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Digital Reins Nano - high-def audio-compliant?

michaelhigh

By michaelhigh
in General Forum

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  • 2 months later...
gmgraves

gmgraves

Posted
Posted

 

 

I know what this thing is, now that I've seen pictures. I ordered a similar one once (the one I bought did, at least, have it's own screen. with this one, you get to provide it), only to return it a couple of days later. First of all, an Intel Atom processor is a single core processor and as slow as molasses in January. Secondly, the "hard-drive" is a flash memory, which is fine except this one is only 32 gigabytes. I've got micro SD cards with more storage capacity than that, and thirdly, the two gigabytes of RAM is not just what the device comes with, it's all there is! You can't add any more. Only you can decide whether or not these limitations make any difference to your application, but after loading Win8, there's not going to be much in the way of RAM to load applications, and again, after the OS overhead, there won't be much space to store music internally so if you have a big music library, an external 1 TB drive is in order.

 

If it will handle HD video, It will probably do 24/192 with no problem as well. As far as I'm concerned, the big question mark is the processor. The one I ordered (which was sold as an Internet device) had a 1.6 GHz Atom, and this one is a 1.8 GHz. I can't imagine that a mere 20 extra GHz of processor speed is going to make any real difference. You can always order one and try it. If it doesn't work to your satisfaction, you can always send it back for a refund.

George

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gmgraves

gmgraves

Posted
Posted
I know what this thing is, now that I've seen pictures. I ordered a similar one once (the one I bought did, at least, have it's own screen. with this one, you get to provide it), only to return it a couple of days later. First of all, an Intel Atom processor is a single core processor and as slow as molasses in January. Secondly, the "hard-drive" is a flash memory, which is fine except this one is only 32 gigabytes. I've got micro SD cards with more storage capacity than that, and thirdly, the two gigabytes of RAM is not just what the device comes with, it's all there is! You can't add any more. Only you can decide whether or not these limitations make any difference to your application, but after loading Win8, there's not going to be much in the way of RAM to load applications, and again, after the OS overhead, there won't be much space to store music internally so if you have a big music library, an external 1 TB drive is in order.

 

If it will handle HD video, It will probably do 24/192 with no problem as well. As far as I'm concerned, the big question mark is the processor. The one I ordered (which was sold as an Internet device) had a 1.6 GHz Atom, and this one is a 1.8 GHz. I can't imagine that a mere 20 extra GHz of processor speed is going to make any real difference. You can always order one and try it. If it doesn't work to your satisfaction, you can always send it back for a refund.

 

 

Another thing to consider. It's powered either by battery (3 Hours claimed) or by wall-wart. The wall-wart power supply uses-up one of the two normal sized USB ports, so if you are going to connect a external HDD for your audio library and a USB DAC and an input device to control the thing, you'll need an external USB port multiplier hub. The video showed the thing to be quite snappy (in spite of the Atom) and the video narrator attributed that to the Solid State HDD. This thing looks to be, on second glance, worth a closer look (keeping in mind, of course, all the Caveats).

George

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Audio_ELF

Audio_ELF

Posted
Posted
The one I ordered (which was sold as an Internet device) had a 1.6 GHz Atom, and this one is a 1.8 GHz. I can't imagine that a mere 20 extra GHz of processor speed is going to make any real difference.

George ... I think you have issues there with magnitude ... 20 GHz increase in processor speed would make a difference; 200MHz (0.2GHz) is unlikely to. :-)

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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Bloodwound

Bloodwound

Posted
Posted

Furthermore, it's not singlecore. It's quadcore.

And the wallwart does not use up one of the normal sized USB ports.

 

It can also be found under various chinese brands, and uses a powervr gpu that only has proprietary drivers for Windows. (So no Linux atm). It will work fine for high def sound, that's the least of the worries. and it will handle pretty much everything you throw at it, save for 100 open tabs in Google Chrome. Windows is probably installed in a squash-like format which will give you lots of space left (relatively, considering 32Gb of total space) for installing the neccesary programs. It's pretty much the same as all the cheap Windows tablets that are thrown at you atm, without the screen. That's why a battery is included.

Yay!

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michaelhigh

michaelhigh

Posted
  • Author
Posted

This is more info than provided by the manufacturer on two separate attempts to contact them! That has me worried in the customer service realm alone!

 

Thank you everyone for your responses and info, and I may yet buy this thing and see if I can set it up to play lossless music with my 1 TB hard drive. I'll report back if I go that far.

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gmgraves

gmgraves

Posted
Posted
George ... I think you have issues there with magnitude ... 20 GHz increase in processor speed would make a difference; 200MHz (0.2GHz) is unlikely to. :-)

 

 

Yeah I misspoke. I meant 200 MHz, not 20 GHz. I agree. 20 MHz would make a HUGE difference (were it possible to use wave-guides on a PC board!).

George

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gmgraves

gmgraves

Posted
Posted
Furthermore, it's not singlecore. It's quadcore.

And the wallwart does not use up one of the normal sized USB ports.

 

Sure looks like the wall-wart uses up one of the USB ports to me. At least that's what the video on the web-site shows.

I think this thing or something like it would make a nice stand-alone, turnkey music server. If there is software available to allow one to control the Win8 via a pad or a smart phone rather than a keyboard, it would be perfect.

George

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Bloodwound

Bloodwound

Posted
Posted
Sure looks like the wall-wart uses up one of the USB ports to me. At least that's what the video on the web-site shows.

I think this thing or something like it would make a nice stand-alone, turnkey music server. If there is software available to allow one to control the Win8 via a pad or a smart phone rather than a keyboard, it would be perfect.

 

No, the video doesn't show that. You can't use a normal usb host port for charging/power. There is an otg micro usb port for charging/power.

Yay!

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4est

4est

Posted
Posted

Good to hear it is not sand boxed.

What potential issue? Win 8.1 with bing is *exactly* the same as win 8.1, and you can upgrade to Windows 10 Home for free.

Forrest:

Win10 i9 9900KS/GTX1060 HQPlayer4>Win10 NAA

DSD>Pavel's DSC2.6>Bent Audio TAP>

Parasound JC1>"Naked" Quad ESL63/Tannoy PS350B subs<100Hz

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gmgraves

gmgraves

Posted
Posted
No, the video shows that the wall-wart connects to a micro-USB port alongside the two normal-sized USB ports.

 

 

"Sure looks like the wall-wart uses up one of the USB ports to me.". The wall-wart does uses-up one of the only three USB ports available! Which one is really irrelevant. Power, external storage, and a USB DAC uses them all up, just as I said.

George

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Bloodwound

Bloodwound

Posted
Posted
"Sure looks like the wall-wart uses up one of the USB ports to me.". The wall-wart does uses-up one of the only three USB ports available! Which one is really irrelevant. Power, external storage, and a USB DAC uses them all up, just as I said.

 

No, you said : "The wall-wart power supply uses-up one of the two normal sized USB ports, so if you are going to connect a external HDD for your audio library and a USB DAC and an input device to control the thing, you'll need an external USB port multiplier hub."

 

I was but merely pointing out that you do have both the full size USB available at all times. Of course you're right about needing a usb hub if you were to connect a usb drive, usb dac and usb input device, but 2 versus 1 port available does give extra flexibility. Besides, it has built in bluetooth, so you could always use a bt keyboard. And if you plan on using network storage and/or remote desktop/bluetooth input device you can get away with only 1 or 2 ports depending on your configuration.

Yay!

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goldsdad

goldsdad

Posted
Posted
"Sure looks like the wall-wart uses up one of the USB ports to me.". The wall-wart does uses-up one of the only three USB ports available! Which one is really irrelevant. Power, external storage, and a USB DAC uses them all up, just as I said.

 

George, surely you saw (because of the quote I included to make it abundantly clear) that I was responding to your statement that "the wall-wart power supply uses up one of the two normal sized USB ports".

 

Furthermore, as has been pointed out by Bloodwound, storage can be connected by means other than USB - network storage or micro-SD storage.

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