A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[flkin]

If my Trifecta power supply (sps-500 and LPS-1's Linear Power Supply) are both connected to an isolation transformer with floating secondary, how would one ground the negative DC leg of the output from both?

 

The floating isolation transformer doesn't have a ground.

[flkin]

7 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

It seems a lot of people are getting confused by my posts on the subject of network leakage, I will try and state things in a more concrete manor.

 

This is relating to a switch which is what your network endpoint into your audio system is connected, this may be streamer (microRendu etc) a laptop or other computer Mac mini, PC etc). We shall call this the audio endpoint (AE)

 

Leakage current can get into the AE through the switch in two ways, from the power supply powering the switch, or from the cable connected to the rest of the network. The leakage coming from the network comes from the SMPS powering THOSE devices.

 

If the switch connected to the AE is powered by an SMPS, grounding the negative of output of the SMPS will shunt the leakage from that supply, but the leakage from the NETWORK will still go through. There is one exception, see the next section.

 

IF the switch is one of FS105 and FS108, grounding the negative of the supply will get rid of BOTH the leakage from the SMPS AND the network leakage. NOTE, this ONLY happens for these two switch types. Grounding the supply to a different switch type does NOT block network leakage.

 

If you are powering a switch from a linear supply, this gets rid of the leakage going through the PS of the switch, but NOT the network leakage. The only way to get rid of the network leakage is to use one of the above switches AND ground the negative of the supply powering the switch, no matter WHAT that supply might be. (linear, SMPS, LPS-1 etc)

 

If you are using an LPS-1 to power the switch, see the above rules for ANY supply. ANY supply includes the LPS-1. Thus IF you have one of the two named switches and you are powering the switch from an LPS-1, you must ground the output of the LPS-1 in order to block the network leakage. This will only work with one of those two switches. Grounding the output of the LPS-1 will NOT block leakage if you are using some other switch. It will not help if the LPS-1 is driving some other type of device. Thus there is no reason to ground the output of an LPS-1 if it is NOT driving one of the above named switches.

 

There is one exception to the last point. IF the LPS-1 is driving an ISO REGEN there can be a situation where the whole audio system is floating with respect to earth ground and a charge can build up which can show up as clicks and pops. ONE earth ground in such a system can alleviate this. ONE way to do this is to ground the negative of the supply powering the ISO REGEN. If this supply is an LPS-1 then you can try grounding the output of the LPS-1 to see if it fixes the clicks and pops.

 

Grounding the INPUT to the LPS-1 can help in other situations by shunting the high impedance leakage.

 

I hope this makes things clear, I'm running out of ways to say this.

 

John S.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What if the power supplies are connected to a floating isolation transformer? Where should the grounding go?

 

Thanks

 

[flkin]

12 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Stock cords on both the sPS-500 and the Meanwells for the LPS-1. Eric hasn’t gone down the grounding path yet.

 

The sPS -500 negative DC is already grounded internally by design. Therefore no high impedance leakage currents. 

 

Since the LPS-1 DC input was an ungrounded Maxwell, there would possibly be a high impedance leakage current in the LPS-1 output.

 

Just saying..

[flkin]

I'm a new proud owner of the SOtM Trifecta ?. Not really an audiophile poet so suffice to say I'm dumbfounded by the improvement of the sound over my old setup even before breaking in the new components. 

 

My current connections are:

 

Roon to
Orbi WiFi router in HiFi room  (sPS-500@ 12V) to
D-Link DGS105 switch (sPS-500 one leg @7V) with modified regulators, capacitors and a clock input to
sMS200 (sPS-500 second leg@7V) modified to accept two clock inputs to
tX-USBultra (100W Zerozone to LPS-1 @7V) with clock outputs to above switch and sMS200 to
Vinnie Rossi LIO DHT DAC2.0

 

I have a problem with this setup in that sometimes in the middle of a song, the connection from Roon to the sMS200 gets cut off and often requires a reboot of some Trifecta devices to restore the connection. This occurs especially often with Roon upsampled to DSD512 files. Much less so with DSD256 and lower upsampling. But occasionally happens to simple 44.1MHz files too.

 

Never used to have issues with the microRendu. That unit just worked… until it didn’t and would then be a serious issue like micro SD card failure. 

 

I wonder if anyone here can explain what is the issue is and how to resolve this disconnect problem? Or in which order to reboot which Trifecta devices to reconnect the stream? I haven’t work this out yet and it currently seems random. Sometimes rebooting the sMS-200 and reconnecting the USB cable to the LIO DAC2.0 would do the trick, sometimes not. Sometimes switching everything off, waiting for 10 min then restarting would be the only way.

 

Thanks in advance for any information or experience. 

[flkin]

Yes, I wrote to Kamal from SoTM-USA already and waiting for his reply. I'm hoping the experience users from this thread may have gone through this already and would have some suggestions too.

[flkin]

Yes I recall seeing something about that in the Eunhasu setup, I'll have a look there. Thanks

[flkin]

18 hours ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

You can also try varying the Roon settings in Settings > Library > Background Audio Analysis Speed and Settings > Library > On-Demand Audio Analysis Speed

 

Wouldn't that be related to Roon scanning the file for dynamic range info and the display for sound levels in the track? I believe this is done only once per file after which the data is stored in Roon. 

[flkin]

13 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

First off, congratulations! Glad you're enjoying the SQ of your trifecta.

 

Regarding the issue, clearly it gets worse with higher data throughput. You'd think that even with DSD512 the demand is only 22 Mbps, but you still need to make sure your network is capable. I have seen this before, - not at DSD512 - but at DXD, and I traced it back to a couple of devices upstream of my reclocked switch. For me, the problem was solved by replacing my rental broadband modem/router with a dedicated Netgear modem, a TP-Link Archer C7 router, and a GS105 switch. 

 

So double check your network path all the way from the ingress from your ISP to your reclocked switch. Reseat ethernet cables in their ports. Basic stuff.

 

Also, play with Roon settings on both the Core and Roon Ready on the sMS:

• Core:
• 
• Roon Ready on sMS:
• 

Hope some of this helps resolve the issue.

 

As for recovery, I find the easiest and most consistent is to restart the sMS-200. Occasionally, I'd have to first power cycle the tX, then the switch, and finally the sMS.

 

Thanks for your suggestions, your posts and findings are part of the reason why I started this Trifecta path :-)

 

I fiddled with the Resync Delay (from 0.2 to 0.3) and keeping the Buffer Duration at 0.1 seems to help. Kamal from SOtM suggests 0.5 but I'm finding that the playback speed starts too slowing with this setting. Perhaps having 2 resync delays in Roon and the sMS-200 causes this streaming problem? If Roon is holding back data for sync purposes at 500ms this may cause the sMS-200 to loose data long enough to hang, unless it's Resync Delay is set longer or long enough to receive the data from Roon. Does this make sense? 

 

So far since this adjustment, I haven't had a hang yet and DSD512 files are playing just fine.

 

Haven't tried changing the Roon side Resync Delay yet but will leave this as an option to test just in case I still have issues later.

 

[flkin]

Spaghetti in a pot is still spaghetti.

 

Servers in this thread are anything but simple.. 

[flkin]

2 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

If you want simple buy Apple and enjoy iTunes.  There's a cost to the one button simple approach. 

 

I dont think anyone into Apple/iTunes for serious listening will be following this thread. This is an extreme thread and much suggested here is empirical. "It just works" doesn't apply here for sure. 

 

I'm comfortable with non-simple solutions but complex systems should at the very least - work. My SOtM spaghetti with Uptone meatballs is having a connectivity issue since day 1. Hangs mid-track from time to time and I'm hoping to solve this with a Teamviewer session tonight with Kim.

 

So why do I persist with complex solutions? When it all comes together and works, oh boy audio nirvana! 

[flkin]

8 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

I doubt a mid-track hang has anything to do with hardware.  Of course it's possible, but it sounds more like a software or network issue.  What software are you using?

 

I'm using Roon Server on a Macbook Pro streaming it via WiFi to the hifi room. 

 

Last night K.Kim Teamviewed in to have a look around. He had me remove the 24M and 25M clock cables in turn with a reboot to see the effect on Eunhasu and pings from the Terminal app on the Mac.

 

The conclusion is that the modified sMS-200 was not clocking properly from the tx-USBultra and I have to return it for repair.

[flkin]

8 hours ago, Johnseye said:

 

My point was that complex is to be expected and complaining about what a spaghetti mess it may be or how it's not simple is contrary to the entire thread.  I didn't mean to come off condescending,  I just think that we as consumers have been programmed by companies like Apple to accept a simple one button solution.  Complex doesn't mean it's not good.  Complex to me means I have options, there's a lot involved and it's customizable. 

 

Wasn't trying to complain but pointing out that a Server to DAC to Speaker system isn't simple if the Server is actually spaghetti stuffed in a box... in a light hearted way. Sorry if it came across as a complaint.

 

Agreed that complex allows many options and adjustments but it makes troubleshooting pretty difficult as was in my case being not so savvy with electronics. I ended up discovering it was a hardware problem with Kim's help (took him only 1 hour to do so) but I had to go through 2 weeks of software reinstalls/updates, network hardware changes, wire (DC, clock, USB, ethernet) swaps and countless reboots in different sequences. 

 

If I had to do it again, I'd still stay complex though, the quality of sound is night and day difference when optimised properly and this isn't possible with a simple system.

 

 

[flkin]

2 minutes ago, rickca said:

So this should have been caught by SOtM QA testing prior to shipment?  

 

They probably tested it but my problem was intermittent - my SOtA/Uptone stack would play for a few hours/minutes just fine then in mid-track, it would crash. Sometimes a complete reboot of all components would solve the problem, other times the stack simply wouldn't reboot. So it was difficult to figure out what happened.

 

Fortunately the stack was in a state of working when Kim connected into my system and he actually watched it start to disconnect with intermittent successful sMS-200 pings and then finally totally fail. He rooted into the sMS-200, did some checks in Eunhasu, had me reboot with clock cables disconnected (first 24M then both 24M and 25M) and kept an eye on the network pings. Eventually concluding it was a hardware issue.

 

There are probably many here that have the Trifecta set and it's not as if every other stack fails. So I just count myself unlucky. SOtM agreed to send me a new replacement immediately and not wait for me to return my unit first, that's pretty decent of them. Hope to have it before Christmas..

[flkin]

1 hour ago, marce said:

Generally it the mechanical team that put the hardware together not those poor EE's. Again though in a domestic environment I would wonder how much internal vibration the components will face and would it have any effect... 

 

Big, big difference when components are placed on vibration managed platforms. Years ago when I placed my AR CD-7 and BAT VK-5i pre-amp on an Symposium Isis platform and replaced the existing footers with Symposium solids couplers and Rollerblocks, the change in sound was nothing short of a major system upgrade. Bigger soundstage, more solid presence, clarity of sound. A sceptical friend that helped me assemble the rack was gobsmacked by the change. 

 

Vibration management is so important that I was contemplating atomic microscope active platforms to reduce vibrations. 

[flkin]

2 minutes ago, jean-michel6 said:

Fully agree with you !

The three evil to fight for netter music in our crazy digital systems are : vibration , quality of PSU and related noise , less jitter

 

Please add cables too! Don't know why but they do make a huge difference, sometimes more than the component itself 

[flkin]

21 hours ago, marce said:

I know a lot about vibration management and its effects on the electronics, domestic situations are mild trust me on that and cables vibrating...

Your ears must bleed at the levels you are playing music...

A decent stand will do the job.

 

I don't how you know vibrations in my setup has mild effects. Haha

 

or that I listen to music loudly.  ?

 

I think you don't have an understanding how vibrations affect systems or you wouldn't say this. It's the micro vibrations that make a huge difference. Doesn't require massive earth shaking vibrations for the effects to be heard.

 

I'll continue to trust my ears and 10 years of experiments with vibration management. The changes are as profound as SOtM products.

 

Enough on this subject, better get back to the topic

 

[flkin]

18 hours ago, mozes said:

And I thought I am extreme  

 

The wife gave me that look ? ? and I had to give up the idea ? 

 

We’re all all pretty extreme here anyway! 

[flkin]

I have this one but haven't listened to it yet. Double shielded. Its rather thin but construction wise it feels pretty solid and reasonably priced at $34 for a 12 inch length.

 

https://www.pasternack.com/bnc-male-bnc-male-rg400u-cable-assembly-pe3582lf-12-p.aspx

[flkin]

In addition to the cable from 10Mz Clock to the tX-USBultra (in the case of the Trifecta), the other three 24/25 Hz clock distribution cables from tX-USBultra to the switch and sMS200 would probably need attention too.

 

I found these double shielded ones that seem to be better than the stock recommended ones by SOTM-US. The link is for double right angled connections but normal straight ones are available too. $57 for 12 inch lengths.

 

https://www.pasternack.com/smb-plug-smb-plug-rg316-ds-cable-assembly-pe33476lf-12-p.aspx

 

At short lengths such as these, I'm not convinced that signal drop per 100m matters. We're talking about 1-2db drop differences over 100m making drops over 30cm lengths insignificant. Shielding and termination quality I suspect matter more.

 

[flkin]

12 hours ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

Have you actually tried these cables to compare them to those recommended by SOtM?  If so, would you please describe the nature and magnitude of the difference in SQ?

 

I just place the 3 new Pasternack PE33476LF-12 (RG316-DS wire, double shielded) clock cables into my system 2 days ago along with 2 Ghent unshielded DC cables from my 2 sPS-500 units replacing the original short SOtM and another longer JSSG Ghent cable. The overall effect off the swap was a thicken and fleshing out of the body in the sound much like the effect of adding the IsoRegen. A more forward and rounded 3D feel to it. A very nice change but also added a small smearing of detail and slightly fatter bass. 

 

It's an experiment with shielding DC cables. There is talk of benefit but also a possibility of over dampening the sound so I'm trying various arrangements to see what happens.

 

I'm thinking of letting the wires burn for a few more days then remove them to see the change in sound. I'm hoping the 3D effect will remain but with more detail and tighter bass.

 

As for the contribution of just the 3, 24 and 25MHz cables within the Trifecta, I will know after I swap them out. And will update my findings here after.

 

The original SOtM-US recommended cables from Digikey were the J1212-ND version with RG316 single shield wire.

[flkin]

26 minutes ago, flkin said:

Just received my Cybershaft UPOCXO-01 OP14 clock a few days ago  

 

What a device! Its effect can be heard immediate but over time it gets better. I have some info to share from my exchanges with Kenji Hagesawa, the owner of Cybershaft. He says to expect the following:

 

Minimum warm up - 30 minutes

30 min - perceived improvement (from the max available from the clock effect) is 50%

24 hours - 60%

72 hours - 75%

30 days - 100%

 

 

And this resets once the clock is powered off. So he recommends to leave it on all the time.

 

He further says that the brain needs a few days to get used to the new sound stage. This is of course the Brain Burn-in we are all so familiar with. 

 

Interestingly enough he has some comments about BNC cables to be used. He has a SWR (Standing Wave Ratio) test to check if the cable is good and provides this test for the shielded cables he sells (very reasonably priced). He says:

 

" Ideally it is 1.0000 but it is evaluated against the physical impedance integrity of the cable. If there are cable performance defects, bad connectors, or machining failure SWR will be a large value. It can be said that there is no problem if SWR value is normally 1.5 or less "

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_wave_ratio

 

The 0.5m, 50ohm BNC cable he supplied me measured 1.0006

 

 

 

I just received my Cybershaft OP-14 clock which I will be using with my Trifecta and it's a brilliant addition to the stable (you know the 3 horses..? whatever..) 

 

I wrote some quick facts about warmup time and BNC cable testing and posted it in the Cybershaft thread. Not sure if this is the way to do link that to this post, hope it works.

[flkin]

On 01/02/2018 at 12:22 PM, flkin said:

 

I just place the 3 new Pasternack PE33476LF-12 (RG316-DS wire, double shielded) clock cables into my system 2 days ago along with 2 Ghent unshielded DC cables from my 2 sPS-500 units replacing the original short SOtM and another longer JSSG Ghent cable. The overall effect off the swap was a thicken and fleshing out of the body in the sound much like the effect of adding the IsoRegen. A more forward and rounded 3D feel to it. A very nice change but also added a small smearing of detail and slightly fatter bass. 

 

It's an experiment with shielding DC cables. There is talk of benefit but also a possibility of over dampening the sound so I'm trying various arrangements to see what happens.

 

I'm thinking of letting the wires burn for a few more days then remove them to see the change in sound. I'm hoping the 3D effect will remain but with more detail and tighter bass.

 

As for the contribution of just the 3, 24 and 25MHz cables within the Trifecta, I will know after I swap them out. And will update my findings here after.

 

The original SOtM-US recommended cables from Digikey were the J1212-ND version with RG316 single shield wire.

 

 

I've had a chance to play with the Pasternack 50 ohm BNC clock cable from the Cybershaft to the tx-USBultra and also the Pasternack SMB cables between the Trifecta devices and here is my finding:

 

Compare:

• Pasternack PE3582LF-12 BNC double shielded 12 inch cable vs Cybershaft 0.5m standard shielded 50ohm cable.
  • Cybershaft standard BNC cable wins. More effortless sound while maintaining the details and focus. The Pasternack comes across as harsher.
• Pasternack PE33476LF-12 SMB double shielded 12 inch cables (right angle connectors) vs Pasternack J1212-ND SMB single shielded 12 inch cable (this is the cable recommended by SOtM-US)
  • The double shielded PE33476LF-12 is better. More body to the music without being blur. The single shielded is a touch thin.

So SMB clock cables between trifecta devices do matter. Please take the findings as an indication of 'there's a difference' mostly and in my own system I have indicated my preferences. The 3 SMB cable trial isn't that easy to compare as the connectors are tight and awkward to reach in my system. And mostly have to reboot all devices (not the Cybershaft) after each cable swap as the components lost their communication with each other.

 

The prices of each of the SMB cables is single shielded $20 and the double shielded, right angled connectors $56 so it's more than double but in my opinion worth it. 

 

[flkin]

My tX-USBultra green light inside the case blinks when using without the external clock and stays solid once the OCXO clock is attached.

[flkin]

Reading about the recent posts here about the Ref 10 and the MC3+USB, I thought some would be interested to hear that @Kritpoon and I have done some tests over the weekend with our joint SOtM Trifecta and @Kritpoon's Antipodes with Ref10/MC3+ system. It's in the other thread about the Antipodes located here:

 

On 02/03/2018 at 4:34 PM, flkin said:

Hi Khun Krit,

 

So glad you've got your UltraRendu working with your Antipodes. This weekend will be fun! 

 

For those interested, it turns out that Kritpoon and myself both live within a street from each other in Bangkok! And with completely different front end systems but both attempting to push the limits of server/render technologies. Kritpoon will be coming over on Sunday to compare his system with mine at my home. 

 

My system is Front End --> Vinnie Rossi DAC 2.0 --> Vinnie Rossi DHT preamp (w/Takatsuki TA-300B tubes) --> YBA Passion 1000 mono blocks --> Wilson Watt Puppy 6 with the new woofers 

 

Dedicated AC power and house wiring for the mono block power amps through Shunyata Hydra 8. Front end electronics through Topaz 1kVA on strip.

 

Kritpoon's front end comprises of the

1. Antipodes DX Gen3
2. UltraRendu / LPS-1
3. Mutec MC3+, Mutec Ref10 clock and combinations thereof.

 

My front end comprises of the SOtM Stable

1. Non-optimised but bridged MacBook Pro with dCBL-CAT7 and iSO-CAT6 ethernet cleaners
2. Trifecta: D-Link DSG105 w/clock mod, sMS-200 w/clock mod, tx-USBultra providing the clock
3. IsoRegen
4. Cybershaft OP14 clock
5. DC power using assortment of LPS-1 and sPS-500, no sharing Y cables

 

We haven't decided what to test but the following will probably be on the table:

• Antipodes vs. SOtM Stable
• Antipodes(server), UltraRendu(renderer) vs. SOtM Stable
• Antipodes(server), UltraRendu(renderer), Mutec MC3+, Mutec Ref10 vs. SOtM Stable
• SOtM Stable but with Mutec Ref10 clock vs. SOtM Stable with Cybershaft OP14 clock
• Antipodes(server) --> SOtM Stable vs. everything above

Hopefully we'll have time to do the above and try other combinations that might come to mind at that time. 

 

Kritpoon is bringing over his Antipodes and Mutec Ref 10 clock a day and a half earlier to ensure that the devices are warmed up enough before the comparisons. Will do a writeup of our experiences after. 

 

Interesting results that will probably involve both of us spending more money! 

 

Will be writing it up over the next few days and posting it in that Antipodes thread and here as well. Some of the questions I will be answering will be:

1. Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10
2. Antipodes with MC3+ vs. SOtM Stable with MC3+
3. Bridged Macbook unoptimised with MC3+ vs. Antipodes with MC3+
4. Bridged Macbook unoptimised vs. Antipodes with MC3+
5. Antipodes with SOtM Stable with MC3+ vs. All of the above
6. Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+ vs. (5)
7. Habst 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack RG216 75ohm cable 

2-6 will be clocked by the Mutec Ref.10 wherever possible.

Will be back..

[flkin]

Ok, so here are the results of our SOtM Stable and Antipodes comparisons. Firstly I have to thank Khun Aek @Kritpoon for kindly coming over with his equipment and leaving it behind for a week. The world is truly small and to have two top tier front ends systems within a stone throw of each other in Bangkok is a nice surprise for us both. 

 

 

There are two schools of though about sources. One is to have an optimised computer with low noise, properly powered and even re-clocked perhaps feeding a DAC directly. The other is to use a simpler server of music like a Macbook or Mini and pass the signal through sophisticated rendering and cleaning systems. Both approaches have avid supporters and here we are looking at an instance of both approaches with interesting results.

 

As we have a lot of equipment and many various connections required to get each setup to work properly, I will first list (did it before but to summarise, here it is again) out the different equipment we had on that day of the test:

 

Source:
Antipodes running Roon Server
MacBook Pro running Roon Server 

 

The MacBook Pro is unoptimised (actually running as a Plex movie server for my kids as well) but bridged between an Orbi network WiFi secondary router (w/Teddy Pardo 12/2) that acts as the only data input point in the room and the SOtM clock modified D-Link DSG-105 switch.

 

 

Antipodes system:
- Antipodes DX Gen 3
- UltraRendu (LPS-1)
- Mutec Ref.10
- Mutec MC3+usb (mod for LPS-1 DC) w/Habst Digital BNC 5N Cryo Silver, 70ohm cable to the Ref 10
- BNC Coax cable Digiflex Gold II 

 

 

SOtM Stable:
- 2 SOtM dCBL-CAT7 ethernet cables and an iSO-CAT6 ethernet cleaner box
- The Trifecta consisting of the 3 items: D-Link DSG105 w/clock mod (LPS-1), sMS-200 w/clock mod (sPS-500), tx-USBultra (sPS-500) providing the clock connections
- IsoRegen (LPS-1)
Clock:
- Cybershaft OP14 clock w/ original Cybershaft 50ohm cable

 

 

Rest of my system:
Vinnie Rossi DAC 2.0 --> Vinnie Rossi DHT preamp (w/Takatsuki TA-300B tubes) --> YBA Passion 1000 mono blocks --> Wilson Watt Puppy 6 with the WP7 woofers 

 

Here are the tests we did and had 3 pairs of ears on them. We mostly agreed on the differences as they were not subtle. No blind tests were conducted. In all cases, the MC3+ was clocked by the Mutec Ref.10 via the Habst BNC cable.

 

          1. Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10
          2. Antipodes to MC3+ vs. Macbook to SOtM Stable to MC3+
          3. Antipodes to MC3+ vs. Macbook to SOtM Stable
          4. Antipodes to SOtM Stable to MC3+ vs. All of the above
          5. Antipodes to SOtM Stable to MC3+ vs. Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+  
          6. Habst 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack RG216 75ohm cable 

 

 

1. Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10
Khun Aek @Kritpoon brought over his equipment over the day before and so it would be warming up for around 30 hours prior to our tests. We figured this should be enough for the clock and other components to sound at it’s best.

 

And of course, I couldn’t help but to have a listen the night before the tests alone after around 8 hours of warming. This was probably the simplest test to perform as I had my SOtM Stable already set up and it was only a matter of switching the Cybershaft 50ohm cable from the OP14 to the Ref.10 50ohm connector. 

 

 

With the track Live from Las Vegas, Louis Prima & Kelly Smith track 15, Embraceable you, the Ref. 10 can be heard as more natural with more focus. More separation with the instruments and voices without being thinner. The separated sounds have a touch better textures and more details, the combined effect is that the sonic picture is more real.

 

 

With Breathe by Jax Jones, the Ref10 sync beats more clearly focused in space, tight and bouncing around the soundstage. Voice more texture and natural. Who would have known a club/dance electronic pop song like this can have vocals that sound audiophile?!

 

 

Tower of song by Leonard Cohen, voice larger with OP14 made it more enjoyable to listen to but perhaps less accurate. 

 

 

Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton Unplugged. OP14 looser imaging and each sound image larger. Fun to listen to but Ref10 more focused and more accurate. Overall balance of sound comes across as balanced and complete, voices correct sizes detailed and textured, guitars clear and defined, backing vocals gently at the back left. The thumping bass is resolved enough to imagine heel stamping and you can hear the shoe tapping on the floor too. Nice!

 

That said, it’s not as if the Cybershaft OP14 is a slouch, it’s already very good and the best my system had ever been prior to listening to the Ref.10. The improvement over the clock in the tX-USBultra is substantial and well worth the upgrade. It’s just that the Mutec Ref10 provides even more of a ‘clock’ effect. A little bit better in all aspects. In addition to lower a phase noise in the Ref.10, I wonder if that has to do with their use of a square wave form instead of the sine wave in the OP14? 

 

The next day when my guests arrived, I suggested that we used just the Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton Unplugged track as our test track. It’s an excellent sounding track with guitar strings, vocals in a live environment. Everyone arrived at the same conclusion which was the external clock matters and greatly so with the Ref 10.

 

From this point on, we decided to stick with the Ref10 clock for any external clocking requirements.

 

 

2. Antipodes with MC3+ vs. Macbook through SOtM Stable with MC3+
Next up a pretty obvious comparison was to use the Antipodes by itself to my Vinnie Rossi DAC 2.0. Unfortunately we couldn’t get the Antipodes to recognise the DAC 2.0 and eventually we tried passing the Antipodes through the MC3+ (Ref10 reclocked with Habst cable) and using a coaxial (Digiflex Gold II) to the DAC2.0 and this worked fine. So the rest of our comparison tests had to pass through the MC3+.

 

The first surprise of the day - the Macbook setup sounded better. Same Eric Clapton track was used. The Antipodes setup sounded thicker and less airy between the soundscape. Eric Clapton’s voice with less detail and emotion.

 

We had expected that the Antipodes with it’s specially customised Asus motherboard and optimised power source would be better but we didn’t hear it that way. Could it be that the SOtM dCBL-Cat7 cables and iSO-Cat6 device from the Macbook were doing it job and providing the Stable with a sufficiently cleaned signal to best the Antipodes? Looking at the wired connections more carefully, we noticed that the Antipodes was connected to the Orbi router with a standard Blue Jeans ethernet blue cable. I had an unused Ghent JSSG cable lying around and so tried it. Ah and there’s the difference, once the cable was swapped, the Antipodes’ sound noticeably tightened up. Now the sound from both systems were about matched. *

 

* I revisited this setup after the meet by myself as it's pretty unexpected and came to the conclusion again. 

 

This indicates to me that in my particular setup the server is not as critical as the renderer part of the source. A humble Macbook Pro (with power adaptor plugged in, eek!) and not software optimised still sounded comparable to a top quality server. But to achieve this it needed to be software bridged along with, I suspect, the triple cleaning effect of the SOtM ethernet filters to removed whatever noise that shouldn’t be there.

 

 

3. Antipodes with MC3+ vs. Macbook with SOtM Stable
Ok, then how about we remove the MC3+ from the Macbook setup? The sound becomes thinner and not as engaging as with the MC3+ in the path. It looks like the tx-USBultra, while doing a good job cleaning the USB signal, as is confirmed by so many others, can still be improved upon by yet another USB cleaner after it. Khun Aek informs me that up to 4 MC3+ devices can be chained together to further clean a signal noticeably! 

 

 

4. Antipodes with SOtM Stable with MC3+ vs. All of the above
So we established that the Stable with MC3+ added for double cleaning is necessary but what about adding the Antipodes as the source instead of the Macbook? This we haven’t tried yet as the (3) comparison was with the Antipodes with the MC3+ alone. And here the Macbook/Stable/MC3+ matched it.

 

 

Yes, this was the optimal configuration. The best of the lot. Beautifully natural sound, balanced of bass, voice details and texture with an open airy sound. There is no noticeable emphasis in the music, all parts of Eric Clapton’s ensemble are playing/singing in what feels like great teamwork, a musical sync without one aspect overwhelming another. Depth, width and even height of the music nicely rendered. When you hit a sweet spot, wow! The emotion really comes through. The differences of the various combinations of the equipment may not be all that much measured by percentages but when measured by the emotions of the musicians bared so clearly to us and the effect it had on us, it’s truly a 'goosebump' moment as Khun Aek put it. 

 

 

5. Antipodes to SOtM Stable to MC3+ vs. Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+  
Khun Aek recently discovered that his bridged Antipodes sounded better with the UltraRendu added as the renderer. It was the best his system sounded prior to coming over, so we decided to see how the UltraRendu would sound by swapping it in to replace the Stable.

 

Nope, the soundstage collapses quite a bit, several steps behind the last iteration in (4). Vocals are also slightly recessed. In my particular setup the Antipodes played through the Stable and extra cleaned with the MC3+ has some truly special synergy and here the UltraRendu cannot replace the Stable.

 

 

6. Habst 5N cryo silver 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack PE33403-36, RG216 75ohm cable 
Given the silver Habst cable was so expensive and since I had a new Pasternack RG216 double shielded cable around, we though it would be interesting to see how much of a change swapping the cable would show. This is from the Ref10 to the MC3+. The Stable was still connected to the Ref 10 via the Cyershaft 50ohm cable. 

 

So using the best sounding combination of equipment in (4) we tried this. Amazing change in sound. The Habst is far better. With the Pasternak the sound becomes unfocused, the bass and lower mids a smeared blob. The difference was almost as large as not using a clock. So the clock BNC cable matters - to the extent that an external clock is basically pointless without a good cable.  So much so that I am considering seeing if Habst can make up a 50ohm cable for my Cybershaft.

 

The Habst cable has 2 BNC connectors on the Ref 10 side - a thicker twin cable for signal and a thinner single for ground. We decided to fit the Habst back to the MC3+ but disconnect the ground BNC alone. With just the signal cable, the Habst is good but not great. The grounding BNC is essential but takes an additional port on the Ref.10

 

 

At this time, we decided to lay back and enjoy music for the rest of our meet. Some of the other tracks we listened to were:

 

• Livingston Taylor, Isn’t she lovely
• Nojima Plays Liszt (Minoru Nojima), Etude No3, La Campanella
• Jax Jones, Breathe
• Hilary Hahn/ Natalie Zhu, Mozart: Violin Sonatas K301
• La La Land (original motion picture soundtrack), Someone in the Crowd
• Imagine Dragons, Evolve, Believer

 

 

Man, I heard things I never heard before. In the Liszt track, the piano notes and pedal movements has always been fantastic sounding but for the first time, I could see the piano size and shape. This is one of my favourite piano tracks with beautifully captured attacks and ambience. Norjima's playing here is OK but makes 4 mistakes are even clearer now that I can count. ;-)

 

 

Imagine Dragons just came to Bangkok recently and with that high energy Believer track, they were back in town in my hifi room and sounded like we were on stage with them; soundstage width, depth and height extending far beyond the physical boundaries of my room.

 

 

And so after our meet, I can say I've reconfirmed some of my earlier thoughts about equipment contributions but perhaps reordered their position in the significance table. To summarise our findings :

 

• Clocks and clock cables - they matter greatly perhaps the most
• USB cleaners, more than one in series works and significantly
• Much can be done to improve the Source. The renderer part more so than the server part
• The Macbook Pro makes is a great Roon server when bridged and ethernet output cleaned
• But the best sound is to have an excellent source and further re-clock it and clean the output multiple times.

That’s it, hope this is interesting reading for all.