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The curse of using a Windows device to stream

A

Akustic

Super Member
Cursed background services which are rampant and proliferating over the years ..
They create very audible distortion ..

I use high resolution gear with a hard wired, and dedicated win 10 laptop to stream.
The distortion just cumulatively builds over the hours that the streaming app remains open.
I use a cleaning process called CCleaner while the music is playing and the distortion audibly disapears as unnecesary background files are removed.

Puts the digger on my habit of leaving the machine to sleep and resume over multiple days..

Close the app and reboot is the obvious solution but then I lose my place in the stream ..
Minimum solution is periodicly cleans the leftover junk from background devices ..

Has anybody else who uses a computer as the serving device ever noticed this?

Enjoy the music
 
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I ran Roon Core on a PC for a while. The constant Windows updates made it a very unreliable music delivery system. Then moved to a Mac Mini. That was some better, but Mac OS updates also disrupted Roon operation, just less frequently than Windows. Next installed Roon Core on a Intel NUC running ROCK (Roons Linux based OS) and has pretty much been trouble free for the last 5 years.
 
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I have Spotify Premium on my Obsolete 12 year old Windows 10 laptop. I use it as a Desktop in clamshell mode with a 22" LED monitor and a pair of Logitech Z207 Bluetooth desktop speakers. With a wireless keyboard and mouse it's a massive improvement in terms of Ergonomics, Display and Sound quality for Videos. .

Odd the distortion gets worse over time. I haven't had the issues you are having.

But for my Spotify Premium music, the sound quality is not good. It actually sounds better with Bluetooth from my phone with these near field monitors.

I do like the computer interface with Spotify. Perhaps with a decent external DAC feeding my stereo system it would be fine. But I do get nasty notifications and updates sometimes. I get most of my streamed music through my Recent Yamaha Network HT receiver.or a dedicated Cambridge Network Music Streamer/Digital Preamp.
 
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Win 10 LTSC on a Zotac Mini. Services tweaked to a minimum, no internet connection, no updates. Foobar serving network and local HD music to three DAC's. Sysinternals Process Explorer to set Foobar to real time and to one processor. Sounds great all day long.
Eta: No internet streaming from this setup.
 
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While I use a Win 11 Pro laptop as one of my 2 powered up & playing 24/7/365 (the other is a OPPO Universal BR/DVD/CD/USB) all day music playing sources, all my music is lossless WAV. ripped, and is not, nor will ever be dependent on any internet streaming source, and either player`s SQ remains consistent, source ripped CD`s quality dependent, of course, and I have had no issues using MS` built in media player configured for shuffle & repeat mode all, even through the previous OS` from 7 Ultimate to 10, and now 11 Pro upgrades.

The current HP Win Pro machine laptop has been initially thoroughly software stripped, or disabled by me for all non needed crap, background, phone home beaconing, and the only reason it is even connected to the internet, is my desire to maintain a local radar loop, via NWS`s site on that machine.
 
Not my in Jan 2017 purchased then just released new Xbox S (version with cd/dvd/blue ray drive in my case). It doesn't go to sleep while streaming........ There is also a setting it never goes to 'sleep' or turn off all by itself! Same with my HP 17inch windows 11 Laptop from 2024. Just leave it plugged in with AC, or even batteries (until they go dead empty). Just settings.
 
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Ryzen 7, 2700X, RTX 2080, Win 10 system.

SPDIF output to Musical Fidelity A3/24 DAC.

Upgraded after this pic to 50" LED Samsung.

Has not been on the internet for at least 5 years.

Works perfect, Sounds amazing. 3 Way active crossover @ 750 watts.

Dual 100 watt Subs under the desk...

Solid performance!

PS: The Behringer DEQ24/96 is only used to teach people how to use a Parametric Equalizer...
FlyBDV6.png
 
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What kind of output are you using? Use a digital output and external dac if you don't have a good one on the motherboard or sound card. I've used Windows PCs as my main music device for many many years without issue.
 
I have a headless install of ubuntu server running LMS on a 10 YO mini PC that I got several of when my former employer was replacing everyone's computers. It has been running with 100% reliability for at least 5 years with just occasional updates. I'm not playing the music directly on that computer, and I only use that computer to serve music and movies (Jellyfin).

If you web surfing with the same PC you're playing the music from, you might want to look into an OS that isn't so loaded with spyware (Windows). It doesn't take much of a PC to play or serve music- ask your nieces and nephews if they have an old computer laying around. Someone you know has a computer they don't need that you can dedicate to the task.
 
I read this all the time when people has challenges with Windows.
Linux users should remember that the task is help the END USER with their challenges and improve their situation, not really virtue signaling and gaslighting windows users.
Pretend that a end user do a migration is unreal, unles the Linux user is willing to guide by the hand then end user. This is not the eternal and frankly tiresome A vs B thing, is just common sense.

And yes I use Linux on my homelab, Arch-Linux in a laptop and internet terminal here and there with LM. My main workstation is Windows 11, and I been using linux in servers and desktops since the late 90s and Windows since the NT years.
 
We call Linux "User Vicious" software, Although Debian with KDE has finally come a long way.

25 years ago you could buy a fast computer with Linux from Walmart for cheap and it was all set up and easy to use!

What happened? So little improvement in 25 years.

I'm running two Linux puters and they have been solid and very fast!

Would Never tell a noob to get Linux as I would not be able to walk them through setup remotely.

All they have to do is design a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for Linux that imitates Windows XP.

EVERYONE knows how to run XP!

OK, Gettin off my soap box before I fall and break a leg...
 
BmWr75 said:
I ran Roon Core on a PC for a while. The constant Windows updates made it a very unreliable music delivery system. Then moved to a Mac Mini. That was some better, but Mac OS updates also disrupted Roon operation, just less frequently than Windows. Next installed Roon Core on a Intel NUC running ROCK (Roons Linux based OS) and has pretty much been trouble free for the last 5 years.
Click to expand...
Linux would be the better choise as you discovered. No constant updates. If you need the Windows OS it's easy enough to set Linux up when installing it to a dual boot. Just select the OS you want to boot up at startup. I ran Ubuntu with a Windows OS for several years. I never had a problem with the dual boot at all.
 
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Fire fox ESR to the Rescue...

I'm getting Linux Updates every few days, And I'm grateful.

A~R~I~G~A~T~O...

25 Million Operating Systems are still using Windows XP...

Including just about every part of your Life's Logistics'.

Holy Crap~~!
 
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"dual boot"

If someone follow this advice be sure that you won't have 'secure boot' on BIOS , GRUB overwrites or fast/hibernation conflicts, your computer will not boot. It works better with older systems thou.

Virtualization under linux if the user needs to run windows and WineHQ for some applications is more secure and has improved a lot. Or If the user want to test linux it can be run on a flash drive or under virtual box, before messing with their OS drive.

My main workstation (WIN11) use the same amount of resources than Wayland in a power use environment without the hassle of multimonitor Hi-dpi scales and some applications complaining or crashing.

Finally, for windows non technical users only; to reduce the number of process and telemetry significantly; Chris titus debloat+revo unistaller for a very competente GUI tool, do not install anything norton, mcafee, or ccleaner related.
 
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Buck Rogers said:
We call Linux "User Vicious" software, Although Debian with KDE has finally come a long way.

25 years ago you could buy a fast computer with Linux from Walmart for cheap and it was all set up and easy to use!

What happened? So little improvement in 25 years.

I'm running two Linux puters and they have been solid and very fast!

Would Never tell a noob to get Linux as I would not be able to walk them through setup remotely.

All they have to do is design a GUI (Graphical User Interface) for Linux that imitates Windows XP.

EVERYONE knows how to run XP!

OK, Gettin off my soap box before I fall and break a leg...
Click to expand...

I had my son help me make my Windows laptop a dual-boot device that runs Linux Mint. It spends the vast majority of it's time running Linux and for what I do with it, there is little to no difference operating in Linux.

I have some Nikon photo editing software that is not available for Linux so that is one reason I use Windows on occasion.

I was recently "forced" to upgrade to Win 11 because I've been using TurboTax for years and they insist on marrying themselves to Windows. And now my laptop -when running Win11- no longer recognizes either mine or my wife's Android phones, unlike Win10, making moving pics or music a pain.
 
+++++++++++ on XP, that was the last version of Windows I liked.

Windows 10 caused my final move to macOS. I had already been in the iOS world for years. The native sound from my Mac Studio M1 Max absolutely sucks. Apple does not have the wonderful ASUS Xonar chipsets or soundcards I was used to in the PC world. I fixed it with a FiiO K7. FiiO has a series of external DAC/Amp, headphone amps, and pre-amps. The top of the line is the K19. I have many years of experience with the ASUS Xonar sound cards and chipsets. The FiiO totally blows all of them away. With my top-of-the-line FiiO FH9 earphones, the sound from my Mac Studio with the K7 is astonishing. The same earphones with the BTR17 portable DAC/Amp with a direct PCM connection to my iPhone 16 Pro Max, or my iPad M4 Pro, are as good as anything from the Xonar days. These FiiO DAC/AMPs will work with any OS platform. The BTR17 is great with smartphones, tablets, and laptops. The desktop units allow you to hook up anything to anything else.

Here is the top of the line.

Flagship Desktop DAC and Headphone Amplifier K19

The FIIO K19, as the flagship desktop DAC/amp, features the ADI SHARC+ ADSP-21565 processor for the first time, supporting 31 bands of professional-grade high-precision lossless PEQ adjustment globally. It adopts two new flagship 8-channel ES9039PRO DACs from ESS and is equipped with the all-new...
www.fiio.com www.fiio.com

RVTIK as always, I used the TurboTax app installed on my iPhone and iPad to do my taxes. I have never used Windows for that. Used just my iPhone for years, and now I use my iPad.

To transfer files, please add a NAC drive to your system. Your Androids, iOS as well can load their files to the NAC drive, and your Windows machine only sees the EXFAT files. EXFAT works with everything, including Apple. NAC's are nice to have, so that all of your computers can load into it and all of them can share the files. In California, fire country people I know maintain not only cloud storage but big NAC drives. If a fire threatens, and there is no time, they just grab the NAS drive and evacuate.
 
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Hipocrates said:
I read this all the time when people has challenges with Windows.
Linux users should remember that the task is help the END USER with their challenges and improve their situation, not really virtue signaling and gaslighting windows users.
Pretend that a end user do a migration is unreal, unles the Linux user is willing to guide by the hand then end user. This is not the eternal and frankly tiresome A vs B thing, is just common sense.
Click to expand...
"Virtue signaling" is a term that belongs in the dustbin of history alongside "alternative facts"...

The OP's problem is that he's playing music using the same computer that he uses for doing other tasks, and that PC's OS is windows. The "increasing distortion" that is accompanying accumulation of junk files is likely caused by background processes hogging the CPU cycles needed to play the audio. A lot of short dropouts close together will sound like distortion. Yes, someone with sufficient expertise might be able to delve into the intricacies of windows and find and fix whatever is actually causing the problem. How many weeks should a noob devote to this? It seems to me the OP is simply trying to do too much with this computer.

He asked for solution to the problem, and there are many, but in my opinion, the best solution is to either dump windows in favor of linux, or set up a PC specifically to play music, preferably running linux as it won't be loaded with spyware and it will work more reliably than a computer running windows.

I would be considered a linux noob, but linux has become easy enough that even I can follow instructions to install software and get it working. It's not hard to do and there's a lot of help available online. The reliability of linux is such that once it is set up it will keep working, in my case for years, with minimal user interaction. It's mostly a matter of becoming fed-up enough with windows to motivate the change. I would dump windows altogether except that I use CAD software with a 3D mouse and there doesn't seem to be a driver for the mouse that works in linux.
 
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