Outstanding digital components

[custodian]

Two digital components that have particularly impressed me. I've bought both, one on the basis of a review (a first for me) followed by a home trial, the other because it was available cheaply on the used market and I was curious about the benefits of its wordclock input.

First is the Aurender music storage and player. Used with downloaded hirez material, it provides the best digital content I've heard. Mine is the s10 unit which I connect using asynchronous USB; next step is to replace it with the w20 which has direct clock input.

Second is Squeezebox Transporter. Bought on a whim but I must say, sound when wordclock locked to my DCS Scarlatti, is outstanding. I use it for streaming Flac files from Qobus.

[StanleyB]

I was looking for an alarm clock with an internet radio option when I came across the XORO HMT 360. Luckily I can read a bit of German, and it did not take me long to realize that I was looking at a serious piece of kit. Several days later and I have barely scratched the surface of what this thing can actually do. It runs on the Android OS, and can be used for emails etc. The main problem was figuring out how to unlock it . After that the next problem was how to switch the default German display to English.
I am still messing about with the TuneIn radio app that is shipped with it. I thought that internet radio was far more basic than that. The choices and varied use I can now get from internet radio are mind blowing. Internet TV ain't bad either, but I am yet to explore that in more detail.


If you are after a bedside or kitchen internet radio/tv/ etc. with streaming option, then this is a gadget that gets my vote. The display is twice the size of a Touch. In fact from the front it looks like a Touch but about twice the size. And sound quality from the inbuilt stereo speakers is superb. My next experiment is to see if it can play back movies from my NAS server.

[Blueflash]

I am going to nominate the Diy DDDAC.

A kit for the semi advanced builders that is capable of incredibly good sound for not a lot of money.

It has proper depth resolution and plays good bass lines :-)

[tapid]

Recently purchased a consonance opera droplet 2nd hand, and must say absolutely thrilled with the sound, fit and finish amazing! Those good people at AA Acoustics recon if this player was european it could possibly cost 2 or 3 times as much. Weighs an admiral 28 kgs.

[Yomanze]

Recently purchased a consonance opera droplet 2nd hand, and must say absolutely thrilled with the sound, fit and finish amazing! Those good people at AA Acoustics recon if this player was european it could possibly cost 2 or 3 times as much. Weighs an admiral 28 kgs.

Doubtless it'd cost way more if from USA or Europe. Am a big big fan of modern implementations of vintage multibit DACs what would you say are the improvements you're hearing?

[Jankoff]

M2Tech Evo Power Supply + M2Tech Evo Clock High End Word-Clock-Generator + M2Tech HiFace Evo 24Bit/192kHz USB-Interface (last one out close the door please), these three units costing about €1200, are IMO capable of music extraction via USB far above many CD players costing a lot more money. In reaching this conclusion I used my ears and the ears of several friends, among whom two musicians (one high-class professional) and one who has been selling and testing Hi-Fi/Hi-End for two decades. In recordings that we had listened to previously thousands of times we found things like much better staging, additional noises and noise artifacts around the major sounds of the instruments and even additional voices we had never heard before. Of course, one needs a quality DAC and a quality analogue section after the USB-interface, as well as quality cables throughout to be able to hear the differences. There are several very serious reviews in full corroboration of my position:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6...hootout-15327/
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/m2tech3/1.html
http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/m2...ace_evo_e.html

I would also like to place Stan's Asynch-1 USB interface in the "outstanding digital components" category. I have not yet compared it directly to the M2Tech HiFace Evo Trio but, as I was immediately grabbed by its presentation (along with its value for money), I ordered a second one (for a second PC) and am expecting it.

[wojtek]

Microrendu

I’ve just received and have been trying a previous version (1.3) microrendu to use to stream to my dac.

The software seems a little bit glitchy but the improvement in sound quality is shocking. I hadn’t really expected too much, but it’s up there with upgrading a preamp. The digital source now sounds good or better than my valve CD player. Annoying thing is it doesn’t like swapping between dacs, you have to pfaff about rebooting. Also, I haven’t tried a raspberry pi but have used a MacBook and iPhone (playing off memory in airplane mode).

[Gazjam]

Another shout out for M2Tech.

Recently upgraded my cabling and my original Young Dac (with linear psu) seems to have stepped up a notch.
Bass control, life sized soundstage and sense of ‘the room’ in recordings all improved.
See theres a Mark III Young dac now?

Secondly,
Logitech Transporter, only does up to 24/96 but do you need more....really?

[m10]

Microrendu

I’ve just received and have been trying a previous version (1.3) microrendu to use to stream to my dac.

The software seems a little bit glitchy but the improvement in sound quality is shocking. I hadn’t really expected too much, but it’s up there with upgrading a preamp. The digital source now sounds good or better than my valve CD player. Annoying thing is it doesn’t like swapping between dacs, you have to pfaff about rebooting. Also, I haven’t tried a raspberry pi but have used a MacBook and iPhone (playing off memory in airplane mode).

I am having great results with a Raspberry Pi 3 running Pi Lite (?) and Roon Bridge feeding a Meridian Explorer 2 DAC. Giant killer of a DAC and a real game changer for me - the Meridian is my first nomination.

Back in time I'd also nominate the Philips CD850 - I think this was their second Bitstream player, it was built like a tank and had a very liquid, smooth sound. Many happy hours spent with this player (about 10 years' worth of them!) I wish I still had it...



I had a long association with the Meridian 506.20 - 'Better than an LP12!' was my youthful exclamation when I first heard it. I stand by the statement.

The Marantz UD7007 I just installed yesterday may end up as my final nomination - a universal player with an extraordinarily well sorted (to these ears) two-channel analogue section (with balanced and phono outs). I'm convinced it sounds better over HDMI than my old Pioneer BDP-450 (common sense tells me it shouldn't/can't). But - oh my - with Blu-ray Audio, SACD, DVD - whatever on analogue out (into my Meridian 502 pre on balanced) - it sounds incredible. Kind of supple and sensuously glowing, all air and space and grace, but with crunch - real fidelity stuff. Nicely built (heavy) with a silent and slick mechanism. And a £900-ish price advantage on the Oppo (which of course does 4k that the Marantz doesn't). This will sate my desire for an SA10 (which I can't remotely afford).

[Kit1cat]

I still have my Philips CD850, purchased new in the early 80's. Still working, but get's little use these days, I am now mainly file based.