Sonore microRendu

[vortecjr]

First time poster here. I know next to nothing about networks, but Jesus' new product fits in with my philosophy. Simple, designed for one function, as small as possible, electrically isolated as possible (with the best possible incoming power) and as close to the next process as possible. (relatively inexpensive helps, note, I did not say inexpensive)

 

So if I'm setting up an NAS to utilize the rendu, would this work: NAS 215J > cat 7 cable > cable company router > cat 7 cable > rendu > lhlabs pulse xfi

 

I have no idea what software gives the best sound or even where it needs to reside. Currently I use JRiver on a HP Spectre 13 notebook with SSD connected to the net over wifi. FLAC files are sent via Jitterbug > Belkin Gold cable > Superdad's amber device (whatever its name is) > LHLabs XFi Dac > Violectric 281 amp > HiFiMan 560 or HE 1000 (on the way) headphones.

 

Sound quality with this is good enough to have the soundstage leave the headphones and appear in front of me on a few well miked files (Beegie Adair recordings being the best at this). I want to improve my source enough to give me this listening experience with as many recordings as possible.

 

So, am I on the right track? What software do I need and where should it reside? Does the Synology 215J have enough memory (512 mb) to cache the music w/o to much thrashing in/out of memory? Jesus, will the rendu work with my LHLabs XFi?

 

And what am I missing and need to add or improve what I'm guessing I need?

 

Jesus, when will you be taking preorders? And can you email when that happens so I can get in the queue?

 

I love the Antipodes source and it would be the simplest but it's out of my budget range and feel it can be duplicated using an NAS with rendu. Even Mark Jenkins says his DV zero feeding from an NAS is the second best in sounding setup his lineup just behind his SSD based rig. Here's an interesting link to an article where he discusses his design philosophy which I agree with completely and I think Jesus would concur:

 

Antipodes Reference Series DX Music Server Part 2 | AudioStream

 

Sorry for the length of the post but I really want to get this right as this is the last step (hopefully) in my upgrade path and the most important.

 

That setup would work, but we are recommending category 6A cables. You can use the microRendu in DLNA output mode with JRiver as server / controller or the Synology with its DiskStation DLNA server. I know Mark (good guy) at Antipodes because he is a software partner of ours.

[pageman99]

That setup would work, but we are recommending category 6A cables. You can use the microRendu in DLNA output mode with JRiver as server / controller or the Synology with its DiskStation DLNA server. I know Mark (good guy) at Antipodes because he is a software partner of ours.

 

My understanding is that DLNA doesn't sound as good as direct mounting. Here is the quote from the article I linked to (Mark Jenkins talking): "Regarding your observation of a decrease in sound quality when playing back music from the NAS using DLNA: in general, this is true. But if you'll allow us to assist you in setup mounting the QNAP, you'll find that the difference in sound quality between the internal storage and the mounted NAS is very small -indeed, tiny. We'd be happy to help you in the setup process, just as we would with any customer; the improvement in sound quality compared to playback through DLNA is well worth the minor effort involved."

Read more at Antipodes Reference Series DX Music Server Part 2 | AudioStream

 

Do you agree with the quote and if I mount, would I have to do anything else to get it to work with JRiver or do I need another piece of sw? I'm really trying to get rid of that slight veil which drives me crazy as it's so obvious with high quality headphones.

 

Yes, I'm realizing 6a should be sufficient for a 75 foot run which is what I'll need.

 

 

[sdolezalek]

That setup would work, but we are recommending category 6A cables.

 

Jesus: I'm curious about your recommending Cat 6A over Cat 7 cables. I recently went the other direction because I found that the individually shielded leads made a noticeable difference in actually decreasing any stuttering I was getting from playing HQPlayer at DSD256 through the Sonicorbiter SE. Neither of these are "audiophile" cables, but just well constructed data cables with higher quality terminations. Is there something about 6A that you feel is important in this context?

[vortecjr]

I just updated the Sonore Sonicorbiter SE - Drive Mounter thread to show you how to mount a Synology NAS via SMB on the Sonicorbiter software.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-sonicorbiter-se-drive-mouter-27417/#post506702

[pageman99]

I just updated the Sonore Sonicorbiter SE - Drive Mounter thread to show you how to mount a Synology NAS via SMB on the Sonicorbiter software.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-sonicorbiter-se-drive-mouter-27417/#post506702

 

You are a good man Jesus. And a patient one. Do you agree from your experience that direct mounting sounds best? And thank you. 8-)

[vortecjr]

My understanding is that DLNA doesn't sound as good as direct mounting. Here is the quote from the article I linked to (Mark Jenkins talking): "Regarding your observation of a decrease in sound quality when playing back music from the NAS using DLNA: in general, this is true. But if you'll allow us to assist you in setup mounting the QNAP, you'll find that the difference in sound quality between the internal storage and the mounted NAS is very small -indeed, tiny. We'd be happy to help you in the setup process, just as we would with any customer; the improvement in sound quality compared to playback through DLNA is well worth the minor effort involved."

Read more at Antipodes Reference Series DX Music Server Part 2 | AudioStream

 

Do you agree with the quote and if I mount, would I have to do anything else to get it to work with JRiver or do I need another piece of sw? I'm really trying to get rid of that slight veil which drives me crazy as it's so obvious with high quality headphones.

 

Yes, I'm realizing 6a should be sufficient for a 75 foot run which is what I'll need.

 

 

 

I respect his opinion, but I do not concede to it and neither should anyone else. This is something that you should try for yourself and determine if it makes a difference in your system. You should also consider that the DLNA/MPD output mode is easy to use while the SMB mount is a little more complex. The USB mount and the SMB mount are used for local playback with LMS or MPD only and requires their respective controllers. For more information you can refer to these links.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-sonicorbiter-se-squeezelite-output-mode-27263/

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-sonicorbiter-se-digital-living-network-alliance-mpd-output-mode-27265/

[pageman99]

I respect his opinion, but I do not concede to it and neither should anyone else. This is something that you should try for yourself and determine if it makes a difference in your system. You should also consider that the DLNA/MPD output mode is easy to use while the SMB mount is a little more complex. The USB mount and the SMB mount are used for local playback with LMS or MPD only and requires their respective controllers. For more information you can refer to these links.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-sonicorbiter-se-squeezelite-output-mode-27263/

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-sonicorbiter-se-digital-living-network-alliance-mpd-output-mode-27265/

 

Very helpful, thank you.

[Superdad]

Jesus: I'm curious about your recommending Cat 6A over Cat 7 cables. I recently went the other direction because I found that the individually shielded leads made a noticeable difference in actually decreasing any stuttering I was getting from playing HQPlayer at DSD256 through the Sonicorbiter SE. Neither of these are "audiophile" cables, but just well constructed data cables with higher quality terminations. Is there something about 6A that you feel is important in this context?

 

I'm not Jesus (obviously! ), but I'll toss my $0.02 in: First off there are a lot of garbage "Cat 7" cables out there. Bought a set of Kanex on Amazon once that used copper-clad aluminum!

 

There is nothing wrong with good Cat 7 cables (though I really doubt they were what cured the stuttering you had with HQP at high speed unless what you were switching from was junk), but what I don't like is the metal shell at each end which joins the shields and defeats the galvanic isolation inherent in Ethernet (though there is still a transformer in every Ethernet jack/PHY).

 

Even most shielded Cat 6a cables tie the shields at both ends. That may be why my favorite Ethernet cable is the thick BlueJeans/Belden Cat6a. It has the special Belden 10GX high-bandwith construction and is shielded, but the shields are not tied at either end. Did a 5-way shootout with 25-foot cables and the BJC/Belden was audibly better than the rest of what I tried (purposely chosen different constructions). And it is very reasonably priced (sorry, never tried any of the pricy AudioQuest EN cables).

 

--Alex C.

[warpeon]

Could I tidal with microrendu? Sorry if I repeat someone's question for the millionth time

[lmitche]

+1 on the Blue Jeans Cable Cat6+. I've got 250 feet of this stuff in various lengths all over the house. What an improvement over the Cat 5 it replaced. After trying some short lengths of Cat 7, it became clear the BJC sounds best. Best price too.

[zikarus]

Hello Jesus,

 

glad to hear that your microRendu might soon be available! Please go for it til April... ?

 

I am looking forward to it anyways and have two more questions:

 

1 Do you have plans to support MQA in the future?

 

2 Will the microRendu work with the updated Burson Conductor v2+ Sabre /XMOS implementation (technical details can be found here

 

Burson Audio – Conductor V2+ )

 

as well as the EC Designs Mosaic T DAC (of course using their USB to Toslink bridge too)?

 

EC designs - Home

 

Best regards

zikarus

[vortecjr]

Could I tidal with microrendu? Sorry if I repeat someone's question for the millionth time

 

Yes. You can use it with the Roon output mode and the DLNA output mode.

[vortecjr]

Hello Jesus,

 

glad to hear that your microRendu might soon be available! Please go for it til April...

 

I am looking forward to it anyways and have two more questions:

 

1 Do you have plans to support MQA in the future?

 

2 Will the microRendu work with the updated Burson Conductor v2+ Sabre /XMOS implementation (technical details can be found here

 

Burson Audio – Conductor V2+ )

 

as well as the EC Designs Mosaic T DAC (of course using their USB to Toslink bridge too)?

 

EC designs - Home

 

Best regards

zikarus

 

The microRendu will pass MQA encoded content without issue. All that is needed is a compatible server and DAC. I see no issue supporting your devices.

[rickca]

If I run MinimServer on the Windows 10 Pro machine that hosts my music files and BubbleUPnP on an Android device as controller, do I really need something like JRiver as well for DLNA mode? I'm currently an A+ user so I'm unfamiliar with using DLNA, although I have played around a bit with setting up an Auralic Aries with its Lightning DS iPad app. I want to be able to play my local ripped WAV files and stream Qobuz.

 

A separate question. Since Qobuz streaming is integrated into A+, could I not also use A+ to stream Qobuz and use the shairport mode of the micro rendu?

 

Once I have answers to those two questions ... which approach is likely going to sound better?

[Albrecht]

Jesus: I'm curious about your recommending Cat 6A over Cat 7 cables. I recently went the other direction because I found that the individually shielded leads made a noticeable difference in actually decreasing any stuttering I was getting from playing HQPlayer at DSD256 through the Sonicorbiter SE. Neither of these are "audiophile" cables, but just well constructed data cables with higher quality terminations. Is there something about 6A that you feel is important in this context?

 

Also not Jesus, but speculating that he's just mentioning as a way of identifying the ethernet cable. It is my understanding that a CAT7 cable with the RJ45 is not a true CAT7 cable unless it has a TERA connector. (Which obviously, no audio playback devices have TERA ports). The bandwidth spec on 10GB CAT7 is 600MHZ. And although the shielding covering/on the cable part meets spec, the connector type has too much crosstalk to meet the spec of TIA/EIA

 

However, I am betting that this shielding on a "good" CAT7 cable CAN make it better than a CAT6a that doesn't have it.

 

I qualify all of the above as someone who does believe that "better" ethernet cables make a difference. Like everything else, I suggest comparing. I compared Audioquest Forest to Rosewill standard and couldn't tell a difference. I do plan on moving to fiber anyway, - too many people have reported significant differences for the better, and it's cheaper than buying an audiophile grade ethernet cable.

[JohnSwenson]

On the issue of network cables and such, I have run my microRendu plugged into a bunch of different switches, both gigabit and 100Mbit, with many different types of cable and have not heard any sound differences. I don't have any "audiophile" Ethernet cables, the best is the above mentioned BJC CAT6a, and quite a few really cheap ones.

 

This lack of sensitivity to network differences MAY be due to the radical power network in the microRendu, where there are 4 regulators in between the power to the Ethernet PHY and the power to the USB subsystem. Some of those regulators have VERY high PSRR. This is very different than what is found on most motherboards where there is not very much isolation between the power to the Ethernet PHY and USB subsystem.

 

I have not done exhaustive testing on this, but you all MAY find that what makes a significant difference with other computers, does not make nearly as much difference with the microRendu. Of course you my find that some things DO make a significant difference, but my experience has shown that this may be rare.

 

John S.

[Albrecht]

On the issue of network cables and such, I have run my microRendu plugged into a bunch of different switches, both gigabit and 100Mbit, with many different types of cable and have not heard any sound differences. I don't have any "audiophile" Ethernet cables, the best is the above mentioned BJC CAT6a, and quite a few really cheap ones.

 

This lack of sensitivity to network differences MAY be due to the radical power network in the microRendu, where there are 4 regulators in between the power to the Ethernet PHY and the power to the USB subsystem. Some of those regulators have VERY high PSRR. This is very different than what is found on most motherboards where there is not very much isolation between the power to the Ethernet PHY and USB subsystem.

 

I have not done exhaustive testing on this, but you all MAY find that what makes a significant difference with other computers, does not make nearly as much difference with the microRendu. Of course you my find that some things DO make a significant difference, but my experience has shown that this may be rare.

 

John S.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. Really appreciate it. And... sorry if i strayed off topic & went a little too far down the rabbit hole. Your news about the Ethernet cable is great. If an (for lack of a better word) "audiophile" cable doesn't make much difference with the microRendu, - then it seems better to not bother with fiber as the FMCs need power supplies that could potentially cause noise issues of their own.

 

Thanks again.

[nyc_paramedic]

On the issue of network cables and such, I have run my microRendu plugged into a bunch of different switches, both gigabit and 100Mbit, with many different types of cable and have not heard any sound differences. I don't have any "audiophile" Ethernet cables, the best is the above mentioned BJC CAT6a, and quite a few really cheap ones.

 

This lack of sensitivity to network differences MAY be due to the radical power network in the microRendu, where there are 4 regulators in between the power to the Ethernet PHY and the power to the USB subsystem. Some of those regulators have VERY high PSRR. This is very different than what is found on most motherboards where there is not very much isolation between the power to the Ethernet PHY and USB subsystem.

 

I have not done exhaustive testing on this, but you all MAY find that what makes a significant difference with other computers, does not make nearly as much difference with the microRendu. Of course you my find that some things DO make a significant difference, but my experience has shown that this may be rare.

 

John S.

 

John,

 

Is there anything preventing one from purchasing the unit and running their own Linux kernel and software? Are there specific drivers that would prevent this?

 

I've been running PC Engines Alix boards and Linux+MPD since 2007 with very good results. I like having the option of not being locked in to a vendor for software support if possible.

 

Sincerely,

 

Nick

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

John,

 

Is there anything preventing one from purchasing the unit and running their own Linux kernel and software? Are there specific drivers that would prevent this?

 

I've been running PC Engines Alix boards and Linux+MPD since 2007 with very good results. I like having the option of not being locked in to a vendor for software support if possible.

 

Sincerely,

 

Nick

 

You will find his answer here: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/sonore-microrendu-ethernet-universal-serial-bus-industry-standard-cables-connectors-and-communications-protocols-between-computers-and-electronic-devices-output-27389/index3.html#post507973

[vortecjr]

John,

 

Is there anything preventing one from purchasing the unit and running their own Linux kernel and software? Are there specific drivers that would prevent this?

 

I've been running PC Engines Alix boards and Linux+MPD since 2007 with very good results. I like having the option of not being locked in to a vendor for software support if possible.

 

Sincerely,

 

Nick

 

You would be wasting your money to do that. Understand that the microRendu is a software and hardware project optimized to work together.

[nyc_paramedic]

You would be wasting your money to do that. Understand that the microRendu is a software and hardware project optimized to work together.

 

Not if I can buy the hardware and have the option of using my own software, if I wish, further down the line. I'm interested in the hardware as it currently is being described. But I tend to eschew proprietary software or vendor lock-in. I don't use Roon, Tidal etc., and prefer a simple MPD to NAS setup.

 

Do I get console access to the device if I want to? Are there any special drivers that would make the device useless should I choose to use your software?

 

Sincerely,

 

Nick

[vortecjr]

Not if I can buy the hardware and have the option of using my own software, if I wish, further down the line. I'm interested in the hardware as it currently is being described. But I tend to eschew proprietary software or vendor lock-in. I don't use Roon, Tidal etc., and prefer a simple MPD to NAS setup.

 

Do I get console access to the device if I want to? Are there any special drivers that would make the device useless should I choose to use your software?

 

Sincerely,

 

Nick

 

You can set the unit to run MPD and mount a NAS as is. We will not facilitate console access to the unit. I'm sorry, but I'm going to pass on discussing additional details of the design.

[nyc_paramedic]

You can set the unit to run MPD and mount a NAS as is. We will not facilitate console access to the unit. I'm sorry, but I'm going to pass on discussing additional details of the design.

 

That is OK.

 

Are you GPL compliant with modifications to GPL code (Linux kernel, MPD, any GNU tools) and posting source code as per the GPL that you are using with this or any other of your products as far changes to code? I didn't see anything on your website.

 

Nick

[Solstice380]

That is OK.

 

Are you GPL compliant with modifications to GPL code (Linux kernel, MPD, any GNU tools) and posting source code as per the GPL that you are using with this or any other of your products as far changes to code? I didn't see anything on your website.

 

Nick

 

Have you read the thread? This question was answered weeks ago.

[vortecjr]

That is OK.

 

Are you GPL compliant with modifications to GPL code (Linux kernel, MPD, any GNU tools) that you are using with this or any other of your products as far changes to code? I didn't see anything on your website.

 

Nick

 

Yes. We are not changing code on those projects. Well we are changing the kernel to add device support for native DSD, but that is also an open source project.