Sonore Streamers

[Womaz]

My comment about adding a re-clocker(s) after a Melco was actually far more serious that it might have appeared.  Who knows, this might work splendidly well?
[/quote]

I also assume that the Sonore streamers will work with a Melco? Probably not a route I would take though.

[AllenB]

Well I'm likely to be an early adopter. But only if it works nicely with Devialet's USB connection, as in it doesn't require to be rebooted every time you change inputs or the Dev goes into low power state.

[ogs]

I will also probably be an early adopter. One of the reasons is because it runs Linux. The Microrendu will replace a small laptop running Voyage Linux/Squeezelite. I've got LMS with BrutefirDrc running on a different computer (also with Voyage Linux). I'll use this combination until Roon introduces a convolver.
This setup sounds good, but just as important it works extremely well with the USB input of my 250. I expect that Roon with RAAT on the Microrendu will be just as reliable and have even better sound quality.

EDIT: I should say that I keep my 250 in sleep mode, not the low power state between sessions. I do not know how Microrendu will behave when the USB input is turned off.

[AllenB]

This may be a silly question, but does the USB connection stay alive on the Dev in one of the energy saving modes (sleep or low power mode)?

[Confused]

Its not quite as compact either, which was definitely a key reason for me taking the N1A off the 'for consideration' list.

Well no, but neither is my 4 bay QNAP NAS that sits on my desk. With my d1 server plus external power supply, that's 3 boxes. Not to mention all the other stuff in between. 

The N1A replaces the lot! AND it sounds better than most other sources I have heard. OK the Aurender W20 is really nice - but it's £13k. I haven't spent enough time with Request's the Beast to be 100% but that's nearly £30k, and that thing is a monster. My favourite source is probably the Melco N1Z, that thing smokes! But it's £6,300.

Pound for pound I don't think anything comes close to the N1A. It's a steal.

However! It's not Roon ready. Yet.

Guillaume

Guillaume, have you listened to all these?  I note you comment re not enough time with the "Beast", but do you have a view of W20 vs N1A and N1Z?

[ogs]

This may be a silly question, but does the USB connection stay alive on the Dev in one of the energy saving modes (sleep or low power mode)?

In my setup I never have any problems with the USB port and player. For Squeezelite I use the -r switch "-r <rates>[:<delay>]  Sample rates supported, allows output to be off when squeezelite is started "
This may help asking the player to wait until the USB port is ready. I've also noticed that Devialet has added a "USB-INIT" in Configurator to force a handshake on the USB port whenever it is selected.

[GuillaumeB]

Guillaume, have you listened to all these?  I note you comment re not enough time with the "Beast", but do you have a view of W20 vs N1A and N1Z?

Pretty much! I've had both N1A and N1Z on home dems, and have auditioned the Aurenders a few times (though not at home). Obviously I own the totaldac d1 and used to own the Moon MiND 180. The Aurender W20 I was able to compare directly with the Melco N1Z at OAC, this was in a system that used the same speakers and speaker cables as mine so pretty close.

The reason I'm not 100% certain about the Beast is that it also has a DAC that depending on how you spec it either includes not or not. 

I've also heard Jan's (Gentleman) 4 chassis transport, the Meridian Soulous system and the Olive ONE in a shoot out with an 800 and Sasha 2 speakers. Jan's transport was excellent and beat the other two contenders by a decent margin. Actually I've heard the Soulous a few times in other setups and have always been very disappointed hence my somewhat lukewarm attitude towards Roon. The Olive ONE was way better than the Soulous at a fraction of the price.

I'm not sure that the N1A beats the W20, I rather like the W20... the N1Z definitely beats the W20 (and there were others in the room that also heard the same thing - a more open and effortless sound from the N1Z). 

But the N1A at £1700 or so beats most stuff south of the N1Z and in my opinion could probably give the W20 a good run for its money. In fact I have heard anecdotal reports of people going from a W20 to an N1A and throwing in a posh USB cable and being absolutely delighted with the results. Yes I'm not making that up.

N1A v totaldac d1? I'd say it's pretty close. Possibly the d1 server has the edge with detail but I'm probably biased here. I know the N1Z absolutely trounces my d1 server because I've heard it do it! The d1 server is twice the price of the N1A though. I do rather like the trapezoid shape though, it's definitely got character and you can't beat the "free" upgrade programme.

Guillaume

[Confused]

Guilaume - That was a far more extensive answer than I was expecting, and very interesting observations, thanks for posting! Although this does make me wonder about the forthcoming Melco N1ZH, which at €4750 looks a little more sensible price wise versus the N1Z. (and consider the Aurender X100L is about €4300

And getting this thread back on topic, we then have the MicroRendu to consider, which at a bargain $640 might still crush everything for sound quality. Or then again it might not, time will tell once a few people have tried one. Either way it's very interesting times in the world of streamers.

[GuillaumeB]

Either way it's very interesting times in the world of streamers.

You can say that again!

Personally I'd put the microRendu - Mutec combo right at the top of my list.

But even there we still need to "pull" data from somewhere and what Melco have shown the world is that the storage layer (I've just made that up!) really matters. 

Guillaume

[Hifi_swlon]

Wow, Guillaume, you (and maybe a few others) could always start a rival Audio review site if you had the inclination - you guys get through an impressive load of kit.

Im sure Melco know what they're doing but they seem to have overcomplicated things to my mind - they had an expensive and a cheaper model, Z and A, and it was pretty clear.  Now there's more models and its not clear to me what they're aimed at.  Im surprised they haven't tapped into this low-cost, simpler, smaller 'renderer' market  that seems to be exploding - i.e. take out everything except the ethernet, the USB, and whatever you need to get the data out as cleanly as if it was coming from internal drives.  Put it all in a  small box, and hey-presto!  But I guess thats higher volume sales maybe not what they're after.

I'm really hopeful from everything that I've read everywhere, () that the 'tiny' computer's the way to go - people seem to be saying they have amazing setups from a cubox running custom software, and a decent power supply, with the ethernet providing most of the isolation.  I can see the logic to this and Ive read some nice posts on how the final connection is really the only bit that matters (unless data is actually being lost/dropped somewhere), otherwise on streaming services, you'd have to worry about the jitter-trail all the way back to hard drives in their data-servers for example.

At the end of the day, all I really care about is its at least as good as my mac-mini (not a very high bar admittedly), and reliable.  But I have far higher hopes!