(04-May-2023, 11:17)Vivialet Wrote: good idea to start collecting tips & tricks
I also had a Roon PC connected via USB to an Audio-GD DI20HE with a Mutec Ref10. But I found a better and much cheaper option.
I'm not using USB at all, I use an ifi Zen Stream which is connected to my PC via optical LAN (Sonore OM, Cisico switch with OCXO clock). The trick is to connect the ifi Zen to the Devialet via ifi SPDIF iPurifier 2 and a good Toslink cable. I use the Wireworld Supernova 7. This is the best digital sound I ever had.
One software trick: Instead of directly driving the Zen from Roon I use squeeze2upnp. This can be installed on the same PC as Roon and sounds better than RAAT for me. The ifi Zen can do both, RAAT and uPnP.
Interesting, you mean using Zen Stream via optical to Devialet sounds better than DDC with Clock? But did you use opitical LAN when you just use DDC with Clock? The optical LAN used on PC should theoretically already provide some improvement.
I am not using Roon, I found using Roon gives less resolution unless you do a lot of other tweaks with PC running Roon, like what you did.
I am just using PC, with a SSD in PC storing the songs. I play via Foobar2000, but does not play it directly. I share the files on PC using Windows file sharing, and then I use an Android phone running BubbleuPNP to access the files and play via uPNP. I installed uPNP plugin on Foobar2000. I found the sound a lot more analog sounding this way, playing files direct on Foobar2000 sounds digital. Another trick in Windows PC is use Fidelizer, this is good stuff on Windows.
Also, I installed another program called Audiophile Renderer, which is a uPNP renderer running under Windows. For reason I cannot explain, letting Audiophile Renderer running all the time in the background makes the sound better, the harmonics are better.
And one last tweak for those using notebooks like me, buy a LPS for the noteboook. The soundstage is a lot more stable with a LPS.
