lucser

The last problem to be solved is the switch. Thanks to @jabbr i have found Cisco c2960 as one solution and the 2 Netgear switches with 2sfp ports GS310TP and GS110TPv2. It is possible to go also for a Netgear GS105 or GS108 and use the 2fmc that i have to connect with the home net. There are of course many switches in the affordable range including D-link, TP link, Zyxel, Trendnet etc some of them managed and/or with sfp port and with a good feature set but not much feedback on the usage in an audio setup. I’m defenetly not in the audio grade (reclocking ....) switches camp but I consider that the added electrical noise due to either PSU or switch itself in a lesser grade, if used with ptoper cables, could have an impact. For the Cisco C2960 @jabbr seems to have a very positive opinion, there are some recommendations for Netgear ones (some from @JohnSwensonIIRC) and for some HPE models that @Miska is using (a bit too advanced for a simple home network but I need to dig for the exact recommended models). Are any other switches with some positives to be recommended in an audio setup for the last link to the NAA?

@Miska this was also my experience with Odroid C2 and Cubox in terms of kernel support and in general finding a solution when needed. A bit pity as from hardware point of view Odroid C2 looks very solid. They have 2new boards: Odroid H2 (Intel Celeron quad core J4105 based 111usd) and Odroid N2 (ARM Cortex-A73 + Arm Cortex- A53 ~79usd but not yet released. I saw (thanks to @jabbr) and still consider the Clearfog as having the integrated sfp port could simplify the chain in case of using optical fibre net. A bit concerned on the future support as in my experience Solid Run is not fast or responsive. As you said Intel solutions seems to have much active support. Still considering the NAA best solution and probably I will end up with more than one as the prices are reasonable. For the main PC For convenience a NUC8 looks attractive and some new NUC8 and NUC9 are on the way. Anyhow when going for the most performant ones needed for higher upsampling with HQP, the price advantage in regards with a self built solution diminishes. Probably a Gigabyte MB + i7 8th or 9th gen is more effective in terms of price/performance ratio for a solution capable of 512 DSD. The issue for me is that a good GPU board for CUDA is quite expensive and as I am not in the gaming, the only use will be for HQP so I didn’t figure out the model which give a good CUDA performance for the best price. Still looking and as not many fanless cases are available for the latest i7 I still could procrastinate on this :). Another uncertainty is the control for HQPE. I have no problem to the present control solutions or the HQP desktop that I use on my iMac but my wife is using Audirvana on a UPNP endpoint and she is not intrested in experiencing other solutions. I think that I saw somwhere in this forum that is possible to use Audirvana to stream to the HQPe. Is this working?

@miska thank you for your kind support as usually. I always wonder how you succed to handle your work and provide this tremendous amount of support for us! For the naa I don’t care of nice case as it will be anyhow out of sight. Actually Now I use an old mid2010 27” iMac and for NAA I have rpi3, cubox i4pro an an odroid c2. For usb out Rpi3 is not a good choice, the cubox uncertain future, odroid C2 quite good. I had also a plan to use some fifo board + I2S to HDMI to test the I2S input on my Holo Spring Dac but this is other story for DIY :). Do you think up board will be an upgrade over my odroid c2 in terms of net or usb capabilities? I plan to puchase a Nuc8 or to built a new PC within 1000x1500 usd to use it with HQPe and maybe to upgrade the NAA to a reasonable priced solution (no sotm or such) if necessary from my existing ones. I’ve read a lot of posts here but didn’t find a suitable setup yet ( MB and CPU) to be a bit future proof (512 dsd capabilities and processor gen). On the net also i also want to make some changes. I was looking for a switch with SFP ports (1 or 2) . I have already 2 FMC as I use 2 NAA so I could go with a switch with 2 sfp ports -> 2 fmc ->1+1 ethernet to each NAA or 1FMC-> switch with 1SFP -> 1+1 ethernet to each NAA. I was looking to a Cisco c2960g-8tc (1sfp) or Netgear GS310TP (135usd on amazon) or Netgear Gs GS110TPv2(180usd) both with 2sfp or something similar if has any pros for use in an audio setup (fanless, low electrical noise etc). Any recommendations?

@Miska related to the up board version could please advise based on your experiences: - what are the capabilities of up squared for running HQPe (max upsampling) and what processor is better; - for NAA usage is any advantage in using up squared over the basic up board. (RAM, eMMC ?)

From all listed until now: 1. Audirvana+ (Paid, trial, avail only on Mac). It is what I use now mostly (after 3.1 supporting UPNP ). If files are properly tagged then many features to display your library, create smart playlists based on different criterias, edit tags etc. for classical music you can store the arrist, album artist, composer, performer, instrument .... All these you can use later on to sort/display your library,, create smart playlists ( e.g classical, piano, beethoven). 2. JRiver - (paid, trial?) from what I've read similar with the above but didn't test myself since I have purchased at that time Audirvana and HQPlayer. 3 foobar2000 - (free) I've used some time ago on windows. As far as I remember you can obtain similar features with the above but you need additional plugins and config them to suit your taste. 4. HQPlayer - (paid, trial)one of the best for SQ and upsampling features but worst for library management (almost no feature). Tags only as per original Convention limited and library displayed only in the alphabetic order of the artist. Not recommended for proper classical music library with complete / complex tagging but highly recommended for sound quality and streaming over network to the proprietary NAA client ( could be installed on various devices). hopefully all these will help you.

+1 for @RunHomeSlow post. Up to now no major issues with A+. If the files are properly tagged library functions works well, many filtering/ordering options, smart playlists etc. Update for UPNP: Working well with Volumio on Rpi 3 and OdroidC2, not working yet with Cubox. Small issue noticed: when paused (not STOP) in A+ the Volumio device start playing whatever is next in the Volumio queue. Not sure if is caused by A+ or Volumio. Next: - solving Cubox issue; - testing UPNP on DietPi having also the NAA for HQPlayer installed (I have both A+ and HQPlayer).

Hi, The weekend is finally here so time for some tests. OdroidC2 with Volumio installed is working well. PCM up to 352.8 Khz, DSD up to DSD128. Audio eq.: ODROID c2 ->Supra USB Cable-> Holospring DAC. I've tried to use Schiit EITR with ORDOID but even if everything was looking OK, A+ detecting the Odroid, Volumio detecting EITR, the playback was full of noise (pops/cracks/parasite sound...). It seems that is some kind of incompatibility with EITR. Need some test on this But this is not A+ related. Next is A+ -> Rpi with volumio . Up to now: 1. A+ -> Cubox/Volumio =NOT WORKING; need more investigation. 2. A+ -> ODROID C2 /Volumio = WORKING; no extra settings needed after Volumio installation. 3. A+ -> ODROID C2 /Volumio = soon

I heard that it works but couldn't find any guidance, instructions or hints for cubox. I will probably try with Pi or odroid c2 to have a working setup and then I will focus back on cubox again. I'm quite a persistent person. Anyhow, if you can give a hand it will be greatly appreciated

Hi, thank you and all the others for the info regarding Cubox. It's a bit sad as I really like it, is compact, powerful enough, good hardware implementation but poor software support, at least regarding audio side. I was thinking about Moode but it is available only for raspberry pi. It is also paid only. Not that 10usd is too much (it is not) but first I would like to have the oportunity to try it. Also if soon will be updated to a major version the upgrade is to be paid also. Again, if I will have it as permanent solution not a big deal. I have a Cubox an Odroid C2 and a Raspberry pi 3 plus I have a Digi+ pro and an isolatorPi (Iancanada), Schiit Eitrand thinking to purcase a 502dac hat also. I'm still experimenting to find two setups that are flexible enough and allow me to play music over network and have a good remote control app. I have both Audirvana and HQplayer but they are covering half of my needs each: Audirvana is covering the user interface needs (nothing to complain here) but was failing on the net connectivity (partially covered with the upgrade to 3.1) and HQplayer having superb net conectivity solution but the user interface is less than basic and the remote control apps really limited. I was reticent to go with roon due to the high price. I don't say that is not worth the price but there are features that I do not necessary need as my library is properly tagged. Now if I' m thinking, what I've paid for Audirvana + upgrade and HQ player is almost half of Roon license so, considering also the waiting time for features that will didn't happen, Roon is not expensive afterall. Regarding the A+ engine I'm pretty sure. Otherwise there will be no difference between the different players. This was actually the base that made Audirvana standing out from the other players. It is true that there are also the other features as upsampling, different filtering, dsp etc. that contribute to the final digital signal sent to the dac. If you use them then, at least you will use a part of it. OK now this is how the things are standing and is nothing that I could change. HQPlayer user interface is just too rough, the process of finding /selecting what I want to listen is too frustrating and killing all the joy. It remains to play a bit with Audirvana an finding a way to play with UPNP renderers on the LAN ( Pi or Odroid), trying Volumio and maybe Moode. If I still not find a solution to fulfill the two main personal requirements ( a decent and pleasent to use interface and ability to work over LAN) then I must reconsider Roon. Paying 500 usd it seems the only cons of Roon :).

@DomieMic65 the main benefit will be to have the computer placed away from the audio system. With USB you are restricted by the limited length of USB cable. On the other hand using an UPNP renderer will void the advantages of Audirvana rendering engine as in the end the UPNP renderer will send the signal to your DAC. Even if a bit dissapointed by this not optimal solution, after waiting for it very long time I wish to give it a try. Unfortunately I could not making work with Volumio as UPNP renderer ( not seen by Audirvana). I have tried with a Cubox but no success. I understand that some users reported working with Volumio. If they could provide some help/advice it will be great!

Hi Miska, Any news on the release of NAA binaries for arm64 (Odroid C2)? I've succeeded to have it working but with a Dietpi image installed (no NAA binaries yet) then switching from jessie to stretch and adding armhf architecture ....... Thanks

I know that is too early as the 3.0 it was just released but could you give a very rough (months, end of year ....) expectation for 3.1 ? I was a main Audirvana user until last year when I've start to use HQP for one reason only: streaming to NAA client. This allow me to put my Audio equipment in its place, away from the computer. In terms of user interface HQP is horrible, less than that is command line interface so, most of the time I'm browsing my library with Audirvana to choose what to listen and then play them in HQP. It is annoying but that's it. I was expecting this feature (streaming) to be part of 3.0 and I still think that was about to make the biggest difference. Unfortunately didn't happened. Instead we have the MQA ... I was considering Roon but from my point of view is much to expensive. I could afford it but I don't have any use for those extra feature that is said to make it so expensive. If the streaming feature is still far away maybe is no point to wait for it another year.

Hi All, First a big THANK YOU to Damien for his efforts. I think we really need to appreciate the way that this update process was done. Damien did it almost interactively and was great to be part of this. I think that involving the regular users (and not only a few limited number) in the beta testing process paid well to the final result. I know that was not easy as many bugs or feature reporting were coming again and again and sometimes some of the users get frustrated. It is true they were very few and I think they were so without a reason as all these pre-releases were clearly beta versions and installing was voluntarily. I am using 2 SW players Audirvana and HQ player and by far the most satisfying one is Audirvana. For me, a listening session is comprising not only in the listening to the music but also choosing/discovering the music to play. If the player interface is not good and easy to use, soon the annoyance of finding an album in the library spoil the mood and the listening session is mostly compromised. Audirvana is by far the best player that I've used, providing both excellent SQ and excellent interface to browse my music library. To use it is a pure pleasure. Unfortunately I could not use it all the time as my computer is far from the audio rack. This is the reason that I use HQ player (with the NAA client) to remotely stream the music over the network to my speaker system. For HP listening I use Audirvana. But even when I use HQ player to play the music through my speaker system I use Audirvana to browse and locate the albums to listen as HQP interface is barely minimum (the library is displayed just as a list of artists without any possibilities to customize/sort it and no album art view (excepting the "Touch interface" is also rough and limited). These being said I would like to thank again to Damien for these wonderful software and for his great efforts to enhance our listening experience at all levels: library management, library browsing/view, music selection and GREAT SQ! All in one! If in a future version the network streaming to a thin client will be added ( Please! )then we will come very close to the perfect music player. The most sincere thanks in more than 25 years of using software of any type for Damien!

Hi, Details on the issue described in the #136 post: it seems that under certain circumstances changing from "Tracks" view mode to "Albums" view mode made the program crash. It happens when fresh syncing and after a new smartlist is created. Another issue seems to be a memory "leak". I've noticed that leaving Audirvana open (but not necessary playing) it continuously take memory without releasing it. (checked with a simple memory monitor software). Hopefully these info will be helpful for you.

Hi Damien, Great work! Maybe a small bug: if try to change from Tracks to Albums while library sync the program crash. Happens every time. I'm not sure if only when is building the library first time (my case) or also during the normal sync. Still looking forward to streaming over network functionality to a thin client . Distance from iMac to my system don't alow mw to hear Audirvana through my main system:(. But I'm a patient man. My preferred player so far even in not the most used (see above)! Keep game running. Really great software and good to see the active interaction with your users during this public beta phase.