[newzooreview]

Can someone explain what this tweak for the Mac means:

Shutting down all other operating systems running in the back ground improves the sound (considerably).

I only run one OS on my Macbook.  Could it mean shutting down other applications running on the machine like finder or a web browser?

Recently heard the dac in question with a few others.  Nice piece but only had about 24 hours on it.  I am sure it will sound much better when it is fully burned.   Folks heard bigger differences in the IC we changed than the DACs under test.  Very fine lines of differentiation on a short eval.

It doesn't look like anyone answered your question about tweaking your MacBook.

1. Shut off Spotlight indexing by removing the check in the box from every category that Spotlight can index (this is in System Preferences, the Spotlight options). This prevents Spotlight from running in the background.
2. Connect your music hard drive to the Mac by FireWire, preferably using a 2.5" drive in a drive enclosure that draws power from the FireWire port, not using a wall-wart.
3. Quoting from Eric Hider on this one:

"Turn your Dashboard off:

Open the utility program called "Terminal" (in Applications)

Type EXACTLY as written below (all spaces included, EXACTLY as written caps, spaces, dots and dashes !!!)
 defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
Hit your enter key

Now type in the next command EXACTLY as written "D"  in the word dock is CAPITALIZED
 killall Dock
Hit your enter -

Note: Your dashboard will now no longer open on your front desktop page.... and be constantly using your memory "

4. Again, quoting from Eric:

"Turn your journaling off -
Open "Disk Utility" (located in Applications/Utilities).
Highlight the name Macintosh HD on the left side of choices
To disable journaling, press Option key on keyboard, WHILE HOLDING ON TO the OPTION key - select disable journaling from the top of your screen on the file menu."

5. In System Profiler, check what devices are shared on the port that the Tranquility DAC is connected to. Try to get it onto a USB port by itself. The best I can do is get it to share a port with the IR receiver (which I don't use).

Those are the tweaks that I've used to the benefit of my system.

Happy listening. 

Oh, and I moved from a MacBook to a Mac Mini and it does make a noticeable difference (as long as you run the Mini without a monitor, mouse, or keyboard connected; just access it via Screen Sharing from another Mac after you  turn on Screen Sharing after initial setup)

And a further note: after I moved to the Mac Mini I installed a solid state drive in it. That also improved the sound. I got a small one (64Gb OCZ Vertex Turbo, for what it's worth). It's just runs a fresh install of Mac OS 10.6.4, so it only needs 20-30 Gb of space.

And I did not upgrade the memory beyond 2 Gb. I'm using AIFF files, so there's little work by the computer to unpack them (as there would be with Apple Lossless or FLAC--but this is getting into a debated area, so make what you will of that).

UPDATE

I just found a new (to me) way to improve the sound from my Mac Mini to my Tranquility DAC: turn off the IR receiver. I thought I had looked thoroughly for a way to do that, but today I was surprised to stumble across it. It's in the System Preferences panel, under Security settings, in the General tab: at the bottom is a check box to "Disable remote infrared receiver".

My Tranquility DAC is connected to a USB port shared with the IR receiver, and now that it's off the sound is more fluid and smooth, with some hash/grit in the upper treble removed. No negative effects--just better music.

(The other set of USB ports seem to be shared with an internal hub, so I avoid those since the one shared with the IR receiver seems to be on its own, maybe better isolated?)

[TRADERXFAN]

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to post this. 

[jrebman]

And for the PC users out there, I've spent the las 5 or 6 days with the AQVox ASIO driver and found it to be a significant step up from all the others -- asio4all, usb-asio, and Foobar's Kernel streaming.  More air around instruments, more detail presnented in a very organic way, better top-to-bottom balance, ambience retrieval, soundstage, and even better tone and dynamic contrasts.  Not cheap at $126 but very much worth it to my ears.

Works great with Tranquility and when you buy ghe key you also get access to version 1.0.3, which is more up to date than the demo 1.0.2.

This is the only usb driver I know of that communicates directly with the usb chip in the computer and bypasses everything else.

I haven't got it to work with my HRT MusicStreamer II+ yet though, but that will be connected to my linux box for my headphone rig anyway.

-- Jim

[WGH]

And for the PC users out there, I've spent the las 5 or 6 days with the AQVox ASIO driver and found it to be a significant step up from all the others -- asio4all, usb-asio, and Foobar's Kernel streaming. 

Is this with XP?

[newzooreview]

Guys:

There are reports surfacing that the latest Mac Mini with internal power supply is sonically superior to the previous models.  I own a 2009 Mac Mini with a SS Internal Drive and 4 GB of Ram.  Last night I discovered on the Apple Core Circle discussion about a tweak to make the 2009 and 2010 Mac Minis run as 64 bit machines.  I followed this link:  http://blog.leanopen.com/tag/64-bit/ I discovered my Mini is running as a 32 bit machine and will have to follow the instructions to make it run in the 64 bit mode.  Many folks have performed the tweak and claim it makes a huge difference to sonic performance from the older Minis.

I would like to know if any of you Tranquility Owners are running your Minis in the 64 bit mode and can report on the sonic differences between 32 bit and 64 bit?

Thanks,

Ken

Regarding hacking the Mac Mini to boot the 64-bit kernel:

I gave it a try. The instructions to change the efi file worked fine. The instructions to edit the plist file were wrong and overly complicated. Apple provides a much easier command line entry to do it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773

I wouldn't recommend doing it at all, however. I booted into 64-bit mode (confirmed in System Profiler), and the sound quality was worse. The highs were a bit rougher, and things were not as rich and musical. It certainly didn't improve anything.

So I checked the Applications list, and iTunes is a 32-bit application. Booting into 64-bit certainly isn't freeing iTunes to do anything better. The other system components are a mix of 32 and 64 bit, but it doesn't seem to help the sound quality to have them running under the 64 bit kernel.

Your mileage may vary, but I would avoid it. All my files are in AIFF format, so iTunes is doing very little work to get them out the door to my Tranquility DAC as it is.

[newzooreview]

Thanks very much for taking the trouble to post this. 

Thanks, I added a little more at the bottom of the post.

[dBe]

And for the PC users out there, I've spent the las 5 or 6 days with the AQVox ASIO driver and found it to be a significant step up from all the others -- asio4all, usb-asio, and Foobar's Kernel streaming.  More air around instruments, more detail presnented in a very organic way, better top-to-bottom balance, ambience retrieval, soundstage, and even better tone and dynamic contrasts.  Not cheap at $126 but very much worth it to my ears.

Works great with Tranquility and when you buy ghe key you also get access to version 1.0.3, which is more up to date than the demo 1.0.2.

This is the only usb driver I know of that communicates directly with the usb chip in the computer and bypasses everything else.

I haven't got it to work with my HRT MusicStreamer II+ yet though, but that will be connected to my linux box for my headphone rig anyway.

-- Jim

Jim,

It appears that you got to try this before I could and I am very happy that it is as good as I have seen it written up as being.  I'll be pulling the trigger on this probably tomorrow.  I'm catching up on things tonight and won't be into the media computer until tomorrow.

This is awesome!

Thanks for the update.

Dave

[jrebman]

WGH, yes, sorry, forgot to mention this is all with xp.  Soon I'll be stripping the OS down to bare bones with nLite, and then I'll be adding a linear psu and SSD (once I figure out how to do it on a machine with no native CD drive.)

Dave, thanks, and you can bet I gave it a good try -- both the sonics and device compatibility) before I plunked down the cash.  My music was punctuated with short beeps every minute for many days .

Jim

[timztunz]

Regarding hacking the Mac Mini to boot the 64-bit kernel:

I gave it a try. The instructions to change the efi file worked fine. The instructions to edit the plist file were wrong and overly complicated. Apple provides a much easier command line entry to do it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773

I wouldn't recommend doing it at all, however. I booted into 64-bit mode (confirmed in System Profiler), and the sound quality was worse. The highs were a bit rougher, and things were not as rich and musical. It certainly didn't improve anything.

So I checked the Applications list, and iTunes is a 32-bit application. Booting into 64-bit certainly isn't freeing iTunes to do anything better. The other system components are a mix of 32 and 64 bit, but it doesn't seem to help the sound quality to have them running under the 64 bit kernel.

Your mileage may vary, but I would avoid it. All my files are in AIFF format, so iTunes is doing very little work to get them out the door to my Tranquility DAC as it is.

Are you using only iTunes as your music player and library manager?  Or are you using something like Pure Music, Play, Amarra, etc. as the player and using iTunes only as the library manager?  I'm not doubting your findings, they are what they are.  If you say it sounded worse to you then I believe you, and I have not tried this myself.  But in my case, where I use Pure Music as the player and only use iTunes as the library manager I'm not sure that iTunes is playing ANY part in the sound quality.

[newzooreview]

Are you using only iTunes as your music player and library manager?  Or are you using something like Pure Music, Play, Amarra, etc. as the player and using iTunes only as the library manager?  I'm not doubting your findings, they are what they are.  If you say it sounded worse to you then I believe you, and I have not tried this myself.  But in my case, where I use Pure Music as the player and only use iTunes as the library manager I'm not sure that iTunes is playing ANY part in the sound quality.

I only use iTunes, so yes you may find it helps with something like Pure Music.  It may also sound better with iTunes for some people. Let us know. 

[WGH]

WGH, yes, sorry, forgot to mention this is all with xp. 

This could be a good option for people locked into XP or want to build a stripped down box like you are. I had been using XP with usb-asio but now use a networked Toshiba laptop running a 64 bit Vista with WASAPI and like the sound better.

Looks like I'll have to try out the demo and see if I hear any difference between the AQVox ASIO driver and WASAPI on my XP and Vista computers which go to a HagUSB --> AVA Insight DAC.

I was thinking if the sound is similar most users would be better off upgrading their OS to Vista or Windows 7 and using WASAPI for the same price of the the AQVox ASIO driver. I still like and use XP on my main rig but it is getting a little long in the tooth and needs a good firewall and antivirus to be secure.

Wayne

[Bigfish]

Are you using only iTunes as your music player and library manager?  Or are you using something like Pure Music, Play, Amarra, etc. as the player and using iTunes only as the library manager?  I'm not doubting your findings, they are what they are.  If you say it sounded worse to you then I believe you, and I have not tried this myself.  But in my case, where I use Pure Music as the player and only use iTunes as the library manager I'm not sure that iTunes is playing ANY part in the sound quality.

I am running Pure Music in Hog Mode and I made the change to the 64 bit mode this afternoon.  I did not listen today in the 32 bit mode and all I will say is that I have no negative comments to make about listening in the 64 bit mode.  I believe there is even more detail and life to the music.  I recommend you try it!

Ken

[newzooreview]

I am running Pure Music in Hog Mode and I made the change to the 64 bit mode this afternoon.  I did not listen today in the 32 bit mode and all I will say is that I have no negative comments to make about listening in the 64 bit mode.  I believe there is even more detail and life to the music.  I recommend you try it!

Ken

Pure Music seems to offer a free trial, so I may give it a shot. It won't be for a while, though, since I have a new amp and preamp coming and want to understand their affect before I tweak iTunes.

Are your files in Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV? I'd be especially curious to try Pure Music if you're hearing a difference with your music files in AIFF or WAV format because my expectation has been that if iTunes is doing no work in decompressing the files before playback then there is likely little benefit in using add-on software with better mathematical algorithms for handling the file output. I'm open minded on that, of course, and I'm always happy to improve the sound (even where I don't expect it--case in point being the not subtle improvement I noted above from the dB Audio power cord for my Mac Mini).

[Bigfish]

Pure Music seems to offer a free trial, so I may give it a shot. It won't be for a while, though, since I have a new amp and preamp coming and want to understand their affect before I tweak iTunes.

Are your files in Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV? I'd be especially curious to try Pure Music if you're hearing a difference with your music files in AIFF or WAV format because my expectation has been that if iTunes is doing no work in decompressing the files before playback then there is likely little benefit in using add-on software with better mathematical algorithms for handling the file output. I'm open minded on that, of course, and I'm always happy to improve the sound (even where I don't expect it--case in point being the not subtle improvement I noted above from the dB Audio power cord for my Mac Mini).

When I purchased The Tranquility Eric recommended I compare ITunes, Pure Music, Amara and there is a free program that I cannot remember its name.  Most of the guys on Computer Audio with Macs seem to be running Pure Music.  I tried it and felt there was a definite improvement over ITunes.  Please note I am running Pure Music in Hog Mode!

All of my files are .aiff!

Good luck,

Ken

[newzooreview]

When I purchased The Tranquility Eric recommended I compare ITunes, Pure Music, Amara and there is a free program that I cannot remember its name.  Most of the guys on Computer Audio with Macs seem to be running Pure Music.  I tried it and felt there was a definite improvement over ITunes.  Please note I am running Pure Music in Hog Mode!

All of my files are .aiff!

Good luck,

Ken

Cool. I'll check it out. 

[chadh]

This could be a good option for people locked into XP or want to build a stripped down box like you are. I had been using XP with usb-asio but now use a networked Toshiba laptop running a 64 bit Vista with WASAPI and like the sound better.

Looks like I'll have to try out the demo and see if I hear any difference between the AQVox ASIO driver and WASAPI on my XP and Vista computers which go to a HagUSB --> AVA Insight DAC.

I was thinking if the sound is similar most users would be better off upgrading their OS to Vista or Windows 7 and using WASAPI for the same price of the the AQVox ASIO driver. I still like and use XP on my main rig but it is getting a little long in the tooth and needs a good firewall and antivirus to be secure.

Wayne

I initially imagined that upgrading to Windows 7 and using WASAPI would be the better option as well.  But I guess we won't really have any indication until someone has run the comparison.  That's why I think Jim should get a second, identical PC and load up Windows 7, so he can conduct a controlled experiment for us.

Thanks Jim!

Chad

[Construct]

Basically, if I am reading the recommendations correctly:  while using a pc or mac as a music server, simply shut down any and all background processes that could affect the processing (timing)  of the output.  It seems logical that anything stealing processor cycles  could affect the output. 

[cfcmick]

When I purchased The Tranquility Eric recommended I compare ITunes, Pure Music, Amara and there is a free program that I cannot remember its name.  Most of the guys on Computer Audio with Macs seem to be running Pure Music.  I tried it and felt there was a definite improvement over ITunes.  Please note I am running Pure Music in Hog Mode!

All of my files are .aiff!

Good luck,

Ken

Ken,

The FREE program was "PLAY" by sbooth. Link below:

http://sbooth.org/

Mick

[jrebman]

Chad,

I don't think this little Asus EEE box has what it takes to run Win7, but perhaps at some point in the future I can work on a stripped down version of Win7, but it'll have to wait.

I'm just about to switch over to win7 on my main machine, along with dual boot with Debian linx so I can have a development platform for the Alix boards.

Right now all of this stuff seems to be pretty system specific as to what produces the best sound, and my point of reference is my Tranquility dac with Essential usb cable (yes, tried several others but ultimately came back to the Essential) my LDR passive and my Fi 2a3 monos and Tonian TL-D1s.  I'm sure folks' mileages will vary considerably, especially in relation to the usb cable and usb implementation of the dac and/or converter.

The Mac is just not an option for me due to non-visual access issues, so I'm committed to finding the best PC and linux solutions I can.  I also run my audio PC headless and use my screen reader and headphones to access the controls, and video cards seem to be a really large contributor to degraded sound quality.  Even my Acer netbook running on batteries is noisier than the Asus with an upgraded switcher -- most likely because there's no running from the video booggie man.  I'm sure the on-board sound card effects the output somewhat, and I think the aqvox driver, with it's direct hardware connection to the usb chip removed that from the equation, and it will probably remove wasapi from the picture as well.  Just guessing now, but something special is up with this driver.

-- Jim

I initially imagined that upgrading to Windows 7 and using WASAPI would be the better option as well.  But I guess we won't really have any indication until someone has run the comparison.  That's why I think Jim should get a second, identical PC and load up Windows 7, so he can conduct a controlled experiment for us.

Thanks Jim!

Chad

[*Scotty*]

Here is the ASUS eee  PC Seashell 1005PE-PU17-BU 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook
with Win7
 http://www.amazon.com/Seashell-1005PE-PU17-BU-10-1-Inch-Netbook-Battery/dp/B00322PYZY/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IDUV2LS6NHY3R&colid=10VARVUVDQHR7
Scotty