agisthos

Not correct, there is an official release for it on the Qnap app store as well as on Linn's site. Maybe its fairly new to the QNAP world.

So Logitechmediaserver (LMS) is not a server its a player? And cannot be compared to Minimserver because that's not a player? The one I could not compare to the others was Linn's Kazoo media server, could not get it working on the QNAP. Although I may have another go later. JPlay is the best sounding control app but it also helps to use the best sounding media server software. They do vary in sound quality just like the app.

Interesting you find LMS to be the best sounding server. On my QNAP NAS I compared Twonky, Serviio, AssetUPNP and MinimServer. Twonky was the worst, and MinimServer the best. But you say LMS is even better than MinimServer?

Before the NVME standard appeared, in the early days of JPLAY, I built a custom audio PC for my friend and we found audio improvements by isolating the power line to the SATA SSD drives. We fed the drives via battery power supply instead. Also saw the same improvements powering the JCAT USB output card with its own battery supply. Given that experience I have no doubt a custom NVME drive that attempts to reduce noise may have some positive effect.

@OE333 How does the DAC 200 handle the single ended outputs? Second class citizen running through op-amps like most DAC's do? Or does it have its own discrete output stage? Taken from one leg of the balanced?

Maybe it’s the way it runs off my NAS, and not Minimserver itself. But when was the last time you tried Serviio? Because it is very feature rich and it’s library handling control is superior to others. It also seems to be the most recently developed of the 3, while Twonky and Minim look like nothing has changed much in the last few years.

I had Minimserver running on the qnap NAS and found it buggy. I always had to go into the app and restart/rescan it to get it to show up on searches. Not even rebooting the nas would fix it. But Minimserver sounded better than Twonkyserver. But so does Serviio, and that works perfectly as a dlna server. Try that instead, and the UI is much more user friendly. This is something I don’t see discussed… not only does the player like JPLAY sound better compared to others, but the dlna/upnp software also effects the sound.

Ah my mistake!!! I thought he was a developer of the app. Marcin did introduce someone on this forum as being the app coder and I must have got my wires crossed that it was him!

Well this may explain why queue playing is broken in JPLAY when using an iPhone as the renderer. Because you have not tested it. Only the first track in a queue plays, then it stops. I have attempted to tell both yourself and Marcin about this with no response. You might say - who cares if the iPhone/iPad does not work as a renderer? Well there is this new market for high end wireless headphones that just appeared in only the last 12 months, with Focal, Mark Levinson and T+A releasing headphones that are high performance enough to benefit from something like JPLAY. Its just the beginning and there will be more to come. But they only work with the mobile device itself as the renderer, which currently makes JPLAY only useful if you like to play one track at a time!

@Zaphod Beeblebrox Hey Zaphod this is a bit off topic for PGGB, but what is your take on the LEEDH digital lossless volume control? The idea behind it- targeting number resolving db steps instead of -1db, -2db e.t.c seems to make logical sense. And the reports from Lumin users seems very positive. I would love to ditch the pre amp stage and remove a box, but digital volume always is so flat and lifeless. Maybe this is the one?

I had a good idea of what my next equipment upgrade would be, but discovering PGGB has thrown a spanner in the works. Right now I have all music on a NAS and access it with a Lindemann streamer via DLNA. I don’t want to use a PC front end, I now like the convenience of streaming from these tiny boxes. But after doing some research I note most DLNA streamers are limited to pushing 24/192 files, or in a few cases 24/384. So for network rendering the potential of PGGB is slightly crippled. However 4fs and 8fs is better than nothing.

OK I am off next week to try PGGB on my friends Holo May KTE. He sent through some of his test tracks to be converted alongside mine. Excited to hear how far this upsampling can go. The MAY DAC 3 KTE spec sheet says 32fs input, but I read its native (optimal) NOS mode is 20 bit/16fs. Is that correct? My friend still uses JPlay in hibernate mode for any serious listening. I'm not sure if the current setup will pass through such a high bitrate. He has a Matrix Audio USB PCx card feeding the Holo DAC.

That was actually my next question… if we are not using a PC front end, but instead pulling the files across the network with a streamer, what size file limit can we reasonably go to? Will 16fs and 32fs files be ok or too large to stream? And with network streaming I have found subtle performance improvements by reducing ethernet port speed down from 1gb to 100mb. That’s something that will have to be given up to listen to PGGB files but it seems the sonic gains of this upsampling will easily outweigh that.

Unlike most of you here I have an older Wolfsen based dac, while being 192 kHz capable, it’s spdif receiver chip is limited to 96 khz input. So until I upgrade the maximum upsample is 2fs. In this setup is PGGB worthwhile? Well I tried it out and yes it is, even at 2fs. It’s mainly acoustic and live music that benefits, anything that has depth and soundstage. I cannot imagine what the 16fs and 32fs is like that everyone is raving about. Before experiencing it I may have to put on my peril sensitive sunglasses.

Same here. I found reducing the speed of the port linking router to streamer to 100Mb improved audio quality. This was the case when connecting the steamer directly to the router, or with a switch in between. Also completely disabling wireless in the router (and then offloading wireless access onto its own dedicated device) also improved things.