Oz streamer (not HAKAI)

A DIY digital music streamer with exceptional performance

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FairPlayMotty
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

Thanks Pete.

How are you playing flac files? Do you have a NAS?

Obvious upgrades from the pic:

1. USB cable from Hakai to DAC. The Supra cable recommended by Fredrik sounds clearly better. I bought mine immediately after hearing one owned by my friend. Given the quality control issues people have had with the Supra I'd buy from a source you can get a refund from. I bought two second hand and had no problems. I haven't looked recently to see if any other USB cables are as good SQ/value as the Supra but it's very good.

2. Switch between the Hakai and the network. I used the Netgear one recommended by Fredrik at first. (I now layer two Netgear switches. And I have enough switches to experiment with.)

3. Use SO options to use one CPU core etc. There's lots of discussion of the tweaking on the SO forum.

4. Good quality ethernet cables. (Again, I'm experimenting with a variety but Fredrik's recommendations will be very good.)
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Post by springwood64 »

FairPlayMotty wrote: 2020-06-29 18:41 How are you playing flac files? Do you have a NAS?
I'm using a PC as a NAS (Win 10 + Twonky)
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

If you pick up another good motherboard and set it up as a NAS it'll outperform your PC by a very significant margin.

I removed the motherboard from that case and used a better case. Instead of doing that I would remove the PCB with the USBs and the jacks shown in the pic. Simple removal and it may have a small SQ gain.
rps20200629_221725.jpg


Love the rubber stoppers on the DAC. I'm going to copy that and add them to my switches as well. Thanks for the tip!
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

rps20200629_222659.jpg
That's what fresh eyes do. Thanks Pete!
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

rps20200629_230107.jpg
rps20200629_230231.jpg
rps20200629_230135.jpg
Greatly looking forward to the arrival of the adapter for this PC. It's the highest quality case I've seen. I have never seen the double-sided isolation screws for the SSD. If anyone else has please tell me where I can buy them. In effect the SSD is suspended in mid air. The heat sink is very heavy and the cabling is beautifully done. The rubber isolation on the case for the heat sink with two copper strips reeks of quality. The attention to detail is easy to understand when you Google the company who made the computer - they're specialists.

The Seagate HDD and the PCIe board can be sold.
The daughter board may well be removed.

I hope I am right about the SQ of the Intel motherboard. If so, for less than £50 including postage this is a real bargain! I bought two of them.
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Post by springwood64 »

FairPlayMotty wrote: 2020-06-29 22:21 I removed the motherboard from that case and used a better case. Instead of doing that I would remove the PCB with the USBs and the jacks shown in the pic. Simple removal and it may have a small SQ gain.
I've repeatedly tested the 6 USB ports.

All 4 rear ports (mounted directly on the motherboard) sound unpleasant. The family asks me to turn it off.

The front two USB ports (provided by the daughter board) sound enjoyable. People's feet start tapping.

I have disconnected the analogue audio jacks on the daughter board but can't really hear any difference.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-03 16:16
FairPlayMotty wrote: 2020-06-29 22:21 I removed the motherboard from that case and used a better case. Instead of doing that I would remove the PCB with the USBs and the jacks shown in the pic. Simple removal and it may have a small SQ gain.
I've repeatedly tested the 6 USB ports.

All 4 rear ports (mounted directly on the motherboard) sound unpleasant. The family asks me to turn it off.

The front two USB ports (provided by the daughter board) sound enjoyable. People's feet start tapping.

I have disconnected the analogue audio jacks on the daughter board but can't really hear any difference.
That amazes me, I have one of the motherboards in the original case, one as a server (Jonsbo C2 case), one in a Fractal Design case and one in an RGeek case. All of the boards in the other cases sound better in my set up in new cases (using the motherboard USBs except for one). The one in the Fractal Design case uses the USB from an Elfidelity USB Isolation card. That's my second best player at the moment. The best one uses a different Intel motherboard.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

And a spare still in the bubble wrap.

Whatever works Pete. If feet are tapping that's a great sign especially at this price point. Did you notice a difference using the Supra cable?
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Post by springwood64 »

FairPlayMotty wrote: 2020-07-04 00:50
Did you notice a difference using the Supra cable?
Not initially, but it seems to be getting better over time. This is just a subjective impression that each album is a little more enjoyable than the previous.

I have another DN2800MT on the way. I'll see how its USB ports sound. The weaker PC will become the NAS in place of my Atom.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-05 20:49
I have another DN2800MT on the way. I'll see how its USB ports sound. The weaker PC will become the NAS in place of my Atom.
Good thinking :)
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Post by springwood64 »

springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-05 20:49 I have another DN2800MT on the way. I'll see how its USB ports sound. The weaker PC will become the NAS in place of my Atom.
There must be a fault or weakness in the USB sub-system of my first PC. The new arrival sounds completely different. I haven't bothered checking the daughterboard USBs as the main board connections sound lovely.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-10 13:17
springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-05 20:49 I have another DN2800MT on the way. I'll see how its USB ports sound. The weaker PC will become the NAS in place of my Atom.
There must be a fault or weakness in the USB sub-system of my first PC. The new arrival sounds completely different. I haven't bothered checking the daughterboard USBs as the main board connections sound lovely.
Sounded that way to me. Sounds like first board becomes your NAS. Glad to hear the second board is better condition.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

The Intel DN2800MT sounds great to me. In my view the Intel D2500cc sounds slightly better. And I have yet to hear the Intel D2550 but look forward to comparing all three.
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Post by springwood64 »

Have you experimented with different AC/DC adapters for the DN2800MT?
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-10 16:24 Have you experimented with different AC/DC adapters for the DN2800MT?
No but I have bought huge rolls of copper tape and copper braiding with a view to covering the adapter and isolating it.
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Post by springwood64 »

springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-10 13:17
There must be a fault or weakness in the USB sub-system of my first PC. The new arrival sounds completely different. I haven't bothered checking the daughterboard USBs as the main board connections sound lovely.
Spoke too soon. My curiosity got the better of me and I reconnected the daughter board

I have compared all 6 USB ports on my player.

The worst sounding are the two yellow ones on the motherboard, though they are both better than any port on my other PC.

Intermediate are the two motherboard ports next to the DC power socket.

The best are the two ports on the USB daughter board, and the RHS is the better of these two.

The differences are pretty immediate, which makes testing easy.

Anyone else found obvious differences between USB ports on a PC?
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

I don't understand the bright yellow USB ports on those boards. I think they're fast charge, somewhere bad on the development path between USB 2 and 3. They sound bad for me too.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

FairPlayMotty wrote: 2020-06-29 23:17 rps20200629_230107.jpgrps20200629_230231.jpgrps20200629_230135.jpg

Greatly looking forward to the arrival of the adapter for this PC. It's the highest quality case I've seen. I have never seen the double-sided isolation screws for the SSD. If anyone else has please tell me where I can buy them. In effect the SSD is suspended in mid air. The heat sink is very heavy and the cabling is beautifully done. The rubber isolation on the case for the heat sink with two copper strips reeks of quality. The attention to detail is easy to understand when you Google the company who made the computer - they're specialists.

The Seagate HDD and the PCIe board can be sold.
The daughter board may well be removed.

I hope I am right about the SQ of the Intel motherboard. If so, for less than £50 including postage this is a real bargain! I bought two of them.
rps20200712_174857.jpg
My three Intel motherboards look very different in architecture. This one looks very much like the Intel motherboard in the Jetway NF9C most favoured by the Oz forum (shown in the pic). The processor is also very close in model number to one of the two versions of the Jetway NF9C.

By contrast my three Gigabyte boards are, to my eye, near identical.

From SQ tests so far on both the Gigabyte boards and the Intel boards the processor model has less importance than the board architecture. This is probably no surprise.
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Post by springwood64 »

Sitting here listening to my Oz streamer (Snakai?), I'd like to say thanks to Frederik and also FPM for sharing the all the Hakai details, and to everyone else here for sharing your learning on this forum.

I can't quite believe how enjoyable this low cost kit is. In a short time I've discovered new music and new ways of finding music.
Last edited by springwood64 on 2020-08-14 12:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

springwood64 wrote: 2020-07-12 20:40 Sitting here listening to my Oz Hakai, I'd like to say thanks to Frederik and also FPM for sharing the all the Hakai details, and to everyone else here for sharing your learning on this forum.

I can't quite believe how enjoyable this low cost kit is. In a short time I've discovered new music and new ways of finding music.
Enjoy the music Pete. Fredrik did great work!
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

Even Twitter has a uniquely positive slant for some people now. Musicians I follow are holding Tim Burgess Twitter Listening Parties where bands give deep information on the recording of an album as people play it in real time safe in their homes. It's been inspiring as I shielded.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Saturn-D2550 ... SwTh1eJ20F

Seems like a good buy for anyone in the U.S.
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Post by Spannko »

Has the Oz Hakai been Tune Demmed?
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

Spannko wrote: 2020-07-27 13:53 Has the Oz Hakai been Tune Demmed?
The clips went up on a variety of occasions. If the secret ballot Generic PC was what I think it was, yes. That result was 9-1 with me being the one. The nine included a number of TuneDem "experts" so I guess it doesn't sound bad. Whether that Generic PC was stripped of unnecessary cables, cards etc. I don't know. If it wasn't optimised then the secret ballot may not have been a fair fight.
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Post by FairPlayMotty »

Spannko wrote: 2020-07-27 13:53 Has the Oz Hakai been Tune Demmed?
On the occasions I put clips up various incarnations did rather well. Most of the respondents were the usual suspects.
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