PS Audio Music Server In The Pipeline?

Network Audio
1629

Never wanted to leave, and of course it’s a shambles (I have several friends who were “one man band” businesses, they are not in business any more).

In fact I changed my profile pic on here to reflect my opinion on the matter (and my disappointment at the prospect of eating nothing but rotten fish for ever more :wink: )

3 Likes
1631

@Paul - Greetings, I apologize if this has been answered, I looked, but couldn’t find this addressed.

Is the Octave Player going to act as a host for multiple endpoints in a fashion similar to Roon? Will I be able to have multiple audio systems all interfacing back to the Octave Player over our LAN?

Thanks!
Vince

1 Like
1632

Wow! That is probably the most significant question I have seen for the new device.
I feel dopey for it not occurring to me.

Will Octave integrate streaming services as well?

1633

@aangen - From the Octave page:

“The Octave system consists of the Octave Play™ app and the PerfectWave Octave PlayerC hardware. High-resolution music from streaming sources like Tidal, and Qobuz, as well as your own stored libraries of tracks, come alive as never before.”

1 Like
1634

your Aurender file is no longer available ( been almost a year) would you make it available again?
thanks
mike

1635

That’s a difficult one. I’m in a same position with an Innuos server. I use it for Roon multi-room and as a local Roon streamer. They are launching their own streaming software and app, several years in the making, in the next month or two. I would like to use their streamer for the best sound quality to my main system and Roon for multi-room at the same time. I don’t think it will be possible. Fortunately I have an SSD QNAP as well and could put Roon on that. I assume that Octave will work like most other streamers, if you have several PS Audio units I would expect them to be able to see the same drive in the master unit over the network. So when the Stellar Streamer comes out (as promised recently) it should be able to see the hard drive on an Octave Streamer. So the question is, if Roon is sitting on another device, like a QNAP, could it link to the Octave hard drive?

1636

I’ll see if I can locate a copy of it!

1637

I found the mp4 file of the Aurender video. A download link is here:

The app has been updated since and there is now a black/grey colour scheme as an alternative to the brown in the video. It looks a lot better.

1638

While waiting for the server in the pipeline, there is music in the pipeline

8 Likes
1639

This is true art. Translated it says “tubesound” in the lower left corner. Great post!

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1640

Does anyone know if the music server will be able to output via I2S quad rate DSD to the Directstream?

1641

I haven’t heard whether or not we’re planning for this. Should would be awesome though! The Server will definitely have I2S out, but I’m not sure what it will be limited to.

1 Like
1642

A local dealer stocks the Taiko Audio SGM Extreme server, which he says is magnificent (it should be for $27,000), but has not yet been able to do an open demo thanks to lockdown. As standard, it comes only with usb output. You pay extra for Coax and AES/EBU.

They have a lot of interesting information about networking and system set-up on their site, which can be seen here. Much of it is generic and not about their product.
https://taikoaudio.com/taiko-2020/faq/

1643

This has probably already been asked somewhere in this 1635+ post, 4-year-long thread (and maybe even asked by me, somewhere in those dark corners of history), but has PSA said anything about an approximate price point for the unit when it’s finally released?

I’m toying with the idea of upgrading my Node 2i, and the plans for the Octave could affect that.

1644

$6,000 was the last i remember for the the full Octave Server and 1 to 1.5K for the standalone Streamer (Bridge 3) that was at least a year ago Would be nice to hear an update from @Paul

1645

Hi Greg,

If you like to stay in the environment of BluOS, Apple AirPlay I just got the NAD C 658 and it sounds absolutely fantastic (it replaced the Stellar Gain Cell DAC). It has balanced XLR out to connect to your M700’s.

By the way, I had a chance to compare the Vault2 with iMac (running BluOS) as servers of my local library, for whatever reason the iMac sounded considerably better. Same files, the Vault connected via Silent Angel Audio grade switch only, while the iMac data had to pass additionally 2 switches and more wiring. So I returned the Vault to my dealer.

Whether the NAD sounds better than the SGCD I don’t dare to say as the NAD had a long delivery time while the SGCD was out for repair. I had no music for 2 1/2 months. But I am missing nothing I, the NAD just performs and the nice thing is, BluOS now is not only a music selection tool but I can control the entire system without swapping apps or remotes, or just grab any mobile device or remote that happens to be in vicinity to control it.

Such a luxury combined with excellent sound quality.

Perfect compatibility with your current streaming infrastructure, good match with your M700 and the best, less than 1/3 of the above mentioned cost.

1646

I appreciate the suggestion, but I don’t want to replace the SGCD, and with it in the system, I don’t need the NAD’s preamp parts, and even if the streamer part of the NAD was fabulous all on its own, I’d still chafe a bit at spending money on a preamp I don’t need. I don’t even especially like the idea of buying another DAC, but I’m resigned to the fact that it might happen anyway, depending on what streamer I choose.

I’m also hoping for improved network access than I get from the Node, since it can only see files stored on my iMac’s internal drive (or so BlueSound support told me when I asked why my Node couldn’t locate my files, which are on an external hard drive attached to the iMac, because its internal drive isn’t big enough). Right now, the only way for me to bring those files across the network is to have my phone or iPad retrieve them via wifi and push them to the Node via AirPlay, which is limited in resolution. Or resign myself to moving the hard drive back and forth between the Node and the iMac which is time consuming and a pain in the rear.

And finally, it’s getting a little annoying that the Node frequently loses the network connection, or the connection to my mobile devices, or just plain stops working from time to time. Plus when I do the AirPlay thing, and I try to use the Node’s digital outs to the SGCD’s DAC, it stumbles all over itself with massive numbers of dropouts. I have to use its own DAC and its analog outs to avoid that.

Now it’s entirely possible, I suppose, that the NAD might solve all those problems. But I don’t know if I want to bet on it.

1647

Yes I encountered similar problems but was able to resolve them with support of the BluOS team.

The problems you describe are network an file sharing right issues. You are most likely to encounter these with any streaming device if you do not resolve them.

1648

I don’t see how dropouts and lost connections could possibly be file sharing rights issues. If it were a matter of sharing rights, I would think they wouldn’t play at all.

As far as my problem accessing my own files, I could possibly see that issue being a sharing rights problem, but as I said, I contacted the Bluesound support people about it, and their answer was that their software is only able to find files that are stored on the server’s internal drive(s), and can’t see external drives connected to the server by USB. That may actually be an Apple problem, and not Bluesound’s, because the sharing settings in System Preferences only shows folders and files on the computer itself, meaning its internal hard drive. Externally connected drives and their files don’t even appear there. For what it’s worth, I’ve set Sharing & Permission settings on the external drive and its contents at read rights for “everyone” (by right-clicking on the drive itself and pulling up its “info” window), but that doesn’t seem to have made a difference.

Are you saying you’ve been able to get your NAD to play files stored on an external drive connected to your network’s server?

1649

The dropouts may be caused by your DNS (Dynamic Network (Nam) Server) server that is part of your router. It assigns IP addresses to any device connected via Ethernet or WiFi to your network.

If you happen to have only a single router it is easier, if you have multiple routers it is a bit more complicated.

This is how you identify routers. Most internet providers these days provide you a internet modem that includes the router. So that is the primary router through which all internet traffic goes.

Some people like me have bought additional WiFi access points, most of those WiFi access points also have a router built in. I refer to this as the secondary router. If you do not have that it is likely that you have a single router.

Drop outs are caused by:

  1. multiple routers assigning IP addresses with the same subnet mask, each of the routers tries to keep assigning IP addresses to either your iMac or your Node 2i (or any streamer) which causes randomly changing IP addresses, which means that the 2 devices can’t find each other an loose communication (drop outs), the routers identify undelivered packages and try to fix the that so sometimes the connections re-establish
  2. maybe you have a single router and a device in your network with a fixed IP address, maybe your laptop from work, when it gets connected it may cause the DNS server in your router to assign new IP addresses to your iMac or Node 2i (or any streamer) which means their communication gets lost also, the router tries to re-establish it’s preferred IP address pattern which causes the drop outs on a random basis as long as the culprit is connected to the network

How do you solve this:

  • you need to access the setting menu(s) of your router(s)
  • you need to look in the system info menu of the iMac for its hardware address, called MAC (this has nothing to do with Apple) address
  • look for the MAC address on the bottom or back of your Node 2i
  • if you have 2 routers, set the secondary router to bridge mode, this way you disable its DNS server and allows your primary router to manage the entire network avoiding situation 1. It will have no effect on your WIFi, the WiFi and Ethernet switch in the secondary router keeps on working just by the commands of the primary router
  • the DNS server allows you to set fixed IP addresses, you can set fixed the IP addresses for your iMac and Node 2i by assigning IP addresses to the MAC addresses you noted above
  • the IP address is a group of 4 numbers separated by a point each number being a decimal number with maximum 3 digits.

Make sure the IP addresses you assign comply with the following:

  • their sub-netmask (first 3 numbers (y) of the IP address, yyy.yyy.yyy.zzz) is identical to the subnet mask of the DNS server for example 192.169.2.zzz, your DNS server might show different numbers
  • the last number (zzz) is not assigned to any other device, like different internal devices in you router or assigned to another MAC address. Typicall the number should be between 30 and 200, 30 is plenty space to ensure you do not double assign existing IP addresses and 200 is often the max. no of devices routers for home use manage.

For accessing shared drives please respond to the PM I sent, if you are interested to fix it.