garyc
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Post by garyc on Oct 5, 2016 22:46:31 GMT
Samsung used to have a small program for doing what you're looking for Ian but I can't find it now. I did find this though.. linkAlso been away from the forum for a while and this same utility from Ridgecrop I actually came across and used a couple of days ago to format a 64GB Samsung Evo card which had exFAT by default, so I can recommend it. This was to use the card in a new dashcam that I bought that required FAT32. I had decided when I bought my X3ii that 64GB cards were the sweet spot for price/GB. I must admit to having used them as-is and gave no thought to the file system they were formatted with (else I am sure to have come across the 32GB FAT32 Windows limit before). The higher bit density of flash used in these 128GB SD cards is coming at the expense of worsening error performance. It wouldn't surprise me at all that being so cheap (compared to say a 2.5" SSD ) that the controllers in them are more basic and use cheaper techniques like read retry (in the face of too many errors for their hardware error correctors) which will massively impact read performance if and when too many errors in a flash page occur.
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Sept 11, 2016 20:53:32 GMT
In about 1990 I bought my first CD player, a Philips CD610II. It's been my only CD player, still using it. One nice feature is a headphone socket and volume control - do many other players have this feature? I really must try my 662EVOs with it.
(Edit) just noticed the Denon pictured above has one too.
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garyc
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Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Sept 8, 2016 1:18:58 GMT
It was one of about the first 5 albums I bought, second hand from a shop in the High Street in Oxford in the mid 70s. I still have it. Always regret not taking the opportunity to see them live in the pub in Market street that hosted jazz nights around that time.
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garyc
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Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Sept 6, 2016 1:01:36 GMT
You could consider Lexar 128GB Jump drives which are now 20 quid on Amazon or slightly bulkier Sandisk cruzer blades for the same price, depends on how much content you have to store. I would only use these as copies of content already stored elsewhere though. As you are only reading the data and not constantly re-writing, you don't need the extra reliability afforded by regular SSDs. Retention time will not be as good/guaranteed as an SSD but you can just refresh the whole lot if you get read problems. I may just buy a couple myself as they are Low power, unobtrusive and silent and avoid the network issue.
The Mamboberry I had not heard of, looks to be a quality product, will read up on it.
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Sept 5, 2016 15:22:46 GMT
Very nice sound and I wish I still had it. Was totally knoecked out with how CD played with no noise! So important for classical music. Indeed, for testing the professional digital audio+video tape recorder we were designing and building at the time (circa 1979/80), we very quickly ditched the Linn Sondek/Ittok/Asak combination (plus Ry Cooder's Bop til You Drop, supposedly the first digitally recorded vinyl) we were using as source material (mainly an excuse to try it and see what the fuss was about) and replaced it with one of the first Sony CD players and also a Sony PCM F1 + Beta video recorder as a digital audio recording combo. BTW, from your avatar, are you a fan of Isotope at all?
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Sept 5, 2016 11:45:33 GMT
ok thanx on the update and saving me lots of time. Indeed, much time can be wasted with htis kind of activity :-) Just to fill in the story: I decided to investigate the use of the RPI with I2S 24/192 DACs for home use. I had an RPi 1, 2 and a Banana Pi Pro (clone with built-in wifi and 1GbE). Used to run the Pi 1 with its own audio jack using PiMusicBox (I think). It was just a bit clunky driven from a mobile phone (Android). The Pi 1 only has a 26 pin GPIO connector so can't be used with the current crop of 40 pin DACs (unless you solder directly to the I2S points on the board). So I got the Pi2 from its box (purchased over a year ago!), bought 3x 16GB uSD sandisk class 10 cards from Tesco (3 for £16) and downloaded Volumio, Rune Audio and Moode images and burnt them to the cards (with WIn32DiskImager). I also ordered the IQaudio PiDAC+ which was available at the time for £21 as a B grade stock - the holes for the rotary encoder were filled with solder and one of the other connectors - not a problem for me. But it's out of stock now, as is the regular £31 version but there is a selection of other DACs, some with built-in amps. I did all the setup 'head-less' (which is to say no keyboard or screen attached to the Pi, connecting via its built-in web server via a Windows PC and also an iPad). First problem I hit was indexing my 650Gb music share on my NAS (still using Ethernet at this point) - Volumio seemed to be the only one that seemed to get through to the end (after 2 hours) and still have a working UI. I installed the Spotify plugin and that worked well. Radio support But after unplugging and connecting the wifi dongle and rebooting, the library was gone. I had to re-index. I tried the others (Rune and Moode - neither seemed to get to the end of the indexing, for Rune the release was older and I just didn't find the Moode interface quite so nice, so went back to Volumio. Only to find the library gone again. I then experimented with wifi dongles - I had 3 different 11n dongles to try. Each time the Volumio interface threw a wobbler and gave me empty screen and lost libraries. So I gave up on it and switched to Moode. For wifi access btw you may need to access your router's admin page to find the IP address assigned via DHCP to the Pi when running in wifi mode. The Volumio Access Point mode I just found to be pants and gave up with it. All these builds use MPD as the underlying music server, so they outght to behave more or less the same. But they may vary in the vesion of MPD they were built with. I even went to the extent of recompiling MPD from source on Volumio but couldn't get it to work with the GUI. Volumio v2's GUI is a work in progress I reckon. With Moode I didn't try to index the full 650Gb but just connect to separate, smaller, folders just with HD Flac and SACD. Its wifi setup was also just regular and straightforward, no problems. So far I have had no problems. I've yet to discover how to get Spotify running though (Later: it turns out there is no Spotify plugin like Volumio, so you have to run Spotify on a second device and cast it using Airplay or UPnP). Over the BH weekend I bought a Pi Zero and Phat DAC from Pimironi (20% off). This is much more DIY, you have to solder the GPIO connectors and there are no supplied instructions, only buried online. In my haste I soldered the socket header on the dac to the wrong side of the board (should be on the the reverse to the other components I later found out). I desoldered the connector but it broke in the process. I've asked for a replacement so have yet to find if there was any permanent damage to the DAC. The Pi booted fine though with the dac connected normally. (Later: I purchased my own connector replacement, having heard nothing from Pimironi, soldered it the correct the way round and everything was fine.) Using a pi Zero might seem the cheaper soln, with the Pi itself only being £4. But by the time you have added PSU, wifi (if needed), the DAC and a case, the difference diminishes % wise. Also you have to solder your own connectors (correctly :-) ). It's also more of a fiddle as, having no Ethernet, you have to mount and edit the card image on a separate PC and make changes to the networks config file in order to get wifi working (SSID, user, pwd). For my next, I will stick with the normal Pi (or try out the Banana Pi Pro) and use the IQaudio dacs if I build another (the Dac+ has built in headphone amp and line out, all connectors fitted). Moode has excellent support for almost all known Dacs and is very up to date (last release 28 Aug 2016, MPD v19.19). I can't really comment on the sound quality - I've spent more time fiddling than listening, also the point was to get some cheap 24/96/192 capable playback stations for the systems around the house which can be easily accessible from a phone or tablet. I still have my doubts about wifi though for streaming - I have a top of the range 11ac router, a small, modern (wood/plasterboard construction) house but still have signal and throughput problems. Casting via Airplay does work but with 2 wifi hops I can't see this as improving the situation at all. I'm worried as I think the Moode Spotify soln involves using Airplay casting. Once the Pi Zero is up I will try and assess what the best of the dongles I have are (none are branded with RPI logo btw - SunFounder rt5370, Tontec and Tp-Link). 11ac dongles for the Pi are pointless as the underlying connection is via USB2 and limited by that. Those with external antennas may provide better signal quality. I've just given away all my Ethernet powerline adapters due to the RF hash they chuck out (I'm a radio amateur). As a fallback I might just run the players with 1GB 2.5" USB hard drives with content copied form the NAS.
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Sept 4, 2016 20:43:56 GMT
I've just lost 30 minutes of my life composing a reply and lost it due to finger trouble, but I can provide some insight if I find time to post tomorrow. In the meantime, check out IQaudio and their user guide. Also check out Moode, I wasted a whole BH weekend with Volumio - I don't think it's ready for primetime.
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Aug 15, 2016 21:46:36 GMT
Well indeed, I've never used tone controls and always felt the focus should be on selecting components that should, individually and in combination, be as 'flat' and 'transparent' as possible. Deliberately 'bending' the signal by electronic means just seems totally counter to these basic principles.
Now, having said that, I have played with the eq in Foobar for one particular headphone (I forget which) and I can't honestly say I found it terribly illuminating. I think in the end I'd just prefer to just put on a pair of headphonesin any situation or equipment combination and know what to expect, rather than fiddling with controls and not really being sure whether I could replicate the settings and experience at another date or time. How can you ever be sure that you have replicated the same precise settings? Equally you could find yourself constantly twiddling rather than just concentrating on enjoying the music.
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Aug 15, 2016 21:16:55 GMT
Joe, I have PM'd you.
Regards, Gary
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Aug 14, 2016 10:09:06 GMT
Regarding the clicking when using a Samsung phone - I've also experienced problems from the headphone output of my Samsung Galaxy S4 to drive the line in of my car. I was hoping the NX1 amp I bought recently would solve this, thinking it was some kind of level or impede nice mismatch, but the problem just seems to be worse with random clicking and crackles.
From Googlingg, there seem to be many reports of problems like this, with YouTube videos on how to replace/repair the headphone sockets on the S3 and S4 models.
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Aug 11, 2016 15:57:29 GMT
... And all that music is sitting here with me in Florida!!! Florida you say... pretty hot there isn't it? Don't want to worry you further, but: "Increased temperature exponentially increases retention loss" (from Data Retention in MLC NAND Flash Memory ). Best to wrap those cards in a plastic bag and keep them in the fridge, or turn up the aircon. :-)
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Aug 11, 2016 14:29:43 GMT
...<omitted> It did teach me a lesson ..... don't trust sd micro cards; even if they've been working perfectly for a year. Back ups are crucial. Wise words. NAND flash memory is inherently unreliable - the memory cell arrays have to be managed by sophisticated controllers which employ quite heavy error protection and correction (a different league to, say, ECC DRAM where simple parity provides single bit error detection; by contrast, ECC for flash has to cope with up to several 10s of errors per page - 2KBytes and up). The biggest contribution to errors in flash are retention errors - think of the flash cell like a leaky bucket, it's filled up with charge when programmed (cell written to) then gradually loses charge over time. Originally the buckets represented one bit (SLC, Single Level Cell NAND) - charge present, bucket half full or more, equivalent to a 0, charge not present, bucket half full or less, (when a cell is erased, the bucket become notionally empty) a 1. Once a full bucket had leaked away to less than half full, a 0 would be confused as a 1 - a read error. Then to increase the density, the quantity of water represented 2 bits (so-called Multi-Level Cell MLC NAND). Now, empty == 11, third full == 10, two thirds full == 00, full == 01 . Now you only have to leak one sixth and the level moves into the lower adjacent two bit representation - again, one bit error (the 2 bit states are Gray coded so only one bit changes from state to state). TLC (Three level cell) NAND increases the bit density still further, making leakage errors even more common. All this means that anything I write to SD cards I either have a backup copy elsewhere (in the case of music, I copy from a RAID 1 equipped server) or I immediately copy to a backup (photographs get transferred ASAP to the server, I don't leave them hanging around on flash for long). SSDs have more sophisticated controllers than the kinds used in USB sticks, SD cards and eMMC flash in mobiles/tablets, but the same basic principle of NAND flash applies - the charge will leak unless the data is refreshed/re-written, so the longer you leave data in flash, the more likely there will be errors when you come to read it again. There are really only 4 main players in NAND flash manufacture - Samsung, Toshiba/Sandisk (they have a JV), Intel/Micron and Hynix. Any other brands will use flash from one of those companies. Personally, I only ever buy Sandisk or Samsung, as NAND bought by a 3rd party from the big 4 may well have been purchased on the open market and may not be the best quality. Right now, 64GB Samsung cards retail at £12.99, 128GB are more like £34.99, so I have never bought 128GB (and will not unless it becomes markedly cheaper per GB for the higher density) as I don't feel it's worth the risk given the increasing liklihood of uncorrectable errors with TLC (and now 3D NAND) that these bigger capacity cards use. SSD controllers are now employing LDPC for error correction, I'm not sure about SD card controllers, but they may still be using BCH due to the differing operating parameters of SD Cards vs. SSDs (fewer r/w and erase cycles with SD cards).
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Aug 9, 2016 16:14:39 GMT
Yes, I read some of your Topping comments on another thread and I do actually have an NX1a on the way in the post as a result (to use as a buffer in my car for my Samsung phone which gives poor results with the line in, level and/or impedance mis-match I think). In any event, I would prefer to keep using the O2 and just feed it with a DAC.
I have actually installed the X3ii drivers and am using it in DAC mode right now, but it would be inconvenient to keep plugging and unplugging it if I were to use it frequently, but it will be useful to compare and contrast with.
Hoved-fi I encountered via Claus' posts on head-fi and his raving (not in a mad way) about Takstar's offerings. I'm (very) slowly improving in Danish, been on holiday there almost every year in the past 14 years. I must take a close look now to see what Claus was promising!
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garyc
contributing
Posts: 45
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Post by garyc on Aug 9, 2016 13:40:54 GMT
Could someone recommend a budget DAC that would be an upgrade to my UCA202 and will match well with a Kameleon or Ember, when I'm in the position to bite the bullet? Source would be PC, preferably USB out. Cheers, Joe. Hi, new here and not wishing to rehash what has already been said on this topic, but I'm just exploring some other possibilities. First, my situation: Windows PC at work, feeding a UCA222 to a headnhifi.com O2 amp, with Takstar Pro80s/Kam HP1s recently usurped by HD662 Evos (which brought me here in the first place, via hovedfi.dk). So far, so pleased with the Evos that I splashed out on a Fiio X3ii to see what the fuss was about with 24/xxx and DSD. Previously I had a Sansa Clip+ which fell into disuse but which I have since revived. At home I have a Dacmagic 100 but that is mainly used for getting TV sound via optical from the back of a Samsung TV, rather than audio playback from a Windows PC for which it was originally intended. Now, I'm only into less than a week of owning the X3ii, but what I've heard so far has made me wonder about replacing the UCA222 to be able to use 24 bit source 'directly' (I use Foobar2000 so I think I could just use a plugin to downconvert to play to the UCA222 right now). Now, of course, I could use the Fiio X3ii as external DAC and I probably will try this out very soon, but I was casting around to see if there was something to replace the UCA222 as a fixed install (I may not always have the Fiio with me), but around the £50 or so mark. I've found the following: Swissonic (Thomann) 24/192 for 35 euros Topping NX2 USB with amp £33 (but 'only' 24/96 Topping D30 does 24/192, SPDIF and USB, supports DSD64 and DSD128 (listed on their website but can find no sellers??? CS4398 DAC kit USB+Optical 24/192 (eBay £21.50 + 4.50 (£23.50 assembled), needs case etc. FX Audio (DoukStore on eBay) 24/192 with headphone amp £42 Douk Audio XMOS 32/384 DSD1796 £53 I think what I'm trying to do is have a fixed setup at work (where I do most of my listening) that can play 24/xxx files. My suspicion is I won't hear any difference over the UCA222, which is why I don't want to spend too much dosh on implementing this experiment. The X3ii with the Evos really caught my attention, but that could be as much to do with the new headphone experience as anything else. I'm aware of the Meyer/Moran view that possibly the real reason HD audio sources sound better is due to the different mastering approach with greater headroom afforded by 24 bit while mixing and less focus on cramming everything into 6dB of dynamic range specifically for CDs (I paraphrase). One distinct option is to hold off buying any more bits, try out the X3ii as a DAC for a while and then maybe ask Santa for an iFi Nano (looks as if it would fit the bill perfectly). Appreciate any thoughts you guys may have on the other options I have found above. Cheers, Gary
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