Pink Faun 2.16x music streamer - $20k PC ?

[AudioSceptic]

It runs Roon Core, which an RPi certainly can't do. With a large library, and heavy-duty DSP, Roon Core can be very processor-hungry.

Fanlessly cooling an 8-core AMD Ryzen is not a trivial task. But it certainly doesn't require $20k. Neither does delivering a turnkey Linux-based appliance. The relevant comparison device is a Nucleus+, which may be a bit overpriced, but not ridiculously so.

Thanks, but was Kal using DSP? If so, that invalidates the review; if not, were's the need for the processing power (which as you say, does not require a $20k computer)?

 

[AudioSceptic]

The power supply and cooling are novel and interesting and the chassis is big and expensive. The PC is also much more powerful than an RPi. Also, this is Dutch made oligarch material.

I don't see the need for a DAC, as that would have broken up the 'separates' aspect of it, The transistors and capacitors are nice but I do wish they had use more and bigger transformers. Really good power cords available from the same firm.

€3k per 1.3 m cable. That tells you all you need to know.

 

[AudioSceptic]

nonsense reviews like this one, and bogus advice are precisely why I don’t read Stereophile.

Actually, I find it quite entertaining, especially when JA tries to reconcile poor or unremarkable measurements with glowing subjective reviews.

 

[PierreV]

C'mon. Wouldn't you be at least a little bit curious?

Not really. It's just a liquid-cooled, middle of the line PC with a lot of technically useless (as others have noted above) eye and brain audiophile candy.

Most PCs are fairly good already with data integrity because they simply crash if a few bits are flipped now and then.

The "custom Linux ultralow-latency real-time kernel operating system" is probably something like an Ubuntu low latency kernel, possibly with "preempt" set to on (or any equivalent distro with the same configuration options). Low latency, RT (real-time) kernels are nothing special. They are nice to have when you really need them (you don't here) but may have a significant performance impact because the kernel is constantly keeping an eye on and switching threads. The fact that you could dual boot Windows and hear no differences seems to confirm you don't really need a custom audiophile kernel btw, and the performance loss could of the low latency kernel probably explains why "it is that the PF's very powerful Ryzen CPU isn't all-powerful."

I did find hilarious that somehow configuring the device led to this

"While resolving them, I managed to corrupt the operating system. Remote support from the distributor was swift and thorough, but the damage I had wrought was so great that I had to ship the PF back to the manufacturer for repair. It was a good experience."

Such systems are intended to be used by users who are, on average, much less competent than you are and should be protected from such failures (for example by using a remote configuration interface that only allows safe operations). Even horribly trashing the OS shouldn't require more than local re-imaging, certainly not a round trip to the factory.

You are very unfair to yourself here and too kind with the device about managing to corrupt the OS!

This is the IT equivalent of those big power amplifiers that turned their big capacitors into fire-starters/smoke grenades...

What I did appreciate is how cleverly you managed to describe a wonderful listening experience... "These are vibrant updates of these popular pieces and, in stereo via the Pink Faun, they bloomed like a colorful bouquet." but at the same time avoided a hard commitment "there were moments when I felt I heard changes in the space between the instruments or the ambience during musical pauses, but the only enduring difference was a feeling"

Lastly, is this

I felt more relaxed when listening to the Pink Faun.

worth 20k?

Please, don't take this as a personal attack. My totally wild guess is that this review was allocated to you as the most technical guy (with JA) at Stereophile and you did your best, as a consummate professional, in the good sense of the term, to review the product positively while at the same time executing a difficult dance around the hysterical subjective traps that so often plague such reviews.

 

[threni]

Thanks, but was Kal using DSP? If so, that invalidates the review; if not, were's the need for the processing power (which as you say, does not require a $20k computer)?

I'm also unsure of just how large a library has to be before it cannot be managed by a pi. Would this be a storage space or a cpu issue?

 

[Helicopter]

In fa

I'm also unsure of just how large a library has to be before it cannot be managed by a pi. Would this be a storage space or a cpu issue?

This is going to outperform a pi and be quieter than most PCs. It will also look whatever color you want properly in the rack and have some nice essence, being built in a high cost location in low volume with novel cooling system. It really just depends which category of consumer you fall into... normal, or extraordinary; i.e., someone who makes a million dollars a day and needs everyone to know.

Edit: I don't mean it will sound different outperforming a Pi; it will just open files faster and stuff like that.

 

[Helicopter]

€3k per 1.3 m cable. That tells you all you need to know.

It looks like it should have pretty low resistance. Very little performance sacrifice going up. Therefore, the longer 3m version for 4.8k makes more sense. Then you have more placement options in case someday you don't have a lot of receptacles in the room.

 

[threni]

It looks like it should have pretty low resistance.

That is not the Ohm's Law I learned in college!

 

[Cortes]

If we combine Karl's with Darko's and Srajan's narratives I'm sure we'll get convinced that the 0's and 1's are pink and that the streamer is a gift for what it delivers.

 

[Jinjuku]

C'mon. Wouldn't you be at least a little bit curious?

Curious in a hot stove burner kind of way, but common sense trumps.

 

[Helicopter]

That is not the Ohm's Law I learned in college!

I = V / 0.0002?

Edit: I get it. Typical English joke. I had an English roomate for a semester in boarding school. He made jokes like this continually. Old memories.

It is sort of like the puns we call 'dad jokes' but with a little twist... a twinkle, that is hard to define. Anyway, you are doing it right.

At first I was just like, uh, dude, Ohm's law, intuitively says all the resistance for practical purposes is in the amp, and the house, if you want to keep going, but a..5m or 3m 8AWG power cable just doesn't f'ing matter.

Then I was like oooohhhmmmmm
.... college... English joke... got it!

Not being critical, just took me.a while to catch up. It was fun once I did.

 

[Martin]

I'm also unsure of just how large a library has to be before it cannot be managed by a pi. Would this be a storage space or a cpu issue?

I had a Pi3 running Volumio that struggled with my 10,000 song library. I tried a 2GB Pi4 and it still struggled. I now run piCorePlayer on the Pi4 and let my NAS and Logitech Media Server manage the library. Runs like a champ.

I guarantee it would be indistinguishable from this Pink Faun POC in a double blind test.

Martin

 

[Helicopter]

What they should do is design one of these like a Volkswagen, so it can tell when it is being tested, and then cheat... make it get 1dB louder after you have done your level matching. like no boost with test signals and sine waves or something. That would be so awesome because it would win and it would be really hard to figure out why... I guess you would need to do a little DSP or add a DAC or something to do it though.

 

[threni]

I had a Pi3 running Volumio that struggled with my 10,000 song library. I tried a 2GB Pi4 and it still struggled. I now run piCorePlayer on the Pi4 and let my NAS and Logitech Media Server manage the library. Runs like a champ.

I guarantee it would be indistinguishable from this Pink Faun POC in a double blind test.

Martin

I tried Volumio and couldn't get it to stop rebuilding my library each boot (which, given that it liked making you reboot after many trivial settings changes, was very often). When I switched to mpd all my problems went away, and that's with a large library on an attached usb hard drive. A database of tags/path&filenames is not a problem for well written software. I'm using 100megs of ram on my 2GB Pi 4; plenty of ram for the db. This would run on a Pi zero w. And I'm accessing the pi via an Android app over wifi. I understand that throwing CPU/RAM/disk space at problems is easier than addressing the root cause - a poor design, but also that this "solution" is very popular these days...

 

[somebodyelse]

Anyone know why Roon reputedly needs so much CPU with large music collections while LMS doesn't?
Edit: as in actually know. I can speculate about database schema or query structure, which can make an enormous difference, but it's just speculation.

 

[Martin]

I tried Volumio and couldn't get it to stop rebuilding my library each boot (which, given that it liked making you reboot after many trivial settings changes, was very often). When I switched to mpd all my problems went away, and that's with a large library on an attached usb hard drive. A database of tags/path&filenames is not a problem for well written software. I'm using 100megs of ram on my 2GB Pi 4; plenty of ram for the db. This would run on a Pi zero w. And I'm accessing the pi via an Android app over wifi. I understand that throwing CPU/RAM/disk space at problems is easier than addressing the root cause - a poor design, but also that this "solution" is very popular these days...

The constant, never ending library rebuilds along with general lagginess were why I stopped using Volumio. I didn’t find the Music Player Daemon or I may have tried it. My music was already on a Synology NAS so using LMS seemed the logical fix. Sure glad pinkdot is continuing to support LMS on Synology. I use iPeng to control piCorePlayer.

Martin

 

[threni]

The constant, never ending library rebuilds along with general lagginess were why I stopped using Volumio. I didn’t find the Music Player Daemon or I may have tried it. My music was already on a Synology NAS so using LMS seemed the logical fix. Sure glad pinkdot is continuing to support LMS on Synology. I use iPeng to control piCorePlayer.

Martin

mpd is amazing. I put it off for a long time as I thought it would be a lot of work, plus it builds a library. I stuck with vlc for a while, with its lack of gapless playback, awful Android clients, unhelpful forums and hilarious web interface (just look at the EQ config). It turns out mpd just works. Library building is fast, and you can have it only update the subfolder(s) you tell it to rather than redoing everything.

 

[ahofer]

The first notes surprised as they spilled out with requisite hall sound and body resonance from a large instrument that, only milliseconds before, was not there.

I get really annoyed, with my cheap hardware, at how the bass section tends to amble out and make some preparatory remarks before their musical entrance. On the other hand, with the Pink Faun, you might have heard the conductor giving a cue, which ruins the surprise.

 

[peanuts]

It was to assure those readers who might need to know that the presence of the PF in the system (or in the room) was not an audible limitation.

since when is a digital output ever an audible limitation? when its not working? reviews like this makes a mockery of stereophile.

 

[Katji]

€3k per 1.3 m cable. That tells you all you need to know.

All I [did not] need to know is that you can get Pink Faun cables.