HAL's MS-3 Music Server and dspMusik 6x8 DSP crossover and HiRez DAC's

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HAL

On the way to woodsyi's for the last part of the MS-3 and dspMusik system.  Will try setting up the front and rear subs.

*Scotty*

Rich, has he moved them to the rear of the listening room, or are they still at the side of the room?
Scotty

woodsyi

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Rich, has he moved them to the rear of the listening room, or are they still at the side of the room?
Scotty

Rich is probably on the road to my house.  They are still on the side.  There isn't much room to juggle there.  We will play with delay and woofer direction if necessary to do the best. 


HAL

Just pulled into woodsyi' parking lot.  Hanging out till 4PM.  Nice day out!

HAL

Just got home after the latest session at woodsyi's with the MS-3 and dspMusik.  We reconfigured it as the total bass management system for his main RM40 woofers, front subs and rear subs.  Added digital crossovers for the three pairs of woofers and delay for the rear subs.   No more drop in response.  Still need to send him a UMM-6 calibrated mic for more REW measurements.

He is now the third owner of a dspMusik.  He has a CAPS2 Music Server, so will get the MS-3 back after he is happy with the final setup and burn the firmware. 

Now to see how Pez is doing with his demo setup.

HAL

Pez had his basics training in running the MS-3 and dspMusik. 

Once he gets it integrated into his setup, will be helping as needed.


HAL

For woodsyi's setup last night did some updates to his CAPS2 Music Server Foobar2000 install.  He wanted to get it running with his EMM Labs DAC2X.  Installed the correct components and fixed the settings to work with his DAC2X and DSD files. 

Also put Foobar2000 into memory playback mode so that the entire music file is loaded into memory before playback.  No more dropouts like he was having.  He is doing some long term testing with big music files to see if the updates work and the dropouts are gone all the time. 

 

HAL

Here is the latest link to the dspMusik 2x8 system from the manufacturer:

http://www.danvillesignal.com/high-performance-audio/dspmusik-2-8-multichannel-dac

I have to program the unit to do what the customer wants the unit to do.  It does not come stock with any program running from them.

woodsyi

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Rich has been a trooper driving 2 hours each way 3 times in a few weeks to set up the dspMusic in my room.   After I heard his prototype at RMAF last year, I put myself in for testing his dspMusik.  We set up first where I replaced the Marchand analog crossover with his dspMusic.  The digital direct was a revelation in what digital processing can do in it's domain.  Taking the analog preamp and analog signal processing out of the loop, everything was processed in the digital domain before the excellent DACs outputted analog signal to the amps.  I could have lived with it just fine if I didn't have a stable of turntables and 5k plus records.  Some of my beloved opera and classical music do not exist in the digital domain.  When the analog front end is introduced via the phonostage and preamp into dspMusik through it's ADC loop I lost some clarity and the tonal liquidity that makes vinyl so magical.  It wasn't much of a drop off, but the veiling was there and my Koetsu wasn't delivering it's mid-range magic (bloom).  I put the analog x-over back in and the seduction came back to female vocals but clearly there was a drop off in the bass precision. 

The compromise Rich and I arrived at is to retain the mid/high to analog processing and use the dspMusik to processing just the bass (from 280Hz down).  I have 4 10" woofers on the VMPS RM40s, 2 12" and 2 15" ona pair of VMPS Larger Subwoofers, and 2 18" woofers on a pair of sealed box subwoofers custom made by Kevin Haskins from erstwhile DIY Cable.  I wonder what happened to him.  All dedicated to producing music 280 Hz down driven by 5 amps -- a pair of Acoustic Reality 1001s, a Crown K2 and 2 Dayton SA1000s.  My room has been extensively treated for bass damping.  We are matching the low-pass on the RM40 woofers with the Marchand high-pass of the ribbons at 280Hz using Linkwitz-Riley 4th order filter.  Once a first order high-pass chip arrives from Marchand,  we can match the low pass on dspMusik to try that set up.  The 10" woofers are high-passed at 80Hz and the subs take over from there with low-pass set up at 80Hz.  We put in a volume control on the eAR 1001s as I don't have any volume control on those amps.  K2 and SA1000s have volume control.  SA 1000s also have phase control.  The "rear" subs are actually beside the listening position and there is no room to place them further back.  Rich measured the distance from the front subwoofers to the listening position and put in a delay so that the "rear" subs could act as if they were further back in the room.  The phase was reversed using the control on at the amp. 

With everything put together, we fired up the amps and listened.  We had to adjust the eAR amps up.  You could tell the lower mid-range lacked punch.  Once we adjusted it by ear, we were good to go.  Since we are not using digital direct through dspMusic, we had had to get my digital front end (PC audio with EMM DAC2x) integrated.  We couldn't get a EMM driver to install on MS-3.  So we went back to my music PC which uses the SOtM USB card that is powered by it's own battery PS.  I use J-River and I have always had some drop out issue with big files with play from memory setting.  So I wanted to try foobar and see if it did better.  I used to run foobar with my Empirical Audio stuff but I had a tough time setting up the whole thing to run DSD or even PCM.  Learning curve was too high for me and I did have J-River that was working, albeit with a little hiccups.  Rich took over and breezed through the set up to play PCM.  He had to look up and download a few things and toggle some switches and he had the DSD direct running all within 30 minutes total.  Then we heard a dropout.  I had told him that I wanted seamless play between tracks as a lot of the classical music is continuous and track dividing is really arbitrary.  That seems to be the issue as buffer setting need to be low to play seamless and the DFF files are big.  So we set the buffer way up and no dropout occurred.  It was just one track but I am optimistic that I have finally "licked" the problem.  BTW, the track (a DFF file of Organ playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565) never sounded better.  I could discern the primary notes in the second octave and even the B0 at 30Hz was clear.  I can't wait to completely dial in the FR and listen to some deep bass.

After Rich left, I played Norah Jones' Blue Note issue Come Away with Me on vinyl and then on DFF playing DSD direct.  The vinyl has got its grooves back.  I am happy. 


HAL

woodsyi,
Thanks for the words of encouragement!

Glad that the hybrid system is working for all sources with great sound quality.  The system flexibility is high and it takes time to find the correct setup to do everything.  The Bach Tocatta and Fugue in Dm really did sound very good before I left! 

It will be interesting to hear what happens with Pez's setup now that he has the dspMusik to run 3 way with his RM40's. 

The rear subs are running with 10.6mSec of delay for the 12' offset. 

Danny also now has a MS-2 and dspMusik setup for trials.  That will be interesting as well.

Have fun listening!   :D

HAL

Two more new MS-3's are complete.  One is for LarryB when the dspMusik arrives for his system.

The other should be my replacement for the demo units out.  If someone really wants one, that can be arranged. Usually it is 2 weeks from ordering to shipping.  This one can go out the next day. 

PM me for details.

HAL

One option that is now available is having an internal 1TB SSD drive for boot and music storage.  This can be added to MS-3's as well as an upgrade.  They are 7+ times more reliable than a standard hard drive and silent.

The cost for an MS-3 configured originally with a 1TB SSD is $1299.00, the upgrade for an existing MS-2 or MS-3 is $500 + shipping.

This still gives the internal DVD option for ripping CD's to the music library.

This should be an option for medium size CD and HiRez music collections. 

I still recommend an external hard drive to backup the files.

Scottdazzle

I can't wait to hear Woodsyi's new setup!

HAL

Looking forward to your comments.

Hopefully Pez will have time with the system with his RM40's this weekend.

HAL

Building up my dspMusik system to try with the full desktop OB speaker setup. 

The OB H-Frames glue has dried and time to move them downstairs to the Lab to install the 8" servo drivers and HX300 amps.

Waiting to hear from Pez and Danny on their trials with the dspMusik setups.

So far dpd, Avoosl and woodsyi are very happy with the first three installed dspMusik systems. 


HAL

Pez is up and running with his speakers. 

Looking forward to his impressions with the triamped RM40's.

jtwrace

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Pez is up and running with his speakers. 

Looking forward to his impressions with the triamped RM40's.
:hyper:

HAL

Just heard from dpd that he has his LP system running with the dspMusik and enjoying it with his system.


HAL

My dspMusik setup is up and running as well, so time for more prototype speaker listening!  :)

HAL

Just talked to Danny and he has the MS-3 and dspMusik box open.  I gave him some setup instructions.

Gary is feeling better today, so he is going to get him to setup the MS-3 and dspMusik for some listening trials as a DAC with Danny's system.  Then they can both give it a listen. 

Good news is Gary is feeling better and getting around!

Getting the wiring system for the 3x8" servo subs built.