Network setup and SQ

Posted by: RudiNee on 09 January 2012

Hi guys,

 

As I mentioned in another post I had a bit of a revelation this weekend. My SuperUniti is connected via a UTP cat 5 cable (standard 10m cable) to my ISP router/wifi station. Than again to a Qnap Nas with Twonky Media as UPnP server.

 

When upgrading the firmware the TM was also upgraded. After standard configuration it happened ... a major improvement of SQ. Much more detail, a broader soundstage and more clarity and micro-dynamics. And all I did was upgrading firmware.

 

I work at an IT firm and no one of the network guys could explain this. So it got me wondering. Does improving my network setup can help me in raising SQ?

 

Would it help using a separate router and internet ISP? Would it help upgrading UTP cables, will other stuff help?

 

Has anyone of you experimented with this?

Posted on: 11 January 2012 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Originally Posted by Guido Fawkes:

> I mean it was firmly established years ago that all types of cassette tape sound the same. 

 

Metal with Dolby S sound best to me provided Bias/EQ set accurately

FerriChrome were my least favourite. 

TDK and Maxell were my favourite brands, not keen on BASF. 


Of course, you can measure the frequency response from different brands, in different players with different processing and note the differences. 


I've yet to see anybody do this with digital players. You can measure jitter, noise and accuracy. I can capture the bits that come out of my UQ and show they are the same whether from a Vortexbox or Mac Mini irrespective of format (ALAC = WAV = AIFF = FLAC). I do not have kit at home to measure the jitter or noise though, but I know a man that does .... 

The bit about cassette tape was written with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

 

I agree with the "bits are bits" reasoning. I just find it fascinating (and frustrating) that, despite this, audible and musically meaningful differences still exist to my - oddly shaped - ears. But then if they didn't there would be no point to the hierarchy of the Naim digital lineup .

 

Jan  

 

Posted on: 11 January 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Jan,
Yes I am certainly saying that different upnp servers do sound different through the implementation of the TCP/IP stack and the TCP parameters that are used. This is different from the NAS of course, unless the upnp server is co-resident with the NAS, which I personally avoid.

Horse,
Yes, clearly the electrical noise caused by decoding the TCP parameters is just like the electrical noise caused by unpacking FLACs, no magic really if you think about it.
Therefore as upnp rtp streams usually use TCP and not UDP, windowing in the TCP transport layer is quite extensive, and clearly the window size affects the NACKs and clearly the network driver and network activity. You can see these variances with Wireshark.

What a few of us found before Christmas that a upnp server on the same hardware but using different OS and drivers (Linux and Windows) did definitely sound different. Ok we were listening on ndx/xps -> feeding NDAC/555PS -> 500 series amplification -> kudos Titan

But note, although there were audible differences, it was harder to say which sonic variant was better, apart from Asset running on windows box with the network at half duplex!
Simon
Posted on: 11 January 2012 by aysil
Originally Posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:
 ...

I agree with the "bits are bits" reasoning. I just find it fascinating (and frustrating) that, despite this, audible and musically meaningful differences still exist to my - oddly shaped - ears....

 

Jan  

 

Jan, it's not about bits being bits. It's just that digital music is not only about bits. Most members agree on this. Why would Guy otherwise emphasise the importance of galvanic isolation so often for example. Or, other technically informed members explaining us many other factors influencing sound. This is not to deny that bit-errors also occur, for example because of delay or overtake due to clocking differences into the dac. I don't want to open any technical discussion about many different kinds of jitter. There are very informative threads back in January 2010, as far back I could get... I will just try to be anecdotal:

 

There may be some people who believe digital cables "should not" make a difference, whereas to my experience of the last 20 years, they make more difference to sound than analogue interconnects or speaker cables. Recently, some friends auditioned a digital cable from MIT, which has an adjustment (!), an "articulation selector which allows the listener to “fine tune” for optimal balance between detail, imaging and musicality". I don't know how they rated this cable overall, but they confirmed that the adjustment worked. Some parameters of digital cables are apparently well apprehended.

 

This should not be so difficult to understand, if you consider that the spdif digital cable actually carries a wave-form. It makes less sense if you imagine the cable carries abstract "data". The dac chip does not (and can not) cognitively read 0s and 1s. It makes voltage readings from the incoming waveform, and through a complex algorithm which interprets some components of the waveform as 0s and 1s and clock data, generates another waveform which is analogous to the sound wave which will be created at the loudspeakers. However, due the inherent characteristic of the dac-chip, not only the data information in the (bulk of) incoming waveform, but all its components have an impact on the newly generated wave, like throw rates, steepness of ascents or its over-shootings, transmission energy, and all the noise and interference carried on the signal. In fact, audio is the only instance where the binary data carrying signal itself is converted into an analogue signal. Normally computers process the incoming data (transmitted in the bulk of the pulses, and with no relevance to timing of the data) and make operations (for example assigning different colours to the pixels of the display). So, comparison with other kinds of computer data is not very meaningful.

 

I dare to draw this following analogy  although I know it's drastically oversimplifying: If we all write the same series of 0s and 1s on a piece of paper, they will all look different although it is the same 'data'. We all have different handwriting with different slopes and curves. The dac is dependent on these curves and slopes, not the abstract data.

Posted on: 11 January 2012 by Jan-Erik Nordoen
Originally Posted by Guido Fawkes:

Hi Jan 

 

I do not have a US so haven't compared it to the the new Mac Mini. I was once about to buy a US as a player and that is when a Naim representative advised me it was not its intended use.


Eh ? Then why did Naim put an S/PDIF output on it ?


The Mac Mini is every bit as good as the UQ  (in what respect ?)so if you feel the UQ betters the US in terms of S/PDIF then it should outperform the US in this respect. Of course, the US has other features. 


Curiously, I have never seen Naim use the US as a player in a demo. I think this is a shame as the US could have been designed as a top notch CD transport with ripping to HD/NAS and UPnP serving.


Um, but it was... what you've just described is exactly what the UServe offers...


As such it would extend its appeal to folk like me. Oh and it would have let me import my own digital music files and edit metadata/artwork without the need to buy a Windows PC.


You can import your own digital music files, as long as they're on a CD in 16/44.1. The UServe will Naim-bit-perfectly rip them for you . Otherwise you can manage 16/44.1 and high-res files through the music shares feature. A MAC version of the DTC is on the way, too.

You know it makes sense. It'll cost you less in Bisodol .

 

Jan

Posted on: 11 January 2012 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Aysil... thanks ! Above and beyond the call, again.. I'm still digesting your post, but I'm not sure about the analogy.

 

Have to sleep on it.

 

Jan

Posted on: 11 January 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Jan, I broadly agree with Aysil's post, for his analogy to truly apply, then then it would also mean the speed at which you wrote conveyed meaning as well as the shape of the letters.
In other words, the bit are bits argument is flawed... You are looking at only one dimension. You need to look at the value of data at very precise points of time. The time is as equally important as the value of the sample. This is why digital clocks are so critical.
This is sometimes referred as sample jitter. But this should not be confused with transport jitter such as SPDIF jitter. The two are quite separate. However a bad implementation of the latter could have a knock on effect of the former.
The other consideration is the very precise clocks and delicate analogue circuits. Noise caused by digital electronics causes non harmonic distortion on the analogue signals and perturbations in clocks - this is seen when you do a frequency spectrum analysis on the output of a real world DAC. It is these errant frequencies that distort the sound. Remember everything we hear is just a summation of lots of different frequency sine pressure waves. Therefore by adding sine waves - through distortion - we are changing the shape and phase of the original signal.
Simon
Posted on: 12 January 2012 by Guido Fawkes
Originally Posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:
Originally Posted by Guido Fawkes:

Hi Jan 

 

I do not have a US so haven't compared it to the the new Mac Mini. I was once about to buy a US as a player and that is when a Naim representative advised me it was not its intended use.


Eh ? Then why did Naim put an S/PDIF output on it ?


Not sure, but it was Naim that deterred me from using it this way. 


The Mac Mini is every bit as good as the UQ  (in what respect ?)so if you feel the UQ betters the US in terms of S/PDIF then it should outperform the US in this respect. Of course, the US has other features. 


Curiously, I have never seen Naim use the US as a player in a demo. I think this is a shame as the US could have been designed as a top notch CD transport with ripping to HD/NAS and UPnP serving.


The Sound Quality from the new Mac Mini interface into Naim DAC/555PS is every bit as good as the Sound Quality from a Vortexbox streaming through a UQ into Naim DAC/555PS. So if UQ used this way sounds better than US then Mac Mini should sound better than US. 


Um, but it was... what you've just described is exactly what the UServe offers...


I may have been misled, but I didn't think Naim were advocating using the US as a CD transport - i.e. no ripping, just playing. I would have expected US/Naim DAC/555PS to play CDs as well as CDS3 or better, just like using a Meridian G08.2 as a CD transport does. Of course, I'm going on hearsay, I've not tried using a US as a pure CD transport. 


As such it would extend its appeal to folk like me. Oh and it would have let me import my own digital music files and edit metadata/artwork without the need to buy a Windows PC.


You can import your own digital music files, as long as they're on a CD in 16/44.1. The UServe will Naim-bit-perfectly rip them for you . Otherwise you can manage 16/44.1 and high-res files through the music shares feature. A MAC version of the DTC is on the way, too.


That is the problem - if I download a track or already have a perfect rip then I need to burn it to CD to get it on the US. With the Mac Mini it just drag on drop. It is also very easy to edit tags and change artwork with the Mac Mini. If I used the US then I'd still need a NAS for my pre-ripped and hi-res music such as the Vortexbox, but the Vortexbox removes the need for the US as there is nothing extra the US does (excluding Naim warranty/support). 

You know it makes sense. It'll cost you less in Bisodol .

 

 

Jan

Posted on: 12 January 2012 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Thanks for the replies Guy.

 

I'm starting to think that the provision by Naim of an S/PDIF output on the UServe is analogous to the provision of RCA sockets on a CD555. It's there if you really must connect that way, but won't be as good as the DIN outputs for the CD555 or in the case of the UServe, the Ethernet connection.

 

Has anyone written up a cogent explanation of how the UServe S/PDIF output is "compromised" (as urban legend would have it on this forum) as compared to UQ S/PDIF output? Is it simply down to quality of the electrical power feeding the output, or is there more to it ? And there always is.

 

As for the UServe's capabilities as a CD transport into the nDAC, it is far superior to a Bryston BCD-1 acting as a transport, and the Bryston is no slouch. I've not heard the Meridian Guy08 as a transport, and I've not compared the UServe transport + nDAC/555PS to a CDS3/555PS, but I have an audiobuddy who has the CD555/555PS, so a visit is in order.

 

You've now got me thinking about a Mac Mini, just as I had whittled down my selection to a MacBook Pro, which I would use to run FuzzMeasure. Perhaps the Mini will do as good a job. Nah, better to use one for work and dedicate the other to music. Oh hang on, I have a UServe .

 

Jan

Posted on: 12 January 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Jan 

 

Nothing would please me more than to discover a US would make a great CD transport and HD player through S/PDIF. Usually the difference between transports is jitter related and that is why I suspect the new Mac Mini is very much better than my other aged Apple kit. I do not have a new MacBook to know if they have also upgraded the S/PDIF out on that device. I've read the Mac Mini is improved because it has a new S/PDIF chip and there is no internal CD competing with it for resources (hmmm I read that in a hi-fi comic so it must be true). Whatever, it does sound really good in practice so Apple has done it right (at last). 

 

If you do the test against the CD555 please let us know the results. I could trade a CDX2 for a US if the US into DAC outperformed it. I'd get its other benefits in to the bargain. Have you ever seen any published jitter figures for the S/PDIF out. 


I wonder if, now there are no new CDS3s, Naim will rethink the US/Naim DAC/555PS combination as a CD player. 

 

The Meridian G08.2 is too expensive for me to use just for its transport, but it sounded great when I was able to hear it. It up-samples before sending it out of a very low jitter S/PDIF. It also reads the data from the disc multiple times until it gets a consistent read and plays from memory. If somebody had no interest in computer audio then using it in combination with the Naim DAC/555PS would be a winner. However, such things can't compete with a device playing 96/24 content. Elvis's latest recording is in hi-res and sounds fantastic, assuming you like Mr Costello, of course. 

 

All the best, Guy

Posted on: 12 January 2012 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Hi Guy,

 

Could you provide some details on the the version of the Mac Mini you've bought? Which port are you using for the digital out to connect to the nDAC? (while waiting for a Thunderbolt-enabled DAC )

 

Thanks,

 

Jan