Will the Octave have a USB output to connect to a DAC?
magicknow
Paul, would you support a feature request thread for Octave SW or would you prefer to keep calm until you show up with the first release?
I remember you began with that some time ago, but then stopped with feature information and customer requests (probably because you already had firm ideas).
ānor do we believe in the model of paying a monthly fee to use your music systemā.
I admire your courage and agree 1000%.
And on a different note, to my ears, Roon as a player is interfering with music reproduction even when hqplayer is in place.
If the new PS Audio server will offer a direct i2s to Directstream connection without conversion, including native DSD, I am all the way in and please donāt be shy with the power supply.
In fact, I am holding tight and avoid any temptation in the sort of pink faun or sotm because I love the sound from the DSD and I am not interested in anything else until the perfect matching server would be out in the market.
PS Please consider Ethernet networking for those who own several Gb of music already.
I have only had spotty listens and not many of those. We were able to cobble together the Digital Lens and connect the internal computer to it for a quick listen and compared it to the Bridge II as well as my Mac mini/USB setup. For the hour or so I got to
play it the difference was remarkable. I wish I had more time to play but alas, it frizzed out. It was held together with chewing gum and bailing wire.
The hardware has been built in slow stages because of the length of time softwareās taking. Itāll ramp up speed as software gets closer.
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No worries, yes, free. Weāve built Octave around a free database called MusicBrainz which is a volunteer funded organization like Wikipedia is. We are big contributors, both financially and technically, but if PS Audio were to go away (unlikely given our 45
year track record), MusicBrainz would still be there and access to its database would remain as well. A little background on this database. It was built by the original founders of what later has become the biggest paid database, Gracenote (there a lot of
bitter history here of an investor that screwed the folks who wanted to keep it free etc.). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusicBrainz Roon uses a combination of paid data sources so they have
to keep money flowing in to keep their program alive. Should they collapse then their users lose their data access.
The trick with MusicBrainz is figuring out how to get accurate metadata. Itās not as easy as it might sound, which is why Roon and Apple and others rely upon the paid metadata services. Their access is made easy and their accuracy is good right
out of the chute. Weāve spent years building logic and using AI and their acoustic fingerprinting services to raise the accuracy of our access to where we now score slightly higher than the paid service.
In any case, the beauty of Octave will be thatās it remains free for its users even if we cease to exist.
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That sound really good Paul, Finding Metadata can also be cumbersome with Apple, we have a lot of recordings from small but high quality recording studios, mainly the ones supporting church music recordings and The metadata of those recordings (CDās that I rip) is not stored anywhere. So I scan the Cover Art and insert the Metadata by hand.
I found it important to read that Octave will scan the locally stored files for cover art and metadata to prioritize that information.
Other pro on Octave is support of DSD. So I really look forward to a Stellar Octave Server and am really curious about Octave Music, the artist you attract and Guss Skinasās recordings, and the User Interface.
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Roon has used Musicbrainz along side paid services since 2015, at least.
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I like this idea in principle, BUT to do it in practice takes years and maybe decades. In your example, Apple took years to get MacBook right, and lately theyāre actually messing it up, at the same time Microsoft took YEARS to get their Surface line-up of laptops right, and after a decade you can make an argument they make better HW/SW combo laptops than latest Macbooks (with their problems).
So, I command you on this endeavor, itās NOT an easy task. I still think the S/W interface of a music player is an insanely complicated and difficult task that a specialized company might do best, but canāt wait to see and try Octave to see how it compares to Roon!
A lot of people including myself have lifetime subscriptions to roon and like the interface. Hopefully the version 3 network card will be compatible with roon for the DS DAC?
Thatās currently the plan.
I agree. I use a Synology RAID as an interim backup, every time I add to my library (which is on SSDs in my Antipodes CX). Once a month, the Synology does an automatic incremental backup to the library stored on iDrive ā offline storage for (I think $100/yr) for 2TB. reasonable, considering itās a library Iāve spent 40 years building.
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Hi Paul,
Could you please elaborate on the DESIGN decisions, engineering principles, and GOAL of this streamer and what elements of the current top streamers have been taken into account to make this product? From what I gather between Aurilic, Aurender, Innuos products, here are some features theyāve included to produce audiophile streaming. Which of the following your product would also tackle?
- Dual Linear/Triple Linear PSU
- TWO PSU, one for processor, the other for audio components
- Custom Motherboard designed from groundup to be noise free, better internal clock
- Low noise streamer output via better ethernet/Wifi isoation to lower noise
- In-memory playback
- Superior Chassis to shield EMI
- Dual Femto Clocks
- Galvanic isolated inputs/outputs, and USB
- Battery powered audio circuitry
- External World Clock support (if combined with PS Audio DAC)
- In-house WiFi implementation to reduce jitter, noise, isolate WiFi noise from other components
- Isolation of various components/boards from each other
Those are some I could gather from various implementations, love to know which of these, or other design decisions have been made to make Octave work as well if not better!
Cheers!
And, Paul, please make me dinner for this evening.
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Iāve given quite a bit of info already. I truly wish I had the time to answer each of these for you, but alasā¦and I appreciate your hard work putting this list together?
When Octave gets closer I will provide a very detailed list as well as explain all the technical decisions behind them.
Hang in there.
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Roasted Elk? 
Dinner at my place at 7. Be on time.
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Sounds good, thanks! Itās sometimes hard to follow all the responses to various posts. Looking forward to more details!
Hey Paul.
Never compromise on your Vision, otherwiseā¦itās a compromise.
And lifeās too short for that.
As a Brit, Iād say be like Roy Gandy.
http://www.rega.co.uk/rega-history.html
You already areā¦but Iād add thisā¦
It works.
The philosophy thing?
Had a Rega P2 as a student 30 years ago and it blew my mind back then.
Just bought their latest Planar 10, holy hell its goodā¦best music Iāve ever heard.
Anyways, itās designed around the same Philosophy the Company had in 1973.
__1973.
And they havenāt ever wavered from that, ever.
And you shouldnāt either.
RE: Octave Server
People can still have Roon on an affordable laptop into their Dac if they want to compare, so it doesnāt have to be a case of one or other.
But
Please.
Be like Roy Gandy, and donāt ever compromise.
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Things seem to have gone quiet.
Last post is very early December.
Last information update post is way before that!
What is the story?
Are things going great and Paul & the crew are too busy to update us or has it gone on the back burner?
Would be good for this (me) and other eager potential customers to get a nice update on where things currently stand.
Keenly looking forward to it.
Thanks.
Bruce
I sincerely hope this unit is being quietly beta tested for a few months by a select few sworn to silence. You have to do that with new control point software.
Will this going to support searching/accessing metadata from MusicBrainz ?
Regards,
Sourav