AJSki2fly
22-08-2021, 10:34
Apologies if this has been done before but I thought it might be helpful to some wishing to improve their digital soundscapes and considering one of these.
A brief background, I have been streaming from the net and from my NAS drive in some way or another for around 3 years, primarily using a RPI/HiFiBerryHAT to Caiman SEG DAC running Volumio, and streaming with TIDAL or Qobuz, TIDAL has been ditched(poor SQ IMHO). This set up I was reasonably happy with, but felt that something was missing aurally, maybe not that engaging musically is the best way to put it. I more recently tried using my MacBook via USB directly to the DAC using Volumio/Qobuz (with no upscaling) this was a step up in SQ, but not quite what I hoped for and it also tied up the computer all the time. So I started investigating other solutions.
I did some box swapping and moved to and Audiolab 8300CDQ with a very good on board DAC, it is built around the ESS Sabre DAC chip, and this improved the dynamics and openness quite a bit IMHO, after more consideration I plumped for a Sonore microRendu microRendu initially I powered with an adjustable standard PSU at 7v whilst I waited for a linear PSU from Linear PSU as recommended from a couple of others on TAS.
My initial thoughts on SQ from the microRendu was that it was good at least at the same level as using the MacBook as already described. However I had some teething problems, on the first power up it all worked fine and I set up Roon as I wanted to trial it. Then I decided to switch to MDP/DNLA and try it with Audirvana, after doing this I lost all sound output, after several reboots and finally rebooting everything service was resumed through Audirvana, I found this very odd, then during changing music selection, sound was lost again. I made several checks, including plugging the MacBook directly to the DAC USB and all worked fine. The next day I powered up from scratch and presto it worked fine. However this annoying issue does not end there, after a few days of listening to analogue radio and vinyl I returned to the microRendu and once again the problems returned.
I could not establish was what was causing the sound loss, although I did determine that Roon and Audirvana both saw the DAC, from a software point of view they were processing music but nothing was getting to the DAC. So a few days ago I called Martin at the Audiostore, he is very helpful, he asked what I had done hardware/software, various questions about my router and switch and then about then USB cable, an Audioquest Cinnamon specifically purchased to stream from the Macbook, and also my Ehternet cable. His recommendation was to swap out the Audioquest for a simple USB inexpensive one and test, in his experience they have found in the past that so called high end USB cables can cause switching issues with DACs, I was rather surprised with this. He also said that using Cat 6 or 7 ethernet cables could cause issues streaming music data, and ethernet cables with metal plugs casings, mine is Cat5 with plastic plugs, he advised to swap it if the USB cable was not the issue. I thought this might be useful info for some others in the future.
So I duly swapped out the £80 USB cable for a cheap as chips 60cm USB cable that came with a printer and powered up, and all worked fine, I swapped back and forth the from Roon to MDP/DNLA many times, switching between Audirvana and Roon server, and I also installed and used Mconnect on the iPad with Qobuz and all was stable. So you have been warned about expensive cables they may not be right in all situations. I have since removed the cheap USB cable and now am using the USB-A to USB-B adapter block that came with the microRendu with it supported on some isolating rubber pads, and this works well, minimum possible cable length and tucked out the way, I did hear a slight improvement in SQ having done so, more openness. So I am hoping that all is now well and everything will continue to work and be stable.
SQ with this set up using the plug in the socket transformer set to 7vDC sounded pretty good, by the way Martin recommended that around 6.5V was a good voltage to be at, he was aware that some considered the microRendu sounded better a 8vDC but he pointed out that the extra power would mean the microRendu would run hot and was likely to shorten its working life.
The following day the Linear PSU arrived from China I had ordered, recommended by someone else on another forum, I had asked this to be set to 8vDC, but decided on Martin's advice to adjust it to 6.5vDC, this is very simply done with an adjustable pot inside, just take the top casing off (two screws each end), I adjusted with PSU switched off and unplugged for safety, and then checked the voltage with a digital meter each time until I had it set correctly, this is the safest way. One thing to note is that the DC plug fits fine into the microRendu but that the internal connectors are a little widely spread apart compared to the diameter of the + pin on the microRendu, I discovered this as I lost power to the unit when setting it up with the new PSU. You can simply adjust the central connector on the plug using a pin or very small screw driver. This is due to the microRendu taking 2.5mm or 2.1mm DC plugs, most 2.5mm are OK, but 2.1mm is recommended, I will be changing mine to 2.1mm. You can see the Linear PSU here (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362781745226).
Having got everything plugged up and working I sat back and listened to a favourite Shpongle track, and immediately was taken by the spaciousness and depth of the soundstage, also the low end sounded great and well defined, the upper registers were clear and and crisp and great dynamics, to me this sounded the best I have heard digital on my system, certainly as good as a very good CD. So I moved onto some classical and came across a new release of Vivaldi's - The Four Seasons by Christian Li, the dynamics and presentation stunned me, not only of the soloist but also the orchestra are fantastic, although this rendition is rather bloated musically and someway away from a traditional T4S presentation. I can close my eyes and pick out parts of the orchestra and their position relative to each other, and SQ is great, very musical and a pleasure to listen to.
I did listen with Roon and Audivana through Qobuz and I cannot tell any difference between them, note that is with all filtering and digital upscaling switched off in both.
Whilst espousing about SQ I would make one important point, if you start feeding it with low-res digital through the microRendu and your DAC then do not expect super SQ, you will hear the lower SQ due to compression and the lossy data stream, for example BBC radio digital streams, MP3 or similar, this will be no different with any other good Streamer/DAC,. The old adage of "put crap in, get crap out" comes to mind. I am not saying its not OK for casual listening but it is certainly not audiophile SQ listening IMO, yes you can play with upscaling and filtering on low-res streams but there will still be musical content missing because it was never there in the first place.
I continued to Beethoven's 5th, Shotakovich's No1 symphony and then these below
https://i.imgur.com/OngFHRh.png
just stunning is all I can say.
I then let Roon move onto the this piece and it was great....
https://i.imgur.com/yuwJrNC.png
So in summary:-
If you have a reasonably good hifi system and want to get a very good level of SQ from digital streaming and are prepared to pay for CD level or above (16bit/44.1kHz) then as far as I am concerned the outlay of just under £500 for the Sonore microRendu and a Linear PSU is well worth it, you get a very, very good end result in terms of sound quality, dare I say it "It does not sound digital, just musical".
A brief background, I have been streaming from the net and from my NAS drive in some way or another for around 3 years, primarily using a RPI/HiFiBerryHAT to Caiman SEG DAC running Volumio, and streaming with TIDAL or Qobuz, TIDAL has been ditched(poor SQ IMHO). This set up I was reasonably happy with, but felt that something was missing aurally, maybe not that engaging musically is the best way to put it. I more recently tried using my MacBook via USB directly to the DAC using Volumio/Qobuz (with no upscaling) this was a step up in SQ, but not quite what I hoped for and it also tied up the computer all the time. So I started investigating other solutions.
I did some box swapping and moved to and Audiolab 8300CDQ with a very good on board DAC, it is built around the ESS Sabre DAC chip, and this improved the dynamics and openness quite a bit IMHO, after more consideration I plumped for a Sonore microRendu microRendu initially I powered with an adjustable standard PSU at 7v whilst I waited for a linear PSU from Linear PSU as recommended from a couple of others on TAS.
My initial thoughts on SQ from the microRendu was that it was good at least at the same level as using the MacBook as already described. However I had some teething problems, on the first power up it all worked fine and I set up Roon as I wanted to trial it. Then I decided to switch to MDP/DNLA and try it with Audirvana, after doing this I lost all sound output, after several reboots and finally rebooting everything service was resumed through Audirvana, I found this very odd, then during changing music selection, sound was lost again. I made several checks, including plugging the MacBook directly to the DAC USB and all worked fine. The next day I powered up from scratch and presto it worked fine. However this annoying issue does not end there, after a few days of listening to analogue radio and vinyl I returned to the microRendu and once again the problems returned.
I could not establish was what was causing the sound loss, although I did determine that Roon and Audirvana both saw the DAC, from a software point of view they were processing music but nothing was getting to the DAC. So a few days ago I called Martin at the Audiostore, he is very helpful, he asked what I had done hardware/software, various questions about my router and switch and then about then USB cable, an Audioquest Cinnamon specifically purchased to stream from the Macbook, and also my Ehternet cable. His recommendation was to swap out the Audioquest for a simple USB inexpensive one and test, in his experience they have found in the past that so called high end USB cables can cause switching issues with DACs, I was rather surprised with this. He also said that using Cat 6 or 7 ethernet cables could cause issues streaming music data, and ethernet cables with metal plugs casings, mine is Cat5 with plastic plugs, he advised to swap it if the USB cable was not the issue. I thought this might be useful info for some others in the future.
So I duly swapped out the £80 USB cable for a cheap as chips 60cm USB cable that came with a printer and powered up, and all worked fine, I swapped back and forth the from Roon to MDP/DNLA many times, switching between Audirvana and Roon server, and I also installed and used Mconnect on the iPad with Qobuz and all was stable. So you have been warned about expensive cables they may not be right in all situations. I have since removed the cheap USB cable and now am using the USB-A to USB-B adapter block that came with the microRendu with it supported on some isolating rubber pads, and this works well, minimum possible cable length and tucked out the way, I did hear a slight improvement in SQ having done so, more openness. So I am hoping that all is now well and everything will continue to work and be stable.
SQ with this set up using the plug in the socket transformer set to 7vDC sounded pretty good, by the way Martin recommended that around 6.5V was a good voltage to be at, he was aware that some considered the microRendu sounded better a 8vDC but he pointed out that the extra power would mean the microRendu would run hot and was likely to shorten its working life.
The following day the Linear PSU arrived from China I had ordered, recommended by someone else on another forum, I had asked this to be set to 8vDC, but decided on Martin's advice to adjust it to 6.5vDC, this is very simply done with an adjustable pot inside, just take the top casing off (two screws each end), I adjusted with PSU switched off and unplugged for safety, and then checked the voltage with a digital meter each time until I had it set correctly, this is the safest way. One thing to note is that the DC plug fits fine into the microRendu but that the internal connectors are a little widely spread apart compared to the diameter of the + pin on the microRendu, I discovered this as I lost power to the unit when setting it up with the new PSU. You can simply adjust the central connector on the plug using a pin or very small screw driver. This is due to the microRendu taking 2.5mm or 2.1mm DC plugs, most 2.5mm are OK, but 2.1mm is recommended, I will be changing mine to 2.1mm. You can see the Linear PSU here (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362781745226).
Having got everything plugged up and working I sat back and listened to a favourite Shpongle track, and immediately was taken by the spaciousness and depth of the soundstage, also the low end sounded great and well defined, the upper registers were clear and and crisp and great dynamics, to me this sounded the best I have heard digital on my system, certainly as good as a very good CD. So I moved onto some classical and came across a new release of Vivaldi's - The Four Seasons by Christian Li, the dynamics and presentation stunned me, not only of the soloist but also the orchestra are fantastic, although this rendition is rather bloated musically and someway away from a traditional T4S presentation. I can close my eyes and pick out parts of the orchestra and their position relative to each other, and SQ is great, very musical and a pleasure to listen to.
I did listen with Roon and Audivana through Qobuz and I cannot tell any difference between them, note that is with all filtering and digital upscaling switched off in both.
Whilst espousing about SQ I would make one important point, if you start feeding it with low-res digital through the microRendu and your DAC then do not expect super SQ, you will hear the lower SQ due to compression and the lossy data stream, for example BBC radio digital streams, MP3 or similar, this will be no different with any other good Streamer/DAC,. The old adage of "put crap in, get crap out" comes to mind. I am not saying its not OK for casual listening but it is certainly not audiophile SQ listening IMO, yes you can play with upscaling and filtering on low-res streams but there will still be musical content missing because it was never there in the first place.
I continued to Beethoven's 5th, Shotakovich's No1 symphony and then these below
https://i.imgur.com/OngFHRh.png
just stunning is all I can say.
I then let Roon move onto the this piece and it was great....
https://i.imgur.com/yuwJrNC.png
So in summary:-
If you have a reasonably good hifi system and want to get a very good level of SQ from digital streaming and are prepared to pay for CD level or above (16bit/44.1kHz) then as far as I am concerned the outlay of just under £500 for the Sonore microRendu and a Linear PSU is well worth it, you get a very, very good end result in terms of sound quality, dare I say it "It does not sound digital, just musical".