Pink Faun 2.16X Stereophile Review

[Believe High Fidelity]

For your reading enjoyment....


“The Pink Faun 2.16X streamer is, sonically, as perfect a stereo source component as I have used...”

Stereophile 2.16X Review 2020

 

[audioblazer]

I suppose he needs a better Dac to get the best out of this server

 

[Ultrafast69]

20K as a streamer only?

 

[plasmod3]

haha ultrafast...obviously you havent looked at the taiko extreme

 

[Ultrafast69]

haha ultrafast...obviously you havent looked at the taiko extreme

No, I’m familiar with Taiko, and just qualifying the specifications and PF’s price.

I’m looking down the road on what I want to do. .

 

[plasmod3]

Ah I see what you mean now. 20k for an amd processor is a bit unusual... Amd is usually the value route in computing and not what I expect in a 20k streamer too

 

[DSkip]

Ah I see what you mean now. 20k for an amd processor is a bit unusual... Amd is usually the value route in computing and not what I expect in a 20k streamer too

In terms of processing power, the new Ryzen 5xxx series represent the best consumer based chips on the market both in terms of multi core and single core performance. The previous generation 3xxx series really evened them with Intel. Intel, for the time being, is considered more of the budget route now.

The computing world is quite interesting in 2020.

 

[plasmod3]

quite interesting indeed Dskip. i remembered about 15 years ago amd was at the same stage- faster cpus but they also run much hotter . was stress testing them then and somehow the intel chips always overclocked higher than the amd where the amd was much less stable as a platform - ditto re ati vs nividia. Amd appeals to value buyers and it might be quicker in it's latest iteration with more threads but yet given my past experience ( & i know someone will think different!) amd is never going to be an intel.

I guess at the level of money we are talking about why not pop a xeon processor in there rather than use a part that is good value for money? Intel processors are more expensive than amd and in this cost no object world - why are they choosing a cheaper processor? It's not like the streamer is build for gaming)

it's like a porsche vs a merc. Both german cars and do the job the same but yet one much more expensive than the other and one much less reliable than the other. For 20k will be nice to not get a 'merc' but a 'porsche' for a streamer?

 

[DSkip]

I think you underestimate just how good the Ryzen series of processors are. Intel has been stagnant for almost a decade. If they had been able to continue on their path back then, AMD might not be in this position. AMD/ATI was always budget because they couldn’t achieve the performance of the big dogs but that has changed.

Overnight, when the 5xxx series released, the 9th Gen i9 dropped about $200 from its price the day prior. The computer landscape is changing and if nvidia doesn’t watch it, amd might overtake them in the next generation or two. This is coming from a guy who has an rtx 3090 - the top dog from nvidia - because I didn’t trust amd to get ray tracing right in their top card, which it appears is was a solid expectation.

Sorry for the derail even though it’s slightly on topic.

I did not see which processor they chose but if it’s a Ryzen 3xxx series, these are perfect for the design vs intel as they have better multi core performance. Intel was still gaming king because of single core performance, but the 5xxx series came out and obliterated intel in both arenas. AMD isn’t intel. They’re far superior as of Q4 2020.

For reference:

PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End

PassMark Software - CPU Benchmarks - Over 1 million CPUs and 1,000 models benchmarked and compared in graph form, updated daily!

www.cpubenchmark.net

PassMark CPU Benchmarks - Single Thread Performance

Benchmarks of the single thread performance of CPUs. This chart comparing CPUs single thread performance is made using thousands of PerformanceTest benchmark results and is updated daily.

www.cpubenchmark.net

First link is multi core, second is single core. Prices are also listed you so can see how all pieces stack up in bang for buck. The 5700, 5800, and 5900 prices are incorrect as they are listing more of the scalper prices, not retail. The 5600 for some reason has actual retail listed.

 

[divertiti]

AMD chips are better than Intel chips right now, period. It's not better value for money, it's just better. Intel is stuck on 14nm process that is power hungry and generate a lot of heat. AMD is already on 7nm process looking to move to 5nm, uses less power, generates way less heat, and best of all they are faster in both single thread and multithread use cases. To use Intel chips in these servers would be to use an inferior product, which as you stated, does not make sense for a $20K server, or in fact a $2K gaming computer.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

AMD chips are better than Intel chips right now, period. It's not better value for money, it's just better. Intel is stuck on 14nm process that is power hungry and generate a lot of heat. AMD is already on 7nm process looking to move to 5nm, uses less power, generates way less heat, and best of all they are faster in both single thread and multithread use cases. To use Intel chips in these servers would be to use an inferior product, which as you stated, does not make sense for a $20K server, or in fact a $2K gaming computer.

I did not see which processor they chose but if it’s a Ryzen 3xxx series, these are perfect for the design vs intel as they have better multi core performance. Intel was still gaming king because of single core performance, but the 5xxx series came out and obliterated intel in both arenas. AMD isn’t intel. They’re far superior as of Q4 2020.

In general, perhaps. In specific, the PF didn't keep up with either of the Intel-based streamer I have.

 

[Zeotrope]

In general, perhaps. In specific, the PF didn't keep up with either of the Intel-based streamer I have.

Odd comment to make without providing more detail - what do you mean “it didn’t keep up”?

Intel is far behind AMD currently for the reasons mentioned above.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Odd comment to make without providing more detail - what do you mean “it didn’t keep up”?

Intel is far behind AMD currently for the reasons mentioned above.

I am not disputing your arguments about AMD vs. Intel but, just with the specific CPUs (and chipset/MBs) at hand, the PF was unable to handle hi-res, MCH tracks with DSP as well as did my Intel-based players. By saying “it didn’t keep up,” I meant that the PF often played with brief drop-outs when the others played without interruption.

 

[Zeotrope]

I am not disputing your arguments about AMD vs. Intel but, just with the specific CPUs (and chipset/MBs) at hand, the PF was unable to handle hi-res, MCH tracks with DSP as well as did my Intel-based players. By saying “it didn’t keep up,” I meant that the PF often played with brief drop-outs when the others played without interruption.

Good to know, thank you!

 

[MarcelNL]

those dropouts may well be due to some buffer settings 'under the hood', (lower buffer sizes are usually better for lower latency which normally corelates wiith better sound) did you contact Jord at PF about this?

 

[Zeotrope]

I wrote to PF several days ago with interest in the new Ultra. No reply!
I went with Taiko. Not just for this reason but customer service and responsiveness are important, especially at this level.
EDIT: Jord from PF did reply right away, the message was just stuck in my Spam folder.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

those dropouts may well be due to some buffer settings 'under the hood', (lower buffer sizes are usually better for lower latency which normally corelates wiith better sound) did you contact Jord at PF about this?

Yes

 

[Pink Faun]

I wrote to PF several days ago with interest in the new Ultra. No reply!
I went with Taiko. Not just for this reason but customer service and responsiveness are important, especially at this level.

I just checked my outgoing email and replied the same day, Monday @ 12.30 CET. Did you check your spam folder? Br Jord

 

[Zeotrope]

I just checked my outgoing email and replied the same day, Monday @ 12.30 CET. Did you check your spam folder? Br Jord

Yes, you're right. My apologies. Your reply was in my Spam folder, for some reason.
Thank you for replying so quickly and for following up!!

 

[Pink Faun]

those dropouts may well be due to some buffer settings 'under the hood', (lower buffer sizes are usually better for lower latency which normally corelates wiith better sound) did you contact Jord at PF about this?

Here's our "Manufacturers comment" for the Stereophile review, I see it is not published with the article on Stereophiles website.

"We are truly elated that Kal was able to fully enjoy the server and understand our design goals in his system. At one point in the review, Kal expresses the ability of the Pink Faun’s CPU to consistently handle multichannel upsampling with DSD. I am glad that he brought this up as there are some tradeoffs. The Pink Faun streamer is configured for bit-perfect playback. We believe bit-perfect has the edge over upsampling. This means the processor/software is optimized and configured for bit-perfect playback vs heavy upsampling/DSP tasks. This also means the processor is running on half of its capacity and can be altered for heavy processing by remotely beefing up the processor's power to accommodate up and down-sampling. However, by doing so this will affect the noise figures and we want to ensure our customers get optimal sound out of the box. With that in mind, we chose to configure the streamer in the perfect balance between performance and sound quality which Kal mentioned did not have any difficulty in sampling conversions for stereo listening. Another alternative to preserve the optimal sound quality settings is to transcode the files to the desired output prior to listening."