rickca Posted February 26, 2018 Share Posted February 26, 2018 And yet, in the Antipodes FAQ it says The CX+EX solution is the ultimate. Next best is the one-box DX. Next best is the CX. Next best is the EX. But you will find the DX, CX and EX are close to one another in audio performance. The big leap in audio quality comes when you move up to the CX+EX solution. The CX, when used just for the server app, provides the best possible performance of server apps. The EX, when used just for the renderer app, provides the best possible performance of the renderer app. The superiority of the CX+EX is jaw-dropping. Because of course, two boxes are better than one! Especially if you're selling boxes. Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs i7-6700K/Windows 10 --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's Link to comment
mahi Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 On 25/02/2018 at 12:00 AM, Kritpoon said: I have the DX Gen 3 for about 2 months now. My chain is Source -> Mutec Mc-3+USB (with REF10 Clock) -> Yggy. Comparing the DX GEN3 with what I had before (ultraRendu+LPS-1 feeding my Synology NAS), the DX GEN 3 is a few classes over the ultraRendu. Before the DX, I found the uR to sound really good (coming from MACBOOK Pro as a source). But when I replaces UR with the DX3, I found that uR has a few flaws. Comparing with the DX3, the DX3 mid range is liquidity smooth, the sound is meaty, the background noise is darker, the highs are extended without any so called digital glare. The stage depth is superb, and micro details are easily heard. The bass is tighter with better extension. Just so summarize, the DX3 is really really good with the overall presentation to Analog sound. With good file source, if I close my eyes and listen, it seems that the sound is coming from the Vinyl source. Hope this helps. I have a similar setup, but i ended up with the dx3 as a roon and file server and a microrendu as a renderer, this combo gives the best sound for me. the dual lan port of the dx3 providing a direct path to the rendu is one big factor in the jump in sq. Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 1 hour ago, mahi said: I have a similar setup, but i ended up with the dx3 as a roon and file server and a microrendu as a renderer, this combo gives the best sound for me. the dual lan port of the dx3 providing a direct path to the rendu is one big factor in the jump in sq. Hi Mahi, I also tried to directly connect the uRendu thru the other LAN port (the one that lable network). But on Roon having the Antipodes as Roon Server, I could not find the uRendu as an output (under Roon's Audio menu). Would you mind sharing how you did it? I am very interested in trying but could not succeed. Thanks in advance! "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
mahi Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 4 hours ago, Kritpoon said: Hi Mahi, I also tried to directly connect the uRendu thru the other LAN port (the one that lable network). But on Roon having the Antipodes as Roon Server, I could not find the uRendu as an output (under Roon's Audio menu). Would you mind sharing how you did it? I am very interested in trying but could not succeed. Thanks in advance! go to myantipodes.com and you should see both the rendu and the dx showing up. go to appswitcher of rendu and select roon ready mode. Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 14 minutes ago, mahi said: go to myantipodes.com and you should see both the rendu and the dx showing up. go to appswitcher of rendu and select roon ready mode. I tried it. The uRendu showed up on myantipodes.com but for some reason I can't click to manage it. hmmm.... "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
mahi Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 have u disconnected the usb cable from the dx? or try switch the dx out of roonready mode first? i never encountered your problem. Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Mahi, I did disconnected the USB from the DX (and put the USB cable with uRendu) and switch out of roonready. Still cannot access the uRendu. It seems that the two LAN port isn't bidged. I'll try contacting antipodes support then. Thanks. "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Reporting back. Got my UltraRendu direct connection with the DX thru the excellent support of Antipodes support teams. Thumbs up to them. The result is very pleasing! Better dynamics, clarity, airiness and such good imaging. Wow. The problem was early shipment of the DX Gen3 LAN port was not factory configured as bridged. So the supporting team remotely access my DX3 and bridged the port. Perhaps this can be a poor man CX+EX solution. CX in this case is the DX3 and EX is the UltraRrendu. "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
matthias Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 2 hours ago, Kritpoon said: Reporting back. Got my UltraRendu direct connection with the DX thru the excellent support of Antipodes support teams. Thumbs up to them. The result is very pleasing! Better dynamics, clarity, airiness and such good imaging. Wow. The problem was early shipment of the DX Gen3 LAN port was not factory configured as bridged. So the supporting team remotely access my DX3 and bridged the port. Perhaps this can be a poor man CX+EX solution. CX in this case is the DX3 and EX is the UltraRrendu. Thanks for reporting. Just for clarification: You compared the USB output of the DX/3 vs. the USB output of the uR in combination DX/3 + uR. Correct? Thanks Matt "I want to know why the musicians are on stage, not where". (John Farlowe) Link to comment
FredM Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 2 hours ago, Kritpoon said: Reporting back. Got my UltraRendu direct connection with the DX thru the excellent support of Antipodes support teams. Thumbs up to them. The result is very pleasing! Better dynamics, clarity, airiness and such good imaging. Wow. The problem was early shipment of the DX Gen3 LAN port was not factory configured as bridged. So the supporting team remotely access my DX3 and bridged the port. Perhaps this can be a poor man CX+EX solution. CX in this case is the DX3 and EX is the UltraRrendu. Hi Kritpoon, good to see you got the UltraRendu working. You've had an interesting set changes, if my interpretation is right: You started with: Source + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz clock Added the UltraRendu: Source + UltraRendu + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz Replaced the Source/UR: DX3 (USB out) + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz Added the UltraRendu: DX3 (LAN out) + UltraRendu + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz That is quite an impressive result! How would you describe the difference between 2 and 4? (adding the DX3 as 'a poor mans CX' to the UltraRendu). Link to comment
Popular Post flkin Posted March 2, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 2, 2018 Hi Khun Krit, So glad you've got your UltraRendu working with your Antipodes. This weekend will be fun! For those interested, it turns out that Kritpoon and myself both live within a street from each other in Bangkok! And with completely different front end systems but both attempting to push the limits of server/render technologies. Kritpoon will be coming over on Sunday to compare his system with mine at my home. My system is Front End --> Vinnie Rossi DAC 2.0 --> Vinnie Rossi DHT preamp (w/Takatsuki TA-300B tubes) --> YBA Passion 1000 mono blocks --> Wilson Watt Puppy 6 with the new woofers Dedicated AC power and house wiring for the mono block power amps through Shunyata Hydra 8. Front end electronics through Topaz 1kVA on strip. Kritpoon's front end comprises of the Antipodes DX Gen3 UltraRendu / LPS-1 Mutec MC3+, Mutec Ref10 clock and combinations thereof. My front end comprises of the SOtM Stable Non-optimised but bridged MacBook Pro with dCBL-CAT7 and iSO-CAT6 ethernet cleaners Trifecta: D-Link DSG105 w/clock mod, sMS-200 w/clock mod, tx-USBultra providing the clock IsoRegen Cybershaft OP14 clock DC power using assortment of LPS-1 and sPS-500, no sharing Y cables We haven't decided what to test but the following will probably be on the table: Antipodes vs. SOtM Stable Antipodes(server), UltraRendu(renderer) vs. SOtM Stable Antipodes(server), UltraRendu(renderer), Mutec MC3+, Mutec Ref10 vs. SOtM Stable SOtM Stable but with Mutec Ref10 clock vs. SOtM Stable with Cybershaft OP14 clock Antipodes(server) --> SOtM Stable vs. everything above Hopefully we'll have time to do the above and try other combinations that might come to mind at that time. Kritpoon is bringing over his Antipodes and Mutec Ref 10 clock a day and a half earlier to ensure that the devices are warmed up enough before the comparisons. Will do a writeup of our experiences after. beautiful music, pas, mozes and 3 others 5 1 PinkFaun - Vinnie Rossi - YBA - QSA Lanedri - Wilson Link to comment
rickca Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 2 hours ago, flkin said: Will do a writeup of our experiences after. Fantastic! This will be really useful input. Kritpoon 1 Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs i7-6700K/Windows 10 --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 21 hours ago, matthias said: Thanks for reporting. Just for clarification: You compared the USB output of the DX/3 vs. the USB output of the uR in combination DX/3 + uR. Correct? Thanks Matt Hi Matt, That's correct! "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 20 hours ago, FredM said: Hi Kritpoon, good to see you got the UltraRendu working. You've had an interesting set changes, if my interpretation is right: You started with: Source + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz clock Added the UltraRendu: Source + UltraRendu + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz Replaced the Source/UR: DX3 (USB out) + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz Added the UltraRendu: DX3 (LAN out) + UltraRendu + Mutec + Mutec 10Mhz That is quite an impressive result! How would you describe the difference between 2 and 4? (adding the DX3 as 'a poor mans CX' to the UltraRendu). Hi FredM, Originally my Source was Synology Nas running Roon Linux Server. You have my progress correct. The difference between 2 and 4 is quite remarkable. With 2 (Nas being a file and Roon Server to uRendu) the sound was quite good, but I found that on certain tracks there is some mid-range harshness and some harshness in the upper high freq. range and some digital glare. The imaging and sound staging was good. But on certain complex music, the overall sounds still a bit confuse and some of the instruments that are far into the sound stage is smear. But with combination 4, the biggest improvement was PRAT and clarity. The instruments are now very easily pin point on the stage. The image is much clearer. The overall sound signature is a bit more forward and I would say has a better bite such as the first plug of the guitar or the improve weight of the piano first note. The decay of instrument is better. Better more rounded bass. But with just the DX3 to Mc-3+ I found the sound to be more relax (vinyl like) and less digital like. With the addition of UltraRendu in the chain, the over all signature become more aggressive, punchier, clearer and more precise. Hope this help. Krit. "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 6 hours ago, flkin said: Hi Khun Krit, So glad you've got your UltraRendu working with your Antipodes. This weekend will be fun! For those interested, it turns out that Kritpoon and myself both live within a street from each other in Bangkok! And with completely different front end systems but both attempting to push the limits of server/render technologies. Kritpoon will be coming over on Sunday to compare his system with mine at my home. My system is Front End --> Vinnie Rossi DAC 2.0 --> Vinnie Rossi DHT preamp (w/Takatsuki TA-300B tubes) --> YBA Passion 1000 mono blocks --> Wilson Watt Puppy 6 with the new woofers Dedicated AC power and house wiring for the mono block power amps through Shunyata Hydra 8. Front end electronics through Topaz 1kVA on strip. Kritpoon's front end comprises of the Antipodes DX Gen3 UltraRendu / LPS-1 Mutec MC3+, Mutec Ref10 clock and combinations thereof. My front end comprises of the SOtM Stable Non-optimised but bridged MacBook Pro with dCBL-CAT7 and iSO-CAT6 ethernet cleaners Trifecta: D-Link DSG105 w/clock mod, sMS-200 w/clock mod, tx-USBultra providing the clock IsoRegen Cybershaft OP14 clock DC power using assortment of LPS-1 and sPS-500, no sharing Y cables We haven't decided what to test but the following will probably be on the table: Antipodes vs. SOtM Stable Antipodes(server), UltraRendu(renderer) vs. SOtM Stable Antipodes(server), UltraRendu(renderer), Mutec MC3+, Mutec Ref10 vs. SOtM Stable SOtM Stable but with Mutec Ref10 clock vs. SOtM Stable with Cybershaft OP14 clock Antipodes(server) --> SOtM Stable vs. everything above Hopefully we'll have time to do the above and try other combinations that might come to mind at that time. Kritpoon is bringing over his Antipodes and Mutec Ref 10 clock a day and a half earlier to ensure that the devices are warmed up enough before the comparisons. Will do a writeup of our experiences after. Khun Kin, Thank you for the experimental procedures, it is very exciting things to try indeed. I'll see you tomorrow to drop off my equipment at your place I just though of another experiment, maybe we could also do if time permits. Antipodes -> Mutec Mc-3+ -> REF10 vs. Sotm Stable uRendu -> Mutec Mc-3+ -> REF10 vs. Sotm Stable Mix and match of Antipodes, SOTM Stable (individual parts)/and or UltraRendu, and the Mutec MC-3+for the the achievable ultimate front end combination with all of the most popular equipments over here in CA !!! It will be very interesting to compare the two totally different popular approaches to see. I'll see you tommorrow! Krit P. "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
FredM Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 Great that you guys can meet, really looking forward to your finding. Have lots of fun tomorrow!! Link to comment
Popular Post flkin Posted March 6, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 6, 2018 That was a great meet Khun Are @Kritpoon! Thanks for coming over with your equipment and spending 4 hours with me on swapping cable, power supples and other stuff. We have Interesting results that will probably involve both of us spending more money! These are the tests that we managed to do: Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10 Antipodes with MC3+ vs. SOtM Stable with MC3+ Bridged Macbook unoptimised with MC3+ vs. Antipodes with MC3+ Bridged Macbook unoptimised vs. Antipodes with MC3+ Antipodes with SOtM Stable with MC3+ vs. All of the above Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+ vs. (5) Habst 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack RG216 75ohm cable Will try to write it up over the next few days. beautiful music, BigAlMc and Kritpoon 3 PinkFaun - Vinnie Rossi - YBA - QSA Lanedri - Wilson Link to comment
limniscate Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 1 hour ago, flkin said: That was a great meet Khun Are @Kritpoon! Thanks for coming over with your equipment and spending 4 hours with me on swapping cable, power supples and other stuff. We have Interesting results that will probably involve both of us spending more money! These are the tests that we managed to do: Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10 Antipodes with MC3+ vs. SOtM Stable with MC3+ Bridged Macbook unoptimised with MC3+ vs. Antipodes with MC3+ Bridged Macbook unoptimised vs. Antipodes with MC3+ Antipodes with SOtM Stable with MC3+ vs. All of the above Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+ vs. (5) Habst 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack RG216 75ohm cable Will try to write it up over the next few days. I can't wait! Link to comment
FredM Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 Thanks that you’ll share your finding, looking forward to it! Secretly hope that the Antipodes performance is on an equal/similar level as ‘stable’ set ups, so a serious reduction in boxes / spagetti is on the horizon. Link to comment
rickca Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 4 hours ago, FredM said: Secretly hope that the Antipodes performance is on an equal/similar level as ‘stable’ set ups, so a serious reduction in boxes / spagetti is on the horizon. What are you going to do if the best sound includes both the Antipodes and the SOtM trifecta? Kritpoon 1 Pareto Audio AMD 7700 Server --> Berkeley Alpha USB --> Jeff Rowland Aeris --> Jeff Rowland 625 S2 --> Focal Utopia 3 Diablos with 2 x Focal Electra SW 1000 BE subs i7-6700K/Windows 10 --> EVGA Nu Audio Card --> Focal CMS50's Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 9 hours ago, flkin said: That was a great meet Khun Are @Kritpoon! Thanks for coming over with your equipment and spending 4 hours with me on swapping cable, power supples and other stuff. We have Interesting results that will probably involve both of us spending more money! These are the tests that we managed to do: Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10 Antipodes with MC3+ vs. SOtM Stable with MC3+ Bridged Macbook unoptimised with MC3+ vs. Antipodes with MC3+ Bridged Macbook unoptimised vs. Antipodes with MC3+ Antipodes with SOtM Stable with MC3+ vs. All of the above Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+ vs. (5) Habst 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack RG216 75ohm cable Will try to write it up over the next few days. It was great fun meeting Khun Kin @flkin and thank you for being such great host and let me listen to your great sounding audio system (I actually has one of those goose bumps moment listen to one of the song). From our fruitful 4 hours, I hope that our findings will be beneficial to a lot of people at CA and hopefully will answer a lot of questions that people have in their mind. Me @flkin and our other audiophile friend who was there has the same/similar agreement on the findings. I am really looking forward to Khun Kin report and thank you for being such sport that you take your time to write up what we have found (as for myself I am not very well at explaining things). But I will try to add on anything I remember to Khun Kin's article once it published. We did a lot and lots of very interesting tests, for me one conclusion from all these are that of the importance of the clock and its cable in digital audio chain. "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
Kritpoon Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 53 minutes ago, rickca said: What are you going to do if the best sound includes both the Antipodes and the SOtM trifecta? "Its the REF clock that makes it all so good..." Link to comment
FredM Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 1 hour ago, rickca said: What are you going to do if the best sound includes both the Antipodes and the SOtM trifecta? Haha, luckily there is a box AND budget cap in place Given the already excellent individual performances I can only image the Antipodes + SOtM sable + mutec will be absolutely mind blowing (counting 6 boxes before the DAC ) ps Dear flkin, when writing your findings, please be careful with your enthusiasm, it can set a new holy hifi grail in this madhouse place.. Looking forward to see your findings.. Solstice380 1 Link to comment
flkin Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 haha, not sure if I can, the final setup was pretty mind-blowing... PinkFaun - Vinnie Rossi - YBA - QSA Lanedri - Wilson Link to comment
Popular Post flkin Posted March 7, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted March 7, 2018 Ok, so here are the results of our SOtM Stable and Antipodes comparisons. Firstly I have to thank Khun Aek @Kritpoon for kindly coming over with his equipment and leaving it behind for a week. The world is truly small and to have two top tier front ends systems within a stone throw of each other in Bangkok is a nice surprise for us both. There are two schools of though about sources. One is to have an optimised computer with low noise, properly powered and even re-clocked perhaps feeding a DAC directly. The other is to use a simpler server of music like a Macbook or Mini and pass the signal through sophisticated rendering and cleaning systems. Both approaches have avid supporters and here we are looking at an instance of both approaches with interesting results. As we have a lot of equipment and many various connections required to get each setup to work properly, I will first list (did it before but to summarise, here it is again) out the different equipment we had on that day of the test: Source: Antipodes running Roon Server MacBook Pro running Roon Server The MacBook Pro is unoptimised (actually running as a Plex movie server for my kids as well) but bridged between an Orbi network WiFi secondary router (w/Teddy Pardo 12/2) that acts as the only data input point in the room and the SOtM clock modified D-Link DSG-105 switch. Antipodes system: - Antipodes DX Gen 3 - UltraRendu (LPS-1) - Mutec Ref.10 - Mutec MC3+usb (mod for LPS-1 DC) w/Habst Digital BNC 5N Cryo Silver, 70ohm cable to the Ref 10 - BNC Coax cable Digiflex Gold II SOtM Stable: - 2 SOtM dCBL-CAT7 ethernet cables and an iSO-CAT6 ethernet cleaner box - The Trifecta consisting of the 3 items: D-Link DSG105 w/clock mod (LPS-1), sMS-200 w/clock mod (sPS-500), tx-USBultra (sPS-500) providing the clock connections - IsoRegen (LPS-1) Clock: - Cybershaft OP14 clock w/ original Cybershaft 50ohm cable Rest of my system: Vinnie Rossi DAC 2.0 --> Vinnie Rossi DHT preamp (w/Takatsuki TA-300B tubes) --> YBA Passion 1000 mono blocks --> Wilson Watt Puppy 6 with the WP7 woofers Here are the tests we did and had 3 pairs of ears on them. We mostly agreed on the differences as they were not subtle. No blind tests were conducted. In all cases, the MC3+ was clocked by the Mutec Ref.10 via the Habst BNC cable. 1. Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10 2. Antipodes to MC3+ vs. Macbook to SOtM Stable to MC3+ 3. Antipodes to MC3+ vs. Macbook to SOtM Stable 4. Antipodes to SOtM Stable to MC3+ vs. All of the above 5. Antipodes to SOtM Stable to MC3+ vs. Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+ 6. Habst 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack RG216 75ohm cable 1. Cybershaft OP14 vs. Mutec Ref.10 Khun Aek @Kritpoon brought over his equipment over the day before and so it would be warming up for around 30 hours prior to our tests. We figured this should be enough for the clock and other components to sound at it’s best. And of course, I couldn’t help but to have a listen the night before the tests alone after around 8 hours of warming. This was probably the simplest test to perform as I had my SOtM Stable already set up and it was only a matter of switching the Cybershaft 50ohm cable from the OP14 to the Ref.10 50ohm connector. With the track Live from Las Vegas, Louis Prima & Kelly Smith track 15, Embraceable you, the Ref. 10 can be heard as more natural with more focus. More separation with the instruments and voices without being thinner. The separated sounds have a touch better textures and more details, the combined effect is that the sonic picture is more real. With Breathe by Jax Jones, the Ref10 sync beats more clearly focused in space, tight and bouncing around the soundstage. Voice more texture and natural. Who would have known a club/dance electronic pop song like this can have vocals that sound audiophile?! Tower of song by Leonard Cohen, voice larger with OP14 made it more enjoyable to listen to but perhaps less accurate. Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton Unplugged. OP14 looser imaging and each sound image larger. Fun to listen to but Ref10 more focused and more accurate. Overall balance of sound comes across as balanced and complete, voices correct sizes detailed and textured, guitars clear and defined, backing vocals gently at the back left. The thumping bass is resolved enough to imagine heel stamping and you can hear the shoe tapping on the floor too. Nice! That said, it’s not as if the Cybershaft OP14 is a slouch, it’s already very good and the best my system had ever been prior to listening to the Ref.10. The improvement over the clock in the tX-USBultra is substantial and well worth the upgrade. It’s just that the Mutec Ref10 provides even more of a ‘clock’ effect. A little bit better in all aspects. In addition to lower a phase noise in the Ref.10, I wonder if that has to do with their use of a square wave form instead of the sine wave in the OP14? The next day when my guests arrived, I suggested that we used just the Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton Unplugged track as our test track. It’s an excellent sounding track with guitar strings, vocals in a live environment. Everyone arrived at the same conclusion which was the external clock matters and greatly so with the Ref 10. From this point on, we decided to stick with the Ref10 clock for any external clocking requirements. 2. Antipodes with MC3+ vs. Macbook through SOtM Stable with MC3+ Next up a pretty obvious comparison was to use the Antipodes by itself to my Vinnie Rossi DAC 2.0. Unfortunately we couldn’t get the Antipodes to recognise the DAC 2.0 and eventually we tried passing the Antipodes through the MC3+ (Ref10 reclocked with Habst cable) and using a coaxial (Digiflex Gold II) to the DAC2.0 and this worked fine. So the rest of our comparison tests had to pass through the MC3+. The first surprise of the day - the Macbook setup sounded better. Same Eric Clapton track was used. The Antipodes setup sounded thicker and less airy between the soundscape. Eric Clapton’s voice with less detail and emotion. We had expected that the Antipodes with it’s specially customised Asus motherboard and optimised power source would be better but we didn’t hear it that way. Could it be that the SOtM dCBL-Cat7 cables and iSO-Cat6 device from the Macbook were doing it job and providing the Stable with a sufficiently cleaned signal to best the Antipodes? Looking at the wired connections more carefully, we noticed that the Antipodes was connected to the Orbi router with a standard Blue Jeans ethernet blue cable. I had an unused Ghent JSSG cable lying around and so tried it. Ah and there’s the difference, once the cable was swapped, the Antipodes’ sound noticeably tightened up. Now the sound from both systems were about matched. * * I revisited this setup after the meet by myself as it's pretty unexpected and came to the conclusion again. This indicates to me that in my particular setup the server is not as critical as the renderer part of the source. A humble Macbook Pro (with power adaptor plugged in, eek!) and not software optimised still sounded comparable to a top quality server. But to achieve this it needed to be software bridged along with, I suspect, the triple cleaning effect of the SOtM ethernet filters to removed whatever noise that shouldn’t be there. 3. Antipodes with MC3+ vs. Macbook with SOtM Stable Ok, then how about we remove the MC3+ from the Macbook setup? The sound becomes thinner and not as engaging as with the MC3+ in the path. It looks like the tx-USBultra, while doing a good job cleaning the USB signal, as is confirmed by so many others, can still be improved upon by yet another USB cleaner after it. Khun Aek informs me that up to 4 MC3+ devices can be chained together to further clean a signal noticeably! 4. Antipodes with SOtM Stable with MC3+ vs. All of the above So we established that the Stable with MC3+ added for double cleaning is necessary but what about adding the Antipodes as the source instead of the Macbook? This we haven’t tried yet as the (3) comparison was with the Antipodes with the MC3+ alone. And here the Macbook/Stable/MC3+ matched it. Yes, this was the optimal configuration. The best of the lot. Beautifully natural sound, balanced of bass, voice details and texture with an open airy sound. There is no noticeable emphasis in the music, all parts of Eric Clapton’s ensemble are playing/singing in what feels like great teamwork, a musical sync without one aspect overwhelming another. Depth, width and even height of the music nicely rendered. When you hit a sweet spot, wow! The emotion really comes through. The differences of the various combinations of the equipment may not be all that much measured by percentages but when measured by the emotions of the musicians bared so clearly to us and the effect it had on us, it’s truly a 'goosebump' moment as Khun Aek put it. 5. Antipodes to SOtM Stable to MC3+ vs. Antipodes to UltraRendu to MC3+ Khun Aek recently discovered that his bridged Antipodes sounded better with the UltraRendu added as the renderer. It was the best his system sounded prior to coming over, so we decided to see how the UltraRendu would sound by swapping it in to replace the Stable. Nope, the soundstage collapses quite a bit, several steps behind the last iteration in (4). Vocals are also slightly recessed. In my particular setup the Antipodes played through the Stable and extra cleaned with the MC3+ has some truly special synergy and here the UltraRendu cannot replace the Stable. 6. Habst 5N cryo silver 75ohm cable vs. Pasternack PE33403-36, RG216 75ohm cable Given the silver Habst cable was so expensive and since I had a new Pasternack RG216 double shielded cable around, we though it would be interesting to see how much of a change swapping the cable would show. This is from the Ref10 to the MC3+. The Stable was still connected to the Ref 10 via the Cyershaft 50ohm cable. So using the best sounding combination of equipment in (4) we tried this. Amazing change in sound. The Habst is far better. With the Pasternak the sound becomes unfocused, the bass and lower mids a smeared blob. The difference was almost as large as not using a clock. So the clock BNC cable matters - to the extent that an external clock is basically pointless without a good cable. So much so that I am considering seeing if Habst can make up a 50ohm cable for my Cybershaft. The Habst cable has 2 BNC connectors on the Ref 10 side - a thicker twin cable for signal and a thinner single for ground. We decided to fit the Habst back to the MC3+ but disconnect the ground BNC alone. With just the signal cable, the Habst is good but not great. The grounding BNC is essential but takes an additional port on the Ref.10 At this time, we decided to lay back and enjoy music for the rest of our meet. Some of the other tracks we listened to were: Livingston Taylor, Isn’t she lovely Nojima Plays Liszt (Minoru Nojima), Etude No3, La Campanella Jax Jones, Breathe Hilary Hahn/ Natalie Zhu, Mozart: Violin Sonatas K301 La La Land (original motion picture soundtrack), Someone in the Crowd Imagine Dragons, Evolve, Believer Man, I heard things I never heard before. In the Liszt track, the piano notes and pedal movements has always been fantastic sounding but for the first time, I could see the piano size and shape. This is one of my favourite piano tracks with beautifully captured attacks and ambience. Norjima's playing here is OK but makes 4 mistakes are even clearer now that I can count. ;-) Imagine Dragons just came to Bangkok recently and with that high energy Believer track, they were back in town in my hifi room and sounded like we were on stage with them; soundstage width, depth and height extending far beyond the physical boundaries of my room. And so after our meet, I can say I've reconfirmed some of my earlier thoughts about equipment contributions but perhaps reordered their position in the significance table. To summarise our findings : Clocks and clock cables - they matter greatly perhaps the most USB cleaners, more than one in series works and significantly Much can be done to improve the Source. The renderer part more so than the server part The Macbook Pro makes is a great Roon server when bridged and ethernet output cleaned But the best sound is to have an excellent source and further re-clock it and clean the output multiple times. That’s it, hope this is interesting reading for all. simorag, tmjn, austinpop and 7 others 3 5 2 PinkFaun - Vinnie Rossi - YBA - QSA Lanedri - Wilson Link to comment
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