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

[barrows]

8 hours ago, beerandmusic said:

 

Oh, ok...thanks for clarification. 

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

 

microRendu was released first, and won Product of the Year from CA, you would have to ask Chris how those awards are determined.

The ultraRendu was released later, as an upgraded, improved performance version of the micro.  It won 2nd place in the reader's choice awards this year.

[barrows]

8 hours ago, nbpf said:

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.  

The entire reason of the existence of the Rendu products is to get the cheaply specified and constructed, noisy, consumer computer gear away fro the audio system.  The Rendu are purpose built products for high end audio, NOT re-purposed general use computer like the Raspberry Pi.  the reason for this is to build the lowest noise endpoint possible, allowing for the lowest noise contamination of the audio system.  For best performance you do not want consumer computer gear near the audio system, no hard drives, no commercial grade computers, only purpose built, ultra low noise devices.

Using local storage near the audio system is always going to be a compromise in performance, this is specifically why the Rendu products use Ethernet.

[beerandmusic]

37 minutes ago, barrows said:

The entire reason of the existence of the Rendu products is to get the cheaply specified and constructed, noisy, consumer computer gear away from the audio system.

 

I thought the main reason was to replace the noisy usb interface from pc with a quieter rendu....not to simply move it away.

 

If someone does use a rendu, How big of a problem is it having the computer near the amp if it is turned on but not being used or connected to the music chain? (and what is considered "near")

 

Isn't the impact of replacing the pc usb interface MUCH MORE DRAMATIC of an improvement than simply moving it further away?

 

I would guess 90%+ improvement by replacing the pc usb and less than 10% improvement by physically moving it further away?

 

[barrows]

@beerandmusic, guessing is really not the way to go.  The reason we at Sonore shifted to Ethernet based audio was to get the crappy commercial computer gear away from the audio system, at the same time, of course we paid a lot of attention to getting the cleanest USB output possible.

When I say "away" I mean far away as possible, but certainly there comes a distance at which you are "good"  In my system, my serving computer (Mac Mini, running Audirvana+ using internal storage) and router are in my upstairs work room.  Then I have about 30' of CAT6A Ethernet cable running to my downstairs living room where the audio system is.  Ideally, you want the commercial computer gear also plugged into an AC circuit which is on the opposite phase of your homes AC supply, as this gives the best isolation, electrically, from all the noise put out onto the AC line from the computer gear.  It also helps to plug the computer gear into a power conditioner, something simple and not too expensive is fine, like PS Audio's most affordable models.

There are three possible modes of audio system noise contamination from the commercial computer gear:

1. Direct, this would be noise traveling for the computer gear to your audio system over a wired connection, like in the case of a laptop directly connected to the audio system via USB.

2. Airborne, this would be airborne RFI broadcast by the computer gear and picked up by the audio system.

3. Noise put out onto the AC by the computer gear, coming into the audio system on its AC power cable.

 

By using Ethernet, number 1. is mostly eliminated, as Ethernet is pretty well isolated.  No isolation is absolute though, even with Ethernet there may be gains by tweaks such as powering your router with a clean supply-but I consider such tweaks "second order" in nature; they are the last thing to worry about when the rest of your system is "perfect".  With the commercial computer gear well away physically from the audio system, number 2 is completely eliminated as a source of contamination.  How far away will depend on the computer, a high power computer for running complex oversampling with HQPlayer will have more radiated RFI than something smaller.  But I think we can agree that if the computer gear is 20' away it will be a non-issue from an RFI standpoint.  Number 3. can never be totally eliminated, but the longer wire distance the AC line noise has to travel through to get from the computer gear to the audio system, the more this noise will be attenuated.  Wire alone acts as a filter to high frequency noise, as it has some inherent capacitance and resistance, which increases with length.  Best is to have the computer gear on the opposite phase of the homes AC.

[beerandmusic]

21 minutes ago, barrows said:

@beerandmusic, guessing is really not the way to go.  The reason we at Sonore shifted to Ethernet based audio was to get the crappy commercial computer gear away from the audio system, at the same time, of course we paid a lot of attention to getting the cleanest USB output possible.

When I say "away" I mean far away as possible, but certainly there comes a distance at which you are "good"  In my system, my serving computer (Mac Mini, running Audirvana+ using internal storage) and router are in my upstairs work room.  Then I have about 30' of CAT6A Ethernet cable running to my downstairs living room where the audio system is.  Ideally, you want the commercial computer gear also plugged into an AC circuit which is on the opposite phase of your homes AC supply, as this gives the best isolation, electrically, from all the noise put out onto the AC line from the computer gear.  It also helps to plug the computer gear into a power conditioner, something simple and not too expensive is fine, like PS Audio's most affordable models.

There are three possible modes of audio system noise contamination from the commercial computer gear:

1. Direct, this would be noise traveling for the computer gear to your audio system over a wired connection, like in the case of a laptop directly connected to the audio system via USB.

2. Airborne, this would be airborne RFI broadcast by the computer gear and picked up by the audio system.

3. Noise put out onto the AC by the computer gear, coming into the audio system on its AC power cable.

 

By using Ethernet, number 1. is mostly eliminated, as Ethernet is pretty well isolated.  No isolation is absolute though, even with Ethernet there may be gains by tweaks such as powering your router with a clean supply-but I consider such tweaks "second order" in nature; they are the last thing to worry about when the rest of your system is "perfect".  With the commercial computer gear well away physically from the audio system, number 2 is completely eliminated as a source of contamination.  How far away will depend on the computer, a high power computer for running complex oversampling with HQPlayer will have more radiated RFI than something smaller.  But I think we can agree that if the computer gear is 20' away it will be a non-issue from an RFI standpoint.  Number 3. can never be totally eliminated, but the longer wire distance the AC line noise has to travel through to get from the computer gear to the audio system, the more this noise will be attenuated.  Wire alone acts as a filter to high frequency noise, as it has some inherent capacitance and resistance, which increases with length.  Best is to have the computer gear on the opposite phase of the homes AC.

 

To summarize though, would you say that there is more benefit from

A) the computer being further away

or

B) the computer not connected to the dac

 

I thought most of the noise was the noise on the pc usb output itself????

 

 

 

[barrows]

There are more variables than that.  If you have a computer plugged into the same AC source as the audio system that is a huge problem.  

Anyway, why choose one thing to fix, just fix both problems and be done with it. it is easy to do so with Ethernet.

[beerandmusic]

2 minutes ago, barrows said:

There are more variables than that.  If you have a computer plugged into the same AC source as the audio system that is a huge problem.  

Anyway, why choose one thing to fix, just fix both problems and be done with it. it is easy to do so with Ethernet.

 

I guess i just bought more into the concept that the enet interface was superior than using pc usb...which is another reason that I just like the idea of "NO USB" interface....If you couldn't say that eliminating the pc usb interface was a LOT more of an improvement than just the "airborn" stuff, i have a harder time with the "superiority" of the concept.  Whatever, i know i have heard everyone loves it, so i don't question it's merits.  I just try to get things to settle in my head (grin).  Thanks for sharing anyway.

 

On an aside, do the $300 power conditioners isolate at all?  Do you think i would hear a notable difference if i unplugged my computer from my power conditioner?  What if the computer is mostly in sleep mode all the time, and I don't use it for my audio chain?

[barrows]

There is nothing inherently wrong with using USB for audio, it can work perfectly well.  I cringe when I hear people suggesting that "USB sucks" and that Ethernet is better, or that one must use SPDIF/AES because it is better.  All of these interfaces can perform very, very well (perfectly if you will) as long as the are very well implemented.  But all of them will still be somewhat sensitive to the implementation of the source providing the feed as well.  The source matters.

 

Certainly going from a standard computer USB direct to a DAC is a weak solution, a well designed custom server, made for audio, can be way better, and using an Ethernet renderer with USB output is better than that.

 

On a power conditioner, now I am just speaking about plugging in commercial computer gear (still well away from the audio system) it is definitely worthwhile to plug that computer gear to a decent, passive, power conditioner.  You can use something with strong filtering here (this type of power conditioner you would not want to use on the audio system itself in most cases).  Even if your computer is idle, its switching power supply is still cranking away, putting out all kinds of crap on the AC line.  Again, something with pretty strong real filters, like PS Audio's most affordable models, is great for this, or even something from Monster, etc...  While I do not recommend these type of power conditioners for audio products, they can be great to reduce line noise coming out of computers and other noisy consumer electronics.

[Thuaveta]

27 minutes ago, barrows said:

There is nothing inherently wrong with using USB for audio, it can work perfectly well.  I cringe when I hear people suggesting that "USB sucks" and that Ethernet is better, or that one must use SPDIF/AES because it is better.  All of these interfaces can perform very, very well (perfectly if you will) as long as the are very well implemented.  But all of them will still be somewhat sensitive to the implementation of the source providing the feed as well.  The source matters.

 

Certainly going from a standard computer USB direct to a DAC is a weak solution, a well designed custom server, made for audio, can be way better, and using an Ethernet renderer with USB output is better than that.

 

On the effect a source has, has this been quantified / measured ?

 

I'm certain there's measurable differences at the interface between the transport and the DAC, i.e, that device X can have cleaner USB or SPDIF than device Y, but assuming reasonably competent engineering, is there still something measurable at DAC output ?

 

(recently had an email exchange with the manufacturer of my DAC, who said, flat out, transport didn't matter "as long as a digital signal is retrievable")

[nbpf]

 

10 hours ago, beerandmusic said:

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

I could run a wire but it would have to cross a corridor and go all along two walls of the living room. The alternative would be to run the cable all along the corridor back to the entrance and then, from there, to the living room. This is about 20m and would be a mess because on one side of the corridor I already have the heating pipes and some electricity cables and the other side is interrupted by two doors ... it's a very old flat. That said, I do not see the point of running a wire. If I decided to buy a Rendu or a similar device, I would anyway wire it up to a server in direct mode as suggested in the "A novel way ..." monster thread in this forum. 

[barrows]

I am not aware of anyone, yet, being able to measure these differences at the output of a DAC, but these differences are easily audible by anyone.  Hopefully, someday, people will figure out how to measure all aspects of an audio systems performance, but that day has yet to arrive.

Everyone in audio knows this.  I have heard amplifiers which sound absolutely terrible, but that have a nearly "perfect" set of the standard measurements, we just do not have enough measuring tools to describe all aspects of audio system performance at this time.

 

A lot of DAC manufacturers say their DACs are immune to source quality, indeed those same manufacturers often suggest that all the inputs on their DACs perform the same as well: Do you hear all inputs on your DAC sounding the same?

Personally, I have never heard a DAC which did not sound differently with every different source I have used with it.

[barrows]

5 minutes ago, nbpf said:

 

I could run a wire but it would have to cross a corridor and go all along two walls of the living room. The alternative would be to run the cable all along the corridor back to the entrance and then, from there, to the living room. This is about 20m and would be a mess because on one side of the corridor I already have the heating pipes and some electricity cables and the other side is interrupted by two doors ... it's a very old flat. That said, I do not see the point of running a wire. If I decided to buy a Rendu or a similar device, I would anyway wire it up to a server in direct mode as suggested in the "A novel way ..." monster thread in this forum. 

What about Ethernet on the exterior?  That is what I did.  Easy solution for a lot of people which may seem in obvious at first.

[nbpf]

2 hours ago, barrows said:

The entire reason of the existence of the Rendu products is to get the cheaply specified and constructed, noisy, consumer computer gear away fro the audio system.  The Rendu are purpose built products for high end audio, NOT re-purposed general use computer like the Raspberry Pi.  the reason for this is to build the lowest noise endpoint possible, allowing for the lowest noise contamination of the audio system.  For best performance you do not want consumer computer gear near the audio system, no hard drives, no commercial grade computers, only purpose built, ultra low noise devices.

Using local storage near the audio system is always going to be a compromise in performance, this is specifically why the Rendu products use Ethernet.

You have misread my post: I wrote "something like a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne with better USB, S/PDIF and I2S outputs and some local storage" not "a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne". There are a number of devices, e .g., from Melco, Aurender or Naim, that implement a server+renderer with local storage and allegedly very clean USB or S/PDIF outputs. The Magna Mano uses a Raspberry Pi and has been compared favorably to the SOtM sMS-200. I am quite confident that Sonore could build a server+renderer with local storage that is as good or better than such devices. I might be wrong, of course.

[nbpf]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

@beerandmusic, guessing is really not the way to go.  ...

There are three possible modes of audio system noise contamination from the commercial computer gear:

1. Direct, this would be noise traveling for the computer gear to your audio system over a wired connection, like in the case of a laptop directly connected to the audio system via USB.

2. Airborne, this would be airborne RFI broadcast by the computer gear and picked up by the audio system.

3. Noise put out onto the AC by the computer gear, coming into the audio system on its AC power cable.

..

What is wrong with

1. Isolating the commercial computer from the audio system via a USB to S/PDIF isolator like a Mutec MC-3+ USB, Schiit Eitr, etc.

2. Using a low-power commercial computer in a die cast aluminium case.

3. Powering the low-power commercial computer with a linear power supply like JS-2, Teddy Pardo, etc.

? It is well possible that solutions of the kind outlined above are, under fairly general conditions, in average worse than solutions based on wired Ethernet and large (in comparison with the size of the devices) physical distance between the server and a low-power optimized network player. But, in absence of detailed comparisons, this is in the best case a claim, not an established fact.

[Thuaveta]

4 minutes ago, barrows said:

I am not aware of anyone, yet, being able to measure these differences at the output of a DAC, but these differences are easily audible by anyone.  Hopefully, someday, people will figure out how to measure all aspects of an audio systems performance, but that day has yet to arrive.

Everyone in audio knows this.  I have heard amplifiers which sound absolutely terrible, but that have a nearly "perfect" set of the standard measurements, we just do not have enough measuring tools to describe all aspects of audio system performance at this time.

 

A lot of DAC manufacturers say their DACs are immune to source quality, indeed those same manufacturers often suggest that all the inputs on their DACs perform the same as well: Do you hear all inputs on your DAC sounding the same?

Personally, I have never heard a DAC which did not sound differently with every different source I have used with it.

Thank you for your candor.

[nbpf]

29 minutes ago, barrows said:

What about Ethernet on the exterior?  That is what I did.  Easy solution for a lot of people which may seem in obvious at first.

You mean getting to the living room from the outside of the flat? That's an interesting idea but it would involve going through the kitchen and, from there all along the courtyard around the block at the third floor level ... or getting through my neighbor's flat to the other side of the living room ... why? I am not interested in Roon and do not need any powerful server. If I fancy to do so, I can always connect a microRendu or an ultraRendu directly to a Raspberry Pi with an ethernet cable and have the Pi serve local data to the Rendu. No need to connect the Pi to my router via cables, in this case.

[barrows]

44 minutes ago, nbpf said:

You have misread my post: I wrote "something like a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne with better USB, S/PDIF and I2S outputs and some local storage" not "a Raspberry Pi + Allo DigiOne". There are a number of devices, e .g., from Melco, Aurender or Naim, that implement a server+renderer with local storage and allegedly very clean USB or S/PDIF outputs. The Magna Mano uses a Raspberry Pi and has been compared favorably to the SOtM sMS-200. I am quite confident that Sonore could build a server+renderer with local storage that is as good or better than such devices. I might be wrong, of course.

With local storage, you are not going to get as clean a USB output, simple as that.  HDs are noisy, even SSDs.  Rasberry Pi is not a built for audio computer, it is a general purpose device with a much larger noise signature, it is built to be as cheap as is possible and still work, with all the component compromises which that entails (cheap noisy regulators, cheap bypass caps, or eliminating as many of those as possible, etc).

A purpose built for high end audio device is designed without the cost constraints of something like Ras Pi...  for example, the ultraRendu uses all (and many of them) ultra low noise linear regulators including LT3045 (look those up, you will not find comparable parts on a Ras Pi).  It also uses a ultra low phase noise main oscillator, you will not find that on a Ras Pi either.

[nbpf]

54 minutes ago, barrows said:

...

 

A lot of DAC manufacturers say their DACs are immune to source quality, indeed those same manufacturers often suggest that all the inputs on their DACs perform the same as well: Do you hear all inputs on your DAC sounding the same?

Personally, I have never heard a DAC which did not sound differently with every different source I have used with it.

Agree ... perhaps the ideal DAC is simply a DAC that does not rely on any data transfer at replay time! What about a DAC with a beefy local memory that only needs to fetch data from the environment if these do not happen to be in the local memory? 

[Ralf11]

"these differences are easily audible"  and sound like...?

 

hiss?

 

loss of 'impact' on bass?

 

veiling on voices?

 

or what?

[barrows]

6 minutes ago, nbpf said:

Agree ... perhaps the ideal DAC is simply a DAC that does not rely on any data transfer at replay time! What about a DAC with a beefy local memory that only needs to fetch data from the environment if these do not happen to be in the local memory? 

Why bother, you are talking about something which is relatively difficult to engineer, and that engineering cost will be passed along in the DAC retail price.  Instead, just use a really great source, which already exists.  Plus what you are suggesting means putting a relatively high power additional processor in the DAC, adding to cost and the internal noise signature.  Basically it appears you are suggesting an Ethernet DAC, I agree with that idea, but so far very few of them are done well enough (LinnKlimax DS, >$20K).  Keeping the Ethernet receiver noise out of the DAC/clock/analog circuitry requires extensive internal shielding and a totally isolated power supply for the Ethernet receiver, this adds a lot of expense.

It can be done, Linn does it, but at a cost.  Ultimately I think we can get to really good DACs in the <$10K range, with Ethernet input and awesome sound, but we are not there yet.

[barrows]

2 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

"these differences are easily audible"  and sound like...?

 

hiss?

 

loss of 'impact' on bass?

 

veiling on voices?

 

or what?

Loss of low level details.  This affects most sonic parameters, especially: timbral accuracy, soundstage, especially depth, micro dynamic inflection, air, etc.

[Ralf11]

Thanks.  I'll listen for that when comparing.

[nbpf]

1 minute ago, barrows said:

With local storage, you are not going to get as clean a USB output, simple as that.  HDs are noisy, even SSDs.  Rasberry Pi is not a built for audio computer, it is a general purpose device with a much larger noise signature, it is built to be as cheap as is possible and still work, with all the component compromises which that entails (cheap noisy regulators, cheap bypass caps, or eliminating as many of those as possible, etc).

A purpose built for high end audio device is designed without the cost constraints of something like Ras Pi...  for example, the ultraRendu uses all (and many of them) ultra low noise linear regulators including LT3045 (look those up, you will not find comparable parts on a Ras Pi).  It also uses a ultra low phase noise main oscillator, you will not find that on a Ras Pi either.

I have not been suggesting using a Raspberry Pi but rather a Rendu-like device as a server+renderer. Both the micro- and the ultraRendu seem to rely on local storage: they boot from the micro SD card, not from the network. A 400GB micro SD card can store about 500 16/44.1 albums, beside the OS. That's enough for a small collection. Melco, Aurender, Naim, etc. are offering servers with more local storage and allegedly clean outputs. Perhaps not as clean as the ultraRendu output but clean enough for some people to buy them. Thus, it seems to me, there is a market for integrated server+storage+renderer solutions.  

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, barrows said:

Loss of low level details.

And why can't this be measured with a suitable test signal?

[nbpf]

5 minutes ago, barrows said:

... Basically it appears you are suggesting an Ethernet DAC, I agree with that idea, but so far very few of them are done well enough (LinnKlimax DS, >$20K).  Keeping the Ethernet receiver noise out of the DAC/clock/analog circuitry requires extensive internal shielding and a totally isolated power supply for the Ethernet receiver, this adds a lot of expense.

It can be done, Linn does it, but at a cost.  Ultimately I think we can get to really good DACs in the <$10K range, with Ethernet input and awesome sound, but we are not there yet.

I was rather suggesting a completely isolated DAC. The Ethernet interface would be needed only for control, not for transferring musical content at replay time.