Il NAA, questo sconosciuto...

[Maggio]

Mi sa che deciderò per altro molto presto...

[EuroDriver]

NAA on WS2012 +AO in MSM vs NAA on Win 8



Today Geoff Armstrong and I did a lot of testing of NAA on Win 8 and WS2012 and playing from HQP on OSX Yosemite and Win 8.1 with and with out RAM disk

The SQ of NAA on WS2012+AO is so much better than Win 8, it is amazing. The amount of SSD activity is completely different

Here is WS2012 SSD flashing

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...=2&theater

Here is Win 8 SSD flashing

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...=2&theater

We found some surprising differences when we used RAM disk on the HQ Player desktop machine.

IM RAM made the Win 8.1 HQ Player desktop sound worse, whilst OSX RAM Disk made the Yosemite HQ Player sound better. These results were with fibre optic isolation between the NAA PC and the LAN !

Either its OS related noise via the AC power cables or there is some USB data packet issue which is OS activity related. These results are strongly pushing us to try WS2012 on the machine running HQ Player desktop

HQP Windows 3.6.2 beta 4 sounds noticeably better than OSX 3.6.1.2

[bibo01]

NAA on WS2012 +AO in MSM vs NAA on Win 8



Today Geoff Armstrong and I did a lot of testing of NAA on Win 8 and WS2012 and playing from HQP on OSX Yosemite and Win 8.1 with and with out RAM disk

The SQ of NAA on WS2012+AO is so much better than Win 8, it is amazing. The amount of SSD activity is completely different

Here is WS2012 SSD flashing

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...=2&theater

Here is Win 8 SSD flashing

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...=2&theater

We found some surprising differences when we used RAM disk on the HQ Player desktop machine.

IM RAM made the Win 8.1 HQ Player desktop sound worse, whilst OSX RAM Disk made the Yosemite HQ Player sound better. These results were with fibre optic isolation between the NAA PC and the LAN !

Either its OS related noise via the AC power cables or there is some USB data packet issue which is OS activity related. These results are strongly pushing us to try WS2012 on the machine running HQ Player desktop

HQP Windows 3.6.2 beta 4 sounds noticeably better than OSX 3.6.1.2

Was your Win NAA the one in your signature? With LPS?
What is IM Ramdisk?

I can accept that WS+AO is much better that W8.1 for NAA. However, you run the first one optimized (perhaps in core mode) and the second one non-optimized. Please try to do the test with WS in GUI mode and no AO.
I suppose that you cannot compare it to a minimal Linux installation as well because your Exasound DAC is not supported.

[EuroDriver]

Was your Win NAA the one in your signature? With LPS?
What is IM Ramdisk?

I can accept that WS+AO is much better that W8.1 for NAA. However, you run the first one optimized (perhaps in core mode) and the second one non-optimized. Please try to do the test with WS in GUI mode and no AO.
I suppose that you cannot compare it to a minimal Linux installation as well because your Exasound DAC is not supported.

NAA hardware was as per signature with HD Plex LPS

IM RAM is a RAM software for Windows. We downloaded Primo RAM, but could not get it to work :-(

There is no way to unload AO once installed on WS2012. I would have to buy and build a new SSD to run WS2012 without AO

My experience with HQ Player desktop on WS2012 + AO in Guimode, is that the SQ is significantly inferior to MInimal Server Mode

The big surprise was even with NAA optically isolated from LAN, RAM disk on HQ Player PC made a sonic difference ! Ethernet timing improvement with WS 2012 ? ?

[bibo01]

It is odd that you have not managed to make Primo RamDisk work.
What was the problem?
I am sure that someone else here may be able to help you out on that.

[EuroDriver]

It is odd that you have not managed to make Primo RamDisk work.
What was the problem?
I am sure that someone else here may be able to help you out on that.

We kept on getting the error "unable to assign drive letter"

There are a lot of choices / options such as cluster size, which we did not know what to choose ! Suggestions on settings would be very welcome

[audiodan]

My two cents about a lot of arguments of a really complex system.
I'm now listening to my music with this set:
Server: Winserver 2012R2+ AO+Primo Ramdisk (for music files only in I/O mode)+ HQ
NAA: Winserver 2012R2 +AO+Primo Ramdisk (where stay NAD.exe)+jplay
Both PC are connected by double TPlink 210 plus fiber cable (static IP).
Although i'm still testing not only the sound quality of the system but, more important for me, his stability, I can come to some conclusion:
1) I've affirmed again and again, from my first use of HQ+NAA system (only or yet one year ago!), that is not true that server quality, PSU and so on was non influential on SQ because LAN connection was galvanically isolated. This statement is simply not true and also adding the optical fiber to the ethernet connection you'll be able to easily perceive that every change on the server has an effect on SQ.
2) Windows NAA is clearly superior to the Linux+Cubox and quality of HW, especially mobo quality, is also really important
3) Every program you want to install on PC, server or NAA, must be installed before AO install. Primo Ramdisk (server!) make is excellent job with no issue if installed in this way.
4) in my system HQ is better in RAM on W8.1 and in C: on WinServer but also in W8.1 with fiber connection. NAD is always better in ramdisk, with both OS.
5) music files sounds always better from ramdisk
The fact that I'm using a nodac (DSD direct stream from JLSounds I2S over USB interface, with only a first order lpf) allow me to listen to each change of SQ without any DAC (and his manipulations!)interference, a great advantage in my opinion.
Probably this setup is the better you can get with a pc but it's a very complex system, I'm still testing the great number of combinations in the sound signature considering the relationship derived from the sum of HQ+AO+Jplay, each one with complex settings crossing mutually.
My aim, at the end of this complicated evaluation, is to compare my previous good server setting W8.1 based (HQ+ramdisk+jplay) with the best final WinServer edition, to decide if this really hard, complex and expansive work make sense or not. Surely it's not trivial....but also very promising.

[antonellocaroli]

Su win server 2012 funziona solo la versione di PrimoRamDisk server....
se lo si installa in gui mode nessun problema.
se lo si vuole installare direttamente in core mode bisogna avere una copia di oledlg.dll in System32...

[bibo01]

My two cents about a lot of arguments of a really complex system.
I'm now listening to my music with this set:
Server: Winserver 2012R2+ AO+Primo Ramdisk (for music files only in I/O mode)+ HQ
NAA: Winserver 2012R2 +AO+Primo Ramdisk (where stay NAD.exe)+jplay
Both PC are connected by double TPlink 210 plus fiber cable (static IP).
Although i'm still testing not only the sound quality of the system but, more important for me, his stability, I can come to some conclusion:
1) I've affirmed again and again, from my first use of HQ+NAA system (only or yet one year ago!), that is not true that server quality, PSU and so on was non influential on SQ because LAN connection was galvanically isolated. This statement is simply not true and also adding the optical fiber to the ethernet connection you'll be able to easily perceive that every change on the server has an effect on SQ.
2) Windows NAA is clearly superior to the Linux+Cubox and quality of HW, especially mobo quality, is also really important
3) Every program you want to install on PC, server or NAA, must be installed before AO install. Primo Ramdisk (server!) make is excellent job with no issue if installed in this way.
4) in my system HQ is better in RAM on W8.1 and in C: on WinServer but also in W8.1 with fiber connection. NAD is always better in ramdisk, with both OS.
5) music files sounds always better from ramdisk
The fact that I'm using a nodac (DSD direct stream from JLSounds I2S over USB interface, with only a first order lpf) allow me to listen to each change of SQ without any DAC (and his manipulations!)interference, a great advantage in my opinion.
Probably this setup is the better you can get with a pc but it's a very complex system, I'm still testing the great number of combinations in the sound signature considering the relationship derived from the sum of HQ+AO+Jplay, each one with complex settings crossing mutually.
My aim, at the end of this complicated evaluation, is to compare my previous good server setting W8.1 based (HQ+ramdisk+jplay) with the best final WinServer edition, to decide if this really hard, complex and expansive work make sense or not. Surely it's not trivial....but also very promising.

I will soon add my version to the soup when I start firing my bullets with a special OS version and a special NAA!

[EuroDriver]

AudioDan

Have you or do you power your SSD with independant power supply ?

What do you think is the transmission mechanism of changes to HQ Player Desktop PC to NAA PC ? It can not be RF, so maybe the timing of the USB packets within the block of data requested by the USB receiver ?