Audirvana! - highs and lows

There’s a thread on it.

I struggled with the software settings, and then finally got it working but the wifi link to my old laptop dragged down the SQ so much that it killed off any SQ improvements that came from transcoding flac to wav.

What size RAM does it have?

How old is it?

How do you deal with opening and shutting the lid/screen?

Do you turn it off every night?

Is it wired or wifi connected?

You have to think in the terms that it is acting like a server. When it is in use I don’t allow it to go to sleep, that setting is off. Lid stays open and I have the screen go blank after 1 minute. Audirvana is the only active program running. No fancy OS tweaks were done that I can remember. It is wired. It has 8gb of ram and 4 years old.
When done listening, I shutdown the Audirvana program and put the laptop to sleep.
Works like a charm for me.

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Why not go directly from the BubbleUPnP App direct to the 272 and why the need to transcode ?

What’s bubble running on?

Transcoding from flac to wav AFAUIK is one of the main SQ advantages of Audirvana - because the 272 prefers to be fed wav as it then has less processing to do.

I run BubbleUPnP App on an Amazon Fire 7 (you can’t get much cheaper) or it runs on any Andoid tablet.

The Naim devices can handle flac natively and any processing is surely minimal.
The more things in the chain can cause issues/complexity.

Is the laptop on wifi?

How is it feeding audio to the 272?

Check the output device preferences - there should be an option there to increase allocated RAM for buffering which may help. There may also be optimisation settings which will limit other processes during playback (Mac version has that).

Audirvana is worth sticking with.

If looking at a Mac Mini I currently use a 2012 Mini with an external SSD to boot from - the 2012 Minis were a lot better than the subsequent generation which were rather underpowered for a refresh. If you need in-built CD you need a 2010 one.

*** Also check if you have set the device to upsample or otherwise process the Tidal stream in any way including whether set to CD quality or MQA 1st unfold. All processing above and beyond playing the stream will potentially hog system resources which may be limited with all the stuff you don’t want in the background but have. Might be worth running something to weed out any undesirable apps you may have installed (Malwarebytes maybe, but having not used PCs much for home years I’d left others make suggestions as good old 'uns may now be bad! ***

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Yes, I agree that more things in the chain can cause reliability issues.

Obviously a 272 can handle flac files natively - in fact that’s what I’ve been doing with mine with Tidal flac files for years. And it sounds great.

But a lot of 272 users on this forum have said that the 272, while being an excellent device with great SQ, has not got bags of excess processing power. I think most are agreed that the 272 prefers to be fed wav to flac for that reason.

The laptop’s wired (2m Catsnake 6a) into my router.

The files go from there all wired (BJC 6a) via switches to the 272.

Thanks AC - I’ll have a look for output preferences.

Do you ever use your MM/Audirvana for Tidal or web streaming? Or just local streaming of your own files?

I only stream Tidal flac.

(My digital library consists of a hires copy of Bitches Brew and a track by Albert Collins & John Zorn from the LP Spillane - which I bought from Qobuz.)

I mostly play Qobuz or Tidal streams on Audirvana or occasionally local stuff from a NAS. As my Mini is on wifi hires can sometimes be a bit more hit and miss depending on other users internet/wifi usage.

Audirvana seems a lot more stable to me than it used to years ago, but I do occasionally get interruptions in playback whatever I’m playing and in Roon as well as Audirvana.

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Now that’s interesting.
I have set Audirvana to only play out at max 96/24.
But it’s possible that even that amount of hires processing is straining the processing power of the 272? Or that there’s some glitch processing the media bursts for hires files in the interface between between router, laptop, switches and the 272.

I’ll try it tonight and stick to 16/44 and see if that sorts out the stability issues.

I don’t think it’ll be the 272 struggling at 96/24 - it ought to be robust in doing so provided the ‘stream’ arrives as expected.

More likely local network vagaries, internet speed variability or the processing of the laptop especially if you have many undesired apps/processes running - a good cleanup of the latter would be beneficial even if it made no difference to Audirvana.

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If it plays Tidal in flac OK it should play Qobuz in flac OK too, including Hi-Res, via BubbleUPnP App.
Give it a try. BubbleUPnP is available free.

As for the 272 processing capability - if true that would be amazing - and shocking - but frankly I would be surprised.
I know it is OK on a Mu-So 1st gen as I did it last weekend and a Denon DNP 730AE. I do not have a 272.

I have a Linn Majik DS and have had several other streamers that all worked OK including one that cost £35 !

Do you stream Qobuz or Tidal hires files to a 1st generation Naim MuSo?
What bit rate and sampling frequency will it go up to?

By the way, the 272 is playing 24 bit/96kHz Tidal files sent to it by Audirvana, and they sound lovely. It’s just that I’m getting these drop-outs since I tried Audirvana over the past couple of days and trying to work out what’s causing the drop outs.

It could simply be that the laptop doesn’t have the amount of RAM that Audirvana recommend (i.e. the laptop has 4GB and Audirvana recommend 8GB is better). So I suspect it’s (mainly or solely) that.

I doubt that you’re going to persuade me to go back again to bubble as I really didn’t enjoy my first long series of experiments with it with this same laptop - it sounded much much worse than Audirvana does.

Where is the digital library stored even if just a few files?

I’d try playing those via Audirvana directly from the laptop - either from its hard drive or an attached USB stick - if that works fine I think you’ve narrowed it down to a network issue of some kind - either LAN or internet not keeping up for streams.

Remember if you are streaming from Tidal/Qobuz/NAS your LAN has more traffic - ‘source’ to computer and computer to 272 vs computer to 272 only for locally stored/attached files on the computer.

You may also want to check your router specs - even though 100Mbps ports ought to be more than adequate even for hi-res (and even current streamers have these I believe), if there is other LAN activity eg streaming hi-res TV when you are playing Tidal it may be stressing the LAN bandwidth more than the router can cope with.

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Thanks AC - those are both very good points.

My wife and daughters were in earlier when I was playing those files, so probably using their phones. So yes that can be tested when they’re not awake.

And yes - great idea to test those hires Qobuz files. I know there are copies on my WD Passport Ultra usb HDD, so I’ll plug that into the laptop tonight and then tell Audirvana where they are and see how that works.

many thanks
Jim

If you have an active Qobuz account here are som esummer freebies to add to your local library:

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Thanks just downloading those now.
Also needed to update the Windows 10 OS on the laptop.
Wierdly, it just took over half an hour to do this, which is 10x longer than normal.
Perhaps because it’s wired - and I have hardly ever used that laptop wired.

so far those 6 LPs and their booklets amount to over 3 billion bytes as flac files…

Well, I just tested the track Miles Runs the Voodoo Down for SQ.

The Qobuz 24/96 download on my external HDD via Audirvana vs the 16/44 version of the same track streamed from Tidal on MConnectHD. Both sound very good, with some tonal differences. But there are so many factors that could account for that - e.g. the recording, the resolution, pc vs iPad, Tidal vs Qobuz!

Then I compared the Paul Bley track Aarp from the excellent LP Notes on Ornette. Both from Tidal in 16/44 into the 272/555DR. One on the app MConnectHD on a new iPad via WiFi, and the other on Audirvana via the old laptop via Ethernet cable. The former sounded clearer and more real.

So perhaps this is a reminder how good MConnectHD actually is, at least vs Audirvana on that old laptop for 16/44 Tidal tracks.

Both worked fine without dropouts, but it was a quite short test.

Given that Audirvana is about £86 iirc, and MConnectHD is £6 and is much more stable so far as well as having better SQ at 16/44, I think MConnectHD wins.

Plus with MConnectHD I don’t have to have a laptop or other computer plugged in in the sitting room.

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Yes indeed.

My first Audirvana attempt was on a 2009 Mac Mini with a knackered HDD that sounded like a washing machine on spin cycle. But Tidal still sounded better than via my Synology NAS running Bubble or Asset. Dropouts were an issue though.

Upgraded last year to a 2017 Mini (8 Gb RAM, 1TB SSD). Totally silent operation, with Audirvana typically using only ~ 0.5% CPU. Another step up in SQ.

Streaming regular 16/44 Tidal files is now 99.9% stable. Higher res files occasionally stutter for a second or two at the start of the track - but isn’t that more a NAC272 buffering issue?

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