The perfect "green" rdc server?

Regards, Coen

Yep, The magic word is "gigabit" Ethernet. Most recent mobos have these controllers on board.

Note that both pcs must have this kind of hardware support (or maybe not as I think of it).

Regards, Coen

Hi Peter,

Audirvana plus ends at 352.8/384 so that's what I'm talking about. Same problems with 176,4/192 (4x), but 2x seems to work better (like 192 source material x2 = 384) with less interruptions.

HQ player break up becomes less severe at lower rates but remains at all sampling rates.

I will have to check 1x for you.

The break up is quite disturbing in all cases. Read krr krr krr as broken music (lots of static) with silence in between. The static part seems to have a rhythm to it that is unique for Audirvana plus. With HQ player the sound 'just' collapses in to noise and finally silence to recover via noise into normal music again.

regards, Coen

Hi Peter,

The ticks are only noticable with classical music and not on very quiet passages. I guess in the order of every 4-10 seconds. Furthermore the trackpad gets priority over the music playing, when moving the cursor the music immediately OR after a few seconds breaks up with  static for a second and continues normally. It sounds like "krr krr krr..." and the music runs in its normal pace through this interruption.
 Also when the os locks into the start screen or occasionally runs a prioritised process the break up occurs. The priority setting in audirvana plus does not really make a difference. Closing all programs including the wifi connectivity seems to alliviate the problem a little, that is there is a less direct response to the moving of the cursor.

HQ player exhibits the same behaviour yet is worse. There is a total breakdown of the music for a couple of seconds before the music restores.

At best I can listen a short music track without interruptions with audirvana plus.

Regards, Coen

All worked fine on my laptop. That is no problems with switching between base 44k1 and 48k frequencies on Audirvana +. All played!

Still there are some ticks and interruptions at 8x rate. Maybe my laptop (i5 based) is too slow. Different buffer sizes do not matter.

Regards, Coe

I'd estimate about 10% which makes perfect sense: 48khz consistently too slow and 44.1khz consistently to fast.

Iow 48 played back with 44.1 clock and 44.1 played back with 48 clock. Clocks differ in the order of 10%.

Regards, Coen

I was wrong. The music sounded normal, but compared to the laptop's audio out it is definitely to slow.

I'm glad that our findings are repeated by Peter.

regards, Coen

Thanks Bob,

This command is no solution for the to fast/to slow problem that was introduced by the latest driver.

Is it intended to prevent crashes or also drop-outs?

regards, Coen

Hi,

Ok checked all the "phasure" related files in the two "library" directories on the MBP disk. It turned out that despite two installs, the date associated with creation of the files was still the one of the PREVIOUS install. No clue what this means , but I moved them to the bin and did a fresh install. Now the files all have the date of the most recent dmg file.

To be more specific, the updated files are:
- the two .kext files
- the .plugin file
- the .plist file

Could not locate the exec file, but I presume that is the one that is updated or used anyway.

Results with
Audirwana+: no new results, as expected, unfortunately.

HQplayer 3.4.0: no crash anymore with 2-wire checkbox, but no 705/768 stereo sound with the recipe above, only left channel. (midi output:multichannel/Quadrophonic; "2 channel, 2 wire box checked). Nor is either 44.1 or 48 material running at the right speed, 44.1 to fast, 48 to slow (like with Audirwana +).

Sorry, can't make much more out of it, completely useless.

regards, Coen



!!!!! UPDATE !!!!!:

I noticed that HQ player has a newer version 3.6. Downloaded and started that and finally had STEREO playing at 705 and 768! Well sort of because the music periodically breaks up into music+a lot of static noise.

Unfortunately the to slow/to fast situation remains:

Nos1a clocks set by the driver at the wrong rate?

That would make real sense:
-  44.1xn output @48 NOS1a base clock = too fast + periodical buffer underflow,
-  48   xn output @44.1 NOS1a base clock = too slow + periodical buffer overflow.

Also this is not completely repeatable with A+, where -only- my 192 files play perfect with -only- 1x oversampling (OS).

Note that the "Phasure control panel" shows the correct rate values.

 

Hi Peter,

You must have had some 'beginners luck'  with the new driver install on OS-x 10.10.

I restricted myself to Audirvana+ (1.5.10, not the new 2.x one) this time and that one is limited to 8x OS only.

I have a trial of HQplayer that I used previously out of curiosity. Changing settings is very user unfriendly, and it took me quite a while to get any sound out of it at all, but when it works it is ok for 8x OS. However in all my 16x attempts with it crashed after I ticked the two-wire checkbox.

I will try to remove the driver and reinstall it and try it on HQP with 16x. To be frank I don't think it will make any difference but I'm willing to give it another shot.

Finally there may be more than a driver needed. I had to update the Ifi driver form my nano-DSD as well as the nano firmware (!) to get it to work on Maverics. Some stupid USB compatibility thing that needed work on both ends of the interface. The Ifi now plays glitch and stutter free, even while working on the laptop and at 384KHz rate.

I guess there is commitment to the Mac platform and the driver may work flawlessly in the end, then the developer has still a driver update issue to solve....

regards, Coen

at first: Happy new year to everyone!

The fruit of my endeavor:

I used A+ 1.5.10 on the MBP and I take it the driver should do the base clock changing, because I cannot find another way to do it.

Only with source material at base 48kHz I get music, with the 44.1KHz base A+ produces only static at higher sampling rates (2x etc). Pure NOS ("1xOS") it plays a little but fast forwards every now and then. Very strange behavior.

Oh and the base 44.1 material sampled to base 48 sounds to slow,

So either I don't know how to configure the system or it doesn't work.

regards, Coen

p.s. the driver version in the panel is 2.08.00.

Hi Peter,

That's more recent than the one I have. Please pm me.

Regards,Coen

How new is this one?

I can check it out on i5 MBP 2013.

Regards, Coen

Thans Joachim,

Great suggestion!

Regards, Coen

Hi,

I read Peter's post two times over and I can only remark that we have come to the same conclusion. That is somehow the YFS ' doesn't work' (like Peter Gabriel) and that there 100 things reappear with the 1$ cable. We have different reactions to them and different descriptions too. I.e. for me the latter brought fabric to the music again and an improvement in timing that makes, at my home, the music sound more like, eh, music.
I also noticed a more midrangy and less dynamic (hollow?) sound with the (modified) standard cable but took no offense in it.

Now I'm using/testing the bashed Supra cable with presents itself as quite the opposite of the YFS in bass slam and crystal clear highs. I have been spinning all genres and didn't get annoyed by any of it, with is good in itself. If anything I would consider this cable (also) to 'reduce speed' as an expense for a better tone and coherence. However I crave more attack from it. Mind you this is a 5V powered cable.

Before the Supra I've been playing with the 'custom' 'USB only' cable to no success. Though 'faster' sounding like the YFS it focuses too much on the attack leaving too little room for tone (harmonics, decay). I couldn't make out what percussion actually was played. Eventually I found it to sound messy too, as in mushing up crescendos.
Supra lets you discriminate the drums much better as they sound more like the real drum except for the fierceness of the attack when hit by the stick. I've been paying special attention to this in comparison with I a live concert of Manu Katche I attended last week. Though not through a recording chain, the instruments were processed and amplified during playback. Noteworthy to me was that it had all the traits that i think are important for good audio playback so these traits must be contained in the recording material somehow too. I more than once doubted if this were the case.

The USB story is far from over yet, but a pattern is already emerging!

regards, Coen