FORGETTING the Digital to Analog conversion part, what is BEST Digital source?

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, barrows said:

It should be clear from my Signature, no?  I am co-designer and builder of the Signature Rendu SE (I do the "simple" design stuff, the power supply and layout, and consulted on the custom transformer we had made for the unit).  I do not think this is any secret or anything!

 

I didn't say it was, but you may also be biased in his area, which is why I mentioned this.

[beerandmusic]

10 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

That is not what the 6 separate POSITIVE  DBT comparison .wav file  comparisons that  I supplied

 

 I am out of here as you appear to have already made up your mind on the current subject about upsampling LPCM to DSD being the answer to a maiden's prayer !

 

That "you" supplied....how did you create them...I really haven't read.

If you simply copied them, i call hogwash.  If you ripped them on different hardware, then i would say it was plausible, but what is the bearing? who cares?

 

regarding pcm to dsd conversion, i doubt i will ever change my mind....like i said, i know i prefer native dsd. I said i have never tried to upsample via HQPlayer, but that I would guess that there are FAR more people that have upsampled via HQplayer that like it, than "un-identified" individuals that say they don't like it because it sounds "smoothed".  Everyone or just about everyone i have heard that uses hqplayer in this way does prefer it, and have never heard anyone say that they don't like it because it was smoothed besides you.

 

 

 

 

[beerandmusic]

31 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

I didn't say it was, but you may also be biased in his area, which is why I mentioned this.

 

I think everyone realizes Barrows would be biased, just like anyone would be...just like you are biased in whatever research you have done.  I find Barrows knowledgeable and forthright....probably the only issue I have with him is that he can't tell me what would make one enet better than another that is "logical to me".  Perhaps it is proprietary... I suppose the fact that his enet supports DSD512, but i don't know of any other enet->usb products that don't.  If a player doesn't support DSD512, is it because the enet part doesn't or the dac part of the device doesn't.  I look at enet as simply a transport...i can't foresee why any enet can't transfer bits perfectly to a buffer in a dac.  I am sure there "may be" reasons, but i haven't heard anything that convinces me yet, why one enet would be better than another.....fortunately for sanore and sotm, they don't really have "any" competition....there really isn't anyone else that makes such a "toy"...To me it's just another USB bandaid until dacs start including enet ports.

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

and have never heard anyone say that they don't like it because it was smoothed besides you.

 

 Then use the Search Facility like you expected me to do !

 No matter what these other posters reported, you would almost certainly have rejected them anyway, as you have a closed mind on this subject.

 

[barrows]

14 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

I didn't say it was, but you may also be biased in his area, which is why I mentioned this.

My preference for Ethernet distributed audio over a local server is not based on bias of any kind, it is solely based on experience.  Sonore started by building custom servers, and we took that approach as far as it could go.  To get better performance we realized that we needed to get the consumer computer parts well away, physically and electrically, from the audio system, this is the entire reason for the existence of the Rendu products; to achieve better audio performance than ANY server possibly can.  There is just no way a full server can achieve the much smaller noise footprint of the Rendu products, not bias, or opinion, this is simple measurable fact.

[sandyk]

2 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

I find Barrows knowledgeable and forthright....

 

 As I do. I have quoted him on more than one occasion in the past.

[beerandmusic]

5 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Then use the Search Facility like you expected me to do !

 No matter what these other posters reported, you would almost certainly have rejected them anyway, as you have a closed mind on this subject.

 

I wouldn't say closed minded, i would say that when 1000 people say one thing and one person says another, that i would logically lean towards belief of the 1000 over the 1...especially because i have EXTREMELY high respect for MISKA.  I probably have more respect for MISKA than anyone else on this site, and i hate his player (lol)....To me it really doesn't matter.  I listen to native DSD mostly.

[beerandmusic]

58 minutes ago, barrows said:

  It is a shame that many DACs still do not incorporate a properly isolated USB input, it is not all that expensive to do, and the engineering is very well understood.

 

 

I know my consumer grade marantz nd8006 (streamer/dac) has an isolated ground on it's usb port. (grin).

[sandyk]

3 minutes ago, barrows said:

My preference for Ethernet distributed audio over a local server is not based on bias of any kind, it is solely based on experience.

 

YOUR experience. Nobody is infallible.

 Perhaps you are a little too close to this subject given your affiliations ?

Again, I will state that you MAY be correct about the Sonore products, but your Bias is showing, and all designers invariably make the same types of claims about the products they are involved with. 

 

 It would appear to serve no real purpose for this particular discussion to continue.

 

[beerandmusic]

7 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

YOUR experience. Nobody is infallible.

 Perhaps you are a little too close to this subject given your affiliations ?

Again, I will state that you MAY be correct about the Sonore products, but your Bias is showing, and all designers invariably make the same types of claims about the products they are involved with. 

 

 It would appear to serve no real purpose for this particular discussion to continue.

 

I don't find it difficult to believe at all, even with his bias....I have stated for nearly 5 years that dsd over enet sounds better than usb...Much Much time before SONORE came out with the product.  It also makes sense that they have very little processing power needed to do the only job it has to do.  Everything makes sense, and they have no other competition right now besides SOTM. 

 

If they were smart, they would license it for internal use with a good dac...before it's too late....but my guess is that it is not that proprietary and dac mfr's are already working on it.

 

I also remember saying that HQplayer with roon would be a good marriage, and it didn't happen the way i hoped, but they have hooks now.

[sandyk]

20 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

I wouldn't say closed minded, i would say that when 1000 people say one thing and one person says another, that i would logically lean towards belief of the 1000 over the 1...especially because i have EXTREMELY high respect for MISKA.  I probably have more respect for MISKA than anyone else on this site, and i hate his player (lol)....To me it really doesn't matter.  I listen to native DSD mostly.

 

 Your evidence is still ANECDOTAL only. (Groupthink perhaps ?)

 Have any of your 1,000  been involved with (Heaven forbid) DBTs involving both very high res LPCM and conversions to DSD of the same recording using DACs optimised for each format ?

 

"....I have stated for nearly 5 years that dsd over enet sounds better than usb..."

 

 Given USBs well documented problems, why should that be a surprise ?

 

This is getting us nowhere.

BYE !

[beerandmusic]

11 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Your evidence is still ANECDOTAL only. (Groupthink perhaps ?)

 Have any of your 1,000  been involved with (Heaven forbid) DBTs involving both very high res LPCM and conversions to DSD of the same recording ?

 

This is getting us nowhere.

BYE !

I believe in power of numbers.  I also agree that DBT, if done right (my rules only), could shed a lot of light on a lot of things....I do remember reading about large groups suggesting that quad DSD is getting dangerously close to analog. 

 

In all honesty, i think pretty much everything is subjective...hell, i even started a thread with that title.

 

Professional reviewers have even admitted to me that they were relieved once retired so they can be more upfront with their "true" personal opinions.  We have to know that a lot of what is sold is based on marketing.

 

Like Theresa's saying, trust your own ears. Native DSD over enet wins...everything else is second in my book.

 

I would love to play devils advocate, make the dbt rules, and blow this audiophile world upside down.  Every piece of equipment would receive a "GRADE" based on percentages of my dbt tests.

[sandyk]

19 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

Like Theresa's saying, trust your own ears

 

I forgot to add that she did just that with my comparison .wav files before her unfortunate descent into Alzheimers, as did Roch and Silverlight who were my main C.A. "testers" several years ago.

 BTW, well implemented Digital, including high res LPCM and DSD, has been able to crap all over all but the most expensive Analogue for a while now.

[beerandmusic]

6 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

I forgot to add that she did just that with my comparison .wav files before her unfortunate descent into Alzheimers, as did Roch and Silverlight who were my main C.A. "testers" several years ago.

 

From the wiki entry,

However, it is very unlikely that any two non-identical files in the real world will have the same MD5 hash, unless they have been specifically created to have the same hash.

=====

As i suggested, it is possible to create 2 files purposely to have the exact same checksum....but if that is not the case, and the files are truly identical, they will sound the same on same hardware. 

 

I thought you said you were done?

 

[barrows]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

YOUR experience. Nobody is infallible.

 Perhaps you are a little too close to this subject given your affiliations ?

Again, I will state that you MAY be correct about the Sonore products, but your Bias is showing, and all designers invariably make the same types of claims about the products they are involved with. 

 

 It would appear to serve no real purpose for this particular discussion to continue.

 

If it was possible to produce better sonic performance via a server, Sonore would still be making them.  There is a reason the microRendu was CA Product of the Year.  We could make a lot more money making servers, but they just do not offer the same performance potential of the Ethernet Renderers.

[sandyk]

34 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

From the wiki entry,

However, it is very unlikely that any two non-identical files in the real world will have the same MD5 hash, unless they have been specifically created to have the same hash.

 

I don't give a damn what Wiki says .

 I have been, and I am still able, to demonstrate otherwise using so called "Gold Standard " DBTs.

 

 You can consider yourself ignored by me in this thread now.

 

[sandyk]

36 minutes ago, barrows said:

There is a reason the microRendu was CA Product of the Year.

 

 C .A.  members are a very small percentage of the potential purchasers of this type of product, so although this is a fine achievement, such an award from any forum is of little relevance in  this respect, due to the amount of exposure given to these products in this forum.

You need an award from the major Audiophile print publications, which if the products are as good as many members are reporting , may happen before very long.

 

 P.S.
It could be interesting to see what percentage of C.A. members actually use Ethernet for Audio compared with USB, Coax /Toslink etc.

 

[beerandmusic]

49 minutes ago, barrows said:

 There is a reason the microRendu was CA Product of the Year.  We could make a lot more money making servers, but they just do not offer the same performance potential of the Ethernet Renderers.

 

bias...I would say it is more "readers that voted choice" vs "product of year" (although you can call it that)...helps that John is popular here and has site and fan support.  I would guess that if people that were polled that have tried both the rendu and sotm, the sotm would likely be "product of the year".

 

I don't doubt it is a great product, and will improve everyone's usb dac that doesn't have some usb toy or usb isolation...so it has good purpose, and i would never knock it.   Based on what I have read only, the SOTM would likely win based on my preferences, and i am sure that i would probably like just about ANY enet->usb adapter over usb dac by itself.  (for me, i just did dlna via a sony blu-ray player for $50).   Either way, it's a product that I could, and actually HAVE recommended for someone that wanted to budget $900 and not $1200 to improve their usb dac.

 

I don't know that you could make more money selling servers...maybe make more money per server, but you will sell a lot more ethernet to usb adapters than you would servers....

[beerandmusic]

22 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 C .A.  members are a very small percentage of the potential purchasers of this type of product, so although this is a fine achievement, such an award from any forum is of little relevance in  this respect, due to the amount of exposure given to these products in this forum.

You need an award from the major Audiophile print publications, which if the products are as good as many members are reporting , may happen before very long.

 

I thought both the rendu and SOTM have been gifted nice reviews by several recognized magz...at least i have read a couple.  I think anyone that doesn't want to sell their usb dac in favor of a streamer/dac should buy a usb toy....but i think they would be better off to wait for next gen dacs with enet ports...jmo.

[barrows]

18 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

 

bias...I would say it is more "readers that voted choice" vs "product of year" (although you can call it that)...helps that John is popular here and has site and fan support.  I would guess that if people that were polled that have tried both the rendu and sotm, the sotm would likely be "product of the year".

 

I don't doubt it is a great product, and will improve everyone's usb dac that doesn't have some usb toy or usb isolation...so it has good purpose, and i would never knock it.   Based on what I have read only, the SOTM would likely win based on my preferences, and i am sure that i would probably like just about ANY enet->usb adapter over usb dac by itself.  (for me, i just did dlna via a sony blu-ray player for $50).   Either way, it's a product that I could, and actually HAVE recommended for someone that wanted to budget $900 and not $1200 to improve their usb dac.

 

I don't know that you could make more money selling servers...maybe make more money per server, but you will sell a lot more ethernet to usb adapters than you would servers....

ultraRendu won 2nd place in the Reader's choice award this year (ROON software was first),  microRendu won Product of the Year.  Get your facts right!

[beerandmusic]

Just now, barrows said:

ultraRendu won 2nd place in the Reader's choice award this year (ROON software was first),  microRendu won Product of the Year.  Get your facts right!

 

Oh, ok...thanks for clarification. 

Just curious, How was "product" of the year determined, and why did micro win it over ultra?

 

[nbpf]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

My preference for Ethernet distributed audio over a local server is not based on bias of any kind, it is solely based on experience.  Sonore started by building custom servers, and we took that approach as far as it could go.  To get better performance we realized that we needed to get the consumer computer parts well away, physically and electrically, from the audio system, this is the entire reason for the existence of the Rendu products; to achieve better audio performance than ANY server possibly can.  There is just no way a full server can achieve the much smaller noise footprint of the Rendu products, not bias, or opinion, this is simple measurable fact.

Interesting, I was under the impression that the Rendu products could also run MinimServer and act as a clean, low-power, server+renderer solution for small to mid-sized music collections. Alas, they are anyway great devices!

 

Still, I believe that a high-quality, low-power server+renderer device -- something like a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne with better USB, S/PDIF and I2S outputs and some local storage -- would be a very interesting product, in particular for those users that cannot (or do not want to) have a network player wired to their LAN.  

[nbpf]

50 minutes ago, sandyk said:

...
It could be interesting to see what percentage of C.A. members actually use Ethernet for Audio compared with USB, Coax /Toslink etc.

 

Wireless for control yes but ... no way to get an ethernet cable into the living room in my specific case. Thus, the only way I could take advantage of a network player would be to have it wired up to a small server, a Raspberry Pi 3, for instance, that also acts as an access point for the player.   

[beerandmusic]

37 minutes ago, nbpf said:

Wireless for control yes but ... no way to get an ethernet cable into the living room in my specific case. Thus, the only way I could take advantage of a network player would be to have it wired up to a small server, a Raspberry Pi 3, for instance, that also acts as an access point for the player.   

 

I have a wired connection in every room in my house....just curious why you coldn't run a wire?

 

 

[beerandmusic]

48 minutes ago, nbpf said:

Interesting, I was under the impression that the Rendu products could also run MinimServer and act as a clean, low-power, server+renderer solution for small to mid-sized music collections. Alas, they are anyway great devices!

 

Still, I believe that a high-quality, low-power server+renderer device -- something like a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne with better USB, S/PDIF and I2S outputs and some local storage -- would be a very interesting product, in particular for those users that cannot (or do not want to) have a network player wired to their LAN.  

I would be more curious how many CA readers that use usb only and don't have "some type of usb toy".

They should if they haven't already.