Sonore microRendu

[jaaptina]

With Bubbleupnp on Android you can play Tidal to microRendu. Bubbleupnp takes care of the Tidal licence. 

[Melvin]

19 hours ago, jtrelin said:

I liked the Mojo Audio Joule and Illuminati power supplies better than the ones you listed and the Sonore Signature. You can get a used Joule V or Illluminati I perhaps from $400 to $650. A good deal considering the cost of the Sonore Signature.

 

I'm sure it is but for my microRendu it's a bit costly 😉.  Thanks anyway.

[Melvin]

The Small Green Computer 7V LPS arrived. What a nice little power supply!

[vkennedy]

Greetings,

 

I'd like to know what USB chipset the microRendu uses. I have a Roon ROCK that is having an issue with a Mytek Liberty DAC. It appears that there is an issue with Roon running on Linux, including Roon's own ROCK and DAC's with XMOS chipsets. I currently have a microRendu as an endpoint to a Sony TA- ZH1ES. I am considering swapping the microRendu to the Mytek and the ROCK to the Sony TA- ZH1ES but I don't want to go through the hassle if the microRendu also has a XMOS chipset. 

 

Here's a link to the issue:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/dac-issues-with-xmos-usb-chipset-and-roon-on-linux/52911

 

 

Thanks in advance,

Vince

 

 

[vortecjr]

52 minutes ago, vkennedy said:

Greetings,

 

I'd like to know what USB chipset the microRendu uses. I have a Roon ROCK that is having an issue with a Mytek Liberty DAC. It appears that there is an issue with Roon running on Linux, including Roon's own ROCK and DAC's with XMOS chipsets. I currently have a microRendu as an endpoint to a Sony TA- ZH1ES. I am considering swapping the microRendu to the Mytek and the ROCK to the Sony TA- ZH1ES but I don't want to go through the hassle if the microRendu also has a XMOS chipset. 

 

Here's a link to the issue:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/dac-issues-with-xmos-usb-chipset-and-roon-on-linux/52911

 

 

Thanks in advance,

Vince

That is a firmware issue with your DAC not our unit. 

[asdf1000]

To expand on what JR said, see this post in that same thread.

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/dac-issues-with-xmos-usb-chipset-and-roon-on-linux/52911/15

 

It's an issue with DACs, not streamers.

[vortecjr]

I have not heard of any issues from customers though...

[vkennedy]

@vortecjr - thanks for the response, that's exactly what I was hoping. I'll be purchasing another microrendu.

 

 

 

 

[Melvin]

Some follow-up comments now that I've lived with the new components for a while. I'm very happy with the Small Green Computer 7V LPS powering the microRendu. It brought a sound quality refinement on par with (if not better than) the SOtM mBPS-d2s. In addition, my DAC seems to sound better through its BNC connection, so I added my Bel Canto mLink into the mix for a listen. The mLink is a USB-powered converter with BNC-out and I'm using a Black Cat Silverstar! 75 cable. This combination being fed by the microRendu has given me the best sound to date. It's hard to imagine achieving better with my humble system. A big thank you to Sonore and Small Green Computer. 

[vortecjr]

Your Welcome. It's been a while since a user talked about the Bel Canto mLink...enjoy!

[Melvin]

10 minutes ago, vortecjr said:

Your Welcome. It's been a while since a user talked about the Bel Canto mLink...enjoy!

 

I've had the mLink for 5 years or so but it hasn't seen much use until I acquired the Pagoda. While it's getting a bit long in the tooth it's spec's suit the DAC perfectly. Nice to know some of our aging tech can still sound great. BTW, I'm keeping a curious eye on the bevy of new products you're developing .. exciting times. Best.

[vortecjr]

Quote of the day

 

”I listened to some music files last night directly from iTunes to to my DAC, and I can’t believe how bad they sounded compared to the microRendu. I’ve been really spoiled the last two years by the little Rendu!”

[vortecjr]

Quote of the day

 

"Over the last few nights I have had my microrendu in and out of the path between my i7 NUC feeding a Mytek Liberty. In my opinion the microrendu is a clear winner. I am not much on audiophile jargon but in my opinion it sounds much better. Instruments are more defined, and there’s a greater awareness of space…it just sounds fuller, less confined. I don’t know if any of this will make sense without actually hearing it for yourself."

 

[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?

[chetthejet]

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.

[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.

 

 

 

[vortecjr]

14 hours ago, HumanMedia said:

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?

Pre-face: I don't think it's been said here in this thread, but that is beside the point. Also, plenty of people have said Roon / RoonReady sounds great and others have said MPD/DLNA sound great. IMO most of what is said in the other tread is an exaggeration. Finally, a low latency operating system with a huge buffer is no longer a low latency operating system. 

 

Anyway, the Rendu series makes it very simple to switch back and forth between the various output protocols. Each output protocol is carefully configured for the best sound and performance and most of the configurations are fixed. The SqueezeLite protocol allows you to change the buffer and period for streaming through it while RoonReady and MPD/DLNA do not. Incorrect values input for buffer and period in SqueezeLite usually result in playback inconsistencies (things lock up and don't work) and dropouts (x-runs). I'm not against people experimenting if they well informed. 

 

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.

[barrows]

Squeezelite has so many limitations vs. ROON for me that I do not use it.  But I have experimented with it, and I have experimented with different buffer/period settings.  My results suggest that any differences (considering settings which work with no dropouts or other issues only) in sonic performance are very, very subtle, if audible at all.  In fact, I would suggest that these differences, if they even exist in objective reality, are so small as to be not worth the trouble, and I would rather enjoy listening to music without thinking about buffer settings.

If I had to give an opinion, I felt there was sometimes a slight improvement (and it is so subjective as to have no degree of certainty) with buffer settings up to 200, allowing for, again perhaps, slightly smoother playback sonics.  Above 200, i could hear no differences.

I think it is interesting to note, as Jesus does above, that there are so many inconsistencies with what has been reported elsewhere on these forums (for example the notion that "low latency" result in better sonics, and the contradictory notion that higher buffer settings result in better sonics) that one, if they even want to bother with this, has to come to their own conclusions in their own system, and one also needs to do very, very careful listening tests to avoid bias.  If one starts hearing: "massive" differences, there is definitely a problem in either the test method, the system, or the listener and one will need to change their methodology to come up with more accurate results.

[Melvin]

Veils were lifted 😉

 

Last evening I spent some time listening to a few favorites, among them was Steely Dan’s “Two Against Nature”. Dan fans will know this 2001 Grammy Awards winning album (i.e., 4 including Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical) is just superb in every way. It’s been in my collection since its release in 2000 so it’s safe to say I’m very familiar with this recording, yet I was completely taken aback while listening last night. I’ve experienced this “hearing deeper into the recording” type of improvement in the past and now, once again, I’m hearing detail I’ve never heard before. I can only attribute this latest refinement to the microRendu (w/SMG psu).

 

The microRendu was indeed the missing piece in achieving my sonic goal with this system. I now believe I’ve taken it as far as I can but my inner audiophile (the crazy part) is, of course, taunting me with thoughts of “better”. Is it even possible with this budget system (albeit a very fine one)? I might not think twice if I were listening to a $20,000 system, but a $5000 one? Granted, my components/speakers are said to scale wonderfully, and they do, but sanity reminds me of the law of diminishing returns. Perspective is a good thing.

 

Fortunately, I’m enthralled with this little system and sanity will prevail .. for now. I can’t help being intrigued with Sonore’s latest developments. OY.

 

[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.

 

 

 

 

[vortecjr]

Personally, my content is stored as FLAC and streamed as FLAC or PCM depending on the server application. I really don’t concern myself with which one it is streaming FLAC or PCM or with which one has more processing at one end or the other. C-3PO plug-in is great and I have used it before. My SqeezeLite setting are the default settings from the unit. 

[vortecjr]

Quote of the day from a b-stock microRendu owner

 

"The system is up and running. Superb sound. Congratulations with this product!"

[steveoat]

I am using a microrendu with a mytek liberty dac using roon as the music player.

 

I also have a  bluesound node 2.  Since the dac in the node 2 is only of average quality (though it does decode MQA), I would like to feed the bluesound node2 into the coaxial input of my mytek dac, which supports MQA.  Can I do this using the microrendu, or would I have to connect the mytak directly to the computer usb port to do this?

[Axiom05]

2 hours ago, steveoat said:

I am using a microrendu with a mytek liberty dac using roon as the music player.

 

I also have a  bluesound node 2.  Since the dac in the node 2 is only of average quality (though it does decode MQA), I would like to feed the bluesound node2 into the coaxial input of my mytek dac, which supports MQA.  Can I do this using the microrendu, or would I have to connect the mytak directly to the computer usb port to do this?

Seems to me that if you are using Roon the Bluesound node 2 is somewhat redundant. Why do you need to use both?

[vortecjr]

21 hours ago, steveoat said:

I am using a microrendu with a mytek liberty dac using roon as the music player.

 

I also have a  bluesound node 2.  Since the dac in the node 2 is only of average quality (though it does decode MQA), I would like to feed the bluesound node2 into the coaxial input of my mytek dac, which supports MQA.  Can I do this using the microrendu, or would I have to connect the mytak directly to the computer usb port to do this?

The Rendu would connect to the Mytek via USB.