Request For Comments: Snakeoil OS 1.1.0 (Blind Testing)

[agent_kith]

Just a quick report - two weeks on and still havn't done much on 1.1.0. My day time job is really busy right now, and that's tiring me out more than usual, leaving me exhausted at the end of the day.


Not complaining really, it is what it is. Right now I'm busy working with two hospitals and getting their entertainment system online. These are interesting projects and frankly I'm having the best time of my life problem solving two extremely complicated setups. 

Funnily enough, while I havn't been releasing new updates, or new articles - activity to the Website has increased. While the numbers are still modest, it's a good growth. People have randomly googled and found Snakeoil OS, and have the curiosity to try it out. So the efforts of SEO, understanding the analytics from visitors and revamping the website accordingly to better target the audience works. There's still a lot to be done, e.g. need to improve the manual (Thanks Martin!). While I'm doing what I can, still need you guys to spread the word on Snakeoil OS.

Allow me to blow my own trumpet, IMHO - Snakeoil OS is the best option for sound quality right now if you want to play music from a computer! If you agree, please make a short comment in the feedbacks section, or write a testimonial (if you have a forum account). If you are on Facebook, follow the SnakeoilOS page and write a review.

The idea is to spread Snakeoil OS everywhere.

While Google is bringing in dedicated audiophiles who are actively looking for the best audiophile software, your comments/reviews/exposure will bring in the people who are on the fence. Make people understand they don't have to pay good money to get the best. Yes there is a donation option, but this is not paid software.

Snakeoil OS is the best - and it is free. Want to know the extent of this freedom? Anybody can copy Snakeoil OS, call it their own idea and make money off it. There are absolutely no strings attached. 

In another bit of good news, despite the odds, I've finally setup the NF9C-2800 in a Fractal Design Node 202 case, using on-board USB coupled with a simple passive filter. On it's own this rig is decent but lacks clarity. So randomly I've decided to add a tweak to improve aesthetically. Surprisingly that tweak improved the clarity!   A lot of things in audio makes absolute no sense to me, and this is one of them. Will blog about this eventually.

While not much have progressed for 1.1.0 (What can I say, it's a lot of work), the current version is about to get an update - 1.0.6. This update will address some bugs/issues. The headline item for this release is experimental support for upmpdcli! Now here's another option for people who wants to use a Tidal subscription and likes to hear it from MPD. As with all options at the moment, this just do the subscription, in other words there's no MQA - you'd still need a MQA compatible DAC to get it's benefits.

Now I have two physical high quality playback machines (NF9C-2600 and NF9C-2800: one to experiment on, the other for auditioning). When I have more time on my hand, will begin experimenting with Wine and Windows Tidal for folks with non-MQA DACs . If this work, the change will probably make it's way into the 1.0.x series.