Let's talk about SOTM SMS-200 ULTRA

[octaviars]

On 2017-09-21 at 3:27 PM, Pedro123 said:

By the way, have tested the SMS 200 ultra tryptich package and it beats Sonore, Melco and Aurender (including N10) in my system (a MSB + Raidho set up).

 

 

Pedro

 

Have you tried with the SMS Ultra only in your system and how much do you think the tx-USBultra ads to the mix?

 

[octaviars]

35 minutes ago, HardrockInMiniMac said:

Question: When using Roon Ready, do I need to fine tune

 

- buffer

- resync delay

 

settings in Roon or in the SOtM menu?

 

I have not changed anything on my setup with SOtM in Roon mode.

[octaviars]

21 hours ago, Confused said:

Firstly, SOtM are looking to get the update done by some of their "local partners", so depending on where you live and who you purchased from, it might be a case of going back to you local dealer / distributor, rather than back to Korea.

 

Did you by any chance ask what they are swapping out in the NEO comapred to the old one? It cant be that much when the cost is so low.

[octaviars]

9 minutes ago, Confused said:

It is a different power board, see link below:

 

Ok. I suppose that it is not so hard to change as it is a seperate board. The board below is from the regulare sMS-200

 

 

 

How it looks mounted in the case of a regular SMS.

 

And this is in the Ultra version.

 

[octaviars]

1 hour ago, aggielaw said:

Precisely.  They should make this board a no-cost option to the existing model. 

 

It might not be that they replace the whole board with the powersupply it can be just components, I got that feeling from another forum.

[octaviars]

18 minutes ago, tedwoods said:

For those interested, the "Neo" upgrade consists of a capacitor change on the power supply board, so it is relatively easy to switch back if one feels so.

My schedule is pretty hectic right now, but hopefully I'll find some time over the weekend to mod mine with the new cap. 

 

 

Is it the large one on the PSU board? 

 

Did you order the new cap directly from SOtM? 

 

Some pictures of the cap and the modification would be nice ?

[octaviars]

On 8/3/2018 at 9:39 PM, tedwoods said:

Yes, that one.

I've ordered through the official dealer.

I'll try to get some pics too.

 

Ok, I see.

 

Looking forward to some pictures. 

[octaviars]

52 minutes 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.

The good news is that the mod is pretty easy to do.

Two solder joints and you're good to go.

 

Ok, no problem. 

 

I will order one from SOtM (I suppose it would be easy to get it from another source so they dont want the spec of the new one to be all over the Internet).

[octaviars]

I run in to some problems with my Ultra today. My dac did not show up in Roon when I started my nuc.

Did a power recycle of all my equipment but still no connection. 

I only have an orange light blinkning at the LAN port and I cant reach it throug the wedpage and it is not visable in my router.

 

Anyone expirenced something like this?

 

I have seen some needing to re image the SD card. I have sent an email to SOtM so I hope they have some answers. 

[octaviars]

1 hour ago, Tommd64 said:

Octaviars, a blinking orange light is a indication that you don,t have internet. Try to connect a laptop to see if the problem stay,s. And try to reconnect the cable or use another one..

 

Well it is not that easy, nothing wrong with the cable.

 

Today with the original SD card no lights were on at the LAN port today so I made a new SD card and well it seemed to fix the problems as I got lights at the LAN port (2 LED blinking green and orange) and it was visable in my router now. I can ping the IP on my Ultra and it is connected, but still I am not able to reach Eunhasu page.

 

I have to wait to see what SOtM answers regarding the problem.

[octaviars]

3 minutes ago, Tommd64 said:

Dit you treid chrome already to reach unhasu? And did you control your internet with a laptop?

 

I have tried Chrome, firefox, edge to reach it but it wont work.

 

I have internet as everyting else works as it should and I have tried different cables and connections directly to my router and from another switch but it is still the same.

 

I have not yet got any answer from SOtM.

[octaviars]

Well I got music playing again with a new SD card loaded with v4.0 firmware after I figured out it needs to be formated with EXT3 to work as it seems. I encountered problem upgrading from Eunhasu web GUI to v4.14 so I will leave it for now and talk to May at SOtM how to proceed.

[octaviars]

8 minutes ago, Boomboy said:

 

im sure 4.22 is up on their webpage for a re-burn version .. might be easier to go from 4.22 to current version ..

 

http://docs.sotm-audio.com/doku.php?id=en:eunhasu:burn_sdcard_image

 

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

[octaviars]

15 minutes ago, Blade1001 said:

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

 

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

 

15 minutes ago, Blade1001 said:

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

 

Exaktly this happened to me today.

 

12 minutes ago, Boomboy said:

try again with 4.22 .. it can take a couple of times for some of us to work .

 

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 in 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).

 

[octaviars]

3 minutes ago, Blade1001 said:

Yes, 4.22 fails on the check for me.

 

Ok, well right now it feels a bit better to know that it is not a problem only with my gear ?

[octaviars]

On 8/11/2018 at 3:07 PM, Blade1001 said:

 

Yes, 4.22 fails on the check for me.

 

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

 

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.

 

[octaviars]

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.

[octaviars]

1 hour ago, Tommd64 said:

No problems here with V4.22; and no SQ difference as far as I noticed.

 

Is 4.22 the latest version? 

[octaviars]

35 minutes ago, Blade1001 said:

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

 

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

 

36 minutes ago, Blade1001 said:

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?

 

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. 

[octaviars]

12 hours ago, Blade1001 said:

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.

 

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

 

12 hours ago, Blade1001 said:

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

 

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.

[octaviars]

6 hours ago, Blade1001 said:

 

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.

 

Nice to hear that you sorted it out. This is the first time I have had any problem with my SOtM gear. 

I stayed at 4.19 and will keep it that way for now.

[octaviars]

6 minutes ago, Confused said:

Another thought I have had, so far tedwoods appears to be the only one to report regarding the "traditional" versus Neo sMS-200.  Is anyone else getting the Neo update currently?

  

Next week I will order the capacitor from the agent in Sweden and do the mod my self.

[octaviars]

4 hours ago, acaro said:

Do you have any details on this part and where it can be oredered from?  Thanks

 

 

No I dont have any details on it and as I wrote I will order it from the agent. www.studiosound.dk

 

 

[octaviars]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

I have left the REF10 feed to the sMS-200Ultra and tX-USBultra turned off. The logic here is that previously I could not really detect much difference if I used the REF10 clock feed to the sMS-200Ultra and tX-USBultra or not.

 

This is something that I tend to think about will it make such a difference that geting a REF10 and upgrading both my SOtM units to have a clock input worth the money? The up coming Uptone switch will have a 10MHz input so the possibility to use the REF10 there is also something that is a possibility.

 

1 hour ago, Confused said:

The other thought that I have is regarding the Neo update itself. Apparently, the change is to the power board only, and here just a change in the capacitor. How is it possible that this takes the sMS-200Ultra from something that I personally found irritating to something great. Utterly baffling, but yet more evidence as to just how subtle audio reproduction can be.

 

I will get the capacitor on monday so then my ultra will get the NEO treatment

[octaviars]

1 hour ago, HeeBroG said:

 

Did you get instructions from SOtM on how to perform the mod?

If so, I guess it would also be reversible if the sound didn't suit one's system.

That would save a lot of "to and froing" to South Korea!

Care to share??

 

I dont know what will come with the capacitor as I dont buy it directly from SOtM they only do the full mod. If you want to do it you have to go to the local SOtM agent. 

It is one capacitor on the PSU board so it is reversable.