Need help upgrading my CAPS v3 Zuma for HQPlayer.

[baburh]

Hi everyone.

I tried to find an answer to my question searching the forums but could not. I have fallen behind my hobby in the last 4.5 years and computer audio has moved on considerably. The last time I shopped around and felt like up to date, there was no Roon and no Microrendu, no HQPlayer. It was mostly about Jriver, Jplay and AO. And definitely linear power supplies.

I’m willing to upgrade what I have in hand and I’m very confused. I will very much appreciate if you can help. Please do not recommend me to do years of reading. Help if you can.

Digital side of my setup:

1.       Dual boot Single PC CAPS V3 Zuma (Intel i7-3770T / Intel DH77EB Micro ATX / SOtM tX-USBexp / SOTM Sata filter / Streacom F5 / 128gb SSD only for OS)

2.       Powered by 3 rail Paul Hynes linear power supply (Motherboard, SOTM, SSD)

3.       Dual boot:

a.       Jriver19 on WinServer2012R2 AO1.26 Core – strictly audio

b.      Jriver20 on Win10 – audio, video, family, ease of use…

4.       Meitner MA-1 DAC

5.       Synology NAS – where all audio(/video) files are

Now the hard part, I would like to upgrade my hardware to venture into more resource intensive software like Dirac and/or HQPlayer. My idea is to upgrade the CPU, motherboard and memory cards and stick with the rest (case, ssd, sotm gear and the power supply). I really need video capability, that’s why I have the dual boot currently.

Does this make sense?

I already have a brand new CPU in hand, i7-7700T. Can you recommend me a motherboard? Preferably microATX to stick with the former CAPS v3 design?

Or am I being foolish? This route will ignore the MicroRendu trend, right? Spending all that money for new mobo, memory etc I could very well get myself a MicroRendu. Am I sacrificing too much for that friendly video capable win10 boot for family? Is there a way to have best of both worlds?

Your guidance will be most appreciated.

 

[jcn3]

You've already got enough HP for Dirac.

[tedwoods]

Have you given any thought on how you're going to control HQPlayer, since that might also bring Roon into the equation, which may require further thought on how to properly implement that in a dual boot scenario?

The server/endpoint route does indeed offer tangible SQ benefits, but so far, I've witnessed that in audio only scenarios...

 

 

 

[ElviaCaprice]

12 hours ago, baburh said:

Hi everyone.

I tried to find an answer to my question searching the forums but could not. I have fallen behind my hobby in the last 4.5 years and computer audio has moved on considerably. The last time I shopped around and felt like up to date, there was no Roon and no Microrendu, no HQPlayer. It was mostly about Jriver, Jplay and AO. And definitely linear power supplies.

I’m willing to upgrade what I have in hand and I’m very confused. I will very much appreciate if you can help. Please do not recommend me to do years of reading. Help if you can.

Digital side of my setup:

1.       Dual boot Single PC CAPS V3 Zuma (Intel i7-3770T / Intel DH77EB Micro ATX / SOtM tX-USBexp / SOTM Sata filter / Streacom F5 / 128gb SSD only for OS)

2.       Powered by 3 rail Paul Hynes linear power supply (Motherboard, SOTM, SSD)

3.       Dual boot:

a.       Jriver19 on WinServer2012R2 AO1.26 Core – strictly audio

b.      Jriver20 on Win10 – audio, video, family, ease of use…

4.       Meitner MA-1 DAC

5.       Synology NAS – where all audio(/video) files are

Now the hard part, I would like to upgrade my hardware to venture into more resource intensive software like Dirac and/or HQPlayer. My idea is to upgrade the CPU, motherboard and memory cards and stick with the rest (case, ssd, sotm gear and the power supply). I really need video capability, that’s why I have the dual boot currently.

Does this make sense?

I already have a brand new CPU in hand, i7-7700T. Can you recommend me a motherboard? Preferably microATX to stick with the former CAPS v3 design?

Or am I being foolish? This route will ignore the MicroRendu trend, right? Spending all that money for new mobo, memory etc I could very well get myself a MicroRendu. Am I sacrificing too much for that friendly video capable win10 boot for family? Is there a way to have best of both worlds?

Your guidance will be most appreciated.

 

Yes, it makes sense and yes your being foolish, aren't we all.  There is nothing wrong with your current setup, in fact I wouldn't change a single thing other than update JRiver to 22./23, get a new DAC, stream bit perfect. 

Add some other usb regeneration components.  Since you already have the TX USB card you could upgrade the power supply to an LPS-1 from Uptone.  Upgrade the clocking to the usb card, mobo or another regeneration component.  Just a question of how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.  Enjoy one upgrade at a time, but I wouldn't change a thing on your server and I definitely wouldn't change from the USB streaming.  Thus you keep the video compatibility which you would loose with Ethernet.  And to be honest, you can accomplish just as good SQ with USB only today as Ethernet/renderer. 

[baburh]

On 5/9/2017 at 1:19 PM, ElviaCaprice said:

Yes, it makes sense and yes your being foolish, aren't we all.  There is nothing wrong with your current setup, in fact I wouldn't change a single thing other than update JRiver to 22./23, get a new DAC, stream bit perfect. 

Add some other usb regeneration components.  Since you already have the TX USB card you could upgrade the power supply to an LPS-1 from Uptone.  Upgrade the clocking to the usb card, mobo or another regeneration component.  Just a question of how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.  Enjoy one upgrade at a time, but I wouldn't change a thing on your server and I definitely wouldn't change from the USB streaming.  Thus you keep the video compatibility which you would loose with Ethernet.  And to be honest, you can accomplish just as good SQ with USB only today as Ethernet/renderer. 

Thanks ElviaCaprice for all the feedback.

 

What exactly do you mean by 'usb regeneration components'? Products like Iso Regen from Uptone? Since I have the Sotm TX USB, I never looked into them. Should I? Can they coexist?

 

Clock upgrade on the TX USB sounds like a good idea. I do not how big a difference that is, will search the CA forums.. But you already poisoned me there.

 

I already have a quite good multi-rail linear supply in place, powering the TX USB direct. I wil stay away from more power supplies for now. My DAC, Meitner MA-1 will soon get the V2 update but will not go further up the product line there for now either.

 

I guess I will try the Roon+HQ Player combo (Can I?) on the AO+WinServer2012R2 boot and will keep the Jriver on Win10 boot. I have not seen any worthwhile change on JRiver since v19 but will consider Jriver23 again.. I do not know if Dirac would run on AO+WinServer2012. Would love to try that.

 

I have the i7-7700T in hand so that's a very strong incentive to upgrade the mobo and the memory. I need all the comments and recommendations you guys can give me on that..

 

 

[baburh]

On 5/9/2017 at 0:31 PM, tedwoods said:

Have you given any thought on how you're going to control HQPlayer, since that might also bring Roon into the equation, which may require further thought on how to properly implement that in a dual boot scenario?

The server/endpoint route does indeed offer tangible SQ benefits, but so far, I've witnessed that in audio only scenarios...

 

 

 

Yes. I do want to try it out and with Roon. Now, this might be a stupid question: Can I not run HQPlayer and Roon on the same computer running AO+WinServer2012? If yes, my dual boot setup will just be fine for my needs. The second boot with Win10+Jriver  will be perfect for family needs, including video..