SOtM smS-200 unveiled at Munich Hi-End

[welldone]

Hi guys,

I'm seeking for a fanless PC to run Roon Core for SMS200. Otherwise, i also want to setup a bridge connection between PC and SMS200. Please give me any recommedation about this. Thanks in advance.

[TopQuark]

1 hour ago, welldone said:

Hi guys,

I'm seeking for a fanless PC to run Roon Core for SMS200. Otherwise, i also want to setup a bridge connection between PC and SMS200. Please give me any recommedation about this. Thanks in advance.

 

Get a NUC. NUC6i5 (7i5 or 7i7 if you don't mind the extra cost), NVMe SSD, 8GB RAM, Akasa Fanless case, then load ROCK using bridge set-up.  Also, it not a bridge connection. It's a "subnet" connection which is theoretically better than interface bridge connection.

[R1200CL]

3 hours ago, welldone said:

Hi guys,

I'm seeking for a fanless PC to run Roon Core for SMS200. Otherwise, i also want to setup a bridge connection between PC and SMS200. Please give me any recommedation about this. Thanks in advance.

 

If you must have the brigde:

https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/sonictransporter-i7-for-roon-1-3-dsp?variant=35324041615

 

If not:

Buy the SonicTransporter i5

 

You may also find some inspiration here:

http://atechfabrication.com/ if you like to build something yourself. 

[gionaz]

6 hours ago, welldone said:

Hi guys,

I'm seeking for a fanless PC to run Roon Core for SMS200. Otherwise, i also want to setup a bridge connection between PC and SMS200. Please give me any recommedation about this. Thanks in advance.

for just Roon Core use a NUC pc, like this

http://forum.videohifi.com/discussion/424097/roma-nuc-i7-rock-roon#Item_1

[TopQuark]

If you have to have ROCK, only NUC is fully supported.

[R1200CL]

@welldone

How did you proceed?

[Bamber]

Version : V0.4.0
  - Date : 17-07-2017
  - Add MinimServer for all sMS series
  - Add BubbleUPnP server
  - Add un/install service feature
  - Update Roonready to 1.1.21
  - Fix LibreSpot 

[jtwrace]

14 hours ago, Bamber said:

Version : V0.4.0
  - Date : 17-07-2017
  - Add MinimServer for all sMS series
  - Add BubbleUPnP server
  - Add un/install service feature
  - Update Roonready to 1.1.21
  - Fix LibreSpot 

Hopefully this will solve my dropout issue that started.  

[welldone]

On 15/7/2017 at 4:35 PM, R1200CL said:

@welldone

How did you proceed?

Yup, i've not tried yet. But it's gonna be soon. Thanks alot for your recommendation.

[welldone]

22 hours ago, jtwrace said:

Hopefully this will solve my dropout issue that started.  

How to use Minimserver and BubbleUPnP on SMS200? Have you tried these ones?

[jtwrace]

2 hours ago, welldone said:

How to use Minimserver and BubbleUPnP on SMS200? Have you tried these ones?

Nope.  Roon only!  

[zoltan]

In the instruction (coming with the latest update), it says that I have to uninstall and reinstall one of the apps manually. I can see how to uninstall but how will I reinstall it? 

[afrancois]

On 6/19/2017 at 11:41 AM, sarbel said:

wonder if anyone here bothered to test Raspberry 3 with LPS-1 or similar, same-level LPSU against the sms-200 or microRendu.

 

I myself am using RP3 with digi+ and Terakdak 30W PSU and love what I hear

(using hegel DAC and AMP)

I've tried the digi+ board and I was really surprised. I used an Sbooster and did a mod so that the digi+ was directly powered. In the mean time I'm using a SMS-200 with a Mutec MC3+ USB with a ISO Regen in between. I also use two LPS-1. For the money the digi+ with a good power supply is unbeatable, however the combination I have now is in another league.

[Dr Tone]

On 2017-07-19 at 1:52 PM, zoltan said:

In the instruction (coming with the latest update), it says that I have to uninstall and reinstall one of the apps manually. I can see how to uninstall but how will I reinstall it? 

 

Apps are still listed when uninstalled.  Just click the app gear and choose install.

 

I see that sqeezelite isn't uninstallable for some reason.

[Dr Tone]

Any one have the link to the v0.4.0 image?  My unit simply won't do static IP, says it's set to with with my specific static address but still continues to pull the old address from DHCP.

 

I'm hoping a fresh install of v0.4.0 image might kick it out of it's funk.

[austinpop]

On 7/17/2017 at 9:42 PM, jtwrace said:

Hopefully this will solve my dropout issue that started.  

 

I was about to post my own "music stops" issue here, when I saw this. Not sure it's related, but I just started to see an issue where the music stream just pauses, and the only fix is to restart the sMS-200. After the pause, it becomes unresponsive to the web UI. Very strange. There are many things I haven't tried (yet) to isolate the problem, but here is what I have observed:

• failure rate is directly tied to data rate.
  • No failures at all at 16/44.1 or 16/48.
  • Eventual failure at 24/96 but takes 15-20 minutes sometimes 
  • DSD128 and DXD (24/384) fails within a couple of minutes
• I'm on Roon Core build 247 (latest)
• sMS-200 0.4.0

In the past, I've had a similar issue (but not data rate related like this) when I temporarily had a leased router from my ISP of some weird brand - Technicolor. The problem went away with the restoration of my own router, a TP-Link Archer C7.

 

Now I did have to replace a bad switch in my network in the last week, but I replaced one unmanaged switch (old DLink DGS-2208) with a new TP-Link TGS-108. Over on the Roon forum, I've seen mention of a resolution to a similar problem with managed switches, by explicitly turning on link-level flow control, but as far as I know, unmanaged switches have flow control enabled by default.

 

There are many things I need to try to isolate this problem, but I just wanted to check if others had run into this, where it may just be a bug in Roon or eunhasu?

[kopelli]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

 

I was about to post my own "music stops" issue here, when I saw this. Not sure it's related, but I just started to see an issue where the music stream just pauses, and the only fix is to restart the sMS-200. After the pause, it becomes unresponsive to the web UI. Very strange. There are many things I haven't tried (yet) to isolate the problem, but here is what I have observed:

• failure rate is directly tied to data rate.
  • No failures at all at 16/44.1 or 16/48.
  • Eventual failure at 24/96 but takes 15-20 minutes sometimes 
  • DSD128 and DXD (24/384) fails within a couple of minutes
• I'm on Roon Core build 247 (latest)
• sMS-200 0.4.0

In the past, I've had a similar issue (but not data rate related like this) when I temporarily had a leased router from my ISP of some weird brand - Technicolor. The problem went away with the restoration of my own router, a TP-Link Archer C7.

 

Now I did have to replace a bad switch in my network in the last week, but I replaced one unmanaged switch (old DLink DGS-2208) with a new TP-Link TGS-108. Over on the Roon forum, I've seen mention of a resolution to a similar problem with managed switches, by explicitly turning on link-level flow control, but as far as I know, unmanaged switches have flow control enabled by default.

 

There are many things I need to try to isolate this problem, but I just wanted to check if others had run into this, where it may just be a bug in Roon or eunhasu?

 

I have also experienced a very similar issue - the unit will either be in a frozen state when i try to play music or stop and freeze while playing music. Whevever this happens, Eunhasu is unreachable and I can't even switch the unit off without restarting my router and unplugging the dac and the hdd. I only have 3 data points so far in my 3 weeks of using it so i don't really have any insights on why it may be happening other than a suspicion that it happens when my internet connection gets flaky - my router is an old BT router - which is why restarting the router has, so far, been part of the 'recovery' process.

 

My unit is the SMS-200 Ultra and i am feeding it using an attached externally powered MyBook. Eunhasu is still at 0.3.8. There is a USB regen between the SMS-200 and my Chord CuteHD dac.

[kopelli]

Further to the above, the unit did freeze last night again and I had to restart my router, then unplug the HDD for it to shut down. This makes me think that only a restart of the router may be required, then a restart of the unit. I'll try that next time.

 

Either way, bottom line is that I am also seeing dropouts/freezes that seem to be correlated to the state of the network and that would be good for SOtM to have a look at.

[austinpop]

Well, my issue appears to have resolved itself. I rearranged my network topology to remove a switch from the path. Now my music files travel from NAS > router > Roon Core > sMS-200.

 

So far so good, but I remain vigilant.

 

@kopelli - you may already have done this, but make sure to do the following:

1. On your router, 
   • enable UPnP mode 
   • enable multicast mode. Sometimes this is called IGMP Proxy mode.
2. Any managed switches? If so, go to the web UI of each managed switch, and make sure the ports are configured to use flow control - usually a check box.

Not sure this will fix anything, but usually helpful.

[kopelli]

Thanks @austinpop, I checked and UPnP is indeed switched on and I can't see a setting for multicast mode. As I understand it, BT hubs may have this switched on by default but I'll have another look. It's probably high time I get a professional router to replace my old BT hub that came for free.

 

On the plus side, I had another dropout yesterday which gave me the opportunity to establish that i only need to restart the router so as to be able to switch the unit off and on again, no unplugging required.

 

The performance of the unit continues to amaze me even though i am still using it with the stock psu while waiting for my PH SR7 to arrive.

[bmoregnr]

Can someone help a novice like me understand what is preloaded on the sms-200 to have it act as both a server and a renderer.  So in my case I will have an external SSD housing music hooked into my router (I have no interest in a NAS).  I would then like to hook the sms-200 to the router via Ethernet and then through an iphone control (no computer involved) play the files on that SSD; this would be hooked into an Ayre Codex.  I am a novice at this so I am looking for what server options come already available on the sms-200 (I am not interested in paying a fee for Roon, which I think needs a NAS/computer anyway).  I am looking for gapless and up to 24/192 and maybe future-proof myself for DSD; I am not sure if all of these do that standard these days. 

If I am getting my research so far correct it seems a few example combinations would be:

Squeezelight with iPeng 9

MPD with Soundirok  or Mpod

Where I am tripped up is something like DLNA Mode with Lumin or Linn Kazoo; is that a purely renderer situation and does not fit what I described above?

So if anyone could give me a few combinations of server type on the sms-200 and control point that would work best for a novice using the sms-200 as both server and renderer it would be appreciated.

[ClothEars]

@bmoregnr

You seem to have it under control.

 

The last Eunhasu update added MinimServer and BubbleUpNp Server but like Roon & HQPlayer they need another PC to do their thing (and I have no idea what LibreSpot does).  I have never managed to get Lumin or Linn Kazoo to work properly so don't bother with them any more.  

 

Squeezelite with iPeng works well and gives a bit of extra flexibility in that you can listen to Spotify, Tidal and internet radio stations. 

Here is a video that shows you how to set up LMS with Squeezelite activated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzteqI_QHi0

Here is a video that shows how to setup Spotify & Tidal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn4d-frLnf4

 

I personally don't use Squeezelite as I find MPD with Soundirok sounds better to my ears and I don't use Spotify or Tidal.  I listen to albums that play gapless as well as resolutions of up to 24/192 and DSD.  (If I want to listen to internet radio it's easy just by activating Squeezelite but I don't do this very often).  MPad/MPod are no longer available on the app store and will not be updated either.  Soundirok works well and the developer is updating it with greater functionality (with a new update pending) and provides support via email.

 

One thing though - my friends and I connect our HDD music library using a HDD dock connected directly to the SMS-200 via USB.  We have found that different docks sound different (as do USB cables).  I'm not sure how you intend to connect to your SSD to your router but it's worth considering this for the best sound quality.

[bmoregnr]

Thanks @ClothEars that is very helpful.  Yes I likely won’t do Tidal/radio etc. ever so I’ll try starting with MPD/Soundirok.  On the HDD connection front, I guess I was under the impression it was better hooked to the router so the sms-200 didn’t have to do as much work.  As long as I can access the SSD for loading etc., and as I planned to use a usb powered SSD I might be ok as I’ll probably do the sps-500 with it, so I think I will have enough juice;  so I will check both ways and see what is best.

[ClothEars]

@bmoregnr

Just to clarify - I don't recommend using a USB drive that draws power from the SMS-200, as I and many other users have found this does not deliver the best sound.  I use a HDD dock with it's own 12V 5A linear power supply like this one, connected via USB.

http://cplonline.com.au/astone-doc-250e-2bay-usb3-e-sata-2-5-3-5-sata-hdd-docking.html

 

 

You could also plug this into your router which means the data (music files) will have to travel over the network (ethernet cable or WiFi) to the SMS-200.  That configuration may make it easier for the HDD to be available on your network and therefore to other media players and not just the SMS-200.

 

I have tried this configuration but I prefer the sound of the direct USB connection.

With the dock you can try both and see which one you prefer. 

[bmoregnr]

I have one of these on the way, and I had a few operational questions I couldn’t find the answer to in the manual.  For those using a usb drive attached to the sms-200, how do you eject the drive?  Do you power down the sms-200 first and then remove and reinsert the drive?  On the power on/off front, I can see where you power down the sms-200 in the Eunhasu software, but how do you power it back on?  Is that an option in Eunhasu or is it done another way?