Help w USB vs AES for Meitner MA1 V2

[blaven]

I would greatly appreciate any help with A  cable issue particularly with the Meitner MA1. Wasn’t sure the best forum spot to put this but it seems most reasonable here. 

 

I was considering changing to a DCS Bartok but ultimately decided my money would be a bit better spent upgrading to V2.
 

I presently run an Aurender S10 through an AQ Diamond USB to Berkeley Alpha USB with a Nordost Heimdall 2 digital AES to the Meitner. 
 

Separately from this, I have a Sonore Ultra Rendu with Uptone power supply that feeds Roon via Wireworld platinum Starlight USB cable to the MA1. 
 

I just got a very nice deal on Tara Labs 0.8 digital AES cable from show demo in an effort to upgrade the AES cable but after talking to Amadeus Meitner yesterday, he thought by far the best sound would come from using USB with the new galvanic isolation in the V2 upgrade. So I have an opened that cable, and clearly can sell it secondhand, but wanted peoples opinions.

 

Ive heard others say no matter how good the USB implementation on a DAC is, that the Alpha USB will really improve sound. 
 

So I’m kind of looking for some guidance here. I could run the Aurender straight into the Meitner by USB, and then run the Sonore through the Alpha USB?

 

If the new V2 USB electrical isolation is that much better, I could actually ditch the Sonore altogether (I was mostly using it to feed DSD files to Meitner as my Aurender set up will not permit that with the Berkeley alpha USB in that chain. 

 

I realize there is no “correct“ answer, just looking for thoughts from you guys.

 

I appreciate everyone’s help

 

 

 

[barrows]

I am pretty sure, as I recall, that the Meitner's sophisticated receiver circuitry should be pretty agnostic when it comes to inputs and their sound quality: do you hear a difference between them?

 

Most people who profess that AES is better than USB, generally, are blowing smoke, or using poor USB sources, or a DAC with a poor USB interface-get Meitner's best one for sure.  I can tell you that Sonore goes to extreme lengths to make a super clean USB output from our Renderers, I cannot speak to Aurender though.

 

First, I would compare Aurender via USB vs. ultraRendu through USB, never mind about price, but make sure the ultraRendu has a really good power supply (it really matters): Sonore Power Supply is recommended, if you are using an LPS-1, that is not a good choice.  Make sure to use the same USB cable of course.

 

Whichever of these turns out to be better fo you, then compare that to your AES approaches.  You have a lot of variables, so only make one comparison at a time!

 

Anytime cannot hear a repeatable, clearly better, result, (and have completely ruled out any expectation bias based on price, other's opinions, etc), at that point I would recommend choosing the simpler option.

[Blake]

On 2/25/2020 at 11:26 AM, barrows said:

First, I would compare Aurender via USB vs. ultraRendu through USB, never mind about price, but make sure the ultraRendu has a really good power supply (it really matters): Sonore Power Supply is recommended, if you are using an LPS-1, that is not a good choice.  Make sure to use the same USB cable of course.

 

 

But the LPS-1.2 is good with the UltraRendu, right?

 

[barrows]

2 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

But the LPS-1.2 is good with the UltraRendu, right?

 

Yes, the LPS 1.2 is a capable supply for the ultraRendu.  But, it is not recommended for the opticalRendu as it really does not have quite enough power for the oR.

[cjf]

I  guess one negative against using the Alpha USB would be that it doesn't allow you to go straight DSD into your MA1 if that matters at all to you? I know the MA1 upsamples everything to DSD internally any way but its not really the same IMO as having DSD source material to begin with and have it pass thru unmolested. I use to own the v1 MA1 and used my WW Platinum Starlight USB to feed it with good success. Plus the Meitner works well in a driverless fashion using Linux based servers.

 

With that said, I did own a few components that indeed sounded better using their AES Input vrs USB. To name a few they were Bricasti M5, Benchmark DAC1 & DAC3 and Lynx Hilo but using Lynx Hilo without its USB cable option leaves allot of flexibility on the table so I sacrifice and continue to use USB today despite this.