Building a pc, buying a mac or NAS, wait, read this painful story

Audio Components DACs
21
stereophilus said: I personally think the Linux OS has some advantages in SQ over Mac or Windows. Software or hardware can be a bottleneck. With software, minimal is the key.

I am in agreement with the general ideas here. In sleask's case the "OS" was the same with the two NAS setups, just the drives were different and this is when the sound really changed for the better. In my own PC based server, I cannot tell the difference between tracks played from the mechanical disk versus the SSD.
22

I wondered whether his bottleneck was the drive, and in releasing this, noticed an improvement due to the OS as well? Who knows…



I recently got some new speakers. 5x greater $ than my old ones. Not broken in yet, but, didn’t sound much different. That was until I changed taps on my tube power amp. I’d been using the 4ohm tap out of routine, because lower output impedance is better right? Nope. I used the 8ohm tap and suddenly everything became coherent and musical. More on this later. Point is - bottlenecks!

23
Sleask, thanks a lot for posting your experience! Very interesting! Do you mind trying to set priority of your media server processes on your PC to real-time? I am using jRiver and changing the priority made significant difference.

Your welcome, I did do this, I also disabled as many windows possesses I could without crashing the computer, also tried fidelizer. As far as jriver goes on my system and to me EMM always sounded better.

24
alrainbow said: . . . but SSD are limited in read writes so even if in raid not cool long term .

I agree SSD in RAID is probably not the best idea; too many read/writes.

Instead, I would a SSD as the source for the music files and keep a backup of the music elsewhere. That is, no RAID. This way the SSD is acting essentially as read only and will last a long time.

No I am not running raid, it is sinology’s hybrid raid (shr) without data protection


25

Sleask, thank you again!



@stereophilus I use 8ohm tap on Roger Majeski’s RM-10 tube amp. He recommends it in the manual. However, the power on 8ohm tap is lower.

26
sleask said: I also disabled as many windows possesses I could without crashing the computer,

This answers a question that I had about your PC setup. I do the same with mine.

stereophilus said: I used the 8ohm tap and suddenly everything became coherent and musical.

Makes perfect sense with tubes. Very sensitive to their load, aren't they?
27

Well the other situation is the new firmware makes the dac with the bridge better. So I will wait a while and get used to this first … After a while then I wll try this I have the drives so just 213 is needed. Not to bad to try …

28

speaking of firmware, I left that part out, the dac is 2.02 and the bridge is 2.14a

29

Well things have changed a lot the bridge is new but the firmware is the best yet very good

30

2.14b is new for bridge as well p

31

It really is amazing how finicky getting good sound can be!

32

Boy is that true . I have raced cars, motorcycles, rc cars and HELI,s and this trumps all that with so many variables to choose from. And it is different for headphones and speakers . Not all is good for either. But hey it’s only money…

33

The story woke me up. So I have made a big step in SQ too.

I’m still working with a special build PC for audio. So maybe the story can get a happy end.



It’s for sure that the hardware of the nass is not better then a special build PC.

So then it must be software. Usually Twonky is used for server software on a Nass.

So I both a license of Twonky server 7.2.3 for windows (in my case windows 8) and after the installation I found out Plugplayer is the best Ipad app I could find in the rush.





My library is wav only so I got the noises back at the end of the wav track. Were the coverart is played.

So I used db poweramp to get rid of the tagging I didn’t need and deleted the coverart out the wav tracks.

So I was ready for the test.



Wow far better blackgrounds. Better everything would sound a bit to easy, but on many grounds twonky is the better software to use for High End audio. The difference is not small!

Jriver 18.194 has a bit warmer sound due to noise? And could not reach the spead twonky reaches for SQ.



Thanks for sharing your story!

34

sleask said: I should also add the nas is plugged into the p5 with the dac and amp.


this is interesting: did you ever plug your PC the same way inside the P5? did you plug the NAS in the P5 when it had the hard drive?

maybe this is just the electricity that came from the P5 that gave a better sound?

there is still too many variables!

35

yes the pc was plugged into the p5, with an AC12, the nas was also plugged into the p5 for all tests, with the stock cord. one thought we passed around was that the nas has an external power supply, this might be helping things out.

36
The story woke me up. So I have made a big step in SQ too.
I'm still working with a special build PC for audio. So maybe the story can get a happy end.

It's for sure that the hardware of the nass is not better then a special build PC.
So then it must be software. Usually Twonky is used for server software on a Nass.
So I both a license of Twonky server 7.2.3 for windows (in my case windows 8) and after the installation I found out Plugplayer is the best Ipad app I could find in the rush.


My library is wav only so I got the noises back at the end of the wav track. Were the coverart is played.
So I used db poweramp to get rid of the tagging I didn't need and deleted the coverart out the wav tracks.
So I was ready for the test.

Wow far better blackgrounds. Better everything would sound a bit to easy, but on many grounds twonky is the better software to use for High End audio. The difference is not small!
Jriver 18.194 has a bit warmer sound due to noise? And could not reach the spead twonky reaches for SQ.

Thanks for sharing your story!


My pleasure, sort of, lol, I’m glad I could help out a bit. I’m still trying to get my head around this, haven’t slept well all week, I agree with your statement about the hardware quality, but I was sitting here looking at the motherboard of this nas, http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/synology/ds213plus/5.html , I don’t know but it just looks so simple, no video, just one PCIe slot for the hard drive controller. (Just a note on the no video, that’s why I ended up going with the Intel lga 2011 chip, no onboard video.) one less thing to add noise to the system. Crap, the chip cost more than the nas, grrrrrr WHY, WHY, sorry just had to smash my head on the desk a few more times. The magic didn’t happen until I put the ssd in which really sucks because it’s only an Intel 120g and I’m too scared at the moment to swap it out or add one just in case it changes the sound. I went through a lot of albums last night and the SQ, sound stage and voices are amazing. Listening to Cara Dillon, live at the grand old opra, it’s like you can hear the moisture on her lips as she opens her mouth to sing, (Gordon will laugh at this comment) after that the last one was Metallica, James Hetfield sitting on a chair singing nothing else matters, Which is not necessarily a good thing after Cara Dillon, but still amazing. I don’t mean to ramble on about the SQ but I never thought the system could ever sound like this. I don’t have big expensive speakers or a real big powerful amp, I do have the pwd, p5, ac12’s and did some electrical work that at first scared the crap out of the electrician that came to fix my washing machine, but that’s a different topic. All I’m saying is that I couldn’t imagine what this nas would sound like on one of your systems. If someone could just try it and if they were to get the same results, I can carry on testing stuff, I don’t even want to power this thing off just in case it’s some kind of “freak” setting that will disappear after a reboot. Hmmm, Or maybe all this is is that my numbers up and the man upstairs is finally giving me some enjoyment from this hobby, passion, obsession, or whatever you want to call it, before he checks me out. who knows.

If someone wants to try this, here are the steps I took,
Remove hhd’s installed one ssd, complete unit reset(holding down reset button twice), reinstall DSM, check for updates, set up ssd-synology hybrid raid(no data protection), istalled synology’s media server just to get all the systems default shared folders set up, added user and set permissions for the folders, stopped the media server, installed java, installed minim server, installed minim watch on pc, open minim watch and set transcode to “wav”. I did this to keep the files to their original properties. Transfer music files, find a controller app, in my case for the ipad. Still not happy with that part but I found that songbook lite works good enough, push play, and hopefully, crap your pants as I did.
Please note: Do NOT try this if you have lots of data already on the nas or important data that you can’t reload. When I first started playing around I went to reinsert the old drives to see if they would work and it was all screwed up, had to reload.
I know this post is getting long, but one more small thing, yes something under $100.00!! it did make a difference, I put a 5port switch into the mix, so here is the map: main router for the house - music room router – switch – PWD and pc into switch, after its all running you can unplug the router from the switch, trying to eliminate any noise from the router. Because the router(netgear) only gives out 24 hour ip lease times I just had to plug it back into the switch once a day. This did not work with the NAS I have to leave the router plugged in.
Thanks for the heads up on plugplayer, I’ll give it a go!

37

Simon from Minim has recommended setting transcode to “wave24”

38

@sleask: Just to be clear, is the software environment any different than when you had the magnetic HD’s in the NAS? Was the 5 port switch present when you were using the magnetic drives?

@wijnand: Which music server are you comparing Twonky to in your post?

39

@wijnand: Which music server are you comparing Twonky to in your post?

I'm comparing the windows version of Jriver 18.194 with Twonky for windows. Both on windows 8.1 pro.
Jriver decreases the SQ so much that I can't believe I liked Jriver at all.
40
@sleask: Just to be clear, is the software environment any different than when you had the magnetic HD's in the NAS?

Everything was identical


Was the 5 port switch present when you were using the magnetic drives?



Sorry about the confusion, I should have left the switch part out for now, I have always had the switch at the dac and pc, I didn’t need to use a controller app so I could just unplug the router after they acquired their ip addresses. I do now also plug the nas into the switch, but now I have to leave the router plugged into the switch because I need the wireless for the control app on the iPad.