Merging ZMAN somewhere?

[matthias]

AFAIK, Merging introduced the ZMAN at HIGH END Munich three years ago.

 

Do exist any devices which use it?

 

Thanks

 

Matt

 

 

[Superdad]

AFAIK, and according to thei own 2019 press release, Merging’s own Anubis is the first commercial product to incorporate their ZMAN OEM module.

 

Contrary to Mike Davis’ (Blizzard) years of assertions, the takeover of home audio DACs and streamers by AES67/Ravenna appears unlikely. 

 

As I state many times in the past, it is all about software and operating systems.

Roon managed an end-run around everyone by producing a compelling front end, a flexible back end, and a server>endpoint protocol simple and close enough to UPnP to allow OEMs with cheap DLNA input boards to adapt (e.g. Conversdigital’s mConnect as used by PS Audio, Ayre, and others) and for streamer makers to design to and get certified easily.

[k-man]

5 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Contrary to Mike Davis’ (Blizzard) years of assertions, the takeover of home audio DACs and streamers by AES67/Ravenna appears unlikely. 

Superdad, since you mentioned Mike/Blizz/Goose/Mivera, what do you make of his new ‘wholesale audio club’?

$1000 for a single credit to join in. 

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, k-man said:

Superdad, since you mentioned Mike/Blizz/Goose/Mivera, what do you make of his new ‘wholesale audio club’?

$1000 for a single credit to join in. 

 

I could be cynical about it, but Mike already has that covered. 

[R1200CL]

On 2/1/2020 at 1:28 PM, matthias said:

Do exist any devices which use it?

 

Maybe this is how Aurender is able support Ravenna ? 

 

I wonder why audio manufacturers isn’t using this option ? Maybe it’s a quite expensive board ?

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

Maybe this is how Aurender is able support Ravenna ? 

 

I wonder why audio manufacturers isn’t using this option ? Maybe it’s a quite expensive board ?

Too expensive and there isn't a compelling reason to use Ravenna in home audio, well at least there is no apparent market.

[Superdad]

3 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I wonder why audio manufacturers isn’t using this option ? Maybe it’s a quite expensive board ?

 

Not too bad. In 2017 the OEM price for the ZMAN module was about $132 for the less capable version. 

But that is certainly more than what Conversdigital gets for their mConnect boards (which support DLNA and Roon)--as used by Ayre, PS Audio, and others.

 

Yet again, it really comes back to software support.

[cjf]

The new Merging Hapi "MKii" is said to be using ZMAN now. I always hate when an updated version of something is released within a year of me getting the previous model 🤕

 

https://www.merging.com/products/interfaces/hapi

[R1200CL]

@cjf

Very nice system you have. Does the Hapi serve as your DAC ?

Is the Room Correction applied to Roon ?
You may explain how your system works, and what you achieve doing it this way, compared to just using REW and Audiolence. 

[cjf]

17 hours ago, R1200CL said:

@cjf

Very nice system you have. Does the Hapi serve as your DAC ?

Is the Room Correction applied to Roon ?
You may explain how your system works, and what you achieve doing it this way, compared to just using REW and Audiolence. 

Thanks @R1200CL,

 

Yes I use Hapi as my primary DAC and use Convolution within Roon. The filters are created with Audiolense.

 

I'm not sure what ZMAN would bring to the table if I had it but in all honesty I've not really dived into what purpose its meant to serve anyway. If its purpose is to allow one to have their convolution filters local to the DAC vs on a separate music server than that would be cool but I would be skeptical of that little processor board having enough...cough..cough balls in higher channel count systems. My old Intel i7 does the job fine but the server its installed in is a beast.

 

In any case, I use the above setup to allow me to integrate 3 subs and two tower speakers in a fairly transparent and well blended manor and use Roon to handle digital volume control of all channels under one clean wrapper.

 

Sorry if I didn't answer your question in my reply but I wasn't 100% clear on what you were asking.

[R1200CL]

4 hours ago, cjf said:

Sorry if I didn't answer your question in my reply but I wasn't 100% clear on what you were asking.

Thanks for answer. I wasn’t sure myself what to ask 😀

It more to understand the possibility with Revanna and how you can integrate pro audio into home audio systems. 
I don’t think I understand the need of Lynx (and that very nice microphone system). What is the purpose of the Lynx?
 

Maybe some pro audio equipment is good value compared to alternative home audio solutions. Without knowing the price of your 8 channel DAC, the multichannel DAC’s (for home) availability’s may be limited, or very expensive. (I don’t count Japanese AWR’s/ receivers). 
 

Can you set X-over pr. DAC ?

Can you use the remaining DAC’s as center and surround back channels ? (If you wanted to).

Maybe the Hapi can’t be used as a surround processor ? 
 

Did you see this article ?

I would assume you could, if you had the interest, do something quite similar, and add HQplayer. And even test out different players. 

Does the DAC’s support DSD ? Rate ? 

[jabbr]

19 hours ago, cjf said:

I'm not sure what ZMAN would bring to the table if I had it but in all honesty I've not really dived into what purpose its meant to serve anyway. If its purpose is to allow one to have their convolution filters local to the DAC vs on a separate music server than that would be cool but I would be skeptical of that little processor board having enough...cough..cough balls in higher channel count systems. My old Intel i7 does the job fine but the server its installed in is a beast.

 

My understanding is that the ZMAN allows a Ravenna protocol Ethernet interface to be added to a DAC.

It uses the Xilinx Zynq chip.

If as @Superdad says the board is only $100 and change, that's a very remarkable price for the Zynq chip on a SOM as well as the interface IP, a custom Linux kernel and drivers that allow the ARM chip on the Zynq to communicate with the FPGA side of the Zynq ... again all that would be a remarkable price, and too bad it wasn't adopted.

 

I've programmed the Zynq chip and its actually a ton of work to not only do ... that's the easy part but maintaining a custom Linux kernel and custom drivers ... big headache that you couldn't pay me enough to do.

[cjf]

19 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Thanks for answer. I wasn’t sure myself what to ask 😀

It more to understand the possibility with Revanna and how you can integrate pro audio into home audio systems. 
I don’t think I understand the need of Lynx (and that very nice microphone system). What is the purpose of the Lynx?
 

Maybe some pro audio equipment is good value compared to alternative home audio solutions. Without knowing the price of your 8 channel DAC, the multichannel DAC’s (for home) availability’s may be limited, or very expensive. (I don’t count Japanese AWR’s/ receivers). 
 

Can you set X-over pr. DAC ?

Can you use the remaining DAC’s as center and surround back channels ? (If you wanted to).

Maybe the Hapi can’t be used as a surround processor ? 
 

Did you see this article ?

I would assume you could, if you had the interest, do something quite similar, and add HQplayer. And even test out different players. 

Does the DAC’s support DSD ? Rate ? 

In my case, I am using Ravenna ETH in a very simple way without a Ravenna supported network switch involved. I have a home run ETH connection coming out of my Roon Core server via a second network card and terminating directly into one of the ETH ports found on the back of my HAPI DAC. The Roon Core server also has the required Aneman software running there which is used to configure channel routing to each of the 8 DAC channels. In addition, the same Roon Core server has the needed MAD ASIO driver installed as well which Roon uses to communicate with and identify the DAC and all its available channels.

 

The primary reason why I still have and use both the Lynx and the Earthworks Mic Pre is because I haven't yet purchased the AD Card for the HAPI which can take the place of both of those components. The AD Card is like $2500 (US) and would provide 8 channels of AD conversion up to DSD256 format as well as a MIC Pre with Phantom power.

 

A fully loaded HAPI having the same "Premium" 8ch DA Card I use along with the "Premium" 8ch AD Card which I haven't yet purchased along with a quality pair of Mogami Gold DB25 to 8ch XLR Analog Snake cables and another Mogami Gold DB25 to 8ch AES Snake cable will set you back around $6500 (US).

 

Its certainly not an inexpensive option but it can truly be a one box does all solution using very high quality AD's and DA's capable of up to DSD256 from Input to Output over 8ch. I've been very impressed with it and thus far its probably been the most trouble free DAC I've ever owned with no USB headaches to deal with.

 

Right now I am using only 5 of the available 8ch on the DAC and yes I can have each one use a different x-over freq. I do my x-over configuration within Audiolense for the various channels. This configuration is baked into the Convolution CFG file used by Roon. I assume if there was a piece of software out there that could handle the "AV" aspect of things you could likely use it along with the available channels within the HAPI to route movie or other multi channel content to the DAC.

 

I think the problem with using the various streamers on the market is that they don't handle multi-channels. At least none that i've seen to date. For my purposes, I need each channel to be individually addressable and manageable from A-Z in order to be able to have full control of my main speakers and 3 subs. If the source in front of the DAC is only 2ch (ie..streamer,Aurender..etc) then Roon will not be able to route the needed multiple channels to the DAC used within the Convolution CFG file because Roon will only "see" two channels instead of 3 or more.

 

Again in my case, each of my 5 speakers is tied to its own channel and uses its own separate DAC within the HAPI and each of those endpoints are fully controllable from a Freq Resp curve, timing, delay and x-over point of view.

[cjf]

5 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

My understanding is that the ZMAN allows a Ravenna protocol Ethernet interface to be added to a DAC.

It uses the Xilinx Zynq chip.

If as @Superdad says the board is only $100 and change, that's a very remarkable price for the Zynq chip on a SOM as well as the interface IP, a custom Linux kernel and drivers that allow the ARM chip on the Zynq to communicate with the FPGA side of the Zynq ... again all that would be a remarkable price, and too bad it wasn't adopted.

 

I've programmed the Zynq chip and its actually a ton of work to not only do ... that's the easy part but maintaining a custom Linux kernel and custom drivers ... big headache that you couldn't pay me enough to do.

Thanks for the explanation on some of what ZMAN is meant to do. It sounds like for me I would not see any real value or use case for it. I guess if it were already baked into price of a given component that I was wanting to purchase I wouldn't complain but it would likely just collect dust either way from my use cases perspective.

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, cjf said:

The primary reason why I still have and use both the Lynx and the Earthworks Mic Pre is because I haven't yet purchased the AD Card for the HAPI which can take the place of both of those components. The AD Card is like $2500 (US) and would provide 8 channels of AD conversion up to DSD256 format as well as a MIC Pre with Phantom power.

Couldn’t all this be achieved with a simple Umic, and usb to the laptop where Audiolense / REW is ?

 

 

[matthias]

@cjf

When using HAPI in a two channel DAC configuration only can you assign four DACs for L and four DACs for R with Aneman?

If yes, would this sound better than using just one DAC (out of eight) for L and one for R?

Thanks

 

Matt

[R1200CL]

12 hours ago, cjf said:

I think the problem with using the various streamers on the market is that they don't handle multi-channels. At least none that i've seen to date.

@Kal Rubinson

Like to add a comment to this ? I was under the impression multichannel is possible for several streamers/players. And your post from Roon said this 2 years ago:

 

These three are multichannel DACs that will play multichannel from Roon

• (exaSound e38 DAC via direct USB)
• exaSound e38 DAC and exaSound Sigma Streamer via network
• Merging NADAC+ via Ravenna network
• Merging Anubis via Ravenna network
  In addition, you can use a LAN bridge with USB output to the miniDSP U-DAC8 DAC or the miniDSP U-DIO8 which has four SPDIF or AES(XLR) outputs and four SPDIF or AES(XLR) inputs.

[R1200CL]

On 8/30/2021 at 1:50 AM, cjf said:

The new Merging Hapi "MKii" is said to be using ZMAN now.

Here is a video explaining the upgrade. 
 

https://www.merging.com/products/interfaces/hapi

[R1200CL]

4 years ago this very nice interview was done, and with some nice comments in the tread. 

I just listened to it and read the 5 page’s tread, and the options and possibilities seems so promising, and yet, almost nothing has happened. And the announced Roon ready ZMAN (and even MQA) seems it didn’t happen either. 
 

 

What went wrong ? 
Alex says it all about SW and OS. Well the ZMAN module is available. It seems not to be just plug and play. My understanding is manufacturers need to do a lot of engineering to implement it. 

I don’t think as an example, it’s an easy task to implement in the Rendus, or the EtherRegen, and if it was, would if fulfill the same task as explained by Chris in his article here. 

A PCI card with ZMAN maybe a more realistic way. But even that doesn’t exist. 

@dbrulhart

Would you like to update us on the status of the ZMAN / Revanna ? Maybe suggest user cases, present limitation if any?

Is Revanna finally ready for home audio ? And if not why ? 

 

[Kal Rubinson]

6 hours ago, R1200CL said:

@Kal Rubinson

Like to add a comment to this ? I was under the impression multichannel is possible for several streamers/players. And your post from Roon said this 2 years ago:

 

These three are multichannel DACs that will play multichannel from Roon

• (exaSound e38 DAC via direct USB)
• exaSound e38 DAC and exaSound Sigma Streamer via network
• Merging NADAC+ via Ravenna network
• Merging Anubis via Ravenna network
  In addition, you can use a LAN bridge with USB output to the miniDSP U-DAC8 DAC or the miniDSP U-DIO8 which has four SPDIF or AES(XLR) outputs and four SPDIF or AES(XLR) inputs.

That was 2 years ago.  At that time, these were the only DACs.  Today, I use the exaSound s88 or the Okto DAC8 Pro but you can look up  Roon Ready devices (which includes more than just DACs) in Roon's partner listings. 

[jabbr]

18 hours ago, cjf said:

Thanks for the explanation on some of what ZMAN is meant to do. It sounds like for me I would not see any real value or use case for it. I guess if it were already baked into price of a given component that I was wanting to purchase I wouldn't complain but it would likely just collect dust either way from my use cases perspective.

 

Yeah seems like AES67/Ravenna is yet another example of a standard that while has certain professional applications has not been adapted for home DACs or even primarily playback. Real multichannel might be a possibility and I wonder what professional concert equipment uses under the hood i.e. when a performance gets distributed across a stadium to multiple speakers.

 

For home applications more lightweight protocols such as Roon and NAA seem preferable to DLNA but all of these are more lightweight than Ravenna. Those run at the application level and fully leverage the TCP/IP stack as opposed to RTP/IP. Bottom line seems to be that the other protocols can distribute endpoints that run in userspace on a wide variety of hardware as opposed to requiring a specific piece of hardware i.e. ZMAN. 

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

What went wrong ? 
Alex says it all about SW and OS. Well the ZMAN module is available. It seems not to be just plug and play. My understanding is manufacturers need to do a lot of engineering to implement it. 

I don’t think as an example, it’s an easy task to implement in the Rendus, or the EtherRegen, and if it was, would if fulfill the same task as explained by Chris in his article here. 

A PCI card with ZMAN maybe a more realistic way. But even that doesn’t exist. 

 

The use case would be a DAC manufacturer who wanted to put a Ravenna capable Ethernet port onto their DAC, and get I2S/DSD output into the DAC module itself, just as there are USB to I2S/DSD modules.

[R1200CL]

2 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

That was 2 years ago.  At that time, these were the only DACs.  Today, I use the exaSound s88 or the Okto DAC8 Pro but you can look up  Roon Ready devices (which includes more than just DACs) in Roon's partner listings. 

I was more hoping for your insight in Revenna possibilities and multichannel from various players. Maybe even add Netflix as JRiver just has done. The possibility maybe to add HQplayer as well and rom correction somewhere in the chain. 
My understanding is you can start with a stereo DAC, and expand with several DAC’s in order to create a 7.1 or similar, as long as you choose the right Revanna item(s). The Revanna item may act as a SSP. 

[R1200CL]

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

The use case would be a DAC manufacturer who wanted to put a Ravenna capable Ethernet port onto their DAC, and get I2S/DSD output into the DAC module itself, just as there are USB to I2S/DSD modules.

Yes, that’s the obvious case, and isn’t happening for some strange reason. But in @The Computer Audiophilerecent article he has found a creative way to use Revanna, and glue systems together and expand into things that wasn’t possible before. 
I like to understand if there are some general rules that can be applied to various players, computers, etc., that maybe others with systems not using Roon, can apply room correction. And possibly also HQplayer. 
It can’t be that simple that a ZMAN module somewhere solve this or ? (That Aurender has something related to Revanna built in. Not sure what). 

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

I was more hoping for your insight in Revenna possibilities and multichannel from various players.

I have not been following this thread and, when I responded to your flag, all I saw was: "Like to add a comment to this?"  So I commented on what you quoted.

 

As for Ravenna, it has great routing and synching abilities.  I have not given it much thought lately.