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

[GuillaumeB]

For the MIND 180

Guillaume or Rufus, can you indicate if you used the Moon MIND 180 power supply or an advanced one ?
I have heard that the Moon is not so good
Thanks

Yes we used the standard Moon power supply.

According to the distributor for Simaudio in the UK - Renaissance Audio (and I am quoting this from an email): "The PSU that comes with the unit is not pretty but works very well as it has good voltage regulation." It actually looks like one of those cheap wall warts.

There were some rumours last year of an updated power supply for the MiND 180 but these never materialised.

Having said all this the MiND 180 is a decent piece of kit, and one that I've enjoyed owning for the past year or so. In our tests last Friday it performed surprisingly well and above the Aries (although it lacked in some of the Aries' top end detail and expansive soundstage). The end result is however quite dependent on having a decent AES/EBU cable - Rufus and I tried a few with varying results.

My biggest gripe with the MiND however is the control point software which has been stuck in some kind of time warp and had very few updates. Since it doesn't use the same UPnP extensions as Linn's OpenHome it isn't so easy to use Kinsky instead (although PlugPlayer worked fine with some limited functionality).

Guillaume