audio bliss by reinstalling MacOS Monterey?

[Nick B]

I have always had the Roon core on my Mac desktops. First one was a used 2009 model and the current one is a 2017 that I bought used a couple of years ago. As soon as I got it, I noticed that it ran much slower than I thought a 2017 model should run. I’ve been on tech support with a couple of Apple  senior advisors and things improved a bit, but not much. Tonight I reinstalled MacOS Monterey and it seems to be running a lot faster. The music tonight via Roon is so good….. either I’m just lucky with my music selection or less strain on the processor has resulted in a significant improvement. There is increased clarity, more separation around instruments and singers, excellent tonality. I usually get dropouts every night, but 0 tonight. My internet is broadcast over a tower and the speed has been between 13 and 23 Mbps. I could switch to some really crappy recordings, but I’m so enjoying the sound right now because I’m finding new (old) albums on Roon and I don’t want to interrupt their search algorithm. My assumption was that if the processor was struggling, I’d get dropouts, but it wouldn’t affect the quality of the sound.
Opinions welcome.

[steve]

I am glad the computer is working better and sounds much better Nick.
I have noticed my windows will sometimes run slow, or firefox doesn't seem right. A reinstall seems to help.

Cheers and continued good listening.

steve

[Nick B]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses. I listened again last evening and it was not a one time phenomenon. The improvement is permanent and substantial. I’ve certainly read about minimum operating requirements as to ram and processor speed, but really nothing about the computer operating at less than maximum efficiency and how that might affect the sound quality.

[P.I.]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses. I listened again last evening and it was not a one time phenomenon. The improvement is permanent and substantial. I’ve certainly read about minimum operating requirements as to ram and processor speed, but really nothing about the computer operating at less than maximum efficiency and how that might affect the sound quality.

The best audio reproduction from a Mac comes from having a machine with a clean install of ONLY what is NEEDED.  Back in the day there was a tytorial on what all to turn off in OS X to free up processing power an lower noise by eliminating programs running in th background.  Mad a sizeable difference in SQ.  Those mods were nothing compared to the dB Audio Labs software package.  The differences are night and day. The depth and diensionality of the soundstage is vastly enhanced as are timbral qualities of the instrument(s) or vocalist(s).  My friend Darrel McCombs modified the OS X source code: OSX is similar to UNIX.  By eliminating and/or turning off facets of OS X, he was able to eliminate several MILLION lines of superfluous code. 

IIRC The Tres Hombres (Pete - TWL, Gary Dewes - Border Patrol and Greg Roberts (Volti Audio) all use Macs with the dBAL software at shows.

A properly set up Mac with a great USB cable into a worthy DAC can give a very honest picture of musical performances.

Eric Hider (dBAL) still does upgrades on Macs if you are interested. PM me if you are interested.

[Triode Pete]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses. I listened again last evening and it was not a one time phenomenon. The improvement is permanent and substantial. I’ve certainly read about minimum operating requirements as to ram and processor speed, but really nothing about the computer operating at less than maximum efficiency and how that might affect the sound quality.

The best audio reproduction from a Mac comes from having a machine with a clean install of ONLY what is NEEDED.  Back in the day there was a tytorial on what all to turn off in OS X to free up processing power an lower noise by eliminating programs running in th background.  Mad a sizeable difference in SQ.  Those mods were nothing compared to the dB Audio Labs software package.  The differences are night and day. The depth and diensionality of the soundstage is vastly enhanced as are timbral qualities of the instrument(s) or vocalist(s).  My friend Darrel McCombs modified the OS X source code: OSX is similar to UNIX.  By eliminating and/or turning off facets of OS X, he was able to eliminate several MILLION lines of superfluous code. 

IIRC The Tres Hombres (Pete - TWL, Gary Dewes - Border Patrol and Greg Roberts (Volti Audio) all use Macs with the dBAL software at shows.

A properly set up Mac with a great USB cable into a worthy DAC can give a very honest picture of musical performances.

Eric Hider (dBAL) still does upgrades on Macs if you are interested. PM me if you are interested.

Hey Dave,
Yes, Eric Hider's Mac Mini software package WAS PRETTY AWESOME... However, The Tres Hombres now use dedicated Innuos Music servers at all the audio shows as well as our home systems... Another gain in music sound quality...

But... if you're using a Mac Mini, using Eric's dB Audio Labs software will get you at peak musical MAC performance...

Cheers,
Pete

[Nick B]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses. I listened again last evening and it was not a one time phenomenon. The improvement is permanent and substantial. I’ve certainly read about minimum operating requirements as to ram and processor speed, but really nothing about the computer operating at less than maximum efficiency and how that might affect the sound quality.

The best audio reproduction from a Mac comes from having a machine with a clean install of ONLY what is NEEDED.  Back in the day there was a tytorial on what all to turn off in OS X to free up processing power an lower noise by eliminating programs running in th background.  Mad a sizeable difference in SQ.  Those mods were nothing compared to the dB Audio Labs software package.  The differences are night and day. The depth and diensionality of the soundstage is vastly enhanced as are timbral qualities of the instrument(s) or vocalist(s).  My friend Darrel McCombs modified the OS X source code: OSX is similar to UNIX.  By eliminating and/or turning off facets of OS X, he was able to eliminate several MILLION lines of superfluous code. 

IIRC The Tres Hombres (Pete - TWL, Gary Dewes - Border Patrol and Greg Roberts (Volti Audio) all use Macs with the dBAL software at shows.

A properly set up Mac with a great USB cable into a worthy DAC can give a very honest picture of musical performances.

Eric Hider (dBAL) still does upgrades on Macs if you are interested. PM me if you are interested.

Thanks, Dave. Sending an email.

[tmazz]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses. I listened again last evening and it was not a one time phenomenon. The improvement is permanent and substantial. I’ve certainly read about minimum operating requirements as to ram and processor speed, but really nothing about the computer operating at less than maximum efficiency and how that might affect the sound quality.

Sorry Nick, but my lack of responsiveness was due to nothing more than the fact that I have always been a windows guy and as such have no knowledge of Mac products or software at all.

But I have to agree with Dave that as a general principle, no matter what kind of hardware you are using, the closer you can get to making your computer as single purpose machine (that purpose being playing music), the better off you are. Any activity in the machine that is not contributing to the playing of music is just getting in the way and you are better off not having it there. UIt is definitely a "less is more" kind of situation.

[Nick B]

I’m surprised by the lack of responses. I listened again last evening and it was not a one time phenomenon. The improvement is permanent and substantial. I’ve certainly read about minimum operating requirements as to ram and processor speed, but really nothing about the computer operating at less than maximum efficiency and how that might affect the sound quality.

Sorry Nick, but my lack of responsiveness was due to nothing more than the fact that I have always been a windows guy and as such have no knowledge of Mac products or software at all.

But I have to agree with Dave that as a general principle, no matter what kind of hardware you are using, the closer you can get to making your computer as single purpose machine (that purpose being playing music), the better off you are. Any activity in the machine that is not contributing to the playing of music is just getting in the way and you are better off not having it there. UIt is definitely a "less is more" kind of situation.

Thanks, Tom. I always appreciate your input. My thinking on this has been so simplistic. I have been presuming that either the processor works well enough for the music to be played or it doesn’t. But I have certainly learned something over the last few days… There is such a significant improvement now that I really wouldn’t have thought possible. I also have a couple of new audio goodies coming in that I’ll talk about another time. I keep establishing new benchmarks for performance and that’s quite exciting and rewarding, especially since I’ve been in this hobby for over 30 years. Right now the Roon core is on a 17 inch Mac desktop that is used for other functions. If I dedicate a Mac exclusively to holding the Roon core, it would be the Mac mini. Those models used to go for around $500 and then there would be the cost of installing the modified software from Eric Hider. I’ll be curious what the recommendation is…