Beelink EQ12: Low power Intel N100-based Roon endpoint and Kodi 4K/HDR/60fps player, general Windows 11 computer. A few words on HDR10(+), Dolby Vision, AV1, and Kodi. And hilarious Transparent $$$ cables.

Beelink EQ12 MiniPC, some testing with the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R Black Edition.

Since around 2004, I've been using various computer systems for music playback, initially starting with ripped files on PCs and then quickly transitioning to server-endpoint "distributed" playback by something like 2006/2007 when I bought my first Slim Devices Squeezebox 3. I've never really looked back since, as this is IMO the superior way to manage music with a central home server repository and distributing the music around the home. It has been more than a decade since I've cared to use a CD transport other than to rip music and there's no reason why CDs would sound better anyways ("bit perfect" and all that).

Of course back in the day, especially prior to 2010, putting a computer in the sound room was likely going to be fraught with noise issues. In the 2nd decade of the 21st Century now, with much lower CPU/memory/motherboard power demands while capable of excellent speed, silent SSD drives, and small form factor MiniPCs, it's actually rather trivial these days to maintain cool and quiet, unobtrusive computers that perform well as AV "appliances". These machines will not contribute to acoustic or electrical noise pollution in listening rooms even with low ambient noise levels provided the hobbyist approaches device selection and optimization with some basic care.

Today, let's convert that little Beelink EQ12 Intel N100-based computer (discussed/reviewed last time) into something I would use as a Windows audio streamer and movie player in my media room. Let's talk about some BIOS settings, Windows set-up suggestions to consider, and computational potential.

As discussed years ago, in my sound room in the evenings, the ambient noise level is <30dB SPL which is appropriately low for high-fidelity listening. Given that, let's consider some settings I can use with this machine.

While ideally, fanless is the ultimate goal, I am (as always) a pragmatist; even if we have a perfectionistic mindset, so long as we get the job done well enough, we can move on and enjoy the music, letting technology continue to move ahead. Each computer generation will bring us faster, smaller, and less expensive machines and I think we're near the point where fanless solutions will likely satisfy most personal computing and become common in the next few years. So even though the EQ12 has a fan (actually 2 small fans), it is quiet already and for use in the AV room where I have no intentions of using this for herculean number crunching nor push 3D graphics, it's not going to be difficult to optimize fan noise.

Let's go into the BIOS, "underpower" the machine from stock settings (reduce maximum power demands), and slow down the fan speed:

In the "Turbo Settings" menu, from default "20000" (20W), I dropped Power Limit 1 to "9000" (9W), changed the Time Window to 96 seconds, and enabled Power Limit 2 to "12000". This means that the CPU package is allowed to turbo up to 12W when needed for short bursts, but on average over 96 seconds, it will target 9W demand across persistently heavy loads.

Since I'm using less power now, I can go into the "CPU Smart Fan" menu and tweak some of the parameters to achieve the best balance between fan speed (noise level) and good temperatures:

As you can see, I used a slow PWM slope of 2 which gradually ramps up and down the fan speed based on temperature for both CPU and System fans, this reduces any jarring change in fan noise. Below 35°C CPU temperature on cool winter evenings, this thing will be silent. Take these settings as a starting point for optimization in your room.

So with these BIOS settings, what happens to the machine's speed? Here's Linpack Xtreme with hardware monitoring during the processing run:

4GB RAM setting on Linpack.

From a stock speed of 65 GFLOPS, we've dropped down to close to 43 GFLOPS average, about a 1/3 reduction in speed, but we make up for that with lower power utilization (<20W peak compared to about 25W peak). And of course, the fans run significantly slower/quieter.

Even running the CPU full-tilt over 60 minutes with Linpack (ambient temperature 21°C) above, notice max temperature only got up to 64°C, significantly below 75°C; above which I would pay more attention. In use, I would never run the CPU as hard as this so I consider that 64°C a very safe maximum temperature.

The machine is very quiet with CPU fan running below 3,000 and system fan below 1,000 rpm maximum. I don't hear the EQ12 unless I'm less than 2' away in the quiet room at persistent full load.

For completeness, here's a look at the effect on the AIDA64 6.88 benchmark compared to stock speed and other MiniPCs:

Memory Tests:           Read (MB/s)    Write (MB/s)   Copy (MB/s)    Latency (ns)
Beelink EQ12 9W          29132           28636          27550          45.2     
Beelink EQ12 Stock       31480           29051          27778          44.9
Beelink Mini S           15910           17470          15860          60.8
MeLE Quieter3Q N5105     16959           22453          19042          66.9
MeLE Quieter2Q J4125     10409           10631          12860          93.5
Intel NUC 6i5SYH         32161           45606          36301          66.1

CPU Speed (Int): CPU Queen  PhotoWorxx(MPx/s)   ZLib(MB/s)  AES(MB/s)  SHA3(MB/s)
Beelink EQ12 9W   19954       14270              159.3        18956        599
Beelink EQ12 Stk  22647       16139              219.2        21796        801
Beelink Mini S    22293       7383               188.0        19420        515
MeLE Q3Q N5105    20157       8640               144.5        15822        431
MeLE Q2Q J4125    19156       6771               120.4        9301         365
NUC 6i5SYH        18092       15463              119.3        6101         553

CPU Speed (FP):   Julia    Mandel    SinJulia    Ray-Trace(kRay/s) FP64 Ray-Trace
Beelink EQ12 9W   8912     4445      1125        1731                 935
Beelink EQ12 Stk  11439    5778      1124        2188                 1176
Beelink Mini S    7462     3967      1003        1244                 677
MeLE Q3Q N5105    5604     2974      1003        1034                 533
MeLE Q2Q J4125    5835     3179      1112        933                  499
NUC 6i5SYH        11358    6126      1603        2417                 1352

Again, clearly slower than the stock EQ12 but even with the "9W" max power reduction, integer performance is about that of the stock Beelink Mini S, and floating point performance remains superior to the other previous CPU generation Beelink and MeLE computers.

Let's do some house-keeping things to convert this computer into an "appliance":

1. I followed these instructions to auto login to the Windows 11 22H2 machine (combination of disabling the "Hello" login screen and auto password login). This way even if there's a power failure, the computer will boot and be ready for streaming without my intervention. Of course be mindful of getting hacked when running without password protection, turn off stuff like Remote Desktop.

2. Stopped Windows update with Windows Update Blocker (WUB) once I'm satisfied that I've updated to current version. As an AV appliance, there's no need to reboot every week or two. With Windows 11 released since October 2021, it's all very stable by now.

3. Installed Windows Roon Bridge. Make sure it auto starts with bootup. As per previous discussions, set the Windows audio output to multichannel for Roon to play 5.1+ content. In Windows I find I need to tell Roon Device Setup to "Send stereo/mono content as 7.1" (I prefer that this is not needed in Linux with my set-up).

4. Installed latest Kodi (version 21 still being actively developed so will update once awhile) for my movies and video library. Pointed Kodi to my movies directory on the network Server computer. Make sure to enter Kodi's settings and enable bit-streaming of DTS Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD which will allow lossless Atmos (and DTS-HD Master Audio + dts:X) playback assuming your HDMI receiver can decode.

Audio bitstreaming through Windows Kodi including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Kodi has no problems switching between SDR and HDR10 on my screen. Dolby Vision is still out of reach in Windows. Will discuss more below.

5. Feel free to try out Windows HQPlayer now that AVX2 instructions are available. I see the latest version at time of testing is 5.0.0:

The Beelink EQ12's N100 CPU has no problems with smoothly playing back my "Ideal Megatap" PCM and "Audiophile Choice" DSD256 settings discussed previously. With the extra processing speed of the N100 (the power-reduced Mini S achieved 23 GFLOPS compared to 42 GFLOPS with this newer machine "underpowered", a Raspberry Pi 4 gets somewhere between 6-12 GFLOPS depending on the setting), you should be able to push HQPlayer with more challenging settings although I honestly don't see a point. Floating-point performance is the key determinant for how well the machine runs HQPlayer.

To be honest, after years of playing with filter settings (like these, discussions like this, and programs like this), I think the excitement around digital filtering has long passed for most audiophiles; it has been awhile now since media created excitement around those impulse response graphs back in 2009 purported to suggest audible differences but never teaching audiophiles what these graphs meant. I think it's clear these days that differences are at best subtle (even with extreme minimum vs. linear settings), software like Roon already provides excellent PCM upsampling options, and while I have not tested it yet, I suspect Roon's DSD upsampling is excellent as well. Feel free to experiment with HQPlayer of course which remains the "gold standard" due to the huge number of subtle options you can play with. Comparatively, the Chord M-Scaler's "megataps" PCM upsampling seems limited in what it does, for the asking price, and power consumption.

6. To further save power, let's allow the computer to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity and if I don't do anything for 3 hours, then it's probably safe to say I've gone to sleep for the night already and the computer can hibernate until the next time:

Unless I have the TV on for movies, normally I run Roon streaming "headless" with monitor off but HDMI connected to the AV receiver for music. "Turn off display" will shut down the HDMI output which terminates the Roon output device and is why we keep it on until sleep time at 30 minutes.

Normally, when streaming music, there would be no mouse or keyboard movement to tell the computer to stay awake. Therefore, let's use network activity as the indicator that something's streaming in the background and not fall asleep, let's install Coffee_FF and put in some parameters as below:

Since the EQ12 has very fast dual 2.5GbE ports, make sure you're configuring Coffee_FF for the correct one which can be identified as the one with activity when playing some music through Roon for example. I set the download threshold to 100KB/s. So long as the ethernet is receiving content above that speed, the machine will stay awake for another 30 minutes (the power setting sleep time). Check the "Prevent display standby" item to keep the HDMI audio output on.

Run Coffee_FF with Administrator privileges and go into the 'Extra' tab to get it to run automatically at Windows boot-up.

Run with Administrator privileges.

For the Beelink EQ12, when asleep, power utilization is <1W and basically no power used when hibernating. When asleep the computer wakes up very quickly as RAM contents are maintained whereas in hibernation mode, RAM contents are dumped to the SSD and it'll take a few more seconds to load.

Given how little power is used in sleep mode already, it's not unreasonable to turn off hibernate altogether (go into "Change advanced power settings", "Sleep" → "Allow hybrid sleep" → Off) if you prefer.

7. I ran into an issue where the computer would not stay asleep with my Logitech K400 keyboard/trackpad (it's the rear USB-A or USB-C ports that will wake from sleep). Download and install the Logitech SetPoint software as a start. If that still doesn't work, using the command "powercfg /lastwake" (Adminstrator Command Prompt), I saw that the keyboard's "HID-compliant mouse" driver seems to be sending signals once awhile to wake the computer up. I went ahead and turned off the "wake the computer" option. For example:

You can also use the command powercfg -devicequery wake_armed to see which other devices might wake the computer up. The command powercfg -devicedisablewake "device name" can be used to turn off devices in the list causing the Windows machine to stay awake.

 

Over the years, I've run into situations where devices like the Realtek Audio driver or the network adaptors might also prevent machines from sleeping or staying asleep. Keep an eye on those if you notice any trouble.

DSD256 to Sabaj A20d 2022 DAC. No problem either through Roon server-side upsampling or processed in HQPlayer on the Beelink.

Summary...

This covers basically what I'll be using the Beelink EQ12 MiniPC for in my sound/media room. With these power and fan settings, as a multichannel Roon Bridge streamer, CPU demand is low and essentially the device is silent; I literally need to get within a foot to the computer to hear the fan after hours of playing music.

Being a generic Windows 11 PC, I can happily listen to music while surfing the web on my TV, or maybe watch some YouTube or Netflix, etc. Maybe install JRiver (now can bitstream to HDMI for Atmos) or Audirvana if I want other audio player options. Streaming service apps like the new native Apple Music for Windows is now able to handle lossless hi-res but not Spatial Audio yet - hopefully soon since enabling multichannel output is trivial these days; it's whether they want to and I bet that has to do with non-technical licensing and copy protection questions.

The idea of allowing bitstreaming from Roon to a digital interface like HDMI so we can run Atmos or dts:X content would be a natural evolutionary step as well. This would be a nice way to access Dolby/DTS multichannel content not just locally but through services like Tidal and Qobuz.

Kodi remains an excellent app to maintain and play one's movie library.

As these low-power MiniPCs continue to advance, speed becomes less of an issue with this 12th Gen Intel N100 processor certainly feeling snappy and the graphics capabilities well-suited as a 4K/60fps/HDR video player. I also appreciate the reasonably fast NVMe SSD speed on this inexpensive computer.

I'm very happy with what this little unobtrusive machine can do and I think many "computer audiophiles" and HTPC hobbyists can put this to good use.

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To end, I thought it would be worthwhile spending a few moments on Kodi and HDR playback in Windows.

While Kodi can seamlessly switch between SDR and HDR10 modes on my TV, and it can detect the presence of Dolby Vision in the movie file (eg. MKV), alas, Dolby Vision playback is not possible on Windows machines for the time being at least. As expected, it's about Dolby's licensing so unless some day the proprietary stuff can be reverse-engineered freely, it likely won't happen soon and of questionable legality even if someone does it. This is one area where the AppleTV 4K + Infuse has the upper hand in my system. I believe the only streaming device these days that can do lossless TrueHD-Atmos plus Dolby Vision remains the nVidia Shield which I don't think has been hardware updated since 2019. No need to fret however because generally the difference between standard HDR10, Dolby Vision and HDR10+ is actually quite minimal.

It's sort of like how hi-res 24-bit audio might only be perceptible if the recording itself is truly of higher resolution with lower-than-16-bits noise floor, and you're listening in a room with very low noise floor.

In the video world, this means you basically will need to be viewing your TV with lights out in a dark room, and your monitor hitting >1000 nits with great contrast of course to perhaps see benefits from the extra dynamic metadata of HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. Personally, that amount of dynamic range is too often uncomfortable and causes eye strain for me. So, in real-world viewing, a well-graded HDR10 ultra high resolution 4K image is likely more than good enough for almost every situation despite the static tone curve used through the movie.

Getting content in HDR10+ (10-bits dynamic tone mapping) and Dolby Vision (up to 12-bits + dynamic tone mapping), is like getting hi-res 24-bit audio. Yes, it's objectively capable of an even better image, but you probably won't notice much unless you perform careful side-by-side evaluation. I have never seen the results of one done, but I wonder if one did a "blind test" using the same high-quality TV model with one set playing an HDR10 video and the other the same movie in Dolby Vision, both optimally encoded, whether viewers would show strong preferences for one or the other?

Nabbed this comparison from video here.

Realize that some people still prefer SDR over HDR which IMO is a fine subjective preference despite objectively the smaller color gamut and lower dynamic range in SDR. That overall brighter image in SDR can definitely be preferable in many settings or if you want ambient lighting to reduce eye strain. I see an analogy of sorts between the limitations of vinyl and the greater dynamic range of well-mastered digital audio in that vinyl playback can still feel more comfortable, and sounds great for some listeners in certain settings, despite technical inferiorities.

These days, I'm happy to encode ripped movies using Dolby Vision Profile 8.1 which is compatible with HDR10. Typically, the DV metadata only adds about 30-40MB of data on top of the 10-bit HEVC movie video stream which is trivial. This way Kodi has no problems with turning HDR10 on in Windows and perhaps one day, if DV support becomes available too, it can take advantage of that extra quality layer with a Dolby Vision capable TV. When playing over AppleTV with the Infuse app, the current version 7.5 supports Profile 8 but the compromise is that Apple still doesn't support lossless TrueHD-Atmos audio bitstreams. Decisions, decisions... :-|

Finally, just a quick word about the fact that modern CPUs like the Intel N100 have hardware support for the new AV1 video codec (license-free, evolved from Google VP9). Certainly great that codecs move forward with high quality image achieved through lower bitrates! It has been estimated that AV1 can provide a similar-quality image as HEVC with 20-30% lower data rate - fantastic. However, the price to pay is computational complexity. At this time, software like Handbrake can already encode AV1 but it takes something like 4x longer to encode the same video in software versus HEVC/H.265. With storage space so cheap these days, that tradeoff doesn't appear worthwhile yet until CPUs can get the job done much faster.

Recently, I was looking to upgrade my CPU from the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X to an Intel i9-13900 (the lower TDP 65W model looks very interesting). However, justifying what I would use this CPU for got me thinking about video encoding which is the main hours-long number-cruncher app I would use from time to time since I wouldn't be playing games on my main workstation. Even though the i9 scores about 2x the Ryzen 9 in benchmarks like CPUMark, it still would not be particularly fast encoding AV1. For very large projects, GPU-based encoding (like the nVidia RTX-40 series) makes sense although historically I've preferred the image quality and smaller file size of optimized software encoding.

Basically I'm still trying to find a good excuse to upgrade my workstation CPU. ;-)

While I think AV1 might make sense for large streaming services like Netflix, or YouTube, or maybe Apple TV+ (Apple is usually slow to support codecs they didn't directly develop) where a 20-30% bitrate reduction could be very significant streamed to millions of screens, I suspect for home users, HEVC/H.265 will remain the video codec of choice for awhile longer. We also need to see more hardware compatibility - like support in AppleTVs or next generation nVidia Shields.

In preparation to check out the new Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse soon, I watched the digital copy of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) again in Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. Fantastic sound and graphics; hopefully the new movie is a worthy follow-up (so far IMDB rates it very highly).

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Finally, to end off on an audiophile note, here's what looks like an unintentionally funny video showing even more craziness in audiophilia:

Insanely priced US$80k and US$40k Transparent Magnum Opus speaker cables and XLRs. Hilarious that it's "calibrated" to a Boulder amp and Magico speakers at 70°F (they couldn't even get the typing right?). I wonder what kind of "calibration" this is; presumably some change to the filter network inductors in the massive box to achieve a target frequency response (probably just subtle low-pass filtering?). Good grief, what ever happened to the best wire being "no wire"? Why would I want a cable company sell me a low-pass EQ curve, coloring the sound in a way that's not even published/quantified at this kind of price? Apparently it takes 2 weeks to recalibrate and US$9500 if you want to "recertify" from Transparent if bought used for the speaker cables and US$4500 for the XLRs! LOL, what an awesome business model to tax from the secondary market, continue to perpetuate and then selling cultish fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

I find Jay's character fascinating even if I don't think he's very insightful, realizing that most people (and I think even most audiophiles) simply would find this entertaining in a "laugh at you", comical buffoonery kind of way. I suppose he has some awareness of the company's ridiculousness on full display to the world here when he repeatedly suggested that we not "shoot (him) the messenger", and that it's the "craziest" product he has ever laid his money down on. I find it particularly disturbing when he said (12:50, bold added for emphasis):

"First, although I would say that I have not heard the Magnum Opus, I have no doubt in my mind that I am going to be in for a treat. At $80,000, I have high expectations for this speaker cable. ... [He then talks about the cable brand he represents/sells]... But I don't expect my cable brand to be able to take on an $80,000 speaker cable..."

Why don't you believe your cable line can take on the Transparent, Jay? You're not just a messenger; you're an actual believer, one of the "faithful" in this cultish "high end" company by talking like this as if $80,000 means anything than just a number they decided to lure/hook susceptible consumers with. What do you think can be so amazing about these cables compared to your cables?

Seriously, in a blind listening test not influenced by price tag and appearances, I don't see why even this US$40 roll of 12AWG OFC copper cable (previously measured), at 10' length connecting your Boulder amp and Wilson speakers, would have any trouble taking on the Transparent for high fidelity, "transparent" audio reproduction at 1/2000th the price. Sticking a filter network between amp and speaker isn't exactly preserving ultimate resolution! That filter might be audible but I bet some might not be happy with the toned down high frequency extension if the effect is large!

Why are you so hung up about money, believing that there's correlation between price and fidelity on things like this? I do not believe this is how intelligent, well-to-do audiophiles see things in this hobby. ;-)

Seriously folks, while it's entertaining occasionally looking at stuff like this, make sure to think critically and don't "have such an open mind, your brain falls out". IMO, this is one of those obvious situations where it's simply best to not spend money on nonsensical snake oil, so as to discourage greedy/delusional individuals, companies and the "High End" industry from perpetually making stuff like this. It's the only way companies can respect that customers are not simply stupid audiophools (here's another example of such products).

Hope you're enjoying the music and movies, friends.