ECdesigns

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

25 minutes ago, Huubster said:

Any updates on this @hopkins? 😊

 

Hi, 

 

No update on those aspects, as I have been listening to the UPL this way ever since... 

 

I finally managed to get the 2TB SSD that I use with the UPL to be powered externally using that same battery pack, by using a small mechanical two-way hub. I'll post some pictures/explanations tomorrow in case anyone is interested. 

 

I am still using a 3.7v lithium battery to power the DAC as well. 

 

I have not done any comparisons on those power supply aspects since. 

But I am curious as to what type of cable you use. Do you have a link? What PS are you using for the DAC, I forget ? 

 

I have been busy finalizing my app to control playback of the UPL and am pretty happy with the way it works. Having all my music on a single drive is great. ECD will soon release a new version of the UPL firmware and of their app that will increase the number of folders to 999.

[Huubster]

17 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

Hi, 

 

No update on those aspects, as I have been listening to the UPL this way ever since... 

 

That's a good thing right!? Just enjoying the music, that's what we are doing it for. 

 

Nice to hear that the HDD and app are working nicely now, innovative ideas you have. And ECD is working with you to make that possible, how kind!

 

I still use the ECD PS for the DAC, with original delivered cabling. I bought a power cable having that figure 8 connector. Next step I'm going to try is a better usb cable from PS to DA96. I'm looking around for an affordable but decent cable currently.

 

I recently discovered a Dutch brand, called Audiomaat (www.audiomaat.nl), with his own brand cabling in a variety of of price ranges and cable types, all multi stranded copper based. In my experience its ok, not Tellurium Q Black Diamond quality for sure, but I'm looking for 2nd hand buys of his cabling here locally and slowly changing my mainly silver based power cables to these copper ones, as part of an affordable experiment, which is suiting me well until now, especially the power cable on the DA96 power supply, nice uplift.

 

I experienced that the real benefits for me are elsewhere, and that is on the source end of my chain. As mentioned before, the Paul Hynes SR4 LPS in combination with my Innuos Zen Mini blew the UPL out of the water really. So I couldn't resist and I just ordered a Paul Hynes SR4T a few days ago, a supposedly newer/better version of the SR4.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

4 minutes ago, Huubster said:

 

That's a good thing right!? Just enjoying the music, that's what we are doing it for. 

 

Nice to hear that the HDD and app are working nicely now, innovative ideas you have. And ECD is working with you to make that possible, how kind!

 

I still use the ECD PS for the DAC, with original delivered cabling. I bought a power cable having that figure 8 connector. Next step I'm going to try is a better usb cable from PS to DA96. I'm looking around for an affordable but decent cable currently.

 

I recently discovered a Dutch brand, called Audiomaat (www.audiomaat.nl), with his own brand cabling in a variety of of price ranges and cable types, all multi stranded copper based. In my experience its ok, not Tellurium Q Black Diamond quality for sure, but I'm looking for 2nd hand buys of his cabling here locally and slowly changing my mainly silver based power cables to these copper ones, as part of an affordable experiment, which is suiting me well until now, especially the power cable on the DA96 power supply, nice uplift.

 

I experienced that the real benefits for me are elsewhere, and that is on the source end of my chain. As mentioned before, the Paul Hynes SR4 LPS in combination with my Innuos Zen Mini blew the UPL out of the water really. So I couldn't resist and I just ordered a Paul Hynes SR4T a few days ago, a supposedly newer/better version of the SR4.

 

Thanks for all this info. 

 

I have seen some other recent excellent feedback on the Innuos so it must be doing something right! Let us know when you recieve your SR4T :) 

[Huubster]

5 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

Thanks for all this info. 

 

I have seen some other recent excellent feedback on the Innuos so it must be doing something right! Let us know when you recieve your SR4T :) 

 

My SR4T is planned in this months batch, so ETA is beginning of November.

 

And regarding Innuos, off-topic maybe, but important for the ones comtemplating about an Innuos now..

 

I bought the cheapest version, the Zen Mini, on purpose. It is the owner of Audiomaat who advised me to do so, and he is an Innuos dealer. I trusted him on his advise, so it's his opinion only, be aware. I cannot verify whether I agree with his opinion, I don't have unlimited budget to try them all, but this is what has been told to me and that's why I made this choice.

 

In his opinion the Zen Mini with a separate good LPS (and the original Innuos LPS I currently have is not one of them) is better then whatever other Innuos product you buy, and Innuos prices go up untill thousands of euro's for the Statement version. And now knowing what I heard with the Paul Hynes SR4 on the Zen Mini, I can certainly say that the Innuos Zen Mini can play at extraordinary levels of musical satisfaction :)

[Huubster]

2 minutes ago, Huubster said:

 

My SR4T is planned in this months batch, so ETA is beginning of November.

 

And regarding Innuos, off-topic maybe, but important for the ones comtemplating about an Innuos now..

 

I bought the cheapest version, the Zen Mini, on purpose. It is the owner of Audiomaat who advised me to do so, and he is an Innuos dealer. I trusted him on his advise, so it's his opinion only, be aware. I cannot verify whether I agree with his opinion, I don't have unlimited budget to try them all, but this is what has been told to me and that's why I made this choice.

 

In his opinion the Zen Mini with a separate good LPS (and the original Innuos LPS I currently have is not one of them) is better then whatever other Innuos product you buy, and Innuos prices go up untill thousands of euro's for the Statement version. And now knowing what I heard with the Paul Hynes SR4 on the Zen Mini, I can certainly say that the Innuos Zen Mini can play at extraordinary levels of musical satisfaction :)

 

Important addition, I'm talking about the Zen Mini MKIII version, not before.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

16 minutes ago, Huubster said:

 

Important addition, I'm talking about the Zen Mini MKIII version, not before.

 

This is all good to know, and of interest to readers of this topic who may wonder how to maximize use of the U192/Fractal.

 

I am convinced from my own tests that the SQ can be a "hit or miss" with many streamers as each will have a different noise spectrum (especially important below that 20Mhz limit).

 

No one really knows what contributes to great SQ, and spending more money is not a guarantee of better results. 

 

I would test it myself, were it not for some weariness after having tested all these streamers a month ago, and the fact that I am quite happy with the UPL - I do not use streaming services and my own app lets me access my music collection in ways that could not be possible with other applications. 

 

Did you get a chance to compare identical tracks played through streaming services and from the Innuos's local storage ? If so, is the SQ compatible? That should be of interest also to many people...

[Huubster]

2 hours ago, hopkins said:

Did you get a chance to compare identical tracks played through streaming services and from the Innuos's local storage ? If so, is the SQ compatible? That should be of interest also to many people...

 

I certainly did and it depends how you look at it. In short, WAV is still better, but not by much. It brings more weight to it, and Spotify is a bit 'brighter'. But the quality I now have with streaming from Spotify, is way better then the performance of WAV I used to have until a few months back. To be honest, I could perfectly live with Spotify only, I wouldn't bother anymore.

 

And for this the ECD Fractal kit attributes the most. It's just such a great kit, I can't praise it enough. I never thought to get to the level I (almost) am now, considering the SR4T in the chain. Though I found my sweetspot with the SR4 LPS in the chain, the UPL is still a reference player if you ask me, and that for 363 euro, crazy. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I bought a used turntable a few months ago - really enjoyable to listen to LPs. I only buy LPs which are out of print and have never been issued on CD or available on streaming services.

 

I get what people say about vinyl, and its funny to see that you can get dynamic and vivid sound so easily with a basic turntable, whereas digital can require much more effort. 

 

But I find my digital rig equally satisfying now. So its all good :) 

[bodiebill]

8 hours ago, Huubster said:

I experienced that the real benefits for me are elsewhere, and that is on the source end of my chain. As mentioned before, the Paul Hynes SR4 LPS in combination with my Innuos Zen Mini blew the UPL out of the water really.

 

Yes, I can confirm this as I was there to witness this surprising result. A result that I have not been able to replicate at home -- admittedly with an SOtM SMS-200 Ultra Neo instead of the Zen Mini. The question remains: was there something seriously good in @Huubster's setup with the UPL + Zen Mini combination? Or was something seriously wrong with the U192? It would be nice to get some more data points. And I am secretively (but not any longer 🙃) hoping to be able to one day compare the Zen Mini and the SOtM in either Huubster's or my setup. 

[bodiebill]

Sorry I swiched it round, and meant:

The question remains: was there something seriously good in @Huubster's setup with the U192 + Zen Mini combination? Or was something seriously wrong with the UPL? It would be nice to get some more data points.

[Huubster]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

And I am secretively (but not any longer 🙃) hoping to be able to one day compare the Zen Mini and the SOtM in either Huubster's or my setup. 

 

That day will come bodiebill, I'm curious myself as well 😁

[tims]

10 hours ago, hopkins said:

 

This is all good to know, and of interest to readers of this topic who may wonder how to maximize use of the U192/Fractal.

 

I am convinced from my own tests that the SQ can be a "hit or miss" with many streamers as each will have a different noise spectrum (especially important below that 20Mhz limit).

 

No one really knows what contributes to great SQ, and spending more money is not a guarantee of better results. 

 

I would test it myself, were it not for some weariness after having tested all these streamers a month ago, and the fact that I am quite happy with the UPL - I do not use streaming services and my own app lets me access my music collection in ways that could not be possible with other applications. 

 

Did you get a chance to compare identical tracks played through streaming services and from the Innuos's local storage ? If so, is the SQ compatible? That should be of interest also to many people...

Hi @hopkins

I'm interested in your app.  Would you mind describing how it differs from the ECdesigns' remote app and if you are going to eventually offer it to the community?

Thanks

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

3 hours ago, tims said:

Hi @hopkins

I'm interested in your app.  Would you mind describing how it differs from the ECdesigns' remote app and if you are going to eventually offer it to the community?

Thanks

 

 

It will be freely available. I embarked in this little project as I wanted something simple to use, that would allow using a large number of albums on a drive. Since then, ECD has also made some changes to their app, and also to the UPL firmware, most significantly to allow for 999 folders instead of 99 on each USB drive.

 

Here are some of the differences:

 

1) The app is installed on a computer linked to the UPL, but everything can be managed from a web browser

 

2) The web page has a very basic interface (see below) which does not include images - at this point

- there is a list of albums by folder and also an alphabetical list of all albums

- you can filter albums by genre, and there is a search bar

 

3) USB drives are scanned from any computer using the same web page. The scan is  quick (especially since images are not managed...). When you insert the USB drive in the UPL, it is not scanned, so you can just play it immediately

 

4) You can store your albums as "single wave files" with accompanying cue sheets. The detail of the tracks, contained in the cue sheet, can be displayed in the web page

 

5) Albums do not require tags, but if you use cue sheets some of the data in the cue sheet can be used (genre, album title, and catalog number, so far...)

 

6) An album's web page can be linked from an external application (ex: JRiver). I'm still working on this.

 

In the screenshot below, the folder "Jazz New" (notice it has 3 digits) contains multiple albums, each corresponding to a single wav file and cue-sheet. When you click on the album, the tracks are displayed. When you click on a track playback starts.

 

 

The use of cue sheets offers several advantages:

- you can store 999 x 99 albums on a single drive, so over 98.000 albums. I am currently using two SSDs, one with 2TB capacity, the other with 1TB.

- albums saved as single wav files can be played gaplessly

- folders can then be used to group albums, artists...

- as mentionned previously, tags in the wav files do not need to comply to a specific standards and those tags are not directly read by the app (so you could use tagless wav files). But tags contained in the cue-sheet are read - those cue-sheet tags are generated from the source wav files - programs that generate cue-sheets will usually be less strict in terms of tagging than the UPL.

 

There are some constraints as well:

- a single wav file cannot be larger than 4GB (FAT32 format limit)

- a single wav file cannot have a duration greater than 9999 seconds (UPL limit) which is approximately 2h45min.

 

So if you have multi-disc albums you may need to split them up into different wav files, with seperate cue sheets, which is something you can easily do with Foobar, for example (but there are other options).

 

I have been using Foobar2000 to automatically generate single wav files and cue-sheets for all my albums.  The process is really simple and quick: drag your albums into foobar, right-click to generate the cue-files on the drive. I have written a small program that automatically numbers the files in each folder (based on their alphabetical order).

 

The use of cue-sheets is optional, so you could still use this app by having folders correspond to single albums with individual wav files as it currently works

 

For the app to work, you will need to upgrade the UPL's firmware. I am not quite done with the app, and ECD is still working on changes to their app as well. Once it is all done, if you are curious to use it, I will be happy to get feedback. Bodiebill has been using it, as he has been kind enough (and very patient with me) to test it. So far, I have been using it daily as well, and like it. When you put a large number of albums on a drive, it does become more challenging to browse through them and find what you are looking for without images and without all the features of a full-fledged music application (sorting, complex filters...), but nothing prevents you from using it to store a few albums as you do today with the current ECD app.  I have tried to keep it really simple, because I cannot spend too much time on this, and I am an "amateur" programmer. I do have ideas for further features (playlists/favorites...) but we'll see how things go.

 

I will write a proper documentation on how to use it. ECD offered to host the documentation on their web site. They are happy to have alternative solutions, and were very helpful.

 

Now that I have "looked under the hood" at the workings of the UPL, I am quite impressed with the way ECD (Gordon Brown handles the "software development") has designed it. It runs a low power (250Ghz) microprocessor with little memory, a minimum set of instructions, and maximum sound quality :)

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

P. S. I have seperately developped a web app to browse and "document" my albums, and this is also why I wanted, selfishly, to link it to the UPL, so I now have (elements of) a custom "Roon-like" app which I spend an insane amount of time working on in the past few years (both developing it and entering information on my albums). But it can be used to control the UPL, which I find kind of cool, in a dorky way :) 

[numlog]

On 7/30/2020 at 10:06 AM, tapatrick said:

Thanks for the great report! This is interesting info.

 

I did play around with RPis for a while with lots of isolation, reclockers, LifePo4 power etc but in the end found the low powered ARM processor is a limitation. For sure I found the basic RPi for playing music is one of the worst sounding sources.

Hi, hope you don't mind answering few questions about this (as I trust your judgement)

which pi version was it you had
and was it powered by the standard SMPS?
what software (wtfplay etc.)?
 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

35 minutes ago, numlog said:

Hi, hope you don't mind answering few questions about this (as I trust your judgement)

which pi version was it you had
and was it powered by the standard SMPS?
what software (wtfplay etc.)?
 

 

I tried a Pi4, Pi zero, Pi 3a, using various power supplies. A  good one was the Keces p8. In terms of software I mostly used squeezelite on Picoreplayer. The results were good, much better than what the previous ECD DAC (MOS16) offered with a Pi as a source (and various toslink interfaces). The results were good as well in a friend's system with Sotm players as a source. But in my system, however much I wanted to stick to the U192, there always was a little something that I preferred with the UPL. Hard to explain.

 

 

 

[seeteeyou]

On 10/10/2020 at 4:49 PM, Huubster said:

I experienced that the real benefits for me are elsewhere, and that is on the source end of my chain. As mentioned before, the Paul Hynes SR4 LPS in combination with my Innuos Zen Mini blew the UPL out of the water really.

 

On 10/11/2020 at 1:31 AM, bodiebill said:

The question remains: was there something seriously good in @Huubster's setup with the U192 + Zen Mini combination? Or was something seriously wrong with the UPL? It would be nice to get some more data points.

 

We've gotta find out if there were any confounding factors, were both U192ETL and UPL96ETL connected to Zen Mini with the same USB cable as well as the same USB port? (i.e. USB signal integrity / the source of power must be identical.)

 

If all of the above were true, was Innuos Zen Mini itself constantly powered by SR4 during the comparison between U192ETL and UPL96ETL? Was SR4 itself plugged into the same outlet / socket with the same AC power cable?

 

AC power would tend to perform MUCH better in the middle of the night, were both U192ETL and UPL96ETL tested around the same time slot?

 

The crystal / clock inside each unit would take quite a bit of time to stabilize, were both U192ETL and UPL96ETL powered on for at least several hours before the comparison was conducted?

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/24966-ecdesigns/page/29/?tab=comments#comment-1072593

On 8/8/2020 at 1:39 AM, hopkins said:

Perhaps in the first tests the U192 had not "warmed up" yet, or perhaps the surrounding high noise devices created some interferences that the UPL (which does not receive music data from the "control" computer) was less sensitive to ?

 

[hykbooks]

Greetings

 

Can I ask if the new DA96ETF dac works with roon

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

The DAC only works with their own "interfaces" and what you will need is the U192ETL, which takes a USB signal as input. So any computer running Roon Core or Roonbridge with a USB output will work. 

[hykbooks]

9 minutes ago, hopkins said:

The DAC only works with their own "interfaces" and what you will need is the U192ETL, which takes a USB signal as input. So any computer running Roon Core or Roonbridge with a USB output will work. 

great as someone tested it with U192ETL and experienced playback issues with roon core installed on a windows 10 machine, so has it been tested with roon to work 100%

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

12 minutes ago, hykbooks said:

great as someone tested it with U192ETL and experienced playback issues with roon core installed on a windows 10 machine, so has it been tested with roon to work 100%

 

Is that a question ?

[hykbooks]

14 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

Is that a question ?

yes, as someone who got that combo experienced playback issues with roon, could it be cause roon makes bit depth conversion from 16 bit to 64bit float

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

2 minutes ago, hykbooks said:

yes, as someone who got that combo experienced playback issues with roon, could it be cause roon makes bit depth conversion from 16 bit to 64bit float

 

The U192 has a generic USB driver, so I don't see why Roon makes any difference as long as you provide a signal with 16 or 24 bits and less than or equal to 96Khz. Can't help you any further - sorry. If you are concerned about this, you should ask ECDesigns directly.

[Huubster]

Sorry for the late reply, forgot about it for a while, but all are valid points/questions.

 

On 10/12/2020 at 8:51 AM, seeteeyou said:

We've gotta find out if there were any confounding factors, were both U192ETL and UPL96ETL connected to Zen Mini with the same USB cable as well as the same USB port? (i.e. USB signal integrity / the source of power must be identical.)

 

I cannot install the necessary software on the Zen Mini to control the UPL via the Zen Mini, so comparison is impossible that way. The Zen Mini feeds the U192, my laptop feeds the UPL. 

And we used different USB cables, that is something we could have done right, but we haven't done that. My Zen Mini is connected via a very nice Y-USB cable, the UPL was fed by the simple/cheap cable we got with it. 

 

On 10/12/2020 at 8:51 AM, seeteeyou said:

Was SR4 itself plugged into the same outlet / socket with the same AC power cable?

 

We used the same source for AC, a dedicated powerstrip for audio only. 

 

On 10/12/2020 at 8:51 AM, seeteeyou said:

The crystal / clock inside each unit would take quite a bit of time to stabilize, were both U192ETL and UPL96ETL powered on for at least several hours before the comparison was conducted?

 

We changed UPL's during the evening, so they weren't powered all the time, while the U192 was powered on all the time.

 

On 10/12/2020 at 8:51 AM, seeteeyou said:

AC power would tend to perform MUCH better in the middle of the night, were both U192ETL and UPL96ETL tested around the same time slot?

 

Totally agree. We tested both, though not exactly at the same time, but around the same time. So time impact was negelctible if you ask me. 

 

On 10/12/2020 at 8:51 AM, seeteeyou said:

If all of the above were true, was Innuos Zen Mini itself constantly powered by SR4 during the comparison between U192ETL and UPL96ETL?

 

No. Initially we were only comparing the UPL with the U192 in my setup, no PH SR4 yet. Later we compared my unmodded UPL vs the modded UPL from @bodiebill, and at last we exchanged my Innuos LPS feeding the Zen Mini for the Paul Hynes SR4 to compare both LPS's on the Zen Mini using the U192.

 

But sometimes differences are so big, that you just know that the above differences described, albeit I acknowledge them as real, are not relevant anymore in your judgment. Both bodiebill and me were totally flabbergasted what happened when the Paul Hynes SR4 fed my Innuos Zen mini, there was no discussion about it. It lifted the perceived sound quality so much I could hardly believe we only changed one item in the chain, it was like a complete make-over of the sound. 

 

I find it always hard to describe what exactly changed, I'm not good at that, maybe @bodiebill can amend on that? :)

 

Hope this helps!

 

[bodiebill]

43 minutes ago, Huubster said:

I find it always hard to describe what exactly changed, I'm not good at that, maybe @bodiebill can amend on that? :)

 

Not very good at that myself. I sometimes feel that when it is possible to describe something unambiguously with words, that something cannot be very interesting. But I woud say that the sound opened up in all directions, mainly height and depth, that it became holographic and enveloped us. Also bass became more pronounced and musical at once: like a low melodic line that sang, rather than just being 'bass'.