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Tag Archive for Streamer

Introducing Erawan, the flagship streamer that brings music of the eras to life

 

Erawan - Cover

 

After 8 years of development, Fidelizer’s flagship streamer product called “Erawan” is now ready to be shipped to overseas. It took 8 years because we set the main goal of Erawan to deliver streaming quality that we won’t miss flagship CD transport.

We could have released Erawan sooner and take advantage from Nimitra’s enormous success before COVID-19 but we want to release something that won’t make you miss CD, something that even vinyl lovers will be interested to hear. This is our mission, not business.

 

To make sure Erawan will really deliver quality we strive for, we conducted internal research and development with Esoteric Grandioso K1X which was one of the best CD players in market today. After reaching on-par performance to reference CD in our systems, we brought Erawan to test outside.

We gained a lot of new experience testing products in different systems. Hearing Erawan against Esoteric Grandioso P1X SE + N-01XD SE in bigger room with bigger reference system taught us a lot more about limitations of digital audio. It brought us joy and suffering at the same time to overcome.

 

Erawan - Reference

 

We also tested Erawan with a few $50-100k turntable setup too and our goal expanded to how we can deliver full scale analogue sound experience like that with streaming as medium. We kept researching relentlessly until we success in developing flagship streamer as we envisioned.

With completely new design from ground up for both hardware and software, Erawan can stream old and new music faithfully and bring whole new experience that you can even compare to Nimitra2 and hear the difference in recorded video clip as below.

 

 

 

The biggest challenge in developing flagship streamer is reproducing full scale analogue sound performance in highend audio systems. Many audiophiles often struggle to play old favorite songs in streaming platform because it couldn’t bring the life of that era back.

Erawan will stream your favorite old and new songs faithfully and reproduce every part of music as if you travel back in time and listen to music in that era again. We developed a cutting edge technology to bring the best of old and new technology as below.

 

ErawanOS based on Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024

ErawanOS’ development started since 2019 when we finally found a promising version of Windows 10 that sounds decent after the original NimitraOS version. We have been updating until finalized ErawanOS with official Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024 release.

Since original NimitraOS, we are the first to develop streamer with process core isolation feature into audiophile market since 2016. In ErawanOS, we are the first to develop streamer with core isolation feature at hardware level into market as below.

 

CORE #1: Core Audio / Clock and Timer drivers
CORE #2: Network devices
CORE #3: USB and audio devices
CORE #4: Storage and graphics devices

 

With important hardware devices isolated to different cores at higher priority (except graphics devices), Erawan can finally stream music at higher fidelity with improved performance on both dynamics and transparency.

ErawanOS is also developed from ground up differently from NimitraOS to decrease hardware latency and jitter. There’s a lot of new and unique optimizations, combined with Windows Server 2025 optimizations and internal improvements to deliver full sound similar to real vinyl.

 

 

Flagship quality linear power supply design

Erawan flagship streamer has built-in linear power supply with completely new design for flagship highend audio quality. With completely new circuit design using voltage reference circuit. We can finally reproduce transport quality similar to flagship CD transport level.

Besides new power supply circuit design, we also use highend grade components as below:

-100VA AUDIO GRADE toroidal transformer from Toroidy
-Silicon-carbide diodes from Cree
-Polymer hybrid output capacitor
-Solid core pure copper internal wiring

With new design of flagship linear power supply, Erawan can faithfully reproduce music with fuller dynamics and yet it can reveal more micro detail and decay at the same time. This power supply helps Erawan controlling low frequency to reproduce real analogue performance.

 

Erawan - Features

 

Next generation of hardware design that can handle high performance applications

In early designs, we used to develop Erawan prototype based on Intel powerful i7 processors to handle high complexity tasks but powerful processor won’t allow us to maintain flagship CD transport level of transparency even with best power supply.

So, we develop a new solution based on more recent technologies and found new sweet spot that can maintain flagship CD transport level of transparency while providing more dynamics with scalable processor design with ultra low latency RAM.

As a result, Erawan can maintain the same principle of being low powered design similar to Nimitra. However, this next generation design is capable of handling powerful tasks like DSD256 upsampling as Roon core and Audirvana for better performance.

We also upgraded clock in motherboard’s chipset and storage to further reduce jitter at more fundamental levels with new technology of components. Now Erawan can have both transparency of low powered and full scale sound of powerful processor, best of both worlds.

 

Separated USB/Ethernet ports for optimal audio performance

Erawan now comes with two separated ethernet ports, 1Gbps and 100Mbps for high bandwidth and low noise applications. Some highend ethernet cables have fast ethernet design for low noise and Erawan is fully compatible with fast ethernet design on 100Mbps port.

USB ports also have high-end grade modification to make onboard USB streaming full and uncompressed dynamics in large room. But if you want to install external USB card, low-profile PCI slot will fit in Erawan based on audiophile cards we tested before.

 

Just like Nimitra, Erawan can work with the following applications from different platforms as below:

 

Windows: KazooKinsky
Mac: KazooKinsky
iOS: JPLAY, Kazoo, Kinsky, mconnect Player, Lumin
Android: Kazoo, Kinsky, mconnect Player, Lumin

 

Erawan supports many features such as DLNA/uPNP (Audirvana/JPLAY/mConnect Player), OpenHome (Linn/Lumin), Airplay, Audirvana, HQPlayer, JPLAY, Roon and SqueezeBox ready to be used as plug and play solution.

 

As for hardware specifications, Erawan has gone through a lot of design changes from improved low powered server design to powerful server with flagship processor quality. At the end of the day, Erawan was finalized with these specfications as below:

CPU: Intel Elkhart Lake Pentium N6415 Quad Core processor (Up to 3.0GHz)
Memory: 16GB DDR4 3200MHz dual channel
Storage: Audiophile Grade SSD SLC mode (Optional: 1-4TB SSD with highend grade SATA cable on request)
USB: 2 x USB Audio / 2 x USB Storage / 2 x USB 2.0 side port
Ethernet: 1 x Intel I211-AT 1Gbps / 1 x Intel I211-AT 100Mbps
Display: 1 x HDMI / 1 x DisplayPort
Expansion Slot: 1 x Low-profile PCI Express X1
Power supply: 100 – 250 VAC
Grounding: Chassis ground support with ground conditioning products
OS: ErawanOS (Custom Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024)
Supported streaming platform: Airplay / uPNP / OpenHome / LMS / Roon Ready / HQPlayer NAA (Audirvana, HQPlayer and Roon on request)
Product features: automate library server management / TeamViewer remote support / Web remote
Dimension: 365mm x 307mm x 120mm (W x D x H)
Weight: 7kg

 

This hardware design is finalized and future proof as it can handle Roon and Audirvana with DSD256 upsampling. Even Nimitra that was design 8 years ago which can still keep up with Roon today with firmware updates.

We already sold 5 units of Erawan before global launch so we have a few cases of users with different platforms to make sure Erawan will deliver smooth transition without interruption. As Esoteric Grandioso K1X SE owner, we can proudly say Erawan made these people happy no less than CD/vinyl format.

 

Erawan - System

 

The product price will be $8,900 USD with 30-day money back guaranteed and free shipping until 31st May 2025. You can read more about Erawan flagship streamer product in details before ordering and happy listening.

Fidelizer – foobar2000 setup assistant 3.0 released with improved latest updates and improved playback experience

 

Fidelizer - foobar2000 setup assistant

 

Happy new year 2025. I hope this will be a great year for audiophiles. I’m glad to see foobar2000 setup assistant project is well received among audiophiles. Version 3.0 is now released with latest updates and optimizations as below:

 

-Added DSD Converter 0.3.1 to allow converting files to DSD format
-Configured FidelizerServer to show only Media Library
-Optimized DSD optimizations to improve conversion quality
-Optimized program configuration to improve playback experience and stability
-Updated ASIO+DSD Output to version 0.4.2-1
-Updated DSD Processor to version 1.3.3
-Updated foobar2000 to version 2.24.1
-Updated Super Audio CD Decoder to version 1.5.16

 

Download: Fidelizer – foobar2000 setup assistant 3.0

Recommended apps: BubbleuPNP, (Android), JPLAY (iOS), mConnect Player Lite (Android), mConnect Player Lite (iOS)

 

If you use legacy device that doesn’t support 24-bit, you can click on File > Preferences > Playback > Output > Devices and change Bits on “Primary Sound Driver” to 16. I considered changing default bits to 16 but that’d ruin most people’s experience with hires DAC in market right now.

You can select native ASIO output by clicking on File > Preferences > Playback > Output menu and select ASIO output device for your DAC. You can use recommended apps in mobile/tablet device to stream Tidal/Qobuz and music files in local network to FidelizerRenderer.

Fidelizer – foobar2000 setup assistant 2.0 released with improved DSD support and automate library server scanning

 

Fidelizer - foobar2000 setup assistant

 

After successful launch of the first release of foobar2000 – setup assistant project that helps resolving pain point in setting up PC as a streamer for so long, version 2.0 with more updates and optimizations is released with the following changes:

 

-Added ASIO+DSD Output 0.3.8 component to support ASIO and DSD playback
-Configured default theme to support music library browsing with album art
-Configured FidelizerServer to detect all music files in computer automatically
-Improved DSD playback with SDM type E modulation and streaming support
-Updated DSD Processor to version 1.3.2
-Updated Super Audio CD Decoder to version 1.5.10

 

If you use legacy device that doesn’t support 24-bit, you can click on File > Preferences > Playback > Output > Devices and change Bits on “Primary Sound Driver” to 16. I considered changing default bits to 16 but that’d ruin most people’s experience with hires DAC in market right now.

You can select native ASIO output by clicking on File > Preferences > Playback > Output menu and select ASIO output device for your DAC. You can use recommended apps in mobile/tablet device to stream Tidal/Qobuz and music files in local network to FidelizerRenderer.

 

Download: Fidelizer – foobar2000 setup assistant 2.0

Recommended apps: BubbleuPNP, (Android), JPLAY (iOS), mConnect Player Lite (Android), mConnect Player Lite (iOS)

Introducing foobar2000 setup assistant, turning your computer into a streamer with a single click

 

Fidelizer - foobar2000 setup assistant

 

After releasing Fidelizer 8.10 for a while, I noticed something about computer audio setup. It’s not easy to setup computer as a streamer for most people. Even Roon or Audirvana need some configuration to use Tidal / Qobuz and can be quite complicated for end user.

foobar2000 is free to be downloaded and installed to use. But to get streaming working with foobar2000, most people don’t know how to set it up. JRiver is good and affordable solution that supports DLNA/uPNP too. But most people don’t know how to set it up.

Meanwhile in Rasberry Pi and other arm devices have Linux distro pre-configured with streaming feature ready to be used. It’s actually easier for beginner to select firmware image and flash on micro SD card to boot.

 

After realizing this, I checked foobar2000’s license terms again and prepare a separated installer software outside original installer. This program will perform silent installation of foobar2000 and setup components and configuration after installing.

Since foobar2000 version 2.0, WASAPI exclusive audio output is implemented by default so you won’t need 3rd-party components to setup. That way, it’s possible to redistribute unmodified installer and apply configuration file separately with high audio performance optimized.

As DLNA/uPNP and SACD input components have GPL license, I hope it’s okay to redistribute those files outside foobar2000 installer for community’s benefits. With foobar2000 setup assistant, you can turn PC into an uPNP streamer with a single click.

 

Download: Fidelizer – foobar2000 setup assistant 3.0

Recommended apps: BubbleuPNP, (Android), JPLAY (iOS), mConnect Player Lite (Android), mConnect Player Lite (iOS)

 

If you use legacy device that doesn’t support 24-bit, you can click on File > Preferences > Playback > Output > Devices and change Bits on “Primary Sound Driver” to 16. I considered changing default bits to 16 but that’d ruin most people’s experience with hires DAC in market right now.

You can select native ASIO output by clicking on File > Preferences > Playback > Output menu and select ASIO output device for your DAC. You can use recommended apps in mobile/tablet device to stream Tidal/Qobuz and music files in local network to FidelizerRenderer.

Roon core version selection is available for Fidelizer Nimitra Computer Audio Server

Nimitra2

 

After Roon 1.8 update, Fidelizer starts developing unique Roon optimization for Fidelizer Nimitra as Roon core and things have been going well so far. There’s some sound signature changes during Roon 2.0 updates but still sound acceptable for serious listening.

However, Roon 2.0 starts adopting CarPlay support in recent updates and some audiophiles feel they can’t enjoy music from Roon as they used based on feedback received from customers and friends asking me if I notice changes in sound with recent Roon update.

I investigated and tested different 2.0 builds and found that Roon 2.0 build 1182 sounds more preferable as the last build before CarPlay support. I shared my findings in Roon’s community hoping devs can test things out but my feedback wasn’t well received.

 

It looks like Roon 2.0 will focus on adopting more features to provide more accessibility such as Roon ARC and CarPlay and those changes may cause sound signature changes in some systems over time. For audiophiles using Roon solely for serious stereo system, this isn’t good news.

So, I went back to Roon 1.8 Legacy and start fresh since Roon’s database can’t be downgraded from 2.0 to 1.8 release. To my findings, it sounds decent, get the jobs done and I won’t have to worry about new updates causing change in sound signature like Roon 2.0.

 

After testing Roon 1.8 Legacy today, I decided to add Roon core version in Fidelizer Nimitra Computer Audio Server with Roon 1.8 Legacy as default option. You can also upgrade to 2.0 at any time from backup and Roon 2.0 that can’t be downgraded.

If you’re using Fidelizer Nimitra as Roon core running version 2.0 and want to setup Roon 1.8 Legacy version, I can backup your Roon 2.0 repository and start new Roon core 1.8 legacy for you to try and see if you want to keep using Roon 1.8 Legacy version.

I’d like to assure you that Fidelizer Nimitra server is still fully compatible with Roon 2.0. This option is a matter of personal and subjective experience about sound changes in different version updates. As old saying goes “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.