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Achieving High Fidelity Sound

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote BackinBlack Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jul 2023 at 11:04am
Ash,
You may recall the general recommendation for MA drivers is some 100 hours of low level mixed music to run them in. I used to leave drivers playing a just audible (at a few metres) signal for the best part of a week then increase volume geadually over the next 50 hours or so before installing in cabinets. There is certainly a marked difference in sound during the process. I don't imagine finished speakers are much different in behaviour, unless they are factory run in, unlikely in my mind.
The enclosures are likely tuned/damped to give the flattest most natural response, opening the enclosure will without doubt upset the overall balance of the output, not just the bass. Interesting to learn what happens when you try this.

Happy Listening,

Ian
Just listen, if it sounds good to you, enjoy it.
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Ash View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ash Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jul 2023 at 7:55am
I hooked some new Markaudio-Sota Tozzi Two speakers up to a pair of Proprius and connected them to the headphone out of my LG V30+ smartphone via 0.6m CuSat50 playing FM radio channels with the in-built antenna and various recordings on youtube. 

FM radio is a great way to burn-in headphones and speakers; the sound now is definitely not the same as when they were first used. They have opened up quite a bit; clearer mids/highs and bass is more present. Will have to add Bitzie/Majestic DACs in with Lautus interconnects and an actual PC so I have more than just USB as an option.

Tozzi Two have a very good stereo image. They are a small desktop single driver single suspension speaker (no crossover, plugged directly to amp terminals) in a rigid aluminium/ABS ported enclosure. Build quality is excellent and they have reassuring weight to them. The driver has a shallow cone profile and waveguide for wide sound dispersion; the sweet spot isn't narrow. The driver is based on the Alpair 5 mono-suspension so has less than 2 grams of moving mass allowing for fast impulse. The main compromise is the ported enclosure; a pressurised internal chamber sacrifices some impulse response for bass extension. I have also observed more bass sounds being emitted into the room compared with open baffle and dipoles. I want to try a simple mod with some tall brass standoffs where I unscrew the back aluminium panel and fix it on further away from the enclosure so it leaves it open at the back with gaps on all sides. This will remove loading off the driver improving sound purity then if paired with my CHR-120 drivers (in matching colour) as deep bass woofers, should be quite amazing.


Edited by Ash - 14 Jul 2023 at 7:56am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ash Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 May 2023 at 9:31pm
I decided to not opt for these small Ryzen boards because they are so expensive for the specs. I have an UP Xtreme i12 Celeron variant. This single board computer should be suitable for streaming hi-res audio and 4K playback, despite the low 1.0GHz single-core clock speed. This would be a cool comparison against the Raspberry Pi 4B as the graphics should be much better. The spec is as follows:

CPU: Celeron 7305e embedded 5-core 5-thread 1.0GHz base clock (No boost) 12-15W TDP
iGPU: Intel UHD graphics 48EUs
RAM: 8GB DDR5 4800MHz embedded chips
Storage: SATA 3 or M.2
I/O: 2x M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x4, 1x M.2 2230, 1x M.2 3052, 1x SATA3, 1x 40-pin GPIO (RPi compatible), 1x USB4, 3x USB 3.2, 3x USB 2.0 (including header), 2x COM port, dual ethernet (2.5Gb and 1Gb), HDMI 2.1, DP, headphone jack
OS: Windows 10/11 or Linux
Board size: 120mm x 122mm (Nano-ITX)
Cooling solution: Heatsink with thermal paste and fan (low TDP allows fanless operation)
Power: 12-36V

I could run this headless from a smartphone with both Pink Faun PCIe cards. Seems to play 4K video on Youtube fine. Haven't checked the dropped frames count but any visible buffering seemed to be due to the wifi signal, not because the CPU couldn't manage the task.



If the Celeron isn't sufficient, I could try the i3, i5 or i7 variant in the 'Edge' enclosure so it is still a fanless system. Would check the PCIe card compatibility with Linux beforehand. If I had the know-how, I could program the GPIO to use the Hifiberry Digi+ Pro / Pi2AES Lite as a soundcard. Although it would be easier to screw the RPi4 w/ soundcard onto the posts and network it to the computer.


Edited by Ash - 12 May 2023 at 9:52pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ash Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2023 at 10:12pm
I could opt for the de next - V2K8 (below) embedded Ryzen board, which is femto ITX (Raspberry Pi 4B size) rather than pico ITX. But there is reduced connectivity/hardware specs and passive thermal management will be more of a challenge. The pico is 2.5" SSD sized or roughly the size of a Bitzie, so by the time you add heatsinks and peripherals, there is no advantage of going any smaller.



Update - After further comparison of the features, board dimensions and port layout, the de next V2K8 would be the Ryzen board that I would choose. The PICO-V2K4 has onboard NVMe storage, which I'm not a fan of. I prefer storage to be removeable and replaceable. I also don't like how the M.2 drive would sit underneath the heatsink or cooling solution so is not directly accessible and is also very close to the CPU, so they may keep each other warm/hot. I prefer the M.2 slot on the other side of the board in case I want to use a PCIe adapter and plug a PCIe card directly into the board. Only has HDMI 1.4 so can't do 4K 60Hz but I doubt this is a problem considering it would be for streaming media, not for gaming. So this computer is the size of a credit card so would need a hefty heatsink for passive cooling. But it does have all the core connectivity I need.

1xSATA slot for storage and operating system
1xFront Panel Connector header for PCIe soundcard
1xM.2 slot for second PCIe soundcard or for wifi/cellular card
USB 3.2 port for USB optical drive for CD/DVD/Blu-Ray
USB 2.0 header for mouse/keyboard/wifi


Edited by Ash - 13 Apr 2023 at 1:59pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sylvain Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2023 at 3:10pm
interesting ....let us read of your progress
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ash Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2023 at 9:11pm
I have been researching more single board computer stuff over the last few months as I am quite fascinated with how small and powerful computers have become in recent years. In my desire to create an optimized audio PC, I have shifted towards modest power industrial motherboards. I guess my ultimate question is which computer architecture can I achieve the best sound quality (and ideally maximum versatility) with; x86 or ARM. X86 CPUs produce more heat than ARM chips so very small femto-ITX (Raspberry Pi 4B size) x86 form factors cannot rely on passive cooling. The X86 platform has plenty of audio software that I want to try though plus I have my PCIe soundcards to connect. What I eventually want to do is pit x86 streamers against ARM streamers, but nothing pre-made. I want to be able to control as many variables as I can. Perhaps I'm overthinking it but I'm quite curious about how they compare plus a man's gotta have a hobby... I'm considering getting a PICO-V2K4 (pictured below) single board computer, which is 100mm by 72mm, so is smaller than my PCIe soundcards. I can get up to 32GB DDR4 embedded RAM, onboard NVMe storage but there is an M.2 PCIe x4 slot too plus SATA and mPCIe. Ryzen embedded processor with decent integrated graphics and HDMI that can do 4K 60Hz. I could set this up fanless and if configured for the 10W TDP, could power it with a battery or powerbank. I could even power a portable touchscreen with the USB-C display out.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ash Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Feb 2023 at 8:49pm
Okay, so I'm a few years late to the Raspberry Pi club... but I got around to it eventually. As I type this, I'm listening to some music through the HDMI into my TV speakers as a start. The sound is at least as good as it is from a desktop computer, if not slightly better, but from memory, about the same, but nice and clear and immediate. I'm powering the Pi 4B 8GB from a GETIHU  10,000mAh 5V powerbank so if the display were a 5V USB-C screen, this could be a totally portable setup. The powerbank has a charge % display and the Pi sips away at it very slowly. As expected, the graphics performance sucks. But for a headless audio application, I can see how much potential this has... As the Pi has Bluetooth and wireless networking, this could be set up as a Bluetooth audio device to receive sound from a PC or other device like a phone or controlled via another computer over a simple network. The entire audio signal can be wired from storage to speaker via a Pi so yeah, this is as simple as an audio computer gets. When I get the Pi2AES Lite connected to the Majestic DAC, it's going to slay... A networked controlled audio system is the best type of system because no hardware changes have to be carried out at all, no swapping of cables or anything, just a change of streamer on the network.

Smile

P.S The audio jack sound quality also sucks, as expected. USB audio on the 4B should be better than the 3B+ as the USB and Ethernet buses don't share bandwidth. I have the Bitzie here to try, both with the DAK 5V 3A supply and from the powerbank. Studio quality audio is genuinely portable thanks to the very high energy efficiency of the ARM architecture, large powerbank charge storage and efficient headphone technology like MySphere 3.1.


Edited by Ash - 24 Feb 2023 at 9:01pm
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