I really enjoy these vids more than any other vids you make. Great stuff!

Mikey, this format is golden. You're the perfect person to iterate this crucial knowledge to the masses,. --Behold, fellow listeners,.. Our Thoth is manifest, key in hand.

Thanks. Yes, please, continue with these "de-confusion" videos.

Thank you for making this clear!

Mikey, second time around on this vid, Dig it. Mikey, I've learned more about reviewers in the last six months than Audio, thanks to you and Cheap. You two clear the landscape. Rock on.

love you like a brother Mikey! Glad to see you wised up should have done this years ago but never to late to start.

I loved it and think most learned something, thx!!!

Yamaha rn803d is an awesome piece of kit for the money £575 in the UK. I had a reasonably high end system and sold alot of it, got lots of cash and then bought the Yam, an SL1210gr, a pair of Kef LS50's and a Norton Commando. I couldn't be happier. High end audio has its place but most people can get by with low to mid end gear if need be. I think people are bored and just like swapping boxes or as you say want the bragging rights.

Thanks for clarfying this. Makes a lot of sense..

Your fractal art is epic! I feel like I'm partying!

Thanx for saying it the way it really is, Mike, about the server and streamer just being overpriced PCs. As far as Wave vs Flac, tho, nope, I spent hours trying to find the slightest difference in sound and couldn't hear it. I will have to try this again with my new DAC.

This was great. You're a wonderful teacher and I hope you do more of these. Thanks so much.

Fantástica presentación ! Gracias camarada !

'Dont go high blood pressure' lol that should be my mantra!

Awesome video

Thank you for ur sharing. You save me 2000 buck to buy an Auralic streamer. Using mac mini as streamer and Synology as server through wifi makes the playback simple and clean. No more audio grade switch, cat6 cables or LPS.... less is more

Is that amazing reel to reel tapes on the shelfs? 😍

Pulling from a NAS / Foobar2000 with proper plugins on an audio optimized Laptop going into a DAC playing and power conditioner / Flac and hi rez is what I like.

I use a Matrix audio usb card with my PC,connected to a T+A DAC 8dsd. Works great and no difference compare to my NAD M 50 Streamer.

Absolutely brilliant. I follow very similar things in the cycling world at present which runs along the same lines as ‘it all comes out of the same Chinese factory’. We just suck up the Western mark up cos we’re daft.

That's a fresh perspective on things. I've always thought that buying a flagship model is a smart idea because that's the best this company can do. Although that may be true, you may not be getting the best performance to price ratio. How about entry level models? How do you feel about those in general? In other words, would you get a flagship model from company A for $6000 or an entry level model from company B for $6000?

Does a USB audio output have an audible improvement in sound quality from a music server compared to other outputs?

You know yer stuff young man...hats off...

Maybe 2 boxes for galvanic isolation? Or the same reason as Pre and Amp instead of integrated amp?

Hi Mike, would you recommend a separate streamer connected to a Audiobyte Black Dragon as opposed to directly playing from Mac Mini?

I've been a flacker, but not all my life, bought a Bluos Vault 2i, a couple of weeks ago, got lots of discs to rip, wav it is. Trying out Tidal, so far so good, also wanted Qobuz, waiting on their support. Like to talk shop with you, soon, will call.

Resume onto the forums!!! DOMINATED NICE MAN!!😂😂😂

If you can source one, I'd really enjoy a video where you step through a $30K SGM Extreme, giving us your thoughts on 1) materials cost, 2) build quality and 3) bolt together vs true custom design elements. Perhaps more importantly, since I likely won't get a chance to audition one in my home, I'd like you get your impressions on an SGM Extreme vs your streamer build vs other streamers you have in stock $2K and up. Thanks!

TDP is normally freely adjustable in the BIOS

Would be very interested in a comparison of say, ladder dacs vs fpga dacs.

Can I use my laptop to stream my music to my stereo system ? Do I need any special devices ? Whats a reclocker do ?

Definitely very true

The spec for max thermal output is Thermal design power(TDP)

Also use a 12 v battery to power roon nucleus with pure stable DC makes a huge difference.

Good morning 🌞

When I was a teenager they use to sell "Pet Rocks" *Nothing new here!*

I think I’ve heard the term “halo product” used for top of the line products like the Extreme server

Playback (Player) usually means Streamer + DAC.

All nice and dandy, but parts are hard to source, as far as I know. Where can I get audio-grade components to build an excellent silent music server? It'll be like: a decent case you can order there. Audio-grade PSU in some other place (if you can find it). An excellent I2s PC audio card over there. Hassle IMHO. Unless there is a single store where I could get all the needed parts. I am not aware of such a store.

Cool

Ethernet only matters in the last connection as it is always retransmitted. There aren’t any errors or anything like that from “satellites” or anything else. If there’s an error, the packet will be retransmitted until it’s perfect. Noise could come through but as long as you have some sort of noise isolation, that’ll all be blocked. Focus on the last path (probably switch to computer). Everything else is irrelevant.

.wav files are large, so I guess a much smaller semi-compressed flac file is a good compromise, for the sake of storage capability. Just go analog if you want the most musical information. I.e. soundwaves.

FLAC is lossless. Period. Convert a wav to a flac and back to a wav. It’ll be exactly the same. If you think otherwise then you’re tricking yourself. Having said that, playing a wav vs playing a flac can be different. Flac requires more processing power to play because of the decompression and that can lead to more noise coming into your system from the processing but if that’s the case then something is wrong in your system. If that’s the case, find what’s causing that noise and fix it.

Paid $1300 for a roon nucleus with 1 TB internal storage and use it as server/streamer. Access the internal USB ports on the inside they sound better than those on back panel. Cut a notch on back panel to allow usb cable to route out to DCCor DAC.

Mike, would you say your Verastarr Audio Foils are *not* priced with the outrageous markup you (rightly) critique others for?

Is it possible to add metadata to .wav files ? I have thousands of CD flac rips and my Aurender App uses the metadata to organize my library.

Homey don't play that streamer rip off game! Very valuable video Mikey. Thank you.... I was looking at HiFi Rose's new 150 streamer but don't need a DAC. Too bad you don't sell an inexpensive streamer. For TIDAL, I'm currently using my Android w/ UAPP/Bit Perfect>OTG Cable>Nobsound Douk Audio U2 USB to SPDIF converter XMOS XU208 DSD 64 24/192>75 ohm coax>processor 24/192 DAC. Talk about a cheap option and it sounds really good. But no power supply. Might be noisy? Oy vey.

Mike I’ve been streaming for about a year now, I have a moderate system BW 802 matrix speakers , Cambridge m200 dac, that is connected to my class’e audio preamp, as for amplifier I use mono blocks I use my iPad Pro to stream Amazon it manages to stream 24k 192k in your opinion is there a need to get a streamer. I like your blogs and I respect your opinion. Like to hear your opinion

Idk,I've been doing research on Aurender and they're pretty damn good. I'm looking at the N200 to replace my BlueSound node 2i. It's that jitter🥴

On paper wav and flac should sound the same, but they don't sound the same even though they both null perfectly. Those that argue otherwise prefer meta data over sound quality.

I like this Mikey! Being an IT pro the whole "High end audio server" is just hilarious . I built my "high end audio server" for like $750ish and it's bad ass for Roon/Hqplayer! What more do you need out of it??

What’s the difference between a $1000 streamer and a $10000 streamer ? Example lumin T1 vs X1

Have owned several different servers at different price points. They don't all sound the same. Generally speaking, my personal experience has been the servers SQ goes up with price--even though every one of those servers was/is a computer. An analogy probably helps here. I have a Dell laptop: it is a computer. My teenagers custom built their own gaming machines: also computers. These two "computer types" are very different things. Those gaming computers exist in a different universe than my Dell laptop. They are expensive; they are custom. They are crazy--unless you are super into gaming--then they are the coolest thing ever. The consumer determines the equipment's value. (I'm talking about the actual buyer--not folks commenting on what the buyer purchases.)

I am watching you on a TV via a Chromebook connected with an HDMI cable. Maybe my ears are shot because I think music on KZfaq sounds good. From TV there is an optical cable to a Yamaha receiver. I know lots of room for improvement (on paper).

What do you think of an RPi4 running Volumino or Moode? Or a single board PC running Jellyfin or Plex? Or Allo’s USBridge with their reclocker? Then there is a DIYer called Ian in Canada who has built some lovely boards. 5k for a server is 10x what I would spend. A server after all is just a streamer with a hard drive, and hard drives or even SSD are now quite cheap. BTW talking about $5,000-10,000 components I see you sell quite a few yourself. 😂 no offence meant. Flac is mathematically lossless, not aurally lossless.

Can you walk us through a good sensible Streamer / Server build? What parts make a difference, what don’t? $5k or 6k is insane, can one build a server for say $1k? Would a Raspberry Pi4 or Allo’s USBridge Signature work as the streamer side and a quad core Celeron as the server side? Doing good metal work especially in aluminium is relatively easy as aluminium is soft and easy to work with for example bending 12mm plate is quite simple.

Installed an HPE Proliant 380p Gen7. Xeon 5660 24 Core, dual PSU, 8 2.5" drive bays, RAID 5, 10GBE Solar Flare SFP+ with LC SM fiber, 120GB RAM, 12TB Storage and I did the entire build for $600. The 380 with 120GB RAM, no HD, was $159 shipped. This thing KILLS the build quality of something like Pink Faun.

WOW

Great video! I do not stream music. I'm a vinyl and CD guy. Enjoy both formats. I have a home stereo system. I also build my own computers. My last build included an Intel i9 processor. Total cost to build was about $1300. I already had a case and power supply. This is the computer (Windows) that I use to edit my photos with Photoshop and Lightroom. I have a 1TB partition on one of the the hard drives and there are a little over 62,000 songs on that partition. My soundcard is the Asus Essence STX II and that outputs into a Yamaha stereo receiver which has Klipsch RP-150M speakers connected to it. The computer software I use to organize and play back the files is JRiver Media. When I'm editing photos I prefer to listen to music thru this setup. I understand streaming is all the rage and while there's nothing wrong with that it's just not my cup of tea. Anyway, thanks for another excellent video. Love the channel!

Rather hear recommended brands in each segment than generalised critique...innuendo never looks good.

Hey riddle me this, When did importing CD’s into the drive become ripping? To me ripping a CD means putting music onto a disc. T

Wouldn't an externally controlled memory to player be the best stuff? Like ECDesigns does with their UPL96ETL stuff (which is like, $350. Far less than what the crazy people pay for USB cables (MasterBuilt $12K USB anyone?)). Bits may be Bits, but unless you do some galvanic isolation and twelve other things of Mumbo Jumbo in the signal path chances are they will matter and affect the music (and let's not mention the Signal Processing that inherently happens in most OSs). There's a reason why when you convert vinyl to digital and then back it still sounds better than digital and that's because we haven't perfected digital sources. And the fact is most manufacturers are barking up the wrong tree and confusing consumers at the same time. If only LessLoss didn't sell their SD Card reader for bloody $90,000 it would be a perfect solution. EC Designs is closing in with their current generation to the hyper-expensive servers, QLS Hifi and XDuuo are almost SOTA with their readers (which are still sub-300 pieces). Audiophilia has sort of become a wanking game of who has the most money and that has been hurting the field as a whole.

So i'm still using my portable music server to listen to music.

The interest in PC audio compare to whats on offer is disproportionate. It SEEMS on one end we have DC-DC buck converters and the other the Taiko Audio Xtreme. Hey listen up guys (great video BTW), I need a low noise 10amp 3.3v, and 10amp 5v and a 10amp 12v PSU. If anyone points me to a Sean Jacob module...or anything with a trimming potentiometer, this is not what it is. Just saying.

Best explanation I've heard and really gets to the heart of the matter. Currently I have all of my music files on a Dell laptop hardwired to my DAC. Next, I want to set up a network and use my tablet to play the music on my laptop so you've got my full attention. I also couldn't take my eyes off of that wall of reels behind you! Dood! Very cool Mikey. Cheers - Luther

Refreshing to hear told how it is it. So much BS around from manufactureres and reviewers

There is literally no difference between wav. and a wav. compressed to a flac container . You can decompress your flac back to a wav container if you want. The only (possibly) perceptible audio disparities will come from how your DAC handles the container.

Darn all my files are in flac. Didn't know wav is better

I’d Look at a SilenZio and use J River software.

But you remember when you pissed Innuos? Maybe there are 0.0001% resistors in it? Maybe specially made capacitors? better than vishnay or who knows what? One interesting thing and philosophy is Antipodes. They claim noise must be dealt with at the very top of the food chain and no filters of any sort in the chain e.g. EtherRegen etc. as these would limit the bandwidth, which would degrade SQ. On the opposite side is the whole movement around SOtM "stable", switches, regens, who knows what. And now Antipodes abandons their LPS and introduces hybrid power supply. They claim pure LPS is much slower than switching supply so the best is to go hybrid route as they already dealt with noise upstream so this speed increase will enhance SQ. They put all of this philosophy into one top machine, K50. Can you evaluate it? In K50 are separate server and streamer plus hybrid power supply plus USB re-clocker and probably OCXO clock. It is 15 grand.

You did this last time and then had to step back... Not sure why you're doing this. Better doing an uncover of an Innuos Statement or an Aurender, these are top shelf... And do the sums.

It’s the same with DAC’s they are why overpriced.

If one really wants a server go build one! I have built 3 PC for my recording studio. One can build a killer server/streamer for about $500.00 maybe even less now.

I guess that's why you don't own a Rolls Royce... 🤭

Great Video. Any chance you could do one that explains network bridges? WTF happened to simple HiFi systems?!? I put a record on the deck, lift the arm and place it on the record and it plays great sounding music. Anyway I digress. As you say we need to embrace this new tech. When I was a lad new tech was supposed to make things easier - can't help feel its isn't going in that direction - no wonder vinyl is having a resurgence.

lol

Mike, I have one word! Innous!!! I have the Innous Zen Mini Mk III with one Terrabyte of memory and a separate Innous power supply. It is a Roon Core. All told about $1900. Anything more than that like you say is waste. But then again that’s just me!

who want nice with good music take to windows xp 64 bit AMD cpu (core is max 2) HDD 7200 rpm random cable is ATA (not sata) sound card digidesign take to coaxial output ..never expensive with to enjoy music. windows xp 64 is sound is best. apple sound .linux sound.vista,win8,win10. sound just gabage.

A 1000 dollar MAC mini is better than Taiko audio computer... yeap a luxuary computer

saying a flac container compresses is just a false .

ARM CPU's with a very low TPU.

While I agree with most of the stuff on this video, one thing IS NOT RIGHT by definition. A lossless format (eg FLAC or ALAC), is a format that allows compression, but that DOES NOT MAKE IT A LOSSY FORMAT. imagine a ZIPPED archive of PDFs or Word documents. When you unarchive it the PDFs & Word files ARE THE SAME as the originals. Period. Any computer built this side of year 2000 can do FLAC/ALAC decompression in its sleep.

Buy a laptop for a few hundred and a wireless keyboard and mouse, connect it via HDMI to your TV and you have a streamer / networker for a fraction of the price. I'm still not sure if I understand why on earth you need a streamer???

As I listened to Mike I was starting to feel awful about a new server I just purchased at 6K , my very first server / computer audio device though for me it’s the best digital playback I have experienced in my home so far I did wrestle with deciding on the next model up for a few grand more ,,,Happy I didn’t,,.

The TDP doesn't matter, LOL! If you only listen to music and do nothing else, the cpu will stay at 900 - 1000 MHz and will consume the bare minimum amount of power. Audiophile switches are scam. They provide no measurable difference.

Jesus. Don’t just unplug your servers willy-nilly. Bad idea. Reboot them properly, so all of the volumes and file systems are safely unmounted. You’re severing open file handles and all kinds of other potentially bad things. It’s a perfect recipe for causing data / system corruption / loss.

There's a sucker born every minute.

All Americans do is review products , using products , or looking how to sit at home and invest to earn passive income to buy products to use and review . And of course watch some football , transferred that disease to rest of the world . Dont get that big 5000$ CPU , it will get noise on your music . Yeah if you have garbage PSU, if not it wont . Because no matter how big the CPU is , if it has nothing to do it wont do nothing , its how it is Never in my life did i hear a CPU on a working power supply , but even i had many bad power supply's , i know the sound , but itsn ot the CPU , all CPUs sound like that , its the power supply that has to correct for that . If its big CPU then PSU has to be big

Hi🙂 I'm a stupid old school man. Question☝🏻 If i want to use Roon... If i need after the server (Nucleus) a streamer, or from the server directly in a DAC an then in a integrateted amp? On the other side, a laptop Microsoft Surface pro 7, inside a i3, 8GB RAM, 128 GB SSD(upgrade with a 1 TB Micro-SD-vard???), is the same(or better) as in the Nucleus!? The way: Lan-cable to Laptop, Laptop to DA-Converter and then to the Ampifire. Wright!?🦧 It's the same quality or better, for the half price...🤔 Can i remote the Laptop with a smal tablet or iPhone?🦧 Or a Prime mini?🤯 You see...i'm old school🤣 Merry Christmas 🎅🎄 and greetings from Germany

This dude must get all the chicks. 🐥🧲