Auralic Aries Mini vs. Sonore microRendu vs. SOtM SMS-200 Listening Impressions

[austinpop]

You're worth it! 

 

*Haha* exciting times indeed Rajiv! 

 

What ever path you choose you'll find a deep rabbit hole. You'll just need to find the right one to jump into!  I've found my personal OpenHome rabbit hole to explore (just because it sounds best with Tidal) and I ain't leaving there until I'm all done! 

 

You are really a rare kind of rabbit. You explore things with an open mind and only trust your own big ears to find out the truth...not depending on what other rabbits tells you to. It makes me trust your judgements much more than many other rabbits! 

 

Minimserver and Bubble UPnP Server is probably the greatest of them all. I have chosen the latter lately since I use Bubble UPnP and Bubble DS Next as my preferred control points. Combined with FB2k and Bubbleguuum UPnP add-on it is more or less a one-stop solution with unlimited options.

 

The PC path do not necessary needs to be deep if you learn your lessons before you dig deep. I have just personally promised myself never ever go down that rabbit hole ever again. I intend to keep that promise. Touch wood! 

 

Yes indeed!

 

It's good to step back once in a while and reflect on what's important. We each have to navigate this space according to our interests, our time, and our preferences.

[austinpop]

Assuming we're talking about the Aries Mini, and iOS, I found Lightning DS to be head and shoulders better than the "free" apps.

 

I tried Kazoo, Lumin, and Audionet iMM, and while I won't claim to have done a comprehensive review, I found all of them to be quite disappointing.

 

Lightning DS has come a long way over the last year, and to me, it's one of the strengths of the AURALiC ecosystem now.

 

Still not perfect - I find its handling of multiple composers on albums to be completely brain dead, for example.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[austinpop]

Hi Rajiv,

 

Thank you for all your hard work. Your conclusion echoes that of Hans Beekhuysen:

 

 

As you suggest I will stick with the microRendu, especially as I am getting more and more from it.

 

Currently I am working on the other end, following the work of rb2013 with the StarTech:

 

Ultra USB Chain USB/Ethernet Hybrid Startech/ICRON/LanRover - PC Audio and Music Servers • US Audio Mart

 

I completely agree that these end point are very transparent of the changes in the chains that feed them.

 

M

 

Nice.

 

Maybe I should adopt a Dutch accent and start a YouTube channel!

[austinpop]

I wish rb2013 was a bit more open minded. He have the potential to do great things if he learns a little respect and understand to listen to other peoples suggestions. To me he is exploring the frontiers without dealing with isolation.

 

Yeah I lost patience there.

[austinpop]

Hi Rajiv,

 

I enjoy Hans' videos, but on this occasion I preferred your write up. It went into a lot of interesting detail and gave me a greater feel on whether a switch would add in any significant way.

 

From my POV with the work that can be done in terms of Isolation & system tuning I am happy to continue tweaking, by which time Jesus and the team may well have come out with an update. Either way I am getting better digital music at home.

 

M

Thanks for your kudos.

 

Yes, exactly. Just having someone say to you that A is better than B is not useful. You need the system context, and how it fits their sonic objectives.

[austinpop]

Austinpop - I was wondering if you had thought of trying the sMS-200 playing direct from a USB drive or similar? There has been much talk recently of the improved sound quality derived from direct Ethernet connection, but what is the music files skipped the Ethernet bit altogether? This might be an interesting thing to try?

 

I spent a half hour beating my head against this, but I have to report I couldn't get this mode - playing music from a 32GB USB 3.0 stick directly attached to an sMS-200 - to work.

 

I suspect this is MPD mode? I did some googling, and it looks like I need a paid app on my iPhone, but it looked sort of sketchy.

 

Sorry.

 

If someone can describe the exact steps I need to take, I can give this another shot. I only have the sMS-200 for another day.

[austinpop]

I've done this in MPD mode with mpod, which is a free iOS app. Download that, start it and go into connections. I think it should show up under DISCOVERED PLAYERS as MPD on eunhasu. If it doesn''t you can manually add it if you know its IP address.

 

I connect the stick(s), go into mpod settings, hit refresh local cache and update database a few times. Then I go into Browse and I can see the USB sticks.

 

It's doesn't seem to be the quickest at noticing that sticks have been added/removed so it's a bit frustrating.

Hmm, either Mpod has been pulled, or it's not available in the US.

 

I only see MPDluxe, a $2.99 app.

[austinpop]

This is the last weekend I have with the sMS-200 and mR, as they get packed up and shipped back Monday. I will be sad to see them go, as I have learned a lot from their presence in my system these last few weeks.

 

In this final report, I want to talk about the use of FMCs and the effect of the LPS-1, because in my extended experiments, I found this is one of the key factors in narrowing the gap between the Aries Mini and the mR/sMS-200.

 

As you may recall, I discovered that running MinimServer on my bridged W10 box yielded the best results. I also discovered that for the mR and the sMS-200, the bridged connection sounded better direct - i.e. without any FMCs.

 

Not so with the Aries Mini. Why? Well - this gets to the heart of what the LPS-1 does. In some cases, it's just a good quality LPS. But in other cases - it has a WOW effect - presumably when it's galvanic isolation from the AC mains breaks a ground leakage loop. Note - read John Swenson's treatise(s) on this here on CA to understand this better.

 

Even before I got the mR and sMS-200 in house, I had discovered my LPS-1 gave me the WOW experience when I had it power my downstream FMC. The entire chain looks like so:

 

• W10 bridge > FMC (Teradak) > FMC (LPS-1) > Aries Mini (Auralic LPS) > Intona > Vbus2 > RUR (el cheapo LPS) > Ayre Codex DAC
  

Interestingly, the LPS-1 did not give me any WOW when powering the RUR instead. So clearly in my system, there was a leakage loop that the LPS-1 broke right upstream of my Aries Mini. And there wasn't a sufficiently noticeable loop at my RUR. Perhaps it's due to the DAC, perhaps it's due to the Intona. Be that as it may, in my system, the FMC location was the winner.

 

Now - since both the mR and sMS-200 were powered by LPS-1's, I saw a different result with them. I guess because whatever leakage loop existed at that point was being broken by the LPS-1 powering the mR/sMS-200, there was no WOW from the (separate) LPS-1 powering the downstream FMC.

 

As a result of that, I discovered that the presence of the FMCs themselves was hindering the SQ, and I got best results with the mR/sMS-200 connected direct without any FMCs!

 

So - to net this out. Here are the optimal chains for each of the streamers:

 

• Aries Mini: W10 bridge > FMC (Teradak) > FMC (LPS-1) > Aries Mini (Auralic LPS) > Intona > Vbus2 > RUR (el cheapo LPS) > Ayre Codex DAC
  
• mR/sMS-200: W10 bridge > mR/sMS-200 (LPS-1) > Intona > Vbus2 > RUR (el cheapo LPS) > Ayre Codex DAC
  

Moral of the Story

 

For my system, this resulted in two key lessons learned:

1. In general, direct connection to a bridged music server sounds better without FMCs... unless some other effect gets intertwined. In my case, the breaking of a leakage loop by the LPS-1. So with my Aries Mini, I still need FMCs - not for the fiber isolation, but rather for the LPS-1 powering the FMC!
   
2. At worst, the LPS-1 is a very good LPS. But at best, when it happens to kill one or more leakage loops, its effect can be transformational. The problem is - you don't know until you try it. So - manage your expectations. And try as many alternate locations for the LPS-1 as feasible in your system until you find the best one.
   

[austinpop]

It's ok. MPDluxe is working. $2.99 towards science!

 

Listening now.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[austinpop]

 

I spent a half hour beating my head against this, but I have to report I couldn't get this mode - playing music from a 32GB USB 3.0 stick directly attached to an sMS-200 - to work.

Understood. In fact this is one of my pet hates, you try something that should be really simple, it does not work, you are determined to get it to work, the next thing you find is most of the day has gone. Frustrating! I'm glad you chose to give up at 30 minutes!

 

I lied - I did try harder.

 

Actually, I opened my wallet and spent the 3 bucks for the MPDeluxe app, after which it all worked - after an initial delay for the USB drive to show up on the app.

 

Listening Impressions

 

Caveat: my music server machine is tweaked with AudioPhile Optimizer and Process Lasso. I've tuned the sound signature to 3C in AO.

 

On the whole, the SQ from the USB flash drive was excellent. I would say it was on par with streaming from my music server before AO. With the AO/PL optimizations in place, the streaming configuration sounded better - smoother, more relaxed, but I'm fairly confident these are the attributes that AO contributed to.

 

Usability wise - there's no contest. MPD is like using a command line instead of a GUI. I know I'm fairly ascetic, but even for me, there is a night and day difference between using Lumin or Lightning DS compared to MPDeluxe. And Roon is, of course, a whole different level of sophistication.

 

Of course, you're also limited to the capacity possible on a flash drive.

[austinpop]

Good work getting this sorted. Your comments on usability are clear and duly noted. However, because there has been so much talk recently of the sound quality hike gained by direct Ethernet connection of the SMS-200, what I was wondering is how sound quality running direct off a USB compared to Ethernet direct connection, or 'traditional' connection via a router etc. Any ideas?

 

Oh, was I not clear about my chain? My configuration was with a direct Ethernet connection.

• Network: W10 bridge > sMS-200 (LPS-1) > Intona > Vbus2 > RUR (el cheapo LPS) > Ayre Codex DAC
  
• USB: 32GB flash drive > sMS-200 (LPS-1) > Intona > Vbus2 > RUR (el cheapo LPS) > Ayre Codex DAC
  

[austinpop]

Firstly, thanks. Good to have results from a consistent set of ears and hardware.

 

Secondly, yeah, mpd is something else, UI-wise. I use minimserver, upmpdci and Linn Kazoo to tame it. Roon, not my thing.

 

AO/PL is running where?

 

AO/PL is running on the W10 bridge machine, which is also where MinimServer is running. Music files reside on Synology NAS.

 

As I've mentioned before, until recently, I was happily running MinimServer on the Synology, but recently discovered that it sounded better when running on the W10 bridge machine. Hence the applicability of AO/PL.

[austinpop]

Does music storage on nas vs local w10 machine make any difference sound wise?

 

So far, I've tried comparing music on local vs NAS with both MinimServer and with Roon.

 

If there is a difference it is too subtle for me to hear it.

[austinpop]

Based on the info that austinpop has shared in this great post I'm leaning towards a very lightweight passive cooled w10/AO/minimserver machine (with music stored locally) in bridged connection to my sms200/regen combo. It saves me an expensive cpu, fancy motherboard and the yearly cost of Roon. I'm actually quite happy with LUMIN on my iPhone or iPad as control point. The saved money can be put in a good lps for the sms200.

 

That will take you a long way, I agree. There's always more tweaking, of course! [emoji5]

[austinpop]

The Sotm sms200 gave me the opportunity to try Roon for 60 days. I installed it on a pc in my network and selected the sms200 as the output device. The sms was not bridget, the pc had no hqplayer, nor an Audiophile Optimisation or any kind of tweak. Music was on my NAS.

 

There was no improvement soundwise what so ever and when switching back to mpd/dlna mode the sound got its organic athmosphere back. The so called "Roon experience" did not appeal to me with all the extra info.

 

So far I'm quite happy with my simple dlna/ mpd mode with the LUMIN app as control point.

 

Very interesting. Thanks for the additional data point.

 

Since I still have some time left on my 60-day trial, I'm going through an exercise to see how well I can "clean up" my entire music collection with Roon. Even with classical, I'm finding it does better than I initially thought, because a lot is possible once you learn how. I'll see how I feel when it's done whether I want to pay for it long-term.

 

I still do not hear a sonic difference between using Roon/RAAT over MinimServer/DLNA, all else being equal, so our findings are consistent.

[austinpop]

My music library is on a synology ds214 play and I've red you can install minimserver on it. To be honest I don't quite understand what minimserver does. With the default software on the synology I Am perfectly capable to connect to and stream from this library using the LUMIN app on my iPad. What does minimserver add? Is it convenience in UI or does it sound better?

 

Good question. Let me explain my rationale.

 

First, whether you use MinimServer, the Synology Media Server, or any other UPnP/DLNA media server, it doesn't change the control app. You can continue to use LUMIN if you like it.

 

So why did I pick MinimServer over Synology's builtin media server? OK a caveat - I haven't looked at Synology's tools in at least a couple of years. It's possible they've improved. At the time, I abandoned the Media Server because:

1. Simon, the developer of Minim, is a former colleague. We both used to work at a large 3-letter acronym computer company. Moreover, we both worked on the internals of Java, back when improving Java's performance was critical to its success.
   
2. That personal bias clearly stated, MinimServer is fast. Media Server used to take forever to do both the initial scan, and subsequent rescans, of my approx 10k track library. Minim rescans take a minute or two at best.
   
3. I really like the ability to tweak tag options, with the indexTag, tagOptions, tagFormat, etc flags
   
4. I like the on-the-fly transcode options with stream.transcode. I use it to convert FLAC to WAV, DSF and DFF to DoP WAV.
   

However, as I've mentioned, I did open a Pandora's box when I compared running MinimServer on my Synology DS916+ with MinimServer on my W10 machine - in both cases with the music files on the Synology. The W10 hosted Minim sounds better.

Honestly, I wish it weren't so, because I really do like the aesthetic and electrical simplicity of the NAS + renderer approach, without a bad, noisy computer in the mix.

 

But such is life. And I will admit, with a W10 machine hosting the MinimServer, I got further improvements from two things:

1. Using a bridged connection. I was unable to get bridging to work on my NAS, despite the fact it has 2 Ethernet NICs
   
2. Running Audiophile Optimizer (AO), which is not an option on the NAS.
   

[austinpop]

I use JRiver for tagging efforts. Similar to Minim it is infinitely simpler and faster as I can sort and make mass changes to file metadata.

 

You did make an interesting discovery with the NAS processing the audio vs W10. I could only guess why. The DS916+ processor is a Braswell Intel Pentium N3710 which isn't that old. I think it would be tough to identify the reason and it might just be a case of going with which sounds best without knowing why.

Yeah, neither CPU even breaks a sweat, so it's not that. To me, the sound improvement is consistent with lower jitter. Better timbre, and instruments are more 3-dimensional, and easier to distinguish. But I cannot explain it scientifically.

 

I tend to think @romaz is onto something with his end-to-end clock improvements approach. See this post, for example: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/novel-way-massively-improve-sq-sms-200-and-microrendu-31110/index36.html#post641520

 

I got the sMS-200 in the mail yesterday. It's too early to form an opinion. There's definitely a difference between it and the mR. What I did last night was play some tracks with a single source of sound, so a vocalist with dead air behind her and a trumpeter with nothing but some mild delay behind him. Listening closely to not the music, but the silence behind the music, there's a difference in the pitch of the noise. The sMS-200's background noise sounds higher or whiter. This could be phase noise that I'm hearing and related to jitter. I'm just not sure yet. Just guessing. The mR has a lower or darker background noise. I'll be posting more as I continue this comparison in a thread I started, which began as a discovery of the mR as I knew nothing about it at the time.

 

It will be interesting to hear about your comparisons. Give it a couple of days to burn in and settle in to your system first. You can also read romaz's impressions of the two (mR and sMS-200) in the thread referenced above.

[austinpop]

For the past few weeks I'm thinking about this w10 machine and the sms200 in bridged connection....

 

If Roon, hqplayer, minimserver and even local storage on the w10 machine is not necesarry to gain sound improvement, what remains as a job for the w10 machine is almost nothing, accept for bridging the ethernet.

 

Not quite. As I reported, I did find at least 3 improvements from the W10 machine:

• Bridging for direct connection with endpoint
  
• SQ improvement from running MinimServer on the W10 machine vs. directly on the NAS
  
• SQ improvements due to Audiophile Optimizer (AO).
  
• 
  

I am no ICT specialist, but it looks like some sort of ethernet regenerator, that benefits by an OS with small footprint. Even a rpi could do that..... right?

 

While I, and many others, have clearly heard the SQ improvement of the direct connection, there is no ready explanation. Try this thread: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/sms-200-and-microrendu-direct-connection-why-does-improve-sound-quality-31476/

 

This does trouble me intellectually, as a scientist and an engineer, but when it comes to audio you have a choice. You can either chase after scientific proofs of every phenomenon, or you can just enjoy what you hear without necessarily having it proven to you. I choose the latter. I get to science the shit out of stuff in my day job, so maybe that's why I can be so sanguine!

[austinpop]

I got the sMS-200 in the mail yesterday. It's too early to form an opinion. There's definitely a difference between it and the mR. What I did last night was play some tracks with a single source of sound, so a vocalist with dead air behind her and a trumpeter with nothing but some mild delay behind him. Listening closely to not the music, but the silence behind the music, there's a difference in the pitch of the noise. The sMS-200's background noise sounds higher or whiter. This could be phase noise that I'm hearing and related to jitter. I'm just not sure yet. Just guessing. The mR has a lower or darker background noise. I'll be posting more as I continue this comparison in a thread I started, which began as a discovery of the mR as I knew nothing about it at the time.

 

It will be interesting to hear about your comparisons. Give it a couple of days to burn in and settle in to your system first. You can also read romaz's impressions of the two (mR and sMS-200) in the thread referenced above.

 

I actually received my own sMS-200 same time as you did. Right out of the box, the sMS-200 (powered by existing LPS-1) seemed a bit harsh. I've now put about 80 hours of my "burn-in" input on it - an ocean waves track on repeat.

 

The SQ is now transformed, and sounds like what I remember with my loaner unit.

 

Bottom line - like analog components, the sMS-200 too benefits from burn-in. Give it time to settle before evaluating. Why? I've stopped even asking - every component (analog or digital) I've bought has benefitted from a period of burn-in, so I just do it.

[austinpop]

10 hours ago, lousyreeds1 said:

Has anyone gotten wifi to work using a dongle on the sMS-200?  I attached a dongle with the required RTL8812AU chipset, and while it says I'm connected and shows an IP address, there's no sign that the sMS-200 is actually connected to the network (no access to Eunhasu control page, Roon won't see it).  Eager to compare sound wired vs. wifi.  Thanks!

 

Sorry, I have no experience with wifi on sMS-200.