Air Lens available

[AnotherJohnson]

Get ‘em while they’re hot

https://www.psaudio.com/products/airlens

[Wildcat]

Must still be hot. The UPS man was generous today.

PXL_20230909_211944773-01.jpeg (2.45 MiB) Viewed 7912 times

I'm only listening at low volume given the time of day, but even at this volume it does sound different from my previous setup (essentially a computer via USB). I need to wait a couple of days before I can really give it a workout.

This had to be the easiest streaming component I've ever set up. Plug in the power cord, connect I2S cable (HDMI) to the DAC, plug in Ethernet cable, flip the switch, aaaand...done. Go over to the computer and Roon is already showing it in the list to be enabled. Click "Enable" and everything's done.

I still need to hear this louder and with some well-recorded classical music. But so far, the improvements are reduced brightness, yet it sounds more precise and clean (less "grunge" maybe?). This is anything from CD-resolution to 24/192 and DSD (ripped from SACD).

I still have my previous setup ready and I could easily play both sources and do an easy comparison with the remote for the DAC, switching between inputs (USB and I2S).

[admin]

Very nice. PS Audio is really a big believer in galvanic isolation. Perhaps that is a potential area of improvement using the air lens vs the direct connection via the previous method.

Definitely let us know what you think once you have some more time with it. Are you using only local ripped content or also using streaming services?

[Wildcat]

So far I've only listened to files from my NAS, but Qobuz is in the mix as well. I may have a few minutes this afternoon to give it a listen but otherwise, I'll be able to give it a true workout during the coming week.

I almost went a slightly different route by purchasing a Denafrips Hermes, as it performs a similar galvanic isolation/precision reclocking as well as offering a handful of digital inputs. I may still get one in the future for any other digital sources but I don't have an additional I2S input to work with now. (I could use the coaxial input on the DAC, but that's not ideal.) The Hermes is a DDC (digital-to-digital converter). The AirLens does provide the streaming function, though, and is shielded well enough that it can live in the audio rack, so it solves a couple of issues for me.

Now I'm really torn as to whether I play vinyl or the AirLens. Been enjoying the heck out of the current turntable setup! First world problem, I know.

My next hurdle is that I'd like to try to get Roon Server running on Ubuntu. My last two attempts failed due to a network issue (Roon Server ran fine, but due to some Ubuntu issue, it's not discoverable on the network and therefore the streamer and the tablets/phones can't find it.) It does run well on Windows 11 but since I've been having a few issues lately with system interrupts taking over the CPU and causing Roon Server to freeze up until the interrupts are released, I wanted to see if another OS might get around that.

[admin]

Certainly first world problems. Good to have them.

Denafrips/PS Audio,.. you really can't go wrong. Odd to have those issues with the computer. You can always try a complete reinstall of Windows. Sometimes that will fix those kinds of issues up. Or sometimes you can just buy a new computer for very low cost. I'm traveling currently and I am typing this on a laptop that cost me $100 new (and shipping). It gets the job done.

[Wildcat]

The system interrupts issue came up on this computer only over the past few months. But my main/work computer had long ongoing issues with it which I temporarily solved by disabling the virtual Ethernet switches (for Hyper-V).

I don't have Hyper-V on the Intel NUC that is running Roon Server, but the system interrupts tend to point to a hardware issue or some sort of incompatibilty with device drivers. But even on this little computer, it seems that when network traffic is heavier, it goes on the blink.

Roon does offer an installable OS (Roon ROCK = Roon Optimized Core Kit) which is a headless, lightweight version of Linux that is optimized for their software. But I prefer having Windows available for a couple of other minor tasks, or at the very least, the equivalent in Ubuntu. And from the looks of it, I doubt I could use ROCK in a multi-boot configuration, as I do now with Win 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. I'm at the point where I might "blow out" Win11 and reinstall but on the other hand, could it have been an update along the way that caused this? At least if I can get Ubuntu working properly, I can simply reboot and put the problem behind me.

Aside from that, it's sounding really good at the moment. I'm streaming that new album from Kevin Gray's Cohearant label, the Kirsten Edkins Shapes & Sound. Very nice! Qobuz has it at 24/176.4.

[admin]

Dual boot may be a good option as you suggest.

If you can narrow it down to the specific hardware, you may be able to turn it off in the device manager of windows. My wife's computer's internal wifi card on her laptop was causing problems. We got a usb wifi adapter instead and I disabled the internal one and it worked well. Just some other things to consider.

[Wildcat]

The NUC has WiFi and Bluetooth if I'm not mistaken, but I use neither one. On my main computer, I actually deactivated the on-board Ethernet and video in the BIOS, so they are completely out of the loop. I don't even think I've been into the BIOS on the NUC--it has worked fine up until a few months ago. And even then the problem doesn't occur all the time.

My laptop has never had this issue. The only thing going for it now is age--it's ten years old and the keyboard is getting flaky. But otherwise it's been working without a hitch.

[admin]

Maybe the drivers for the older hardware are getting to the point that they are not 100% compatible with Windows 11. When that computer was made, there was no windows 10, much less 11! Again, maybe a cheap but modern computer may be the best option.

[Wildcat]

This NUC isn't that old, and they have current generations available as well. I built it later in the Win10 era. And it worked great on Win11 up until recently. I'm almost wondering if some OS or driver upgrade or bug fix caused this--highly possible. I think the 23H2 upgrade is coming a month from now, so I may wait for that to see if anything changes. Either way, I don't store anything of value on it so I may end up doing what you mentioned and doing a clean install of Win11. The Ubuntu is no loss, as I want to wipe and reinstall that as well.

Poor me. I'd have to spin vinyl all day while I work on the computer...

[admin]

Yes, you have a very hard life!

[Wildcat]

First world problems, and all that...

[Wildcat]

Dual boot may be a good option as you suggest.

I actually solved this by wiping off Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and installing 22.04 LTS. The networking worked right out of the box with Roon Server, and that's where it's been ever since. If anything, the server actually runs a little better under Ubuntu. (It also accesses the NAS where all my files are stored elsewhere on the network, and the NAS runs SSDs, so it is also quite responsive.)

I wanted to upgrade the NUC to 24.04 LTS back in August when it became available for upgrade, but I run some online servers and tried upgrading one to 24.04 and it killed the networking. I can sort of fix it, but haven't been able to get my modifications to "stick." So while it's a "disposable" server (it's only for Elasticsearch, and I can easily create a new virtual machine and reindex data to the server), it worried me enough that I avoided upgrading the NUC to 24.04. I do daily backups of the Roon database so I won't lose anything if I have to wipe Ubuntu completely adn start over. But...I'd rather not.

But my computer woes really went through the roof a month ago. I needed to build a new system and needed it capable of editing 4K60P video, as my old system (which was the top Intel CPU in 2015) couldn't even preview video in the editor, and rendering a 24 minute video was an overnight process. I built the new system around a Radeon RX7800XT video card and a motherboard with i9-14900K CPU. Only, after assembling it and firing it up for the firt time, it shut off after half a second with a "00" error on the motherboard, which points to a non-responding CPU. Found on the motherboard manufacturer's forum another system builder who had the same issue with two of nearly the same CPU (14900KF, the F meaning it has onboard video) and same motherboard model as mine. Long story short, with some back and forth between himself and Intel, they believe he may have gotten a counterfeit and/or altered CPU from Amazon. Which is where I got mine. Thankfully my return window is up to Jan 31, so I'm sending it back this week.

Once we got home from the (somewhat disastrous) road trip, I stewed on this for a week, debating going the AMD route for CPU and motherboard, but the other system builder had tried other CPUs (including the i9-13900KF, which is the prior generation of our CPU) and had no issues at all. Ordered the same CPU for mine, and here I am up and running with the new system. And I doubt I'd notice any performance difference between the 13th and 14th gen, to be honest.

And thanks to the added horsepower, I can render video in nearly realtime (1 minute rendering for one minute of video), and preview in the editor even at "Best" quality does not stutter at all. The motherboard uses PCIe 5th generation, so the m2 SSD I use is in a "blazing" SSD slot which is supposed to be quite fast, and I notice no bottleneck at all. 64GB of memory to start with, although while running the video editor and Photoshop at the same time with generous memory settings, I'm nowhere near running out of memory just yet.

As for the AirLens? It's still a nice companion for the digital side of the system. If things improve here later this year or in early 2026, I might finally upgrade the DirectStream Jr. to the DirectStream v2. Then I'd be completely done with the digital side of the system. The AirLens is easy to use since it is so transparent when used with Roon Remote. No complaints at all.

In the short term though, we have a lot of major expenses coming up in the next few months. I don't even think travel is in the cards for this year.

[admin]

Glad things are going well and the new computer is up and running. Sounds like a powerhouse. My PC is getting to be about a decade old and I think I'm going to get a new computer in the next year or so. It does not meet all the requirements of Windows 11 and Microsoft is stopping official support later this year for Windows 10. Without security updates it's going to be a liability.

BTW- if you end up thinking about using linux (or maybe dual booting on the new computer), I highly recommend using Linux Mint. It's very stable, well supported, and I've been running it on one of my older laptops for probably close to decade.

Hopefully those upcoming expenses won't be too bad. The stereo can wait, but take those vacations to get a little rest and relaxation!

[Wildcat]

I found better workaround recently to install Win11 on older computers. At first there were a series of registry edits or other changes to fool Win11 into installing (including some third party installers that would do this for me), and I used that on two of my computers. But I found that Windows Update would not download any updates, especially the major updates like 24H2 or 23H1, etc. There were a couple of install flags to get around a couple of the hurdles except for the TPM.

The workaround? Download the install file, but install it as a Server product. I did that on the desktop computer I replaced.

Granted, it already had the changes I made to install Win11 the first time, and my install was actually an upgrade. But...I guess installing as Server allows it to bypass the requirements. When I ran the installer to upgrade to 24H2 (which I had to download to a USB flash drive), it complained about "requirements not met" as usual but when starting it at a command line with the "server" flag, it went through flawlessly. I guess the principle is that organizations can choose to bypass the strict requirements, and installing it as a "server" product enables that, while not affecting any of the functionality of Windows 11 as a desktop OS. (And confusingly, Windows Server is a separate product...which this install method is not.)

I used the instructions on this page:

https://pureinfotech.com/install-window ... _windows11

...then scrolled down to this section (which the link above should do):

"Upgrade to Windows 11 on unsupported hardware from Command Prompt"

I ran it from the command prompt by changing to the "/sources" directory, and typing "setupprep /product server". It installed perfectly, and until I stopped using the computer last week, it was downloading all the regular updates I would expect.

I can't say I'd 100% recommend it, but maybe...90%? It's a good stopgap until we can update hardware.

Any license for Win10 will automatically work for Win11. I believe it's automatic but it still helps to have the activation code handy.

My laptop is now 12 years old and works well enough in limited use (browsing, email, Word, Excel) that I don't plan on replacing it. So this is a good way I can keep it going. I am probably going to do its upgrade to 24H2 later this week using the same "server" method if I have time.

[admin]

The problems with that work around is:
1) It's not supported. So if you ever have an issue, it's difficult to official get support. For the tech savvy, such as yourself, this may not be a deterrent.
2) That loophole can bee closed at any time. Even the article you linked to was updated as the previous command lines no longer work. Who knows how long MS will allow this workaround?
3) Critical updates (or any for that matter) are not pushed so it really takes a lot of effort to keep the system up to date. Especially with zero day exploits.

[Wildcat]

As to #3, I was getting weekly (or more frequent) updates with the "server" version of the install. It's as if I had the full, genuine installation, which surprised me. My earlier attempt did not provide any regular updates, except maybe to Defender.

I do get the point about the support--I tend to do all my own support work (our systems and devices at home, and remote servers I administer as part of my day job) so it's not an issue. If anything, I see the workarounds as a temporary measure to use Win11 until hardware can be upgraded. Or, for something unimportant like my old laptop--if all else failed, I could drop Ubuntu on it and carry on.

But that said, I can understand why they might want to have the TPM support for security, yet it's rather presumptuous for them to assume everyone can go out and buy new hardware to support their current OS.

[Wildcat]

Update to the AirLens--the newest firmware adds Qobuz Connect, which was officially launched by Qobuz at the Munich show. Now, rather than using the clunky mcontrol/mplayer app or using it through Roon, a Qobuz app on a phone or tablet can stream directly to the AirLens. I probably will stick to using Roon as it's much more convenient in my situation (I listen primarily to my own music library vs. using Qobuz). It's good to have that capability though.