Let's talk about SOTM SMS-200 ULTRA

[Blade1001]

I recently bought the SoTM trifecta from @doraymon  (thanks for the smooth transaction Dom).

 

As neither the 200Ultra or the tX-USBUltra have external clock inputs - if I wanted to add a master clock further down the line, does anyone know how easy it is to add this (ideally without sending it off toe SoTM)?

 

I note by looking through the top grill that the board (presumably the clock board) has a small MCX style socket on it labelled "75 Ohm IN", and the rear panel already has a hole cut where the BNC socket, for the clock input, normally sits.

 

Would it therefore simply be a case of adding a cable like this:

 

Tengko 0.5ft BNC Female to MCX Male Right Angle Connector Mini Adapter Assembly

 

The manual on the SoTM sCLK-EX board (which looks identical to the one in the 200 and txUSB) seems to suggest nothing else is required?:

 

SoTM sCLK-EX Manual (Last page)

 

According to the manual there is an LED on the board that lights up once the sync to an external clock is locked. So I guess if that lights up, its works?

 

Any thoughts?

[Blade1001]

14 minutes ago, Confused said:

I recall something similar being discussed on another thread.  This was a question regarding swapping between 75 ohm and 50 ohm feeds for the external clock.  Apparently this change requires a firmware update for the sCLK-EX board.  I am guessing that in your case a firmware update may be required.  Alternatively, maybe the sCLK-EX board as supplied is good for one or the other of the 75 ohm or 50ohm taps?  It might be worth checking this with SOtM.

 

OK, thanks. So that thread post would suggest the board is pre-set up for a 50 ohm input, so as long as the master clock has a 50 ohm output, I could use that.

 

I have contacted SoTM, so hopefully they will come back with a helpful response, as long as they can see past losing their $200 x 2 fee for adding the $8 cable and possible firmware!

[Blade1001]

That was my thinking too. Now I  look at it, I could possibly run a longer cable direct from the board, out through one of the rear vent holes (secured in place with a blob of silicon to act as a strain relief) and straight to a clock, eliminating another mechanical connection and the need for any drilling. 

 

I guess if I have a go with a Mutec Ref 10, or similar, at some point in the future, I can give it a go.

[Blade1001]

Anyone in this thread using their SMS-200 Ultra with a Lampizator Big 7 (with the DSD256 Amerano Combo384 input)?                                                                                          

[Blade1001]

48 minutes ago, Confused said:

I remain baffled why this is considering the in room measurements are identical between the two.

 

Can you post both sets of REW measurements overlaid on the same graph?

 

[Blade1001]

12 minutes ago, afrancois said:

Run the measurements three times in a row with the same device and you will have different results each time. These kind of measurements require very expensive microphones and other gear.

This is the reason why Lyngdorf uses a special kind of microphone and special test tones.

 

If the graph has a 2dB per line vertical scale, all three measurements are almost exactly the same - certainly within the acceptable range of a natural frequency response variation of a microphone and non-anechoic measurements. 

 

You wouldn't get any better measurements with the Lyndorf mic - of which there is nothing 'special' its a generic mid-range mic. In fact I'd wager the measurement repeatability isn't significantly better with the Earthworks M30 and Sound Devices USB Pre2 combo that I have.

 

The point is though that the measurements prove there is no significant (read audible) difference in frequency response between the three devices, but that said the FR is only a very small part of the picture, it doesn't look at ringing, distortion or other factors that may account for the sound difference that Confused is hearing.

[Blade1001]

13 minutes ago, Confused said:

. . . the above rather mountainous looking 'curve' transforms to an almost perfect straight line when the measurements are averaged. 

 

If the vertical graph is 2dB per line, you have only a +/-1dB variation in frequency response from just over 1kHz to 20kHz - thats a pretty stellar result.

 

That said, personally that would sound quite bright to me. I usually need to achieve a gentle downward slope to between -3dB to -6db by 20khz to get a natural sounding response. You might want to experiment with some simple shelf filters to roll off that top end a little, if you have the facility in your system.

[Blade1001]

So is your REW graph above with or without the HAF filters?

 

14 minutes ago, Confused said:

It does indeed sound a touch bright.  . . .  (the filters are providing a degree of downward slope I guess) . . .

 

With regards to HAF filters, I wouldn't expect them to particularly create a downward slope to the frequency response unless you gave them a specific target curve to work to - however their filters may cut some peaks to higher frequencies to smooth the overall frequency response. 

 

Its probably out of the scope of this thread, but it'd be interesting to see some measurements both with and without their filters engaged.

 

[Blade1001]

11 hours ago, afrancois said:

I don 't say that the Lyngdorf microphone is something special. All I know is that you can't replace it with a generic microphone. I guess they have done something to better capture the test tones the amplifier is sending out during the calibration.

 

The Lyndorf microphone is a generic microphone,  Lyndorf will just purchase an OEM unit from a manufacturer, I would suspect it performs no better than the UMIK-1 in measured performance which is more than adequate for 99% of calibration requirements. The reason a specific mic will be tied to a specific Lyndorf unit is that the mic performance is greatly improved by using its specific calibration file for that specific microphone.

[Blade1001]

10 hours ago, Confused said:

It depends how you look at it, for example, REW with a microphone can register beyond 17kHz, my ears and brain cannot.  That said, going from the mR to the sMS yielded something I can hear but is not apparent in REW.  I am quite sure the microphone also detects what my ears do, it is the software that does not register what my brain does.  So what is it?  I am quite sure that the mR and sMS-200Ultra are delivering exactly the same bits.  The Ultra has better clocking than the mR, and I presume better filtering of noise.  Which leads to the question as to why this makes the Ultra subjectively sound brighter, when the objective measurents say otherwise.  I could speculate now, but frankly I do not know the answer for sure.  Maybe there is something else REW can measure that would solve this one?

 

As I mentioned above, it is either a) something that is not related to frequency response (decay, ringing, distortion variation), or b) something in your specific ear to brain interface. We should never under estimate the latter.

 

I'm not a big advocate in banging the 'double blind test' drum - to me this is a hobby and shouldn't be a chore, no one has anything to prove to anyone else - but in this case it would be interesting (only from an academic point of view, and only as you have already gone to the effort of trying to finding an empirical answer), to see if you can readily and consistently identify each streamer blind from your sighted observed sound characteristic. There is always the chance that once you have sowed the seed in your head that the SOtM is 'brighter', that may be what you are more inclined to hear each time.

 

If the recent Yanni/Laurel viral internet thing proved anything to me personally, it was that our brains can not only interpret an identical sound completely differently from another individual, but the same brain can be trained to interpret the same sound differently given a different set of expectations.

 

 

[Blade1001]

1 minute ago, afrancois said:

Do you have a Lyngdorf? If so, try replacing the stock microphone with for example a Behringer ECM8000 as I did and you will see it doesn't work! 

 

It won't work, why would it? The software will be tied to a specific microphone serial number for the reasons I've already given. Anthem do exactly the same thing with their ARC microphones. They don't want users using an microphone with a preloaded calibration file that would be incorrect for it. 

 

You're missing the initial and overriding discussion point though, which was that the performance of the microphone that Lyndorf bundle with their processors, will not be significantly different than the UMIK-1, or indeed any other mid-range calibration mic.

[Blade1001]

1 hour ago, afrancois said:

There are different kinds of microphones on the market. Perhaps these Lyngdorf microphones have been constructed to be more sensitive in certain regions. Only guessing of course.

 

I'm starting to feel I'm flogging a dead horse here, so last post on the subject as its already way OT. If a microphone measures with +/-1dB accuracy from 20Hz-20Khz, no more is needed, sure you can get a mic that measures accurately over a wider frequency range such as the M30 which can cover 10Hz-30Khz, but they're £650 each and won't be being bundled with a £2,500 processor. The Lyndorf will be no more accurate than this. It will be a bog standard OEM mid-range (read more than sufficiently accurate for the purpose) measurement mic.

 

1 hour ago, afrancois said:

The Lyngdorf way of measuring the room is unique and nothing like all the other software solutions like REW. So I wouldn't be surprised that perhaps the microphone itself plays somehow a role in it.

 

Lyndorfs way of measuring the room, and how it uses the microphone to do so will use exactly the same basic principles as every other measurement solution out there, which is grounded in established practice and science for the measurement of speakers and rooms. Where Lyndorf will differ is how it then uses those results to compute its eventual FIR and IIR filters for the final chosen room correction profile, and that is where Lyndorf will differ from Dirac, Trinnov, Audessey, Acourate or anyone else. The only influence the mic will have is its ability to record those standard initial frequency response, phase response and impulse measurements.

[Blade1001]

3 minutes ago, tedwoods said:

Details for the "Neo" version of the sMS-200 Ultra as well as the regular sMS are out:

 

https://www.sotm-audio.com/sotmwp/english/neo/

 

Cool price too!

 

I'm not sure I follow. The 'upgrade' (if indeed it is an upgrade at all) is $30? They can't doing much for that?

[Blade1001]

1 minute ago, tedwoods said:

I believe it has to do with the power supply board inside the sMS or the regulator on that board...

In any case, it doesn't hurt to try it.

 

I guess it depends if there are any negatives, its not so clear cut when they say: 

 

Quote

the original version has little more dynamics and presents bright sound

 

I wouldn't particularly want to lose any dynamics or detail.

[Blade1001]

Hmmm, I don't really like the sound of this. I want a digital front end to be as transparent as possible, I don't want it adding 'colour' to reproduction. If I want to add colour myself, I'll do that in the analogue stage of my system. An all digital streamer should be able to deliver the sound unfettered.

 

I have to wonder if what is actually going on is they have identified something in the power supply board that might be operating out of specification, or outside of the original design intent, and leading to this 'brightness' that several people have reported (and I have noticed myself on occasion) , and they have simply 'fixed' it in the new model - or rather have fixed it and used the opportunity to release a new model . . . but that's probably just the old sceptic in me!

[Blade1001]

Hmmmm, kind of supports my earlier suspicion that this is a replacement of a component not working correctly within the specification of the design. What are the values of the old and new caps? 

 

With my audiophile hat on, if this cap has such an influence on sound quality, is there any mileage on buying a higher spec cap like a V-Cap?

[Blade1001]

1 hour ago, tedwoods said:

Well, I have good news and bad news...?

The bad news is that my dealer has kindly asked me not to disclose any pics or specific values, etc... and I have to respect that.

 

 

 

Nothing really to do with your dealer to be honest, you paid him good money for the device in the first place I assume and good money for the mod. What you do with your own property after that is none of his business!

[Blade1001]

1 minute ago, octaviars said:

 

4.22 is the latest version I think but I get a problem when writing that image to the SD card (writing process is ok but the check fails in imageUSB program).

 

Is all the different versions available somwere? I cant seem to find anyone else but v4.0 and v4.22 that are on SOtM re-burn page

 

I’ve got this exact same problem. 4.22 fails every time, even on a brand new 32GB card.

 

4.0 works but then when I use Eunhasu to upgrade to 4.14 it just hangs at 88% every time.

[Blade1001]

3 minutes ago, octaviars said:

 

Do you mean in imageUSB it fails the check? Someting that the image is not the same as the card?

 

 

Exaktly this happened to me today.

 

 

I have tried it several times and it fails everytime in imageUSB.

 

The funny thing is that the 8GB SD card that was in my Ultra from the begining seems to not work at all I cant even clean it in DISKPART so something must have happened to it. If I try to write an image to it in imageUSB it fails directly.

 

I think we need to wait for @MayfromSOtM to check it to this and tell us how to proceed. I can live with v4.0 for now as I got music playing again (I bypassed the sMS Ultra and run my NUC directly to tX-USBultra during the downtime and that worked really well also).

 

 

Yes, 4.22 fails on the check for me.

 

Yes, we’ll have to wait for May to provide a solution.

[Blade1001]

 

24 minutes ago, octaviars said:

 

I got a new 16GB class 10 SD card loaded it with firmware v4.0 and my ultra works as it used to do.

 

Started to upgrade to v4.14 via web GUI and that also worked today.

 

 

Thanks for the heads up, I will try it again tonight. I've been exchanging e-mail with May, who said it was a known issue, so maybe they've fixed it.

[Blade1001]

16 hours ago, octaviars said:

No problem @Blade1001

 

I am at v04.19 now and the next version is v04.22 the one that did not work during the imaging so I will stay at 4.19 and see if May finds out anything regarding what have happened to the SD card.

 

I feel that the upgrading went faster with the new 16GB SD card even if the original 8GB also was a class 10.

 

 Did you do anything differently to get it to update, correctly, rather than hanging at 88%, or did it just suddenly work?

 

I take it all these updates are through Eunhasu rather than writing the USB image directly? if so, are the updates incremental then; i.e. you load 4.14 first, then 4.15, then 4.16 and so on, rather than jumping straight to the latest version?

[Blade1001]

On 8/14/2018 at 9:40 AM, octaviars said:

 

No only a new 16Gb class 10 SD card. The updates went faster with this new SD card and proceeded as normal.

 

 

Yes via Eunhasu GUI and you begin at 4.0 and then you have to update to each of the firmwares. 

 

May was going to upload a new 4.22 on their webpage to make a image that works in imageUSB. 

 

I tried again a couple of times last night, on both the original 8GB card and my new 32GB card. No luck, both still crash/lock-up at 88% when trying to upgrade to 4.14.

 

So I’m essentially stuck at 4.0 until Sotm can come up with a solution.

 

Starting to wish I’d stuck with my Auralic Aries, never had a single problem with firmware updates on that, they just happened automatically in the background.

[Blade1001]

On 8/16/2018 at 5:09 AM, octaviars said:

 

That is strange. I have talked to another guy here in Sweden and he cant get his Ultra to work at all.

 

 

I also owned a Aries and as you say it just worked but I would not go back as I feel that the Ultra is a better sounding product. 

 

I hope SOtM can sort this out.

 

Finally managed to sort it. SOtM finally put a new version of 4.22 up on the download page, and this wrote to the SD card without an issue. I kind of suspected it would work as this time it was 7.8GB in size, whereas the previous 3-4 times I'd downloaded it, it was 3.9GB which didn't seem large enough.

[Blade1001]

I'm sorry, I know us audiophiles can find lot of weird and wonderful ways of thinking we are changing the sound of our system, but how on earth can a read-only SD card, that is presumably only used when the device boots, and is in no way a part of the signal path, have any influence on the sound?

 

[Blade1001]

43 minutes ago, smodtactical said:

I'm kinda getting tired of dealing with issues with my SOTM 200 ultra. The microSD keeps corrupting leading me to have to re-burn it and now its not even turning on. Fiddling with the annoying power switch on the SPS 500.. its just a big hassle.

 

Can anyone recommend  a network streamer that performs as well if not better than this combo but that is more stable and reliable? Also something with a normal proper power switch?

 

Ideally I would like a network streamer only as I want to use my own dac and want to put all the money into the streaming component. 

 

No issues here at all to be honest. Can't remember which firmware I'm on currently, it was updated by SOTM some months ago when I sent my SMS200-Ultra and txUSB-Ultra to them for all the upgrades.

 

That said, I need to sell mine now, as I'm switching to fully active speakers, and can't use USB output [Anyone interested in buying a fully upgraded SOTM Ultra Trifecta, PM me]

 

As for an alternative streamer for you, the only ones I would consider that should be competitive on a sound quality level are the Lumin U1 if you want Roon integration, or the Aurender N10 if you don't.