Mac AIR v MiND 180 v Auralic ARIES v totaldac d1 server

[ZincAlloy]

Hi Guillame & Rufus - great posts, thanks. Now it's clear - how do I get the money together for the totaldac. It seems that simple .... I had my money for the Aries, but I'll have to work a little bit harder for a while .....

ATB, Ken

[Antoine]

Nice reviews on the comparisons guys, looks like we have a winner!

I wonder how a fully tuned/optimized (both in hardware and software) PC or Mac would stack up to the Totaldac d1 server. Of course with the d1 you won't have to worry about making the right modifications as it is plug&play.

[GuillaumeB]

Hi Guys,

One more frog jumping over the channel... (God save the Queen)
I'm probably the chap you've been mentionning above (D800 and D1 Server owner).

Going straight forward, I've been coming to the same conclusions. D1 server goes far beyond to what I had heard before.
My previous solution was an akurate DS upgraded two time in Germany ( G Volk), which I already considered at that time superior to air.

The solution is sensitive to the AE/EBU cable. By using a Transparent Ref you've been most probably on the right side.
Thanks to ThierryNK, we've tried an Acrolink 7N D5000 which brings excellent results too. Anyhow to play side by side with TRef I guess that the 7N D6300 would be more suitable.

Adding the Dualdac (from Totaldac) between the D1 server and the Devialet will help you again to step into a new dimension, as you said (By the way, how many dimensions are available overthere ?). I know that it might sound insane to pile up DACs..., anyhow make yourself a favor and try it, if you can afford a bit more than a second companion...
Anyhow our conclusion in this case is that it might make sense only for those already owner of a D800, otherwise we should rather go straight to a conventional solution: D1 server-Dual Dac -> conventional high-end amps

Last but not least experience sharing today, according personal tests the linking cable between the master and companion amps (D800 / 400) do have an impact on sound.



NB: I will be out of the web for some days

Welcome to Devialet Chat! Yes, it was your discussions on http://www.forum-audiophile.fr that inspired me to try the D1 Server! Thanks again for that!

Interesting what you say about the digital link between master and companion... we have also been discussing this on our side of the "Manche":

http://devialetchat.com/Thread-Master-slave-link

Guillaume

[GuillaumeB]

Hi Guillame & Rufus - great posts, thanks. Now it's clear - how do I get the money together for the totaldac. It seems that simple .... I had my money for the Aries, but I'll have to work a little bit harder for a while .....

ATB, Ken

Cheers Ken... I know I've said this before but there is no substitute for a good home demo preferably over an extended period of several days... we all have different listening spaces, speakers, tastes etc.

I also think there's nothing wrong with AIR (ok, apart from some of the reliability issues).

But yes the totaldac is something very special indeed.

Guillaume

[GuillaumeB]

Nice reviews on the comparisons guys, looks like we have a winner!

I wonder how a fully tuned/optimized (both in hardware and software) PC or Mac would stack up to the Totaldac d1 server. Of course with the d1 you won't have to worry about making the right modifications as it is plug&play.

That's a really good question Antoine! And one that I can't answer for you I'm afraid...

Guillaume

[Antoine]

Haha, that's OK Guillaume!

[Kunter]

A big thank you to Guillaume and Rufus for not only making the comparisons but taking the time to report back so nicely...

It appears TotalDac managed a respectable solution... In the heart of things, there is the reclocking module, in the basic use case a USB to SPDIF converter/clocker... What gets my attention is, the computer portion used is a CuBox computer, with USB output.

http://www.solid-run.com/product/cubox-i4pro/

Above link is the best solution today, with 4 cores, etc. and the price is less than 150 US. For the software, we have standard off the shelf linux flavour...

I wonder, how much of the performance you guys experienced is from the digital reclocker, how much is from using a very simple computer with very little problems...

Here is a suggestion... Two actually... And I know you will hate me...

Scenario 1
Auralic Or MacBook USB output to Totaldac USB input with the Totaldac USB cable, then to Devialet via AES/EBU

Scenario 2
Totaldac computer USB output directly to Devialet.

If we have a nice solution on USB output from the computer portion of Devialet, then there are very nice reclockers/digital interfaces around, like the very respected Berkeley, and the likes, for a much lower overall cost...

And this is exactly why a computer freak like me should have never set foot in High-End audio

Cheers...

Kunter

[MusicLover]

Hi guys,

I was wondering exactly the same as Antoine, as my computer is software optimized with Phil's solution too and, to be honest, it does sound gorgeous. Of course, that's very relative.

I may request to loan the server for 10 days and see how it goes!

BTW Guillaume, what is your experience with totaldac's USB cable?
Great idea to set up this forum, I must say I find it very enjoyable. Thank you!

Cheers,


Carlos

[PhilP]

Thanks Guillaume and Rufus for all your hard work and the excellent write-up. It was very helpful that you provided so much detail on the various configurations that you tried. It seems that the totaldac was the clear winner and it was very interesting to have your conclusions backed up by the tests that Thierry and others have just done in France.

The price of the totaldac at first seems a bit steep given the fairly limited functionality that a streamer provides but the Naim NDX/XPS2 that I was previously using costs around £7.5k and the NDS/555 is £13k so the price is not outrageous. (The Naim streamers do include internal DACs as well. The analogue output from the NDX is ok but ultimately lacking in detail whilst the NDS does sound very good).

Auralic Aries
I must admit that I was disappointed that the Auralic did not perform so well but as others have suggested maybe it's one of those components that does need to be thoroughly run-in before it sounds good. Perhaps you could try it again in a week or so?

Audirvana
I've been running Audirvana+ with AIR and am not sure what to make of it. As Rufus says in his write-up "AV+ seems to do something a bit odd" and I would tend to agree that it seems to exaggerate the higher frequencies and in my system seems to provide a signal a few db greater that AIR on its own. A+/AIR sounds different to vanilla AIR in my system but not necessarily better. However, the question is complicated by the fact that I can't use all the features of A+ as I'm running OS X 10.6.8 so I can't use Exclusive Access Mode, Direct Mode or Integer Mode. It would be interesting to know what A+ settings you were using with Mavericks.

I do not know how AIR works on its own. Does it use features like Direct Mode and/or Integer Mode ?

[Rob35]

Anyone tried one of the Aurender streamers on a Devialet?