excellent capabilities, it makes me not enough sense to spend 500 bucks for it.

My questions are:
- do you see any critical week point of such setup, especially in a term of sound quality?
- I am thinking about the necessity of Allo Sparky - if I connect a Topping D50 directly to Jriver PC it do the same work, removing one device from the chain. Do you think that difference between quality of USB output from Usbridge and NUC will be significant/audible?
- If thinking about upgrade/enhancement of such setup, what would be a scope of your interest?

Thanks’ for all the inputs, if any.
Yours Vit.

Looks like a nicely thought out, well considered system. I echo the above comment...No real need for the extra interface, but likely isn't going to have any impact at all on sound.

As a general principle, the fewer connections the better.

 

[daftcombo]

Hi,

Sounds like a good system. I too use a fanless PC with JRiver when I want to listen to quiet music, but with the Topping D10 (the little brother). I don't know your amp nor speakers. If it sounds good to you, it must be good.
Perhaps try to see if you could do some room placement improvement? Moving the speakers to see how it changes the sound, moving your seat, etc.
Do you have any measurements of your speakers to post here?

 

[daftcombo]

Looks like a nicely thought out, well considered system. I echo the above comment...No real need for the extra interface, but likely isn't going to have any impact at all on sound.

As a general principle, the fewer connections the better.

I have done several sighted tests to hear if I should remove my mixing table (acting as preamp and VERY handy) for hi-fi listening. I never could hear a difference though its SNR is supposed to be as bad as -75dB.

 

[Sergei]

Please make sure to back up your Synology regularly. Some of consumer-grade models have ventilation-challenged power supplies that start lowering voltages after several years. This leads to bad blocks on disks. Some Synology system software updates don't keep the "email me alerts about bad blocks" configuration setting. The bad blocks silently accumulate. At some point Synology system can't deal with them anymore, and suddenly locks up. The information is still there at that point, but may only be recovered via an external system (I had to use some Linux hacking to get it back). Synology will replace the unit under warranty, yet the whole ordeal is disruptive and better be avoided.

 

[q3cpma]

The only bottleneck in here would be the speakers. What model are you using? Is it the 3-way, at least?

 

[v.koutensky]

Thank you for all your inputs guys.

BillG + BDWoody: Removing of USBridge is direction of my thinking. It was there before the NUC, original idea was to have a better source for Topping D50 than just RPi3. (as its Ethernet implementation is insane) But when I added the Jriver i5 NUC, Usbrige seems redundant unless it has a significantly lower USB noise than NUC. I did some rewiring yesterday, grabing out a kilometer of wires and USBrige, and i connected Topping directly to NUC. The diference was not audible on first listening on either side, so - so far, so good. I agree with general principal - the less devices and shorter way, the better.

Daftcombo: the room arangement research is impossible at this time: the room is currently inhabited with two little dwarves, one crawling and second insanely running around. I am trying at least to hold positions of my system :-D

Sergei: I am aware, I have everything backed to second HDD, that I ocassionaly update + in private unlimited cloud. Shit can happen, but I try to minize the probability of it.

Q3cpma: This is a specification of my speaker set. I will most probably go for something bigger/stronger in a future, but from many reasons (insufficient space, and limited time for listening as father of 2 tiny cutes) probably not in the close future.

 

[Krunok]

Hi guys,

first of all - hello from Czech Republic and thank you very much for your inputs. This web is a fascinating source of information for me.
(and sorry for my English, even I am trying to do my best, it’s not my native).

My topic is following - I am a huge fan of digital music, and trying all the time to play/enhance my system. So far I have developed something, and I would appreciate a feedback or discussion, if you find my setup interesting/ok/idiotic. Sometimes, all of us got stuck in "operational blindness" and we don’t see obvious.

I have a decent collection of music (about 30000 files) of all quality (from 96kbps mp3 stored for nostalgia reasons, to DSD128). I have spent huge time to have my metadata polished, even with proper cover arts, etc... I listen also from Tidal and Spotify.

In general, I have all my music stored on Synology NAS (this is more-less fixed point, as I use it also for photo/movie/file storage for the rest of my family)
My amplifier is Marantz PM15 (which I like a lot), with Xavian speakers (Czech brand, price comparable to Marantz).
I tend to operate my audio from a smartphone, rather than from PC, because of ergonomics suiting me better.

The digital solution follows: I have Allo Usbridge with Topping D50 connected via USB (D50s is on the way). I have used direct play from Synology (operated via Bubble UPNP on android phone). Several weeks ago I have added a fanless PC NUC with Jriver running, and I operate it via M0 4Media android App - the only reason for this device, is ergonomics/medial library style of Jriver, that suits me better than using only Synology media center. All the components (except phone) are hardwired to 1Gbps LAN.

So the whole chain is: From my android phone, I operate my Jriver PC to take a music from Synology and play it to Topping D50 via Allo USB sparky.

I have tested ROON for trial time, but I had not found any value over Jriver for me. The zones/renderers stuff seems similar to me, and as I have tidiness in my metadata, the biggest advantage of ROON is not so huge for me. So with respect to Roon excellent capabilities, it makes me not enough sense to spend 500 bucks for it.

My questions are:
- do you see any critical week point of such setup, especially in a term of sound quality?
- I am thinking about the necessity of Allo Sparky - if I connect a Topping D50 directly to Jriver PC it do the same work, removing one device from the chain. Do you think that difference between quality of USB output from Usbridge and NUC will be significant/audible?
- If thinking about upgrade/enhancement of such setup, what would be a scope of your interest?

Thanks’ for all the inputs, if any.
Yours Vit.

Similar to you I also have my music on Synology NAS. I also have Topping D10 which used to be connected to my notebook running Jriver. Some time ago I purchased fanless PC and installed Volumio on it. That allowed me to avoid my notebook being part of my audio chain as I control Volumio via BubbleUPnP from my Android phone. What I also gained with Volumio is a room EQ and volume based loudness control via BruteFIR plugin on Volumio. On Synology NAS I am running Synology Media server and BubbleUPnP server so I can access my music while not at home.

Room EQ feature usually makes significant upgrade in SQ if done properly. For further improvement you should consider uprgading your speakers.

There would be no difference in your setup in terms of audio quality with or without Allo USBridge and with or without Jriver PC. The only thing you may notice may be in the convinience while using your new setup with Volumio as this setup is optimal for users with music stored on NAS.

 

[v.koutensky]

Krunok - thank you very much for your advice. Although I know Volumio, I had it "brainfixed" as solution for Linux/RPI. But usage with NUC makes real sense. I will definitelly give a try.

On Synology, I am in love with MinimServer, although its not easiest stuff to setup, I like its configurability.

 

[Krunok]

Krunok - thank you very much for your advice. Although I know Volumio, I had it "brainfixed" as solution for Linux/RPI. But usage with NUC makes real sense. I will definitelly give a try.

Volumio actually works better when run on NUCs than on RPIs. It is very very easy to setup and will work without any additional config with BubbleUPnP. Just connect your D50 directly to USB port on your NUC and it will be recognised.

On Synology, I am in love with MinimServer, although its not easiest stuff to setup, I like its configurability.

MinimServer is much better than Synology Media Server when it comes to handling music metadata. As you said you have sorted out your metadata it is logical to use it.

As I said, if you also install BubbleUPnP server on your NAS you will be able to listen to your music on your phone with BubbleUPnP player even when not at home. You can also configure server to convert music on the fly from FLAC to mp3 to save mobile data usage.

 

[Krunok]

Please make sure to back up your Synology regularly. Some of consumer-grade models have ventilation-challenged power supplies that start lowering voltages after several years. This leads to bad blocks on disks. Some Synology system software updates don't keep the "email me alerts about bad blocks" configuration setting. The bad blocks silently accumulate. At some point Synology system can't deal with them anymore, and suddenly locks up. The information is still there at that point, but may only be recovered via an external system (I had to use some Linux hacking to get it back). Synology will replace the unit under warranty, yet the whole ordeal is disruptive and better be avoided.

Alert for accumulating bad blocks has been fixed in recent updates and works well.

 

[q3cpma]

Q3cpma: This is a specification of my speaker set. I will most probably go for something bigger/stronger in a future, but from many reasons (insufficient space, and limited time for listening as father of 2 tiny cutes) probably not in the close future.

Well, then it is your bottleneck. There's so much you can squeeze out of a compact ported 2-way system (a passive one at that). I suggest you think about good active 3-ways (e.g. Genelec 8260, Neumann KH 420, Psi Audio A-23M) if you really want to improve your overall sound. As others already said, basic room treatment and/or room adapted equalization is an almost free and quite massive gain too.

 

[v.koutensky]

The Volumio works on the NUC like a charm. I am thinking about some proper SSD disk for it, as current Samsung 256 GB 850 Pro is bit overkill for this aplication. Currently Volumio runs from fast USB flash.

So far, the only difficulty comes from Brutefir - I have succesfully installed the plugin, but when I activate it Volumio is muted. It acts as playing, just no sound comes out. I have tried some changes in parameters, but so far with no luck.

Krunok: Thanks for tips on BubbleUPNP server, but luckily, the cloud I use for backup of my music, is one of those supported by BubbleUPNP app, so I can play my music directly on the go. Maybe it brings some quality issues, but for train/journey listening, its ok.

q3cpma: Thanks for the tips, at this moment is such upgrade beyond horizont, but maybe in a future. At this moment. my other sources (turnable, SACD) are tied to my apmlifier, so such change would be quite revolution. And I have to negotiate with treasurer, what she finds reasonable :-D

P.S. D50S just arived, eager to hear it :-D

 

[Krunok]

The Volumio works on the NUC like a charm. I am thinking about some proper SSD disk for it, as current Samsung 256 GB 850 Pro is bit overkill for this aplication. Currently Volumio runs from fast USB flash.

Proper SSD disk is indeed the best way to go. It doesn't have to be big, even 16GB will work fine.

So far, the only difficulty comes from Brutefir - I have succesfully installed the plugin, but when I activate it Volumio is muted. It acts as playing, just no sound comes out. I have tried some changes in parameters, but so far with no luck.

This isually indicates that output format has not been set correctly. Most new DACs require output format to be set to "S32_LE".

You may find some usefull info here.

 

[v.koutensky]

The D50 was yesterday replaced by D50S and it works well with Brutefir. So far, I dont recognize any significant difference, but it needs some more proper testing/listening/feeling, that I have from initial tests.

 

[Krunok]

The D50 was yesterday replaced by D50S and it works well with Brutefir. So far, I dont recognize any significant difference, but it needs some more proper testing/listening/feeling, that I have from initial tests.

I'm glad to hear that.
Difference between D50 and D50S or difference between with and without BRuteFIR?

 

[v.koutensky]

I'm glad to hear that.
Difference between D50 and D50S or difference between with and without BRuteFIR?

Ah sorry for being unclear. On first fast hearing, I have not recognized difference in sound of D50S with BruteFIR ON and OFF. But it was realy "listening on the fly", I will do some more serious.

My initial feelings about D50S are just posted here.

 

[Krunok]

Ah sorry for being unclear. On first fast hearing, I have not recognized difference in sound of D50S with BruteFIR ON and OFF. But it was realy "listening on the fly", I will do some more serious.

BruteFIR doesn't change the sound by itself. The idea of room EQ is to measure spreaker response in your room, make correction filters based on those measurements and than load those filters into BRuteFIR.

Filters supplied with BruteFIR are only for demo purposes.

 

[v.koutensky]

BruteFIR doesn't change the sound by itself. The idea of room EQ is to measure spreaker response in your room, make correction filters based on those measurements and than load those filters into BRuteFIR.

Filters supplied with BruteFIR are only for demo purposes.

Sounds like interesting fun, I will do some testing and see.