HOWTO: Integrating WavPack 5-compressed DSD into Logitech Media Server (LMS).

piCorePlayer streaming WavPack-compressed DSD128 (1-bit, 5.6MHz) to TEAC UD-501 from recent nightly version of Logitech Media Server 7.9.1.

As I mentioned last time, it's great to see that DSD compression and metadata tagging are available in the form of WavPack 5. Starting from the post by michaelvv on the Squeezebox Forum, I decided to spend more time on getting WavPack-DSD working in LMS and managed to get it working quite stably installed on a Ubuntu Linux (currently 16.04 LTS) virtual machine in the Windows Server 2016 computer that serves as my repository of data, movies, and music. For a description of the initial software install, have a look at my HOWTO: LMS + BrutefirDRC Plugin post from last year. The hardware these days is my Intel i5-6500 server machine described here.

MUSINGS: On DSD, tagging, compression and conversion... Time for WavPack 5.

Many moons ago (back in 2013), I discussed DSD audio. While over the years I've talked about DSD from a a number of different angles (eg. JRiver realtime conversion listening, PCM <--> DSD conversion, conversion 2015, equipment DSD playback measurements like PonoPlayer / TEAC UD-501 / Oppo BDP-105 / Oppo Sonica DAC), concerns from that very first discussion about DSD still irks me these days!

The main issue is simply this: the lack of ability for gear and software to support both tagging and data compression when dealing with DSD. This IMO truly has been a ridiculous state of affairs for so many years! Despite years of cheerleading in the industry and even smaller sales outfits like NativeDSD Music already putting files out there for consumers, the relative inelegance of it all is rather silly.

As usual, I find it rather baffling that the typical mainstream audiophile press remains silent on deficiencies like this. To me, it is issues like these, while perhaps not "sexy" nor provides the press something to market to consumers, that when addressed can actually move the hobby forward. Unlike yet another megabuck product that provides a few minutes of eye-candy at best and affects the few, "infrastructural" changes can affect the many. Yet another example of the myopia of the audiophile press and an inability to muster any leadership in changing the industry and hobby in meaningful ways.

HOWTO: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 overclocking to 1800X speed while maintaining power savings...

Greetings from Asia.

Okay with all the recent chatter on MQA, let's take a little break from audio for a bit and talk about something much less controversial :-). In fact, this is downright basic for all the computer overclockers out there...

Remember a few months ago, I upgraded to the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 CPU. As discussed in my previous article, I upgraded to a computer with this processor for workstation purposes, not gaming or anything like that. I've certainly been impressed by the speed already but as one who enjoys tinkering with the machines, I thought it would be fun to try overclocking without sacrificing power efficiency...