08.04.2019
Pink Faun 2.16 vs 2.16X – powrówanie modeli
The streamer 2.16 is available in two versions, the standard 2.16 and the 2.16 X. Both streamers use
the same PSU and computer components. The difference between the two is that the 2.16 X has
three low-noise OCXO clocks, all internal wiring upgraded to high-end, all rhodium fuses, Furutech FI09-Rhodium-NCF AC-inlet.
Both streamer can be roughly classified into three categories 1) The linear PSU 2) The computer
components and 3) The software.
1) The linear PSU is designed in-house and contains three transformers providing four main power
rails from which all separate voltages for each part of the streamer are regulated. Every part of the
streamer has its own dedicated regulation from the corresponding power rail. It depends on the
configuration of the streamer how many linear regulations are used. For example, the ATX to the
motherboard contains 5 different voltage levels, all have their own linear regulation. Also each SSD
has its own linear regulation, the processor has its own, every OCXO clock has its own, etc. The
maximum amount of linear regulations depends on the configuration of the server. The more SSD’s
the more regulations, the more OCXO clocks the more regulations. The streamer 2.16 X (top model)
can go up to 20 linear regulations.
Most ask questions about linear PSU of the Pink Faun streamer 2.16 are gathered in the following
Q&A:
A) Why do you use three smaller separated and not one big mains transformer? There are two
reasons for this, first smaller transformers are more stable under high current swings and have less
chance of humming during high current peaks. Secondly, and most important, each transformer is
used for it dedicated area of operation. One for the processor, one for the motherboard and one for
the peripherals. A streamer supply has a highly peaking current load and all currents add up in the
transformer core and interact with each other. By separating the main areas of a streamer in each
transformer interaction is less and will improve the final sound quality.
B) Why do you use chokes in your power supplies? Due to its intrinsic properties, a capacitor
buffered power supply does not draw a continuous, but a highly peaked current. Each 100Hz
capacitors are filled up for the full cycle in only microseconds, depending on the duty cycle of the
power supply. The higher the capacitance and the lower the inductance (and Rdc) of the transformer,
the lower the duty cycle and the higher these peaks are. These peaks introduce large Hf-noise in
power supplies. In Pink Faun power supplies we use high inductance power transformers (low field
saturation in the core) and we use pi-filtering to keep the peaks at a minimum and thus Hf noise. The
less rubbish in, the less we have to filter later.
C) Why do you use separated power rails and not one single mains supply? All loads in the end come
together in the source of power. In this source they interact resulting in harmonics and
intermodulation noise. The earlier all separated loads are splitted in the device, the less they interact,
resulting in lowest initial noise in power supplies. Also by using a lot of smaller separated and
regulated supplies we can keep current loops very minimal and local, which also will reduce spread of
EMC inside the device. This is why Pink Faun streamers use separated rails for dedicated areas and a
separated regulator each for each load. Great care is taken in adding these power supplies all
together in one star ground, and also to source all ingoing voltage from star outputs in the power
supply resulting in minimal interference and minimal Hf noise and harmonics.
D) What can we do to get lowest noise possible in the streamer power supply? Even the best
regulators have very poor Hf characteristics. Noise of the regulator itself is a factor in the final
supply’s output noise, but even more important are the noise of the mains power, EMC noise (from
outside and the device itself) and noise generated by the rectifying and current peaks of the
capacitors. All these noise sources have to be minimized in order to let the regulator get to its optimal
performance. This means special low inductance transformers, schottky diodes, low ESR capacitors
and a lot of common and differential mode Hf filtering, separated rails, lots of regulators with
localized current loops, star sources and ground, shielded power planes on the PCBs, cable setup, etc.
In the end the final result is the addition of all efforts taken right from the mains input of the power
supply to the connector of the motherboard.
2) The computer components are chosen for their stability and good performance. The streamer 2.16
can easily handle all PCM streams and DSD up to DSD512. Because of the stable, powerful processor
the streamer 2.16 can be configured with the minimum buffer-size in both ROON and HQPlayer. The
processor is passively cooled with an 8 pipes cooling system and can handle the high DSD sampling
easily. Playing normal redbook audio the load on the processor is between 0 and 1 %, up sampling
redbook to DSD512x48 (HQPlayer / Poly-Sinc-XTR-2 filter) the load is between 12 and 16%. The
streamer standard has an Samsung pro 256GB SSD for the Linux OS, there’s room for 2 more SSD for
music storage.
– For an even better performance the motherboard of the streamer 2.16 X is equipped with two
OCXO clocks, the system clock (chipset) and the processor clock. The system clock (chipset) is needed
to synchronize all components/clocks on the motherboard. This clock also synchronize the clock for
the CPU, but the CPU clock is only used on the chip (PROCESSOR) itself. Because the CPU needs to
perform more operations per time than the motherboard the clock frequency will be multiplied in
the CPU. The CPU clock runs on 25Mhz and is multiplied 136 times. Therefore the processor runs at a
fixed frequency of 3,4 GHz. The advantage of using an OCXO clock on well-chosen key areas in the
streamer 2.16 is not the better stability but the low phase noise. Both OCXO clocks on the streamers
2.16 motherboard have their own low-noise linear regulation, this results in a lower noise floor in the
whole system which increase the listening experience dramatically.
3) The used OS on the streamer 2.16 is a heavily modified version of Arch Linux (Low Latency / Realtime kernel / Headless). The advantage of using Linux is you start with nothing and only configure
what you really need for audio playback. The Pink Faun streamer 2.16 can work standalone and is
fully controllable from a tablet and/or smartphone. The streamer 2.16 runs in headless mode which
means there’s no video driver loaded which result in an even lower noise floor in whole the system.
The default playback software is Roonserver, for those who want to up-sample all music files to DSD
(maximum DSD rate depends on the DAC) HQPlayer-embedded is installed as well and can be
activated at all times. We have chosen for the Arch Linux OS for several reasons. One of the main
reasons is HQPlayer-embedded is Linux only. Linux is a very stable and reliable OS which can be
modified heavily. Also, and most important is, with Linux we can reach an incredible low latency
(audio latency and processor latency). During the process of developing the streamer 2.16 we found
out that latency is one of the key elements to get the real smooth and natural sound, the lower the
latency the better. That’s why buffer-size is always turn off, or chosen at the lowest option possible
in the playback software. Because the latency is so low in the streamer 2.16 (Audio latency at 192
kHz < 2,67 ms on AMD Ryzen processor and high quality digital audio interface. Audio latency at 44.1
kHz < 1 ms depending on hardware configuration. Incredibly low processor latency average 4-6
microseconds on AMD Ryzen processor ) we need a solid stable processor and therefore we have
chosen the AMD Ryzen 1700x 8-core processor.
Technical information
Streamer 2.16 X
• Custom-made aluminum rigid frame
• Full passive cooled PSU and processor, an eight heat pipes cooling system for processor, no moving
parts
• Three Low-B, internal- and external shielded power transformers
• Up to 20 linear regulated supplies (depending on hardware configuration)
• Separate linear supply for the processor, motherboard, SSD’s, OCXO clocks and the digital output
card
• Schottky rectifier diodes, crystalline core choke Pi-filters
• Low ESR 105 degree Nichicon capacitors, the total buffer capacity is more than 800.000uF
• Star-grounding- and star-power supply design
• Separate powered OCXO clock for the system clock
• Separate powered OCXO clock for the processor
• Separate powered OCXO clock for every digital output card
• Designed and hand build in The Netherlands
Hardware
• Full size ATX motherboard with optimized BIOS settings.
• 8-core processor, passive cooled with eight heat pipes cooling system, no moving parts inside
• Low-latency DDR4 memory
• Samsung 256GB Pro SSD for operating system and playback software, additional music storage up to
8TB SSD
Software
• Custom Arch Linux ultra-low latency keal-time kernel operating system
• Roon Core server
• HQPlayer high quality bit-perfect multichannel audio player (PCM en DSD)
• Tidal high-res streaming (Tidal subscription not included)
• Extemely low processor and audio Latency
• Including professional remote support
