Article: SOtM sMS-100 Mini Server Review

[Kelly]

I am looking for an off-the-shelf squeezebox Touch replacement to use with a USB dac. The most important thing is Rhapsody support (it's where my online library is built.) Would this thing be able to drop into an existing squeezebox environment and support Rhapsody? My understanding is that Rhapsody support is dependent on the mysqueezebox.com website, so that is why I wasn't sure about this working with Rhapsody.

[Kelly]

So a question, is this a direct replacement for the Squeezebox Touch? My question is in reference to the SB support for Rhapsody and Spotify. Rhapsody support with the Touch seemed to require the mysqueezebox.com website. It looks like Chris managed to get the Wimp app working, does Rhapsody work? (I have a huge Rhapsody library, which is the main reason for my concern with it.)

[firedog]

If you use this with Logitech Media Server as your server software you get all the SB functionality you had in the Touch. When you hook it up it appears as an SB device to the LMS server software.

 

You just need a tablet, pc, or smartphone with browser or app installed to control LMS.

[ducatirider]

mine came with 110V. just specify. and it's dead silent. increases dynamics and soundstage height width and depth.

[Non techie audiophile]

Hi there,

 

I am quite new to this entire computer audiophile world. Requesting your kind guidance.

 

I am currently using Synology DS214 Play -> Gigabyte brix (Windows 8.1 with JRiver) -> Ayre QB-9 DSD -> Accuphase Amp -> Harbeth Speaker combination. I have a few DSD files as well. I am not happy with my current setup. I was looking for a good Audio server for my setup.

 

I heard SotM Audio server with Singapore dealer and it sounds amazing. But it is too expensive. I tried to buy the SoTM USB card but my Gigabyte brix does not have a PCI extension. After reading this review I am trying to understand

1. If I use this SoTM mini Server in between Gigabyte and Ayre then will I get similar sound to SoTM Audio server?

2. Or should I install a LMS in my Synology and eliminate the Gigabyte completely?

 

How can I get a better sound (ability to play DSD as well) with convenience of control from iPAD?

 

Thanks.

[Sam Lord]

Quick update, all is going well with my SMS100 and mBPS-d2s battery supply, now playing HQPlayer DSD64. First impression is that the filter types in HQP seem to alter sound much more than DXD vs. DSD64. Not capable of DSD128 without dropouts yet, CPU load with 16/44 to DSD64 conversion is around 27%, about double that with DSD128. But I need way more time with my setup. I am extremely pleased with the SOtM gear, no fuss, just great performance.

[Sam Lord]

Update, changed conversion algorithm to poly-sinc-2s which cut my CPU load in half, now have reliable DSD128 playback via network using HQP and SMS100. Wonderful sound.

[MikeJazz]

Update, changed conversion algorithm to poly-sinc-2s which cut my CPU load in half, now have reliable DSD128 playback via network using HQP and SMS100. Wonderful sound.

 

Nice to know thanks for the feedback...

 

You have a very curious 2.2 setup...and it seems that your velodyne's are vertically alligned with the ATC's..

 

May I ask how you treat any eventual phase variations / distortions...can the Velodyns setup automatically introducing any time-delay if necessary?

[4est]

That is good to hear. I have been wondering what caused your issues.

Update, changed conversion algorithm to poly-sinc-2s which cut my CPU load in half, now have reliable DSD128 playback via network using HQP and SMS100. Wonderful sound.

[Sam Lord]

Nice to know thanks for the feedback... ...You have a very curious 2.2 setup...and it seems that your velodyne's are vertically alligned with the ATC's..

May I ask how you treat any eventual phase variations / distortions...can the Velodyns setup automatically introducing any time-delay if necessary?

 

Aw carp, I wrote and the forum ate my reply. OK, reset...

 

Click to expand system photo:

 

 

Great question Mike. My subs are aligned horizontally (width) beneath the L/R ATC mains, but somewhat offset longitudinally. After I adjusted the height of the ATCs (the stands are adjustable) for correct time alignment with the chosen listening position (ears), I placed the subs symmetrically beneath the mains, then adjusted by ear as before. Actually in an earlier post I said that the ATCs were aligned when the ears are on a line emitting orthogonally from a point about at the inside edge of the woofer surround at both 12' out and infinity, but then I realized that at infinity the ears would need to be a few degrees (maybe 2 deg) below that orthogonal line.

 

After the mains were aligned, months after actually, I bought the subs and placed them at a starting point where the acoustic center of the driver of each was a little closer to the nearest ear than the acoustic center of the corresponding ATC midbass driver. This was all made possible by extremely heavy, stiff, and dead stands. They weigh much more than the combined speakers. Anyway, I aligned the subs by moving them longitudinally wrt the mains until the alignment was just right.

 

Now the ideal solution for this is to use a digital delay on the ATC tweeters and midbasses so that the front of all drivers would be nearly in a straight vertical line. The direct radiation wouldn't improve, but the reflections would be far better aligned. But I didn't have six high-quality channels of line outputs to deliver the processed signals to my amps and subs. The DD12+ subs do have delay adjustment, but I also didn't trust their DAC or preamp sections to drive the ATCs. Similarly, I run the mains full-range because I don't trust the high-pass circuit in the Velodynes to avoid harming the quality of my mains' signals.

 

But here is where my experience is at odds with conventional practice: I use little or no toe-in of main speakers, always set speakers facing down the long walls of a room. I never use an equilateral arrangement but an isosceles triangle; my speakers are now about 7' feet apart center-to-center but about 12 feet away from the listening position. The room is long and quite narrow, maybe 25'x11'x8'. I placed the stands horizontally centered at odd fractions of distance from the side (1/5 out, much farther than they appear in the photo), back (1/5), and front (4/5) walls as a simple way to minimize the strength of nodes. There is ugly carpet that helps soak up floor reflections, but no treatment *yet* to deal with side and ceiling echoes. I expect to get some tube traps for slap echoes. The room isn't bad though, it has a very large opening to the rest of the house, so the lowest bass lacks response peaks that are really out of control.

 

The governing principle for me is that systems which are time-aligned to a high degree have a psychological attribute that few people experience: The first and all secondary reflections are masked *far* better than in most systems. Now, if a room has big problems, you will still notice them, but even in a narrow space like mine the soundstage extends beyond *every* wall. But I do plan to treat the nearest surfaces to tame the first reflections... now that the alignment is truly dialed in. My last adjustment was moving my subs back less than 1/4". With tweeters vs. midrange drivers, I align with 1/16". Cheers

 

That is good to hear. I have been wondering what caused your issues.

 

Thanks. I still want to see what else I can do to be able to try different filters, they really change things.

[Superdad]

But here is where my experience is at odds with conventional practice: I use little or no toe-in of main speakers, always set speakers facing down the long walls of a room. I never use an equilateral arrangement but an isosceles triangle; my speakers are now about 7' feet apart center-to-center but about 12 feet away from the listening position. The room is long and quite narrow, maybe 25'x11'x8'.

 

Nice set-up Sam. "Conventional practice," (heavy toe-in, equal triangle, speakers way out in room) is all wrong anyway. I'm with you on the set up. I only wish my room was as long as yours (I'm about 12' x 19"), and that I had gone to the extra trouble to fill my back-wall with sand as my friend and ex-Hovland partner did with his room (mine is pattered after his in a number of ways). My walls are very solid, but he gets an even more firm launch of bass than I do (we have the same speakers and system--though he has a pair of the big Hovland Stratos mono blocks and I just have our RADIA (about 200 wpc).

 

Cheers,

--Alex

[Sam Lord]

Nice set-up Sam. "Conventional practice," (heavy toe-in, equal triangle, speakers way out in room) is all wrong anyway. I'm with you on the set up. I only wish my room was as long as yours (I'm about 12' x 19"), and that I had gone to the extra trouble to fill my back-wall with sand as my friend and ex-Hovland partner did with his room (mine is pattered after his in a number of ways). My walls are very solid, but he gets an even more firm launch of bass than I do (we have the same speakers and system--though he has a pair of the big Hovland Stratos mono blocks and I just have our RADIA (about 200 wpc). Cheers, --Alex

 

Thank you Alex. You enabled a fun retort which I'll pocket on this family forum. In our main room at Essence we had a Golden Ratio room of around 27x17x11 (?) with double walls, floating floor, and solid ceiling with 20 tons of sand. Bass, bass.... and no treatment save some small tapestries on the side walls. Learning to align speakers by ear was perhaps the most fun I had in audio. I used that skill to determine what I called "absolute offsets" that I entered into a spreadsheet to adjust transducer settings for any listener's position in 3-space. Every speaker builder should do this, but only a handful have. When I pressed Billy Woodman on the issue (I would not accept an incomplete answer), he said that the ATC SCM50s converge downwards, since the best mountings were in studio soffits. But he didn't know the distance!

 

intuitiveaudio

 

The speakers on the left side of the linked page are the Denalis which had individual, movable enclosures for each driver (except the bass module had two woofers). But an obvious mistake is the forward projection of the tweeter and midrange mounting plates...I had warned about it. They weren't big but they sounded heavenly and solid at 600lbs each. The formula is just that of a sphere, plus an offset.

 

The tweeter baffle position was determined by x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = (r + Offset tweet/bass)^2, where r is the distance from the near-side ear to the acoustic center of the two bass drivers and x is the longitudinal distance of the tweeter baffle relative to the ears. The difference between x for bass (having no offset) vs x for tweeter tells you how far backwards that you would adjust the tweeter. The drivers moved only longitudinally, so y was constant for a given speaker placement in a room and a particular client seated as he/she desired. Height z changed somewhat with uneven floors and with spikes, bearings, and marble floor slabs. A full setup with Denalis, refrigerator-sized subs, floor slabs and 8 amp chassis weighed over 1.5 tons. Mass, baby....mass!

 

I hope we can meet at a show, audio is getting to be fun these days. Cheers, Sam

[Superdad]

 

intuitiveaudio

 

A full setup with Denalis, refrigerator-sized subs, floor slabs and 8 amp chassis weighed over 1.5 tons. Mass, baby....mass!

 

I hope we can meet at a show, audio is getting to be fun these days. Cheers, Sam

 

 

Off-topic:

 

Hi Sam,

Forgive me if I don't recall your name or background. I'm guessing you used to be with (or own?) a dealership named Essence--where was that? How long ago? And can you tell us your involvement, if any with the folks doing those big speakers at Intuitive Design? Did you have a pair at the store?

 

Indeed, mass is most always a very good thing. Except when it comes to my personal mass.

 

I may go to RMAF this year.

Best,

ALEX

[vortecjr]

Team, please keep the posts about the SOtM sMS-100 mini server.

 

Jesus R

[Sam Lord]

Off-topic:

 

Hi Sam,

Forgive me if I don't recall your name or background........I may go to RMAF this year.

PMed you. Cheers

[4est]

I received my sMS 100 last night (thanks JR!) and so far so good, but I cannot get DSD to play without using DoP. Is this how it is supposed to be?

[vortecjr]

I received my sMS 100 last night (thanks JR!) and so far so good, but I cannot get DSD to play without using DoP. Is this how it is supposed to be?

 

This is NAA output mode? What USB device are you using?

 

Jesus R

[4est]

Thanks for the reply, please excuse my delay. Yes, this is using it as an NAA into an Amanero USB>I2S. If I try to run straight DSD, HQPlayer hangs after closing the settings panel and only presents the PCM option for playback.

This is NAA output mode? What USB device are you using?

 

Jesus R

[vortecjr]

Thanks for the reply, please excuse my delay. Yes, this is using it as an NAA into an Amanero USB>I2S. If I try to run straight DSD, HQPlayer hangs after closing the settings panel and only presents the PCM option for playback.

 

That is how it should work unless Miska has some secret sauce to make it work with native DSD. I have an email into him for clarification...I'll keep you posted.

 

Jesus R

[Miska]

Thanks for the reply, please excuse my delay. Yes, this is using it as an NAA into an Amanero USB>I2S. If I try to run straight DSD, HQPlayer hangs after closing the settings panel and only presents the PCM option for playback.

 

To play without DoP to Amanero requires using ASIO on Windows. Since NAA is Linux-based and there are no Amanero-specific Linux drivers, it is only standard UAC2 and thus require DoP (and limited to 6.1 MHz DSD).

 

When using NAA, the DoP setting only affects NAA output, the stream between HQPlayer and NAA is always native DSD and doesn't use DoP.

[4est]

OK, then all is well. I feared that I had mucked up the un-muckable which seems the case with Linux and myself. Thanks for the support.

To play without DoP to Amanero requires using ASIO on Windows. Since NAA is Linux-based and there are no Amanero-specific Linux drivers, it is only standard UAC2 and thus require DoP (and limited to 6.1 MHz DSD).

 

When using NAA, the DoP setting only affects NAA output, the stream between HQPlayer and NAA is always native DSD and doesn't use DoP.

[Nickolay_V]

Pogoplug PCB used in SMS-100, and so SMS-100 is DIY capable ( by software based on USB Flash duplication ) http://img.briedenredaktion.de/_bild_1395833763.jpg

http://www.hack247.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/pogo4(1).jpg

PogoPlug II review | Linux User & Developer - the Linux and FOSS mag for a GNU generation

[Kuro]

OMG! This thing has the Pogoplug E02 circuit board inside! And running the Vortex Box Pogoplug code. There is a sticker which says Pogoplug v2 inside!

 

[Sam Lord]

OMG! This thing has the Pogoplug E02 circuit board inside!

 

Is Pogoplug something we should all have, and does E02 sound better than E01?

[vortecjr]

OMG! This thing has the Pogoplug E02 circuit board inside! And running the Vortex Box Pogoplug code. There is a sticker which says Pogoplug v2 inside!

 

 

These units use an operating system called Sonic Obiter and not Vortexbox. Andrew and I developed the system and licensed it to SOtM. We also provided SOtM the main boards because the OS is CPU specific....

 

Jesus R