Sonore microRendu

[HumanMedia]

Any chance of a USPS international shipping option?

This would halve the current quoted shipping fee.

[HumanMedia]

Have any international orders shipped yet?

[HumanMedia]

Jesus:

 

I'm using the microRendu in Squeezelite mode, feeding a Benchmark DAC2. Ordinarily, If I want to play a DSD file, I have to convert it to DoP in Foobar prior to sending it to the DAC.

 

Does the "Enable DSD-over-PCM" setting in the microRendu/Squeezelite page mean that I no longer need to go through the Foobar step?

 

Probably best if you did the automatic packaging of DSD into DoP at the server end to reduce any processing (in the Rendu?). Make sure you are running a 7.9.x version of Logitech Media Server, open the plugins page on the server controls page, in third party plugins enable PlayDSD/DSDplay plugin, set the file types to convert, set the config for each DAC you are using on the network. This way you can even have DSD converted to pcm for DACs that don't support DoP. Once setup it's really great as you can have a single DSD file seen by the server and it will automatically DoP it for DSD capable DACs or convert to PCM for PCM DACs. Will even play to iOS players on the network without a hitch. There is a lengthy and informative thread at the Slimdevices forums.

[HumanMedia]

Finally got my microRendu.

 

Swapped out my Squeezebox Touch, putting the microRendu in its place.

Powered up DAC, then microRendu.

Logged into sonicorbiter.com, clicked on microrendu, clicked on Squeezeplay, named it the same as previous Squeezebox, select DoP.

Selected some music to play.

It plays perfectly without a glitch! even DSD128, took no more than 5 minutes and no further fiddling.

 

Put a big playlist together with every format of music I have to burn it in and will revisit it later tonight for some serious listening. But even with 5 mins on it it sounded great.

 

Will try some different USB cables in a few days. (Currently my USB preferences are: Chord SilverPlus > Supra > Curious > hard adapter). I am also trying out an Elijah Audio Konvertible CU, which has the midrange clarity of the Curious but without the rolloff of the Curious. Also the stock Silver Konvertible was definitely not to my taste but the CU version is a contender up with the Chord Silverplus.)

 

PS. Oh there was one small tweak I needed to make to make the transition from Squeezebox to MicroRendu - set my player volume to 100%

 

So far I am very happy with what I am hearing.

[HumanMedia]

+1 on the changelog.

 

Possibly, we also need a major/minor version bump, which always says 2.1.

 

Yes, please, feature request - increment the version number with every change, 2.1.x for small fixes, 2.x for major or multiple fixes.

 

Will make it easy to know where you are at, and can only save people time in the long run

[HumanMedia]

Anyone using the Channel Islands VDC9mkII to power their microRendu?

 

Is it audibly different to the iFi?

 

I was thinking about getting one to directly power the microRendu, then for charging the Uptone super capacitor supply. Any opinions or comments on this strategy? Any cheaper options which sound better?

[HumanMedia]

This is not true at all. Whatever powers the Uptone would be plugged into the wall near your audio system, and will be sharing noise onto the AC line,a nd that noise will get back into your system via the AC line. It is best to keep all cheap power supplies as far away from the audio system as possible, and anything plugged into the same circuit as the audio system should be high quality/low noise.

 

Exactly.

And the Uptone capacitor power supply doesn't sound like you charge it for a few hours then disconnect the charger and have it run for days without the toxic switching charger. It almost sounds like you have to have it attached to the charger most of the time?

 

Anyways I think there is at least one person out there using the Channel Islands VDC9 to run their microRendu? Any comparisons to the iFi supply?

[HumanMedia]

For me personally, I don't want any switching power supplies anywhere near my audio system. The sooner I can get rid of the iFi powering the microRendu the better. For both the noise transmitted into the microRendu and the junk it puts back out onto the circuit that my pre-amp and power amps are on. Ideally I would replace it with an LPS-1, but if I am adding another switching power supply to charge the LPS then I am still getting garbage out on that circuit and only solving half of the problem. (Even if LPS itself is impervious to grungy switched power) So it might be overkill for the output of the LPS, but for the rest of the system it isn't the optimal solution. So I'm looking for the lowest cost power supply that sounds better than iFi with the microRendu and can also be used to charge the LPS without dumping crap back onto the AC lines.

[HumanMedia]

If your going to buy a linear supply why not just use it with the microRendu and call it a day.

 

Yep that might be the best option. Though the El Cheapo and LPS-1 combo might be a great option for a reasonable total cost.

[HumanMedia]

I've tried the following USB cables in this order and preference: Oyaide, WireWorld Platinum, Nordost Heimdall, Light Harmonic Lightspeed split, Curious Cable, Audience AU23 SE. The Audience continues to be my favorite due to its very balanced, transparent and harmonically rich performance.

 

Steve Z

 

Sorry I'm a bit confused - is the order of the list the order you tried them in, or the descending order of preference, or ascending order of preference?

 

If the Audience is the most favourite, then the Oyaide is s the least favourite?

[HumanMedia]

I was very impressed with how my things sounded in a setup of mine when I powered a microRendu with an Uptone JS-2:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-microrendu-power-supply-unit-observations-considerations-and-commentary-28480/index6.html#post561770

The JS-2 has two outputs which can be set for different DC voltages, so if your Chord DAC is supported by one of those, I expect the lashup should sound quite excellent - but all I've actually heard is my combination of equipment, so of course YMMV.

 

If you were to start using the JS-2 and later crave isolation between the two power sources, all you'd need to do would be plug one of the upcoming and anxiously anticipated Uptone LPS-1 boxes in one of the power paths.

 

I think I posted somewhere earlier in this thread, but from my experience using a single JS-2 to power both the microRendu and a Chord 2Qute together sounded worse than the JS-2 on the 2Qute with the iFi on the microRendu. JohnS gave an explanation of why this could be so (defeats the galvanic isolation of the 2Qute). However the JS-2 has an incredible synergy with the 2Qute.

 

I would love to hear a separate JS-2 for both. In fact I'm considering doing exactly that.

[HumanMedia]

So from what I'm reading, separate PSU's for microRendu and DAC is the best way to go.

 

Only for DACs with galvanic isolation (like the 2Qute mentioned in the original question) Other DACs may be fine running with a microRendu from a JS-2.

[HumanMedia]

OK, then two points I still don't understand -

 

1) when you say "work out the server on the NAS", what do you mean?

 

2) am I correct that the microRendu does the conversion of .DSF and .DFF files to DoP?

 

I'm close to understanding but I need this clarification. Thanks!

 

 

I'm pretty sure what was meant is when you decide what server software to use on the NAS (there are multiple options) and connect and configure it properly. Also the DSD is packaged into DoP at the server end not in the microRendu.

[HumanMedia]

In the 4 weeks the microRendu has been in my system, I've been using a Chord-C USB as I had one spare.

U

However, following a number of very positive comments on other forums and the review on digitalaudioreview.net, I've plumed for a Curious Cables USB.

 

Mike at curious was extremely helpful and made me a bespoke 100mm version of the Regen Link which is a perfect straight link from the microRendu to my 2Qute. It arrived in the UK from Australia in 7 working days which is better than many UK retailers.

 

As for the sound, it has livened up to everything that has been claimed. More detail, smoother and the soundstage appears to have gained additional depth and scale.

 

For $120 shipped, it is something of a bargain in this world of ridiculously over priced cables and has taken the microRendu to another level. The next step is LPS's for the microRendu and 2Qute, so more to come.

 

Make sure to swap the old USB cable in before the evaluation period is up, for an objective reminder.

[HumanMedia]

Forgive me if this has been answered before, but is there any audible difference between the different renderers? Assuming they all pass bit perfect data and there is no processing turned on.

 

Say, do Roon and LMS sound Identical outputting the same data?

if one generates more noise rendering the data could this be passed on to affect the sound downstream?

[HumanMedia]

5 hours ago, barrows said:

Yes, of course there is.  All of these things sound different.  ROON, for example uses an entirely different way of streaming over Ethernet.  The sound quality differences are not about the data, they are about how much (and what type of) noise is carried along the way to the DAC.  Same reason a better Renderer (ultraRendu vs. microRendu for example) will produce better performance.

 

OK which do people think sounds the best?

 

Reason I ask this is I trialled Roon about a year ago. Made sure all processing of the signal was swItched off. Verified this with a Roon support person. In the limited time I had to compare, LMS sounded repeatedly better than Roon. It was enough of an unexplained difference for me not to subscribe. But I had so little time with it to figure out why and the Roon client (and LMS player) have probably been rewritten since then, so the same comparison now may not give the same results.

 

Anyone else hear differences between renderer clients on the Rendu? Any preferences on the basis of audio quality experienced?

[HumanMedia]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

 

With what render/endpoint ?

Back then it was a microRendu rendering using the Roon client/renderer compared to LMS client/renderer on the same microRendu.

 

Roon sounded more congested in the mids to lower highs, more forward in this area as well, but not in a good way. And confirmed with Roon support that my settings had all of the processing turned off.

[HumanMedia]

OK it’s been mentioned before in this thread and in other threads for other player/renderers, that some people get better playback quality from Squeezelite/LMS than Roon. I believe Roon has a different networking system to Squeezelite in that it continuously pulls in data in smaller chunks and that Squeezelite slurps in larger chunks less frequently?

 

Let’s leave the comparisons to Roon there, as I really want to explore if Rendu based Squeezeplay can be user optimized?

Users of other NUC based player / renderers are reporting that the quality of Squeezplay on those platform can be dramatically improved by allocating larger buffers.  NUC users talk about two different buffer sizes, the rendu Squeezelite settings page only has one buffer setting.

 

I know that the default buffer settings are probably the best compromise for all player functions and performance but what are the range of values that COULD be entered there?  I know there could be downsides to higher than default values, like longer load time for the first track, but for me personally I would be OK with that, other people not so much.  In any case for those wanting to experiment, what are the limits and range of values that could be used? And is the memory available different on the microRendu and the ultra Rendu?

[HumanMedia]

3 hours ago, chetthejet said:

Not sure if it's the same thing as what you're speaking of, HumanMedia, but in the Squeezelite "settings" page accesed via the "MySonicOrbiter" web interface,, there is a block for setting the buffer size, along with a few other Squeezelite variables.  I've never experimented with it...have just left it on default.

 

Yes that's exactly it.

I have slowly started going through, the NUC thread and below is a post specifically for the microRendu.

The output buffer to the DAC does not seem set-able, but the buffer that you CAN change is the incoming buffer (good)

From vortecjr's post the default value for the buffer is 40 (ms) and 4 for the period. These are the values that are used when the fields are empty. Which sets a base point from which to slowly experiment out from.

These two values are intrinsically linked, read up for how to deal with them. I would love to know what settings people try and the audible results, specifically for the rendus and without all of the irrelevant baggage of that other thread.

 

 

 

[HumanMedia]

On 2/2/2019 at 11:40 PM, vortecjr said:

When streaming from Roon to SqueezeLite one thing worth doing is to disable FLAC encoding in Roon Settings. This keeps SqueezeLite from having to decode the stream on the Rendu.

 

Ive been wondering about this. People have reported this with other renderers (empirically) but other people counter this and say that (theoretically) the noise from increased network activity outweighs the relatively lightweight internal conversion from FLAC in the SqueezeLite. 

 

What is the truth as it applies to xRendus?

So you recommend unpacked PCM into the xRendus?

Is there a format that is preferred? WAV or AIFF, which are different endian data, or same data different word orientation, is there a preferred format of PCM that the xRendus handle with less work?

 

And I am assuming that the recommendation to supply PCM applies to LMS as well as Roon?

Note that for many versions now, LMS sends FLAC data and there is no built in way of changing this. However there is a brilliant free transcoding plug-in called C-3PO transcoding helper, which allows conversion to WAV or AIFF on the server. it also does upsampling or downsampling for you on-the-fly on the server, and is highly recommended (even if you are just using it to convert to PCM)

 

So my findings with changing the buffer timing values.

Before I read Barrows setting above, i went straight to 400 buffer size, and back to default, repeated with a range of file data sizes. The larger buffer sounded different, slightly muted at first but after a while I noticed that it was the same volume but with a tiny amount of high frequency smoothness. As mentioned above it is very subtle but to me, repeatable. The findings on changed period values was not as straightforward. The first time I tried changing it to a lower value of 2 (lower is supposed to be less processing ?) it it seemed to have the same slight smoothing of treble highlights. Trying it again and again there was no pattern and more often than not sounded slightly worse.  I didn’t try increasing the value above the default. In the end I left timing as default and just kept the 400 value that I first tried. I did try higher but no perceivable difference, haven’t got around to trying lower values. 

 

Anyways the highlight of this little project was the discovery of C-3PO, which I can recommend to LMS users, as there are many tweaks and optimisations that can be done there which have a more substantial effect on the sound - or at a minimum will allow you to send PCM to the xRendu.