Digital to Digital Converters with Devialet - New products

[chrisc]

Yes, been using the D1 for 2 years. What made a distinct improvement was a 12 volt linear power supply

A dealer I know (Air Music in Johannesburg) let me play with a HOLO RED for a few days and I took it to a friend who lives about an hour away as he had not experienced streaming, mainly because he had no idea how to go about it. He is a retired English Literature Professor from Oxford University and came to Cape Town after retiring. He has some nice gear bit is a total technophobe

Here is a report I wrote for AV Forms South Africa about the HOLO red


Had a HOLO Red here for a few days courtesy of Stefan. I have this old guy in Sunset Beach who listens 80% via his iMac into a Denafrips Pontus, Quad Artera and the latest Quad 2912 he brought from England in March

Very refined sound. I had demonstrated to him the distinct improvement that can be had by moving the computer out the equation and using a Lumin D1

The HOLO Red seemed to me to tick all the boxes as far as sound is concerned and I suggested he listen to it

The on-line user manual is not that good, no real explanation of capabilities
I got better answers on the Head-Fi forum

You attach it to your network, ascertain the IP address (I looked at the list of connected devices and saw Raspberry Pi RED)
Then you can select or deselect the various outputs

It was connected to the DAC using an AES 110 ohm cable. We tried USB and SPDIF. The AES seemed better. Maybe a better USB cable may have helped

When it it switched on with no USB connected, it will only stream
Plug a USB cable from a computer and it will only read from the computer
With USB in, it is a DDC (digital to digital converter)

A huge improvement from computer to DAC when this is connected as a DDC. Much more clarity, full orchestra enabled a full and effortless sound. No masking at all
Tidal really sounded stunning

It undoubtably produces better sound (than the Lumin D1 with a Linear power supply) but not by much
Voices are more articulate, bass is more accurate, piano more pleasing

The snag that killed the deal is that to have the HOLO act as a streamer, you must unplug the USB from the computer. This guys setup means getting on your knees and groping about in a dark shelf

But: If you want a streamer alone, this ticks all the boxes. Plays Tidal straight off. Very good value for money indeed. Stand-alone DDCs cost more than double

[Pim]

Yes, been using the D1 for 2 years.  What made a distinct improvement was a 12 volt linear power supply

A dealer I know (Air Music in Johannesburg) let me play with a HOLO RED for a few days and I took it to a friend who lives about an hour away as he had not experienced streaming, mainly because he had no idea how to go about it.  He is a retired English Literature Professor from Oxford University and came to Cape Town after retiring.  He has some nice gear bit is a total technophobe

Here is a report I wrote for AV Forms South Africa about the HOLO red


Had a HOLO Red here for a few days courtesy of Stefan. I have this old guy in Sunset Beach who listens 80% via his iMac into a Denafrips Pontus, Quad Artera and the latest Quad 2912 he brought from England in March

Very refined sound. I had demonstrated to him the distinct improvement that can be had by moving the computer out the equation and using a Lumin D1

The HOLO Red seemed to me to tick all the boxes as far as sound is concerned and I suggested he listen to it

The on-line user manual is not that good, no real explanation of capabilities
I got better answers on the Head-Fi forum

You attach it to your network, ascertain the IP address (I looked at the list of connected devices and saw Raspberry Pi RED)
Then you can select or deselect the various outputs

It was connected to the DAC using an AES 110 ohm cable. We tried USB and SPDIF. The AES seemed better. Maybe a better USB cable may have helped

When it it switched on with no USB connected, it will only stream
Plug a USB cable from a computer and it will only read from the computer
With USB in, it is a DDC (digital to digital converter)

A huge improvement from computer to DAC when this is connected as a DDC. Much more clarity, full orchestra enabled a full and effortless sound. No masking at all
Tidal really sounded stunning

It undoubtably produces better sound (than the Lumin D1 with a Linear power supply) but not by much
Voices are more articulate, bass is more accurate, piano more pleasing

The snag that killed the deal is that to have the HOLO act as a streamer, you must unplug the USB from the computer. This guys setup means getting on your knees and groping about in a dark shelf

But: If you want a streamer alone, this ticks all the boxes. Plays Tidal straight off. Very good value for money indeed. Stand-alone DDCs cost more than double

Thanks for that comparison Chris, but I was actually asking about the Mercury and Lumin comparison. Now you've answered a different question, I should ask a different one; did you compare the Mercury with the RED?

[chrisc]

Yes I did. There isn't much in it, but I preferred the Mercury
The difference in audio reproduction manifests itself as better defined bass and less sharp treble

The Lumin (using a linear power supply instead of the switched-mode device it came with) has a smoother treble than the Holo Red, although a friend who was here was not sure it was more detail or different emphasis

The Mercury is easier to manage with a web-based app than the Holo. The Lumin app is ok, but there is much more media info on the Mercury interface

A Canadian friend tells me that version 3 will be released soon

[Confused]

@Pim - Did you ever get around to trying the Holo Red with HQPlayer? Just curious!

[Pim]

@Pim  - Did you ever get around to trying the Holo Red with HQPlayer? Just curious!

I only had one on loan. I’m waiting for my new one to come in. I’ll post here when I do.

[Snoopy8]

Been given a Mercury DDC to try out.  There are several inputs and 7 outputs

You got me puzzled when you called the Mercury V2 Streamer a DDC, with several inputs.  I checked the manual and it has USB inputs for peripherals and storage.  But it does not say that it can take a USB input and converts it to another digital signal, i.e. work as a DDC.

Have I missed something here?

[chrisc]

Top left is a screw in antenna socket
The two USB inputs are on the left hand side (I connect a 4Tb SSD here)
Adjacent is an HDMI out that you connect to a monitor, but only for Command Line functions
Then there is the SD card.  This contains the Operating System, in my case Volumio
The LAN port (but you can connect wirelessly as well)
Optical and co-ax SPDIF
AES unbalanced (BNC connector)
AES balanced (what I am using)
12VDC socket
I2S output

Apart from USB in, you can also stream via Tidal, etc
It handles Air Music
All the outputs are switched on all the time
The I2S output can be programmed to use 22 different DACs

It outputs DSD natively.  There is an upscaler, 24 bit 96KHz

Being a headless device, you can manage Volumio via a web browser or use the Volumio app on an iPad.  You can either use your home network or the wi-fi signal that the Mercury generates

[CongoFather]

Top left is a screw in antenna socket
The two USB inputs are on the left hand side (I connect a 4Tb SSD here)
Adjacent is an HDMI out that you connect to a monitor, but only for Command Line functions
Then there is the SD card.  This contains the Operating System, in my case Volumio
The LAN port (but you can connect wirelessly as well)
Optical and co-ax SPDIF
AES unbalanced (BNC connector)
AES balanced (what I am using)
12VDC socket
I2S output

Apart from USB in, you can also stream via Tidal, etc
It handles Air Music
All the outputs are switched on all the time
The I2S output can be programmed to use 22 different DACs

It outputs DSD natively.  There is an upscaler, 24 bit 96KHz

Being a headless device, you can manage Volumio via a web browser or use the Volumio app on an iPad.  You can either use your home network or the wi-fi signal that the Mercury generates

Please keep in mind that it's not optimized for  USB output. Its I2S HDMI, AES/EBU, SPDIF outputs are really great. I also use its AES balanced digital output which is connected to Devialet 220 Pro's AES input. It can send  24bit-192khz tracks and DSD64 via AES output in a bit-perfect way to Devialet.

In addition to this, in my point of view, GENTOPLAYER is the best software which can run totally on RAM that works on top of it which I have decided after trying most of the softwares including VolumIO, Moode, Roopie, RoopieXL, DietPi, PiCorePlayer. Mercury is  performing much more than its price which deserves respect.

[chrisc]

Thanks! Excellent information. Any tips about installing on a Mercury? I assume you'd need the Raspberry Pi version

[CongoFather]

Thanks!  Excellent information.  Any tips about installing on a Mercury?  I assume you'd need the Raspberry Pi version

** First of all, you need belenaEtcher.exe . You can download it from https://github.com/balena-io
** Then download the latest Gentooplayer version(Raspberry 4B) from https://gentooplayers.com/Download_link/ . Keep in mind that it's not for free. You need to pay for a license key in order to activate it. I preferred lifetime license.
** Get a fast, reliable 32GB or 64GB SDCard.
** Connect the SDCard to you Windows PC by using an USB adapter or an USB Hub with SDCard slot. You can directly use you Windows PC's memory slot if it already supports it.
** Write and verify the GentoPlayerRpi4-64-8.30.img file to the SDCard by using belenaEtcher app.
** Connect your Mercury Streamer to the home network preferably by using Ethernet. Later on I advise you to disable WIFI etc.
** Remove the SDCard from your PC and insert it into SDCard slot of the Mercury streamer.
** Restart the Mercury Streamer. 
** Check its IP address from your router's admin page(there is probably a page which lists the connected devices).
** By using Chrome, Firefox or Edge browser, just visit http://IP_ADDRESS_OF_MERCURY:5000. For example , as I have already assigned static IP address for the streamer, I can always access to it just by typing http://192.168.1.63:5000 in my home network.

Then you'll start configuring Gentooplayer by using the web interface. It's an another long topic. There are a lot of optimization points and you can find the details at https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...ntooplayer. It's a long thread ; just start reading beginning from the latest posts, in reverse order.
Once you have configured it, just follow the thread, make customizations if you wish and update the software for the newer versions. It's not hard to use it after the initial configuration.

When you start configuring the Gentooplayer operating system, I advise you to choose a real time , fast lightweight Kernel like 6.1.54-GentooPlayer-RT-ULTRA-EUP100-RCU-rt15+ to start with. Make the CPU and process optimizations under "System Expert-I" menu(You can see my CPU, Process optimizations and tweak settings at https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...nt=1258348 and https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...nt-1257739). You can disable the softwares that you do not use or you can uninstall them directly. Do not forget to modify the tweaks under "System Congfig Advanced" menu. As a last step, run the whole operating system directly on RAM(under RamSystem menu) after you are sure that everything is working as you expect.

You can use LMS as a player , SqueezeLite-R2 on it. You can also install Roon Client on it and control it by using Roon UI(The server/Core app) on your Windows PC or another X86 machine etc. However, I prefer using Euphony OS(https://euphony-audio.com/) which is running directly on the RAM of another X86 Mac Mini. It is connected to Mercury Streamer over fiberoptical network on which Gentooplayer is run(directly on RAM) by using MPD, UpmpdCli protocols.