Sceptic over Server Differences now puzzled ?

[Bencat]

Okay I have to say from the start that I have not been someone who had ever heard a Server that made a sonic difference and i have heard a number of expensive and cheaper makes like various Linn's Naim , Bluesound (as server only) etc .

For the best part of nine or ten years I have used a Raspberry Pi as a stand alone server with a USB HD connected and using max2play distro to load Logitech Media Server . So much so normal if cheap compared to many other incarnations .

Over the years a Pi models moved from 2 to 3 to B+ and then to 4 I have upgraded the server to a new model mainly for increased speed and never noticed any sonic improvement. Now for the last year or more (or from when they were announced memeory is terrible) I have used a Raspberry Pi 4 4gb unit as my stand alone server with USB HD attached . It has worked well sounded great and been very quick and repsonsive . A rogue power supply took the Pi 4 4gb out the other day and it is not possible to get them repaired so a spare 2gb Pi 4 was pressed in to use and everyhting was just as it was perhaps a little slower but not so much as you would really notice.

When I was ordering the replacement I was just about to hit the button for another 4 gb when a pop up said had I considered the new 8 gb option . Well to be truthful no and the jump up in price was quite a bit and i could not really see what gains it would give me . Quick read about it and there was the chance that it would be quicker smoother and more responsive so what the hell bought one anyway .

When it arrived the original SD card already set up from the 4 gb unit was taken out of the 2 gb sub unit and just inserted straight in to the Pi 4 8 gb and the same standard Pi 4 psu connected . As normal took a couple on minutes for the unit to set itself up and appear on the network then straigh on to the PC and open Material Skin . Decided it would be best to do a clear and full Library scan and make sure things were in order. The unit did this in 21 minutes which for 53398 tracks and all the artist photos etc is very rapid as a first tie set up . Straight rescans when new music is added is taking less than two minutes .

So put on the bedroom active system and did the normal My Music , Random Mix , Song Mix and the first track started to play . I stopped typing and just listened because the whole system just sounded so good and I had no reason as to why . Using the Pi 8 gb the background is now really quiet , vocals using the actives are more natural and sound more my Quad ESL57 which is more real . Bass is more textured and easier to follow as a seperate part but also fits in more as a real part of the total sound. The Stacked KEF 103's I use have lots of good points but being used hard against a wall means imaging has to sacraficed a little well not now the image is wider and individuals are better defined .

None of this makes any sense and trying the Kitchen set up which is a very modest Pi with Justboom Amphat in to Rogers wall speakers also showed up the improvements which has to mean this is all down to the Pi being used as a server .

If you are thinking of doing your own homw server set up with Raspberry Pi's then I would certainly advise that you use an 8 gb as the stand alone server or server/player I do not think it will make any difference to just players but then again I do not know. This is now the best music I have heard on all my systems ever and is a huge bonus that I was not expecting . My main system is not working but i can not wait to get that up and running and hear what it sounds like now .

[Alp]

Damn, I have a spare RPI4 (4GB) that I had been using with PiCorePlayer as a streamer (over USB) but replaced it with an Asus Tinkerboard. As an experiment, I recently tried it running LMS and a 500GB SSD to avoid wireless hops to my NAS running LMS but I could not hear any difference. I might just have to try the 8GB version...

[Bencat]

Sorry this shoould have been the correct title but for some reason predicitive put sgr instead .

[PaulBarnett]

Prompted by your post, I've just spent a few days experimenting with different Pi versions. My system is rpi/allo signature -> rme adi-2 dac > active nytech/arc amp & speakers.

Software is picoreplayer 6.1.0 on the player and LMS server, either 7.9.2 on a VM, or 8.0.0 on the same Pi. music is stored on a NAS.

I started with a PI3(1Gb), then swapped to a Pi4(4Gb) that I happened to have already. and then to a new Pi4(8Gb)

And I heard an astonishing improvement just going from the Pi3 to Pi4/4Gb - much as you described - more real vocals, cleaner bass, just more enjoyable.

BUT - that change was going from Pi3 to Pi4. I did not hear any convincing difference going from Pi4 4Gb to 8Gb, nor from moving the LMS server to the Pi, nor from going from LMS 7.9.2 to LMS 8

I'm sure that the 4Gb to 8Gb should have NO impact. And that's what I (didn't) hear. Today my Pi4 is only using 1.5Gb of ram. Having 2.5Gb or 6.5Gb unused cannot make a difference. (I'm a software guy - I KNOW this.) Is it possible that the Pi4/8GB, being a later version, has had other changes, apart from ram, from the 4Gb model?

But I have no idea why going from Pi3 to Pi4 should make a difference either (but it did for me). But this was a much bigger change in h/w - faster cpu, 1G -> 4G ram, better usb and network h/w, so at least an improvement here is possible. (and the fact that my Pi4 today is using 1.5Gb ram implies that the 1Gb Pi3 was at least partly constrained by ram (but not the Pi4/4Gb)

And moving LMS from a separate machine to the Pi4 made no audible difference, but it's more convenient there, so I'll leave it as is.

So more questions than answers - sorry.

A thought - you heard a difference moving to an 8Gb Pi4 from a 2GB one, which subsequently 'blew up'. Could the 2GB pi have been faulty in some way, and havecontributed to the differences you heard?

But bottom line. my PI-based streamer sounds better today than last week, after changes prompted by your post, so thank you.

[Bencat]

Hi Paul things in IT are never simple are they ? We would all like to have certainties in these things and often believe this to be the case but it never is . Thank you for at least trying the changes that is good for others . I am not any sort of expert in any of this but have used a Raspberry Pi and LMS for over ten years and have learned over the years how to make them work .

Firstly just so the sequence and the details are correct . I used a Raspberry Pi 4 4gb unit as my server from about the first week they were produced. The Pi was killed while it had been working by a PSU failing and blowing the board . Up till the PSU issue there was no issue with the Pi 4 4gb . I used the Pi4 2gb as a stop gap because I had this unit spare so I still had music until the Pi 4 8gb arrived.

Now as I mentioned in my case there was no improvement at all between Pi 1 , Pi 2 , Pi 3 and Pi 4 as each was changed . Things got quicker and smoother and had less latency but so far as I can remember no sound improvement . The both Pi 4 units 2gb and 4gb were bought from the first batch when the Pi 4 was released . The Pi 4 8gb was of course a new unit from probably a much later production and not being the type to obsessively read latest things Pi there may well have been changes and upgrades by the time this was produced that are not in the two original 4 units I bought . But the sound audio jump you describe from Pi 3 to Pi 4 is exactly what I am talking about . As I still have the Pi 4 2gb and even a spare Pi 3 I can change them over very quickly and it is easy to hear the drop off in sound quality compared with the Pi 4 8gb . So still no definitive idea what is making the difference . As you say it is unlikely to be the increased RAM as acting as a stand alone music server is not a very heavy task . I can only conclude that newer Pi 4 models have changes that are doing something right . You can be certain I am not going to complain and will take the sound improvement as a huge bonus . What can now be possibly said is that any of the new Pi 4 production can offer the sound quality uplift just try and get as new a production unit as you can .

[PaulBarnett]

So to summarise, I think: It looks like the improvements are real, ie we have both heard them. And it looks like the changes happened somewhere between Pi3s and earlier, and current 8G Pi4s, We cannot tell exactly when without more testing, and both of us probably wont be doing that testing as we are both now happy, and have better things to do with our time.

I wonder if there will be a Pi 5 ?

[Alp]

Interesting. From what I have read, the 8GB and 4GB versions are identical except for RAM. The 4GB version seems to be using swap space on the disk when running LMS. Perhaps, the 8GB version does everything in RAM. Otherwise I have no idea why it would sound better.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[PaulBarnett]

Interesting. From what I have read, the 8GB and 4GB versions are identical except for RAM. The 4GB version seems to be using swap space on the disk when running LMS. Perhaps, the 8GB version does everything in RAM. Otherwise I have no idea why it would sound better.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

My 4Gb Pi 4, even when running LMS as well as squeezelite, only used 1.5G of the 4G available. It did not touch swap. My 8Gb Pi does the same.

I have no idea why your 4GB Pi used swap and mine did not. How big is your music library? Mine is about 10,000 tracks.

Later: it looks like there have been hardware changes. My 4Gb Pi4 is pcb version, 1.1, but the 8Gb is 1.4. Revision codes c03111 and d03114 - see here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/document...odes/README.md - looks like there have been two versions at least of the 1, 2, and 4Gb Pi4s.

(revision codes obtained from pcp main page -> diagnostics -> Raspberry Pi)

But still no detail on what actually changed....

[Bencat]

In some ways Paul this starts to make a little more sense of our different experiences . As I mentioned th Pi 4 4gb and 2gb units were bought within the first week of release for the Pi 4 the 2gb show1.0 version but not able to test the 4gb unit but would expect the same . The 8 gb is similar to yours and shows 1.4 . It would seem as the Pi 4 has been revised and changed that this has had an effect but as you say there does not seem any way to find out what the chages were in order to perhaps understand the change in sound quality . One thing is very easy to see is the much better speeds that the 3.0 USB port on the 8 gb unit gives over the 2gb unit . Ran some speed trials on them both and the 8 gb is around 35 % faster . I know that they had some early issues with USB and overheating well the 8 gb is stable in temp and stays around 42/3 deg constantly which is fine as the unit s specified to 80 deg so always running in specification .

[mr1macuk]

Only other thought that may make a small difference. I assume your using same PSU for both devices??