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That was my impression of Roon when I tried it a couple of years ago.

Dave,

If you have time and a 1khz tone stored on the NAS I'd be curious to know if there is any output level difference between the 2 server programs. Since switching to Roon I feel that it's louder than Minimserver. I don't have a sensitive meter to voltage match, but typically the first thing we describe to even slightly louder changes are more dynamic, detailed, and more forward.

Jim,

That is an interesting observation, and I kind of feel the same. For that to happen, it means that one of the applications is messing around with digital volume, which means it is not bit perfect streaming. It should be easy enough to track down if there are any settings that are enabling that (unless they are embedded, shame on whomever does that!).

I will have to create some test tones.

David

Jim,

Check your Audio Settings in Roon. I had the volume setting on "Device" setting. I put it to "Fixed" volume and it *seems* to be better sounding. I have to read up on what that setting actually does.

I am having a problem with Bubbleupmpd or upmpdcli at track transitions I need to find out. I get some dropouts when reading a new track. May be related to filling the buffer (or lack of a buffer).

David

Just track transitions, or track transitions with a bit rate change? I know my Schiit DAC is a little slow on rate changes, with daphile I can put in a fixed amount of silence on rate changes which solves the problem. Not sure if that functionality is in other software or not...

Roscoe

_________________
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Roscoe,

Thanks. Still trying to find out the problem. Asked Charlie, and he is stumped. I will have to do some more experimenting to find a setting that adds a bit of padding or buffer between tracks.

Meanwhile, now that my library is now all expanded to uncompressed FLAC files, I think I like the sound of mpd<-upmpdcli<-Minimserver playing local files more than Roon doing the same on my system. There is a bit of an hard edge or grain on Roon playback that is annoying. Playing an Ingrid Fliter Chopin recording, the mpd-based renderer is much more coherent and analog-like. Even streaming Qobuz seem to sound better, but I need to do more comparison since I just got Qobuz working with upmpdcli/BubbleUP tonight. Much easier to access Qobuz through Roon though.

David

I am also having the same issues. It’s the buffering issue. It only happens when I change the track, but no drop outs in a playlist. It happens on Redbook and DSD.

I am using Audirvana —> upmpdcli —> mpd (gentooplayer).

Shashi,

There are some settings you might want to add and play with in /etc/mpd.conf file. Check out this discussion

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topi ... rez-files/

I set the following as a starter:

audio_buffer_size "4096"
buffer_before_play "20%"

I am still playing with it. If you make a change, you will need to restart the mpd daemon since it reads mpd.conf on startup.

I have not tested it much, so not sure if it addresses my problem, but will test more tonight.

David

David,

I was suspecting the buffering between audirvana and upmpdcli as the problem. I am using default config for both audirvana and gentooplayer.

Both Audirvana and GentooPlayer are specialized for audio playback. The end user should not have to tinker with configuration to get "acceptable" quality output from them.

Shashi,

There is no buffering between Audirvana and upmpdcli. Upmpdcli is the network interface part of the renderer, i.e., it talks to the server to select the file and receives the data transfer, and passes along the file and player control functions (start/stop/pause/volume, etc.) to mpd to do the device rendering. MPD interfaces with the hardware (through ALSA). Any buffering takes place here.

There is NO buffer configuration setting for upmpdcli (I checked).

Remember that default setting for MPD are geared towards CD playback. For hi-res files, the settings may have to be tweeked to get equivalent buffer performance.

David