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[landiepete]

First off : I do own a JRiver master license, so I'm not trying to cut corners here.

Onwards !

I own a very good amplifier, with good speakers and even good wires. My amp has a good recent DAC. I have plenty of analogue sources. Even a good CD player. Or two. And a half decent external DAC if needs must.

What I do not have is a digital streaming source. Now these seem to be the new snake oil drenched black magic of the 'audiophile' world. And I'm not taking advice from a website or forum where the first thing you get is a banner ad for Wilson Chronosonic speakers. My house costs less. So there.

However, there are DIY solutions, and I do own an abundant supply of computer parts, so I did two things.

1. I built a box based on an older AMD E350 mobo. It is old, but has USB3 and is low power. I put it in a small 'HTPC case' with a built in power supply, fed by an external 12V brick. On this I installed Volumio. The AMD heatsink has a small fan, but it's not audible at listening distances.

2. I built a second box based on an Intel H77 chipset, this one with an older I5-3570 CPU. It is in a heatpiped Streacom case. Power supply is a PICO PSU, and I feed it with the same external brick. On this one I put Daphile.

For comparison purposes I use the same USB WiFi stick, connected to the same NAS. The box is connected to the dac by means of a pretty low end USB A to B cable (there's a good one on order but it hasn't shown up yet).

So everything in the setup is identical, bar the boxes and the OS.

The sound files I'm streaming are FLAC's I made myself from MFSL cd's, and 192kHz-24bit Ponos I have acquired legally.

Now I'm not an audiophile reviewer, so I have very little to say about soundstage, air, silence and PRaT, but I can attest to the fact the Volumio sound isn't as clear and defined, it sounds a bit more muddled and sloppy.

Knowing the JRiver crew put a lot of effort into sound quality, and the DAC has a Windows driver, I can't very well not build a third box wit Windows 10 and JRiver. But I'd like some help on the following.

1. It's obviously going to need a bit of muscle. So would a J5005 based system with say 8Gb of RAM be sufficient ? I would like a low power solution since I have another nice case available.

2 To maximize quality, should I use a software USB reclocking solution or invest in hardware ? However, if hardware is the issue/solution with the existing boxes, I may need to run that comparison again with say a Raspberry Pi and a reclocking card. They're a lot cheaper than PC solutions.

3. Is there other 'supporting software' I need to install ?

4 Tips and tricks for maximizing sound quality appreciated. 

Thanks for helping out,

Pete

[landiepete]

Well, thanks for all the great tips and information.

These are my preliminary findings

Hardware : ASRock J5005-itx mobo with 8 mb. Tested with on board wired ethernet and WiFi from Asus, Belkin and D-Link. These WiFi sticks have been tested and found working on older H77/i5-3570 and J3455 hardware

Daphile : doesnt't work. Can't set up a network connection, not wired and not with Wifi. Neither 'normal' or 'RT' works
Volumio : doesn't work. Boots from stick and hangs. Same on WiFi and wired.

Windows 10 LTSC and JRiver : of course it works. I am however running into issues with the 'sleep' functions. The box dozes off and I can't wake it via the webserver.  Access via the onboard webserver is wobbly. Doesn't connect with Firefox, doesn't work with Chrome on a droid tablet, does work with Internet Explorer. It also works the 'roundabout' way with the 'access code', but I really don't want to go outside my own network to get this working. It's silly. The interface is primitive, no eyecandy. Maybe the app is better, but I would have to buy it for IOS and droid.
There are many things to configure. I'm not sure I understand even 20% of them.

Trying Audirvana next. aand maybe Amarra.
Pete

[JimH]

Your post is full of information, but it's not clear what the question is. 

Volumio is a UPnP server.  It doesn't produce sound.  Its function is to serve files.  It would be better to use MC to import the files.

If you can't get the server to wake, you could try Wake On LAN.

Serving FLAC files doesn't take much horsepower.  Our JRiver Id does it without breaking a sweat.

[landiepete]

If this

'But I'd like some help on the following.

1. It's obviously going to need a bit of muscle. So would a J5005 based system with say 8Gb of RAM be sufficient ? I would like a low power solution since I have another nice case available.

2 To maximize quality, should I use a software USB reclocking solution or invest in hardware ? However, if hardware is the issue/solution with the existing boxes, I may need to run that comparison again with say a Raspberry Pi and a reclocking card. They're a lot cheaper than PC solutions.

3. Is there other 'supporting software' I need to install ?

4 Tips and tricks for maximizing sound quality appreciated. '

Does not make clear what the question(s) is (are), I am afraid my grasp of the English language is even worse than I feared...

And I can assure you Volumio DOES play files (as a 'renderer' they're called these days, I think). As Does Daphile. As in : install on box, point box to location of music files, connect USB output of box to dac or to line in via sound out.

[JimH]

If you're playing to a renderer and it doesn't sound good, check for conversion settings.

[landiepete]

I think I need to get the lingo right. I have NAS which contains files. I have a 'box', which has a Windows OS, and runs MC26, and  which gets the music from the NAS, and sends them to the DAC (the NAS does not stream via upnp or somesutch trickery, MC on the 'box' pulls the file from the NAS).
So what's the correct term for the 'box' ?

Pete

[JimH]

Computer or PC.

[landiepete]

Are you being facetious, flippant or just trying to be funny ? Because I'm a paying customer, and humor does not tend to 'translate' well.

[mattlovell]

I think I need to get the lingo right. I have NAS which contains files. I have a 'box', which has a Windows OS, and runs MC26, and  which gets the music from the NAS, and sends them to the DAC (the NAS does not stream via upnp or somesutch trickery, MC on the 'box' pulls the file from the NAS).
So what's the correct term for the 'box' ?

Per

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DLNA

the DLNA terminology is that of Server, Player, Renderer, and Controller.

• DMS -- Digital Media Server -- where the media resides
• DMP -- Digital Media Player -- where the media is played
• DMR -- Digital Media Renderer -- where media is played, but with ability to respond to a controller
• DMC -- Digital Media Controller -- software control of the renderer -- functions as a remote

My system has an Odroid C2 (a single-board computer like a Raspberry Pi) with an onboard DAC.  It's connected to an amplifier that's in the living room.

The study has a Windows 10 computer that runs MC and has all of the media files.

I use an iPad with JRemote to control playback.

So, that makes the iPad the Controller, the computer in the study the Server, and the Odroid as the Renderer/Player.

[JimH]

Are you being facetious, flippant or just trying to be funny ? Because I'm a paying customer, and humor does not tend to 'translate' well.

I'm being quite literal.  Your "box" is a PC.  Or a computer.  "Box" has no meaning in this context.

Maybe you could explain what you're asking. 

[landiepete]

Thanks Matt. I think I’m getting the hang of it. It was Jim’s comment of ‘playing TO a renderer’ which has me thoroughly confused. I’m using MC as a media player, not a server of sorts.

I’m just trying to figure out if things like Fidelizer (I’m using this as an example, there are many examples of software that claim to improve output quality, even ‘software reclockers’ that are supposed to improve USB timing) and whatnot would improve sound quality even more. Or if they’re a waste of time.

[Awesome Donkey]

Do keep in mind that JRiver doesn't support using those third-party "optimizer" apps like Fidelizer, JPlay, etc. with JRiver Media Center so if you have any issues you may be on your own.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Windows_System_Requirements

[mattlovell]

Thanks Matt. I think I’m getting the hang of it. It was Jim’s comment of ‘playing TO a renderer’ which has me thoroughly confused. I’m using MC as a media player, not a server of sorts.

Note also that a single device can function in multiple roles.  If a single computer hosts the hard drives that contain media files, runs MC itself, and plays the music, then it is Server, Controller, and Renderer all roled into one! 

My personal opinion is that bit-perfect playback of audio, unless one is doing some fancy digital signal processing (DSP) takes very little "effort" for any modern computer.  If the hardware itself (DAC, audio card, what have you) is poorly designed, one might encounter electrical noise down in the audible frequency range but, aside from that, it's not worth much worry.

[Edit: typos]

[landiepete]

Update :

I have currently built boxes with :

- Volumio
- Daphile
- Daphile RT
- Windows + Audirvana
- Wyndows + Hysolid.

Yes. All of them at the same time. So I now have 5 HTPC's running. Well, if they run. And yes, I've compared sound quality, but I'll refrain from commenting on that as it is too personal an experience. I think. But they all sound somewhat different. Not necessarily better or worse, different.

My conclusions so far are :

The distributions that serve as a base for the 'compact' installations like Volumio and Daphile are really picky. The WiFi doesn't work, the MoBo manufacturer has a quirk in BIOS that prevents the distribution from starting, the WiFi tanks, etc. I've spent and wasted quite a bit of time on these. Generally, for people with a life, they cause more problems than they are worth. Since they are 'open source', and based on linux, support is non existent.

The Windows based ones are better. There are generally drivers available for every possible piece of hardware you may have, networking (Remote Access) is built into Windows for remote administration, etc. However :

- Hysolid does not support network drives
- Audirvana does not support libraries, so your music is a 'heap' where you can't find anything. It's great software, and the remote is free, but this makes it totally unusable.

I have ordered a Raspberry to try some of the Rasp specific solutuins like Rune.

So far MC26 is the clear winner. It's easy to access remotely, and JRemote works. (Mostly ) The only gripe I have with it so far is that I find it symply tries to do too much if you only want a music streamer.

With all solutions based on Windows remote shutdown via the remote is a problem. Pushing the button to put it too sleep generally isn't. For the smart-asses, yes you can use LTSC or Server, but it creates a whole new bunch of problems, especially if you want to run them as a service. But it can be done.

I haven't tried the hi-res streaming services since I find them too expensive.

Pete