Article: Sonore microRendu Review, Part 1

[gstew]

Totally agree with you there Doak. But since I don't have my hands on a Sonore microRendu or Bryston BD-Pi, and don't see that happening anytime soon, I need a proxy to do the listening for me.

<SNIP>

But if you can't test alternatives, you need a trusted source to do it for you.

 

skikirkwood,

 

That is what I believe Chris is doing in his review, along with the many other people who have reported on the SQ of the uRendu. Spend a little time looking at some of these poster's previous posts about their setups. Read Barrows posts about his DIY'd battery powered music server coupled to his DIY'd Twisted Pear Buffalo-based DAC (using a best-in-breed Sonore Async USB->I2S card and with all upgraded power supplies) and then fast forward to how the uRendu handily beat his battery-powered server. Read Chris' other reviews and see the caliber of the gear he has pass through his hands and the care he takes in reviewing it... and then re-read his uRendu review part 1. You appear to be making statements without the benefit of available knowledge and saying things at odds with those who have listened to the uRendu.

 

The microRendu looks like a fine device, but I'd question why I'd want to spend $640 when I could buy a single board computer like the Raspberry Pi 3 (which has a quad-core CPU vs. the dual-core in the microRendu) for $35 and achieve exactly the same level of audio quality with any decent USB asynchronous DAC.

 

<SNIP>

 

Again, nothing wrong with commercial offerings such as the microRendu, but for many people I believe you can get a much better solution at a fraction of the price and more flexibility with software updates by choosing a Raspberry Pi or ODroid SBC and any one of the audiophile Linux distros under constant development.

 

Here's a recent blog posting by one of my favorite audio bloggers on the renderer he put together with an ODroid-C2 and Volumio 2:

 

Archimago's Musings: MEASUREMENTS: ODROID-C2 with Volumio 2, and USB digital music streaming.

 

skikirkwood,

 

Again, you are posting without doing your homework. Read up on the tech in the device. You have about as much chance of DIY'ing a USB-output network attached audio appliance that even begins to approach the uRendu out of a Pi, a BBB, an Odroid, or any other commercial embedded system board out there as you have of taking the audio out from one of those boards and with some SW and HW tweaks getting it to match an Ayre or PS Audio or Schitt top-end DAC. You are NOT going to take any general purpose computer board built to a sub-$100 price level (or even a $1000 price level) and do anything even in the same realm as the uRendu. Good engineering, engineering for sound quality, and custom, purpose-built HW are key attributes of the uRendu. I have a few tweaked R-Pi player setups in my stable and yah, I've gotten them to sound pretty darned good. I tweaked a motherboard player with extensive linear supplies for the ATX power and a super-modified sound card / add-on-DAC with another 3 linear supplies just for that output, including using a super-cut-down XP based OpSys/Player that was only 15Mb total. I am familiar with what one can get in the DIY world at an extreme level beyond where virtually no one else would go. And I am quite comfortable saying that IF I needed a USB output player appliance, I'd get the uRendu because I know I cannot do any better, for any price I am willing to spend or any effort I can expend.

 

Please spend some time to educate yourself before throwing out wild, unsubstantiated conjecture here.

 

Greg in Mississippi