@sns, care to share more about the streamers you build and some advice and tips?
Eliminating spade connectors, upgrading bits, soldering all of it in
Sharing, fwiw. Following a practice a local upgrade colleague did inside a Class A amplifier for me, I recently did the same type of thing on a pair of custom speakers I built for myself a few years back. The idea is around eliminating the last of any low grade connections I could find to see if I could upgrade the sound a little more. Finally got some time to do it recently, and reporting first results and questions floating around in my head now. Wished I had gotten to this sooner, actually.
Changes:
1. Removed a quad of quality gold plated spade connectors from speaker crossovers to rear speaker terminal (bi-wire binding posts) on the back of my main audio system speakers.
2. Removed average run of the mill brass gold plated speaker terminals you can buy at Madisound or Solen. I always intended to replace these, and finally got to it.
3. Added Cardas Copper binding posts, two pairs, for bi-wire configuration speaker connections to replace the prior pairs just removed. Sat in boxes a few years...
4. Soldered everything back together with Cardas solder thus elminating all prior quality gold spade connectors, internal speaker wire soldered directly. All spades eliminated.
5. Also noting these new/better and more secure connections from my existing Cardas speaker cables to the new Cardas binding posts just installed
1st Listening Day:
Wishful thinking or not, I've been listening for a while, and something became immediately apparent now in question. Woah, is it actually smoother on top and is the detail down into the upper midrange actually coming through with a little more and nicer "texture" now? I could attest it seems like I can hear a little bit more "out there", too nah, really, hmmm. Really liking the added change with tone/texture. Puzzling.
Setup - first testing with my Class A 50 watt solid state amplifier, and can say its already approching the smoothness of my tube amps in terms of tone, texture, and how it reveals details in a smooth way. The prior connections were good, nothing wrong, well crimped, I checked all of it before converting everything over.
I really was NOT expecting this type of change, kinda scratching my head. Its caused me to pause letting go of some of this gear too.
I'm not sure if anyone has encountered this kind of change with such [seemingly] small changes. Hmmm. Should have known better, my prior pair of speakers had everything all soldered in like this with no spades. Maybe just a few weak links I had. Okay, just sharing in case anyone wants to comment or debate it at all. :)
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I didn't personally build my present streamer although I've customized it further from point I purchased. This particular streamer was built by one of the leading members over at audiophilestyle forum. Generally you'll find custom build streamers using some kind of atx motherboards, most of them will have upgraded internal switching power supplies powered by external linear power supplies. ATX motherboards require a number of different voltages for various components which complicates the power supply. Most builds incorporate upgraded internal switch mode power supplies powered by external linear power supplies. I upgraded this power supply via JCAT Optimo ATX full linear power supply, this over $6k so you get the idea of complexity. So power supplies keep noise down. Next you'll generally find modified Windows or Linux operating systems to disable many functions of a general purpose computer, again this to minimize processor work load and minimize noise. My build uses Euphony operating system which goes even further than the modded Windows or Linux in disabling various functions. Euphony also incorporate a Stylus proprietary music player or one can use Roon, and both can be separated for a two streamer setup, which means Cores for the first in line streamer, this now becomes a server, second in line streamer is the Endpoint for Roon or Stylus. Euphony OS also has option of incorporating on board HQPlayer if one has need for DSP engine. ATX boards also incorporate pcie expansion slots which allows for things like customized usb, I2S, network cards, these from companies like JCAT, Pink Faun. I incorporated JCAT XE network card which offers superior network filtering and clocking, this also powered via external lps vs powering off motherboard. All these various cards can be powered externally. And then we have RAM mods, these generally going to Optane industrial grade RAM, Euphony also incorporates full RAM play in which one can fully buffer music files to RAM so direct play from RAM. Generally you'll find fairly powerful processors in these builds in order to maintain a lower level usage of processor resources, this for seamless experience and lower self generated noise. I generally see less than 1% use on 7 threads in my processor, this with Roon.
And the above may have neglected some things, so as you can see complexity abounds. With these custom builds one take it further than most off the shelf streamers, My particular build was directly compared to many off the shelf, this up to Aurender W20SE and found to be superior to all, this prior to my mods. Custom builds can go further than mine via Taiko Extreme clone mods,
Previous to this streamer I went through a series of modified Mac Minis, each one going further than previous build. This simpler path than ATX builds, and these can provide excellent streaming sound quality. The problem with these is no longer much support for audiophile mods with Minis. |
Euphony is in fact Linux, a modded version of Arch Linux to be precise. Arch, like all Linux distros, is open source software - you can download it at no cost and install it on your system. Euphony is a paying product with a subscription business model like roon. The Linux license allows modifying the Linux kernel as long as modded versions are posted. Euphony failed to do that, presumably to protect their paying model. There is no organized enforcement of GPL (see below) rules, therefore the open source ecosystem largely relies on the honor system. You could look at it like Euphony ignored open source rules and leveraged the work of others for its own profit. Whether a person condones such behavior and enables it with their financial support is their decision, although to be fair Euphony never exactly highlighted any of this in its marketing materials. More on open source licensing:
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@sns, many thanks for the long and detailed post. Much appreciated. |
- 51 posts total