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In Reply to: RE: Your thoughts on a Window mini-PC as a streamer/server?? posted by Feanor on January 14, 2024 at 08:29:23
It could do the trick just fine, at the very least for starters. If I were shooting for decent+ SQ, I'd consider:
-- Checking to see if any upgraded USB walwart PSU is available...clean power helps. Linear PSU, better still.
-- Buying the largest (internal) M2 SSD I can afford now, before prices go up again (very soon!); cram it with all the music I own.
-- Replace the OS with a drastically reduced version of Win 10/11. This starts cleaning up SQ even before optimizations.
-- Keep using Foobar2k, it is very practical, and capable if tended to.
-- Buying Fidelizer pro or similar.
-- Getting a decent PCM/DSD DAC. This PC should be able to do at least 384/256.
This above is actually some of what I did with my music PC. I am away from home and don't remember all the details (almost 3am here), I'll check in later if something else comes to mind.
Follow Ups:
I have a very good DAC (USB), a Topping D90.
I've tried Fidelizer years ago and found it didn't make any difference.
Dmitri Shostakovich
That Topping D90 is a very enjoyable piece, indeed. And, if one gives them good clean power, they easily jump in SQ, as a friend of mine once showed me.
So, I went through the same with Fidelizer long ago. At that time, it did not do anything special. Much later, I figured I would give it another chance as I was going through a few test system reconfigurations early last year. As I remember, after testing some stuff, I liked Volumio on a few counts. However, while Volumio was impressing me on SQ, it was disappointing me on features. Daphile, which I would strongly encourage you to try, got close to it in SQ, and it is rich in features.
Still, I yearned for the times past when I had a Foobar2000 setup delivering "SQ-superb" performance as part of an optimized PC system. This was years earlier, running under a cMP-optimized, streamlined WinXP install. (The cMP optimizations setup is only for WinXP). So, I went back to FBk2 to see if I could recover its former "SQ-superb" glory, with a twist. This time, I went for Win Tiny10 as OS. And it was good, really good...but no yet "superb".
As I thought of where to go next, something about Fidelizer kept bringing back memories of cMP, nagging at the back of my head for weeks. Oh well, let's try again. I bought the Pro version and configured it for FBk2 with max SQ settings. Presto! This brought back the beauty that cMP + FBk2 had delivered under WinXP...and then some.
On any comparison - obviously subjective but using very well-known music - going back and forth FBk2 to Volumio, I found that the Tiny10/Fidelizer/FBk2 combo did clearly better. Of particular interest to me, all imaging and sound staging (stuff you can actually look/point at in space) was clearly better. One DOES remember "space" easily when comparing known music in the same room. When Patricia Barber's night club audience applauds or spill glass cups in the "Companion" album, these items have an easy-to-remember distinctly individual place in 3D space, inside and outside the walls. The same goes for well-recorded orchestra and jazz ensembles.
To be clear, I am using speakers. Can't say if all the same dimensions of SQ change (for good or bad) would be present with cans. I should add, this is a music-dedicated PC. It does not even get to see a network/internet most of the time (no protection software - firewall, AV, etc. is enabled to avoid background OS tasks). For a more "open" music-only system, Daphile could be a better choice.
OTOH, the Windows Tiny10 install can be less restricted than I use it. For example, I dusted off an old copy of JRiver, installed it and it ran with no issues (at least to last year's version). I suppose the same goes for a variety of other stuff you may want to install. Then, for best music SQ, switch to a music-optimized config.
Hey Jben,
thanks for the skinny on the tiny.
How are you controlling the music? Keyboard and mouse or tablet/ phone?
Cut to razor sounding violins
Hey D,
I sit 11ft away from the HT system, including the dedicated music PC. If I am listening and using the large TV via HDMI for video, I use a wireless keyboard/pad. There is also a small regular VGA monitor that I prefer for SQ (unhooking HDMI), using the same keyboard.
Intriguingly (but yet to be fully tested) I seem to be getting just as good SQ as the best I've heard in the room, but from an unexpected setup. Since I sometimes have an off-network router plugged to that PC, I installed a copy of Remote Utilities (RU), which I use for work, on the music PC. A laptop, isolated from networks and (wirelessly) on the same router, acts as the RU terminal of the music PC. The surprise is that, apparently, Remote Utilities is a very quiscent kind of software, seems totally transparent during playback. I left on this trip about 2 months ago and at that time I had tried it only to some extent. I'll spend more time evaluating it when I get back next month. I do hope it pans out because the music was sweet and I sat very comfy.
Mechanically, Foobar to the iPad via Wi-fi works well also...SQ-wise, not as well as the above. However, I strongly suspect that the reason has to do my old iPad refusing to work with the router. This forces me to add a USB wi-fi antenna to the music PC, which ain't good. It should work fine in most other systems.
I thought I knew a bit about computers but man I couldn't get the drivers its missing installed. OF COURSE it doesn't tell you what drivers are missing and I copied the ones from the existing windows and it never did find any even from my copied folders. What is the trick?
Cut to razor sounding violins
D, I am now so regretting not leaving my Music-PC securely set and available for remote access from here (France). Things got crazy busy before I left. I wished then I had the time to install/enable security software I never use in it, so I could use it for reference...and to access some of my music for playback here.
For now, I don't remember having any issues with drivers. In fact, I was rather surprised that the Tiny10 version I used was so "agreeable". However, there was a previous version of Tiny10 that may have caused me install aggravation. I did not fight this becuase the next version came up shortly after, which I adopted right away and kept. This is the detail I want to find for you.
So, I am raking through the one PC at home that I can access, just in case I find traces of what I did. Please give me some time. In the meantime, let me know the hardware/software you are using, and perhaps drivers needed, in case I can qualify things better.
As for your suggestion of trying Hysolid, in the previous post, I wanted to, and probably will. If I remember well, early last year I tried to register for weeks, to no avail. At the time, the website displayed no other means to tell them something was broken.
Hey J. Pretty cool you being in France. In theory I took a few years of French...in practice I would struggle asking for butter in a store.
Thanks a ton for checking. It never says what drivers are missing so you can't actually help it. Maybe I have the wrong version or something??
Cut to razor sounding violins
Dawnrazor, further to my related reply, this just came out (see link below).
The developer, NTDEV, shrunk Win 11 to his most extreme Tiny11. I mean, EXTREME, and probably useless, as well. Then again, I am not home to take it for a spin...just in case it helps our cause.
Of course, this is the kind of crowd that might easily feel compelled to do just that. :)
sometimes life just doesn't work out.
Tried with a new hdd and it wouldn't boot. Guessing I don't have it set up to but from usb in the bios?? And OF COURSE it wouldn't let me get into the bios. Never had that before, usually you just press del and it pops up. Beat my head against that wall and no go.
Went to the laptop which does have it set to load from usb and yep it loaded and I ended up in the same driver situation as on tiny 10...folders where the drivers are were reporting "no drivers found".
Pretty much at this point I am just going to stop messing around. Sure I write that now and its driving me crazy things aren't working so who knows. Maybe I will revisit, but now I am just going to listen to some music and be happy with what I have.
Thanks for all the help and enjoy your trip!!
Cut to razor sounding violins
What you have can't be bad at all, for you have it. If you want to keep trying Tiny10 later, I'll be available. But yes, one stops tweaking, enjoys the music for a good while, then starts tweaking again. "This is the way".Regretfully, I was not suggesting to use that new & radical version of Tiny11, which is severely impaired and not yet proven at anything practical. I should have not brought it up...yet. :)
Edits: 01/24/24
LOL. I downloaded that 2 days ago and my new hard drive came today! So I will see if I can get a better experience with the micro 11.
Cut to razor sounding violins
Don't now how to say butter either, but the locally-made is darn delicious! I am staying at my daughter's place in a countryside area between Lyon and Paris. It is one source of choice animals and agriculturals for use by top chefs in the country. I keep sending our friend OG42 pictures of local treats to torture him a little :) At the nearby town, I have been lucky to find many folks who don't take offense at my TOTAL lack of French. If they cannot speak English, we laugh through our sign language. I do have the iPhone's translation utility set up, but fear it may somehow take away from the mutual amusement.So, I found the files I downloaded last year ( tiny10 23 h1 x64.iso , which I used, and tiny10 2303 x86.iso , which I did not use). I believe that the page linked at the bottom here gives acces to them. (If not, I can set up a server for you to get them.) That page is a bit dated but includes comments by users, which may help you.
In addition, if you click on the developer's link, NTDEV, left under the page title, you will find a newer set of links. One of them is to tiny10 23 h2 x64.iso , the H2 being a more recent version of what I used. I have no idea of how well this is for our purposes. I suppose I will not resist the temptation to try it... much later this year.
-- As I recall, I used a program called Rufus to create an installer bootable USB drive with the ISO file. Look for https://rufus.ie/en/ Read the page in case it mentions something related to your hardware. It could be, for example, that you need something to make UEFI work.
-- Then, I installed this into a blank SSD...and booted from it...and the darned thing flew! Ok, I know there followed several days of probing limits, which went well, by and large. Then I optimized what I could. (explaing now is well out-of-range for this ancient brain cell, but I can look when I return.)
-- Finally, I installed and ran what I wanted. Never a real hiccup. But, I believe I stayed within the few limitations of this mutant OS.
Oh, my music PC is NOT very modern (won't take Win 11), does not run UEFI, and its multi-core CPU is dumbbed down to 2, only one of which plays music. Not much of its 16GB of system memory is used by this radically reduced OS. Lastly, one does have to get a Win license, but not for a long while, it seems.
Edits: 01/21/24 01/21/24
Hey J,
Audiophilia is missing you! Get home soon man.
Have you tried hysolid as a player and controller? if not, put that on your list if your dac is 32bit.
Cut to razor sounding violins
If nothing else, Windows without the bloatware would better.
Dmitri Shostakovich
As long as the mini PC has an intel chip, a purpose built OS like Daphile would also be an improvement over Windows IMHO.
As long as the mini PC has an intel chip, a purpose built OS like Daphile would also be an improvement over Windows IMHO.
D
Cut to razor sounding violins
D
Cut to razor sounding violins
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