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

[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.

[Lebouwsky]

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

[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.

[Lebouwsky]

This is the second time I've bin reading your posts Austinpop. The information is really valueble to me and it helps me to set a direction. Thanks for that.

[lmitche]

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

Music storage and boot from a local hard disk has made a major difference here from SSD boot and music on NAS.

[Lebouwsky]

Music storage and boot from a local hard disk has made a major difference here from SSD boot and music on NAS.

 

There are quite a few people on this forum who have reported the same. Some even say a spinning drive sounds better than a SSD.

[Laowei Steve]

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[hicr49]

There are quite a few people on this forum who have reported the same. Some even say a spinning drive sounds better than a SSD.

Interesting info. I haven't read too many threads myself on this related topic but this is the first time I hear local disk storage is a substantial improvement over storage on NAS, particularly spinning drive is better than SSD. Can you point me to some of those threads? I'm planning to set up a NAS music storage myself and this might change my approach/setup. I wonder if a good power source to a music computer and to a NAS might also play into those comparisons.

[Lebouwsky]

Interesting info. I haven't read too many threads myself on this related topic but this is the first time I hear local disk storage is a substantial improvement over storage on NAS, particularly spinning drive is better than SSD. Can you point me to some of those threads? I'm planning to set up a NAS music storage myself and this might change my approach/setup. I wonder if a good power source to a music computer and to a NAS might also play into those comparisons.

 

Please don't take this info as undebatable truth, as always there's a pro- and con camp. The idea behind the disadventage of ssd is the noise it creates. There are many posts about it, but this is the one got me thinking:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/my-first-audio-pc-based-hdplex-2nd-generation-h5-31552/

[Lebouwsky]

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.

[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]

[hicr49]

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.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I understand that you want to stay away from the expense of Roon but if you ever change your mind, I read of a new Roon OS called ROCK which should be out any day now. Their intend for this OS almost exactly match your approach (with the exception of Roon subscription and passive cool) which is to allow user to run their system on a very lightweight computer/OS (intel i3 or i5 NUC) with option to use local storage. This can be a very clean and simple setup potentially with lots of benefit. Well, just another option if you aren't aware of it. I plan to give that a try myself when the OS is out.

[Lebouwsky]

Thanks for the info.

 

I understand that you want to stay away from the expense of Roon but if you ever change your mind, I read of a new Roon OS called ROCK which should be out any day now. Their intend for this OS almost exactly match your approach (with the exception of Roon subscription and passive cool) which is to allow user to run their system on a very lightweight computer/OS (intel i3 or i5 NUC) with option to use local storage. This can be a very clean and simple setup potentially with lots of benefit. Well, just another option if you aren't aware of it. I plan to give that a try myself when the OS is out.

 

That's going to be an exciting route hicr69. I've red about this Rock OS and their support of 5th generation nuc's.

 

For me it's a matter of budget, flexibility and some compromises. The server will sit in my audiorack in the (family) living room. A Windows based machine also gives me the flexibility to make it serve as a NAS, not just for my music but also for pictures. And the plan is to install kodi tv on it. That way I can stream movies and even install Netflix. Just a simple disconnection of the HDMI cable isolates my stereo set from the tv again.

 

Not very audiophile, I know, but just like Austin said, it will get me a looooong way. I believe it's not going to be a night and day difference compared to a /Roon/hq player/512dsd dac machine. I believe I'm blessed with my wife tolerating this crazy hobby this far.

[Lebouwsky]

The listening sessions with the mR, SMS-200, and Aries Mini continue apace. Thanks to the generosity of my loaner, I have ample time to evaluate these, which is really appreciated, as I strongly believe it takes extended listening to form meaningful comparisons.

 

But in this article, I'll digress to talk about music server types, or apps in mR and SMS-200 parlance. In my intro, one of the objectives I stated was:

• Finally, the mR and SMS-200 enable additional server types, specifically HQPlayer and Roon. Are there SQ improvements to be had, as claimed, just by switching from MinimServer to HQPlayer or Roon?
  

Since I had never tried these, I felt it was high time I did. Also, since many, if not most CA'ers use these endpoints for Roon and/or HQPlayer, I felt my findings in MPD/DLNA mode might carry less relevance without at least a calibration across these server types.

 

Fixed HW chain

 

For this evaluation, I fixed the HW chain to:

Bridged W10 music server > FMC (Teralink LPS) > FMC (LPS-1) > mR (LPS-1) > Intona Industrial > Vbus2 > RUR (el cheapo LPS) > DAC

and varied only the music server types.

 

Yes, I got my replacement Intona, and it is back in the chain. I let it run in for a couple of days, and double checked its effect. Indeed, it does still provide an SQ improvement.

 

A word about bridging

 

Over in this thread, http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/novel-way-massively-improve-sq-sms-200-and-microrendu-31110/, there is an excellent tweak described - to improve SQ by attaching the endpoint directly to a music server, and configuring a network bridge to maintain full network connectivity.

 

In my experiments, I found the direct attach method to have superior SQ than a router connection, without FMCs in the picture. With FMCs in the chain, it was a wash. Still, for these experiments I kept the direct attach in place.

 

MinimServer on NAS vs W10 Bridged PC

 

Another claim I have read, but never tested, is that the SQ when MinimServer is running directly on a NAS is worse than when it is running on a PC or Mac. Since I had my W10 Enterprise PC already in use for my bridging, Roon, and HQPlayer experiments, I gave this a whirl.

 

Quelle choque! It really does sound better on the PC.

 

After a lot of back and forth, it seems to have something to do with jitter, I feel. I described it here: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/novel-way-massively-improve-sq-sms-200-and-microrendu-31110/index22.html#post631440 (quoting myself):

It took me a while to put a finger on what exactly made it sound better. The best word I could come up with was focus, or coherence. I recently got the SHM-SACD of Supertramp's Breakfast in America from Japan. What an excellent mastering! On "Gone Hollywood," the beginning 25-30 seconds is a repeating sequence of chords on the keyboard. In scenario 3, the texture and detail of those chords is far more audible. Lovely. I have a strong suspicion that somehow this configuration is reducing jitter. But that makes no sense, given the buffering inherent in the Ethernet interfaces.

 

So, in all further server comparisons in this post, all server types, Roon, HQPlayer, and MinimServer were set up to run on the W10 music server, with the music still residing on the NAS.

 

HQPlayer

 

The advice I'd gotten on HQPlayer from various CA'ers, on and off this thread, was the following:

• Yeah the UI is clumsy, but most people use it with Roon
  
• Even without upsampling, HQPlayer (using NAA) will sound better than MinimServer (using UPnP/DLNA). Practicing my nascent HQPlayer skills, this translated to a (none, none, auto, auto) setting
  
• Upsampling sounds better
  
• But - caution - it's only when you upsample to DSD512 that the magic really happens.
  

So let's go through these.

1. Clumsy UI - check. I doubt this is controversial.
   
2. HQPlayer (no upsampling), mR (NAA mode) vs. MinimServer (no transcoding), mR (MPD/DLNA mode). Honestly, I heard no difference in SQ. Sometimes I could convince myself one or the other was a hair better, but hardly something I could pick out reliably. Finding: no SQ difference heard.
   
3. There are a large number of permutations to try. I was guided by suggestions from people who use HQplayer with the Codex, and others. I tried the following options:
   
   • Upsample everything to DSD128 (max DSD rate supported by DAC), using poly-sinc-2s, DSD7
     
   • Upsample everything to PCM384 (max PCM rate supported by DAC) - poly-sinc
     

As I've mentioned before, a bulk of my music listening is to high-resolution music (primarily DSD64, and the rest 24/96 or 24/192).

 

The only case where I felt HQPlayer clearly sounded better was with harsher Redbook recordings, upsampled to DSD128. Since these are such a small fraction of my collection, this isn't compelling enough for me.

 

Bottom line: for the purposes of this evaluation, given my music choices, my continued use of MinimServer, and the MPD/DLNA mode, in no way disadvantages the mR or the SMS-200 relative to the DLNA-only Aries Mini. At least in SQ terms. Certainly, functionally, having the NAA and Roon modes is a big win on features.

 

Roon

 

The premise of Roon for this eval was completely unrelated to features. Here again, I had been advised that: even without upsampling or any DSP, Roon Server sending to the mR running as a Roon endpoint, using RAAT, had superior SQ to MinimServer sending to the mR in MPD/DLNA mode.

 

As it turned out, Roon 1.3 was released on the day I activated my trial, so these tests were with build 196, I believe, of Roon 1.3.

 

I will mention the Roon UI only in passing. It is unquestioningly slick. But one of my ongoing concerns has been its well-documented limitations for classical music tagging. Certainly I will say that out of the box, it failed to recognize about a third of my collection. I'll be the first to admit, I've devised my own peculiar tagging scheme for classical (not the famous Musichi method). Roon did publish, coincident to 1.3, a guide to classical music tagging, but it requires me to go curate my entire collection and tag it per their recommendations. What I was hoping - more a pipe dream, really! - was that Roon would take my imperfectly tagged collection and render it into a pristine, rich collection. Give me your tired, your poor(ly tagged metadata), Your huddled masses (of music) yearning to breathe free. But sadly, no such luck.

 

For this eval, I had Roon completely prefer my tags, and just focused on the playback.

 

I played the same tracks - first, using the mR in MPD/DLNA mode, controlled by Lumin - and then - using the mR in Roon Endpoint mode, controlled by the Roon app.

 

Roon was configured as straight pass through, i.e. with none of the new DSP or upsampling features.

 

Finding: no SQ difference heard.

 

So here again, my continued use of MinimServer, and the MPD/DLNA mode, in no way disadvantages the mR or the SMS-200.

 

Roon with HQPlayer

 

Since this is the mode so many CA'ers use, I experimented with it. It is really slick! A perfect marriage of the power of Roon with the power of HQPlayer.

 

Well, not quite perfect - you can't change any HQPlayer settings through this integration. If you want to switch HQPlayer settings, you still have to do that on HQPlayer.

 

Other than that, there's nothing to say about this configuration with regards to SQ, since I've already covered the NAA mode above.

 

Conclusions

 

This entire post could be summarized as follows:

 

I've explored Roon and HQPlayer in my system to discover whether their use, instead of MinimServer, provides a further boost in SQ with the mR and SMS-200.

 

For me, on my system, with my DAC, with my music tastes, the answer is no, they do not.

 

Was this a waste of time? No! Knowing that something does not provide a further SQ benefit in your system - i.e. a negative finding - is still very useful, because it answers a question that would otherwise linger and create doubts.

 

Having completed this segue, I have reverted to using MinimServer/MPD/DLNA mode, and have instead renewed my focus on listening to the HW differences between the 3 endpoints!

 

Next installment in a few days.

 

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.

[R1200CL]

The sms200 was used as a Roon endpoint ?

 

Connected with a Ethernet cable ?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Lebouwsky]

The sms200 was used as a Roon endpoint ?

 

Connected with a Ethernet cable ?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

 

Yes and yes

[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.

[Lebouwsky]

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.

 

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?

[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.
   

[Lebouwsky]

Thank you for your time and explanation, this makes it a lot clearer for me. Dispite your bias you've made some good choises which are very valuable to me and I believe for this community.

 

The speed on the Synology nas is not a problem for me. I haven't experimented with tags yet. So for now I think I will leave the Nas as it is, since there won't be any sound improvement.

 

But the nas will have to make room for the lightweight w10 server with minimserver in bridged connection and with AO eventually. But I think I will invest in a good lps from uptone or Sotm to power my sms200. The teradak is quite mediocre I believe.

[kennyb123]

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.

 

Did you let Roon Radio do its thing? That feature alone is why Roon is worth the cost to me. It chooses which songs from my library to play for me. An awesome way to journey through one's own music library (both ripped & purchased albums and those added from Tidal).

 

Up to half of my listening is done with Roon selecting the songs for me.

[Lebouwsky]

Did you let Roon Radio do its thing? That feature alone is why Roon is worth the cost to me. It chooses which songs from my library to play for me. An awesome way to journey through one's own music library (both ripped & purchased albums and those added from Tidal).

 

Up to half of my listening is done with Roon selecting the songs for me.

 

No I haven't used that feature in Roon yet but I will try, skipping between Roon and mpd/dlna is done within a few clicks. Thanks for the tip.

 

The LUMIN app offers the ability to select music by genre. In combination with the "random stream" it lets me journy through my library as well, or am I missing something here.

[kennyb123]

The LUMIN app offers the ability to select music by genre. In combination with the "random stream" it lets me journy through my library as well, or am I missing something here.

 

Roon uses their metadata to guide the journey through songs. So it's not random, and quite effective.

 

A song from Yes can lead me to songs from that same period from ELP, then Genesis, then King Crimson. The genre will likely be "Rock" for all these, but Roon is smart enough to further refine the selection criterial by using more detailed genre tags and also artist relationships.

 

In other words, with Roon Radio the money we pay for the extra metadata is put to great use to intelligently select songs for us. I am unaware of any other solution that offers this.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Lebouwsky]

It's absolutely a more intelligent feature in Roon the way you discribe it. But for me it will probably not be worth the annual costs of 114 dollar.

 

Who knows what will hapen within the next 60 days of the trial period, but for now I'm far from convinced. As a matter of fact at this moment I'm enjoying my music through mpd/dlna and Roon will have to wait till tomorrow.

 

Great set you've got by the way

[kennyb123]

It's absolutely a more intelligent feature in Roon the way you discribe it. But for me it will probably not be worth the annual costs of 114 dollar.

 

Yes I agree the value will vary from person to person. I must admit that I was not doing a great job of exploring my own library on my own. Roon tells me I have upwards of 6000 albums, and yet prior to Roon I kept choosing music from a small subset of this. Roon is helping me get through my own music in ways I could not have done on my own.

 

Great set you've got by the way

 

Thanks!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile