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Does External Streamer Offer Sonic Improvements?
#1
Bonjour to all!

We know that with respect to sound and integrated capability, the Expert Pro 220 is close to state of the art. My son has tried several amp configurations, and none can compare to the sound of the Expert 220. I noticed that a user replaced his Devialet with the Kinki EX-M7, which my son used previously. On its own, the Kinki has a pleasant sound that is very clean and tidy. In our circumstance, in comparison to the Devialet, the Kinki does not have the same transparency, speed, definition, and refinement.

Concerning streaming from a service, our observation and our opinion is that the Expert Pro 220 transparency is such that when fed a mediocre stream, it will faithfully reproduce that, good or bad. Some other components we've compared may offer more 'color' with lower quality streams, but with a high quality stream the Devialet is on another level (imho). 

We recently purchased the Wyred4Sound USB Recovery, that uses a high quality FEMTO clock to clean and re-clock the signal as it exits the MacBook Air or iPhone 13 or iPad Pro 12.9. This re-clocked signal is then sent to Expert Pro. The difference to these ears is subtle but noticeable, with overall sound improvement as we experience it. 

On sound quality in general; As with most here I am guessing, later evening listening is always better as there is just less ambient noise and perhaps the electricity is cleaner? We have settled on Qobuz, because upon extensively using Tidal, the new 'lossless' Apple Music, and Qobuz, We find Qobuz to be superior in sound quality to the others - even Tidal. This is just comparing sound quality, not usability. Given the Expert's transparency i.e. faithfulness to source as we perceive it, we find that stream quality is critical to the result, which can determine ok vs good to very good, then extraordinary. We want the extraordinary sound as much as possible, and we find the Expert Pro can deliver this with high quality recordings (not just high-res but also 16/44). With the right recordings, the sound quality is incredible with these S3s. 

Our chain is as follows;

Frontier Arris FIOS router>
Sensible but not whiz-bang ethernet cable from Arris to EERO Mesh Router>
EERO Mesh Router (usually using WiFi to send stream to devices)>
Another sensible ethernet cable to the Expert Pro (so for Wifi streaming device shows as Expert Pro 220-ETH)>
Macbook Air or iPhone 13 Pro Max or iPad Pro 12.9 running Qobuz application>
Wyred4Sound Recovery connected via; for IOS devices apple use 'camera' dongle adapter / for MacBook use Apple Lightning 3 to USB dongle adapter>
Kimber cable 1mtr USB cable into Expert Pro USB port>
Expert Pro set with SAM on at 100% and DPM generally off (I know crazy high)>
Original Transparent MusicWave Ultra speaker cable  around 3mtr length>
Magico S3 about 9ft apart with slight toe-in (my own speakers are Evolution Acoustics Micro One>
No Sub
Expert Pro / routers, and W4S Recovery all plugged into APC H10 power conditioner


My question to this learned assembly is; From a streaming standpoint, how can we make this better? Does the streaming capabilities of the Expert Pro offer the audio performance of say, an Aurender or Innuous at the high end, or Blue Sound Node at the lower end? Please feel free to help with any recommendations, which will be greatly appreciated.

Cordialement Mes Amis
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#2
(24-Mar-2022, 19:01)AdamEOS Wrote: …Does the streaming capabilities of the Expert Pro offer the audio performance of say, an Aurender or Innuous at the high end, or Blue Sound Node at the lower end? …

The Expert Pro will give you whatever audio performance the device you connect to it can provide but the "streaming capabilities" are different. If the Expert Pro's streaming capabilities were the same as those of the devices you mention, there would be no need to use one of those devices. You would be able to have a Devialet app on your computer or mobile device which would enable you to access a range of streaming services of music on your own hard drives and route that music to your Devialet, you would need nothing but your Devialet and a Devialet app plus your streaming service subscriptions. The Expert Pro range can't do that, You need to use other party software on your computer, mobile device, or on a device such as one of those you listed, to access streaming services and your own hard drives and to pass music from them to your Expert Pro.

So, what's the best way to get music from a streaming service or hard drive to your Expert Pro? There's lots of ways to do it but I'd start by thinking about 2 things, what input you wish to use on the Expert Pro and what kind of system you want in your listening room. You can go from a minimalist system in the room to a very complex one. At the minimal end you can have just the Expert Pro and speakers. You can use the Expert Pro's wifi input so there really is nothing but the amp and speakers for the system in your room or you could use a wired ethernet connection to the Expert Pro so you'd have an ethernet cable from the amp to a wall point and in wall cabling from that wall point back to your router location. With either of those options you've got the choice of having your computer, your mobile device, or one of those devices you listed connected to your router and located in the same location as your router. If you go the wifi or ethernet route you also have the option of having your computer or other streaming device in the same room as the Expert Pro and you would connect it to your router also using either wifi or by connecting both the Expert Pro and streaming device to an ethernet switch which you then connect to your router.

If you don't want to use wifi or ethernet to the Expert Pro you can use any of the Expert Pro's other inputs but you are going to have to have another device near the Expert Pro so you can connect them to your Expert Pro using your chosen connection method. Whatever device you connect to the Expert Pro is going to need a network connection to your router so that it can access your chosen streaming service and also so you can control it from a laptop or mobile device if it doesn't have a control interface built into the device.

So, the first things you need to decide are what connection you want to use to your Expert Pro and whether you want to have whatever device you're using to access the streaming service in the same room as the Expert Pro or whether you want to have it located somewhere else in the house, probably close to your router.

The sound quality your Expert Pro can deliver can be affected by your choice of input so you need to decide what input you want to use on the Expert Pro. Once you know that, then you can start looking at the different devices you can use to send the signal to the Expert Pro and eliminate those devices which don't offer an output that matches your chosen input on the Expert Pro.

The next thing to consider is whether you can access your chosen streaming service or services using the devices with suitable outputs that are left on your list. You can access whatever streaming services you like via your computer, and also via your mobile device using either an app provided by the streaming service or using your internet browser. If you use a device like the Aurender, an nnuous, or the Node then you're limited to whatever streaming services the control interface for y our chosen device supports. Not all such devices support all streaming services and not all support the same streaming services, Your choice of streaming services also affects the options you have available.

Once you've decided on what Expert Pro input you're going to use and you've narrowed your options for what device you're going to use to those which can access the streaming services you want to use and which offer an output that can connect to your chosen input on the Expert Pro you can then start considering things such as which device is going to give you the best sound quality, whether you like the control interface or not (choose a device with an interface you like, an interface you don't like will annoy the hell out of you over time and reduce your listening pleasure), and then you can start looking at things like the price and whether you think it's good value for money for not.

If you want recommendations then I think you need to tell us what input you want to use on your Expert Pro, whether you want everything in the same room with the Expert Pro and speakers or whether you want as little as possible in the room with the Expert Pro and speakers and the other devices or you want them out of sight in another room, and finally how you want to control everything, whether that's going to be from a laptop or mobile device or whether you want a streaming device with it's own control interface such as a touch screen. You can get equally good results via all of those approaches but you're likely to get a lot of recommendations which won't meet your personal needs if you don't provide that information because different people prefer very different approaches to the way they stream music to their Expert Pro.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#3
Whatever ever "source" you use, it can be improved by a better power supply, better internal clock and better build. As well, consider a better cable.

If you are using Ethernet input, consider a better switch like an Uptone EtherRegen or similar audiophile switch. 

If you are using USB, look at a higher end streamer. Wyred4Sound USB Recovery is only an entry unit; the best and most expensive is an Innuos Phoenix.
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#4
Hi David A, and Snoopy8

Happy Friday (at least here in the USA)

Please forgive the late response.

Thanks so much to you both for the great information in your replies., Your extensive guidance is well described and very much appreciated. Looks like you both have nice systems. David I love the Focal speakers too. To the matter at hand;

I am not overly concerned with minimalism, although a tidy implementation is important. So any external streaming chassis can be placed up to 6ft - 10ft from the Expert Pro and does not have to be out of sight.

David your point on the app is appreciated and makes sense. The interface of Qobuz is decent enough, but with respect to some functions it is a little difficult to navigate seamlessy. Also annoying is the fact that when searching albums for a particular artist, it does not organize those albums to show clearly the earliest albums through to the latest. If one wants to know when a particular album was released, and that album was re-mastered and re-released, it will not show the date of original release. Things like this are a little annoying, but overall the app is not too bad at all. Its worth it, because to these ears Qobuz is the sound quality champ.

Interface control device: I guess the mobile devices such as my iPAD or iPhone are fine, but are they limiting audio performance? Would I be better off with a box and monitor solution such as a dedicated audio-only iMAC for example?


The input for streaming is USB or I guess it could be SPDIF coax or optical. Any of these is acceptable to me. My primary concern is which of these will yield superior sound quality.

The point on external power supply is taken and i have seen options for that from W4S. With respect to Uptone Etheregen, isn’t the Recovery doing the same thing? With respect to an external switch, will that provide better sound than just running from the router?

Which raises the question; does a hardwire ethernet connection from the router to the Expert Pro and to an external streamer such as a dedicated iMAC, aurender, innuos, etc offer better sound quality potential than wifi?

Thanks again guys
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#5
I can't answer all of your questions because I haven't tried all of the things you are asking about. What I can say is that I have tried both wifi and ethernet for network connections to my 140 Pro and I have also tried USB vs ethernet.

I started out trying to stream via wifi and I got poor results because of wifi reception issues. This was before the Expert Pros got the CI board upgrade so they had an internal rather than an external wifi antenna. For some reason I got patchy reception, sometimes good and sometimes bad. When the reception was good, wifi sounded good and when reception was bad wifi sounded bad. In the end I put a wifi extender device near the 140 Pro and connected it to the 140 Pro by ethernet. That solved the reception problem and I had good sound. Eventually I had a wired connection installed from the room where my router was to the room where the 140 Pro was. My streaming has always been trouble free with an ethernet connection apart from the rare network issue that I think we all have occasionally. Wifi was never trouble free for me. Theoretically there are some advantages to wifi, it avoids a galvanic connection, but the theoretically best approach is often not the best approach when it comes to results. The theoretically best approach will achieve far less than it could if it is implemented poorly and a theoretically less good approach when implemented well can often deliver better results than the poorly implemented theoretically superior approach. That's what people are often referring to when they say YMMV - "your mileage may vary". The quality of results can differ dependingi on how well you implement a given approach.

I also started out streaming with my only source being ripped music in my iTunes library on my Mac. I did not have a subscription to a streaming service. I moved from streaming from the Mac to copying my music library to an SSD in an Auralic Aries Mini which I connected to my network and tried connecting it to the 140 Pro via USB and by SPDIF coax. I preferred USB. I subsequently moved from tha Aries Mini to a music server running Roon when Roon introduced the option of streaming via Devialet's AIR protocol. I compared USB vs ethernet using the AIR protocol with that server and opted for ethernet but that was simply comparing a direct USB to Expert Pro connection to having both the server and 140 Pro connected to the network via a basic ethernet switch. I did not try using any USB or ethernet improvement devices at that stage. In fact back then there were several devices like the Wiyed4Sound one available for improving USB connections but none for ethernet. Technology and your options can change quickly here and what you think is best today is not necessarily best tomorrow.

So in the end I ended up using ethernet connections to both server and 140 Pro. I eventually signed up with a streaming service, started tinkering with the ethernet setup, and got to the setup listed in my signature. You're asking for lots of comparisons but I didn't go through that sort of overall comprehensive comparison. I made choices at various stages based on what worked for me (eg my initial ethernet vs wifi choice). When I moved my music library from my Mac to the Aries Mini I had to put the Aries Mini near the 140 Pro because it couldn't stream to the 140 Pro over ethernet, outputs were only via USB, coax, toslink, or analog. When I replaced the Aries Mini with a server running Roon, I simply put the server where the Aries Mini had been located. I never sat down when I first got my 140 Pro and tried to work out what you are currently trying to work out, I replaced an existing amp with the 140 Pro and simply continued using an SACD player as my only source. Then I decided to try streaming from my iTunes library and made choices based on getting that to work. That led to other choices over time. Do I think I'm doing things the best way? I don't know because I haven't tried doing things in all the other ways I could do them, I've simply built on what I got to work for me the last time I made a change and/or tried something new.

What I do know is that there are almost certainly a lot of ways in which a streaming setup can be configured which won't be convenient for some people, and also a lot of ways which some people will prefer or reject for reasons other than convenience and everyone is different. That's why I suggested first working out what kind of configuration would work for you in relation to where you want various bits of equipment located and what kind of connection methods work for a setup with gear in those locations. You've really got 2 ways of getting to a final setup. You can start by asking what's the best way to set things up for your own convenience when it comes to connections and in relation to things like whether you want a minimal amount of gear in your listening room or whether you're happy having some streaming components there or alternatively you can try to decide what approach is theoretically superior and then try working back from that to how to best set up that approach in your home and if you go that way you're going to face decisions about how to proceed when the best way of doing something presents difficulties you don't want to deal with and the way you'd like to deal with that is by using an approach you don't think is as good.

There is no perfect way of doing this. Every audio system, even the very best audio system, is built on compromises, on choices made for convenience vs ultimate sound quality, on dealing with limitations imposed by rooms and other things like wifi reception strength, aesthetics, budget, and what your partner if you have one is prepared to put up with. Nobody operates with no constraints. My advice is to start by working out what would best work for you in your house with your budget and tastes and family situation and then decide what's the best way of doing things that way for you. The best way of doing things for you may not be the best way in theory but if you implement what's best for you in the best way possible you'll probably get as good or better results than you will by going for the theoretically best way of doing it and not being able to implement that approach in the best way it could be implemented. Do what you do well and you will get very good results, results that will make you very happy, but there will always be someone around who'll tell you you should have done it some other way and that results would be better if you just do what they say. Just remember that you're building your system, you're going to spend far more time listening to it than anyone else, and the last thing you want to do is to put it together in a way which makes all of the critics happy and which doesn't make you happy either because you don't like the sound or there's something about the system and setup which simply doesn't work ideally for you and annoys you every time you use the system.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#6
Salut @AdamEOS
Just a short post to offer my own experience on the streamer side of things. I started with an ordinary Sonos:Connect. I upgraded that to a W4S modified unit, and the improvement was very good. Not a slap-in-the-face sort of thing, but comfortably apparent. Adding Nordost Purple Flare power cords to the W4S modded Connect gave another improvement. More modest but still immediately apparent. The changes were all the usual things; sounds seemed more relaxed, and less metallic. A bit of space and breath. The W4S Connect has the same reclocker that you are using,  I think.

Because we had functionality issues, I replaced the Sonos Connect and Amp with a NAD M32 integrated, which I use as a streamer. So,it is not the Node, but apparently the internal BluOS streamer part is the same. It definitely sounds better than the modified Connect.

So, I would say, from my situation, that the streamer does make a difference. I couldn't say where the improvement vs. cost curve dips the wrong way, but I agree with you that the D220 does show the input quality without flattery.

I'm only partly addressing your questions, and I know that I'm not helping with the iPad/ iPhone or computer source issue either. I suspect the reclocker is an excellent and necessary item to have, given the rest of your system.

BTW, we use Deezer, streaming their CD / Flac quality, and I go from the coax out on the NAD to the Devialet. I think the NAD is hardwired with Ethernet to the house interwebs.
Damon
Powernode, NAD M32, Cambridge CD transport, Analysis Plus, Nordost, iFi Nova, CSS Criton 1TDX, KEF C62
Vancouver, Canada
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#7
Hi David and Damon,

David, thanks again for the guidance. I very much enjoyed reading the account of your journey. You’ve learned a lot along the way. Your points are very sound, especially regarding how well an approach is implemented being key to a great outcome. My guess is your hifi system sounds great.

Looking at your signature I see the Roon Nucleus +. Seems like a powerhouse indeed. That Uptone solution is phenomenal and i may pursue that when funds permit.

I’ve noted recently, that I like the sound of Air, which I understand it is bit-perfect, as opposed to Airplay, which is not? The limitation of these formats, are they cannot stream hi-res. I do wish Air was functional on iOS devices such as my iPad or iPhone. Not to say that Airplay sounds bad, not at all. Given the ‘minimalist’ concept behind the Expert Pro, the solution that is in keeping with that philosophy, is wireless streaming. Ideally, one has a clean bit-perfect digital stream running to the Expert Pro via a wireless signal. The digital signal is re-clocked, up-sampled - what have you - then converted to analogue, where a pair of speaker cables drives the speakers. Thats about as minimalist as it gets, short of having the DAC processing and amplification built into the speakers themselves.

Damon, thanks much for the insight. The BluSound Node 2 sounds intriguing, because it offers good value performance vs cost. I’ve not heard Deezer, but it must sound good if it streams true CD / Flac quality. This is my beef with the new Apple Music, it’s supposed to be uncompressed, but turns out that is false. Same with Tidal I believe. Just not a fan of Tidal at all.

You mentioned coax into the NAD. You might check the re-clocking device from W4S for coax. Highly rated it would seem.
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#8
If I connect the Expert Pro with an ethernet cable running from the router, and on my Devialet Remote app on my iPad shows Airplay-Eth, the wifi symbol in the display window has a strike through it, indicating WiFi as inactive.

My question is this; I select a piece of music on the Qobuz app on the iPad, which is then streamed to the Expert Pro. Is the music file still being streamed via WiFi to the Expert Pro, or is it now being streamed from the router through the ethernet cable? In other words, with no ethernet cable plugged in, the file is streamed directly from the iPad, but with ethernet engaged, the iPad selects the song, sends the request to Qobuz servers, which then streams the song through the ethernet cable?

With the ethernet cable connected (Airplay-Eth), can that signal be full hi-res, or is it still subject to Airplays bandwidth limitation?
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#9
My understanding is that Airplay is limited to CD resolution streaming, ie 16 bit 44.1 kHz., as a maximum If the source music is at that resolution lower you will get bit perfect streaming but if it's higher resolution then it will be reduced to CD resolution. Airplay is an Apple proprietary protocol, designed to integrate Apple devices years ago when people were first starting to stream music and it was intended as a way for Mac users to connect Apple devices via wifi'

Re your second post:

For some reason Devialet has the Expert Pros default to ethernet if both ethernet and wifi inputs are active which is why your Devialet Remote app shows wifi as inactive if you connect to the ethernet input as well.

So what happens when you stream a piece of music from the Qobuz app on your iPad to the Expert Pro. Well, it gets to the Expert Pro via your network and if there's an ethernet connection to the network the Expert Pro uses it rather than wifi. That's the path the signal follows to get to the Expert Pro.

When it comes to what limitations are imposed on the signal, that depends on the streaming protocol used. If the streaming protocol is Airplay then higher resolution signals will be reduced to a 16 bit, 44.1 kHz signal because that's the best that Airplay offers, even though both wifi and ethernet can handle higher resolution streams.

As to the use of both wifi and ethernet inputs, I think you could specify different network details for wifi in your configuration data if you have access to 2 different networks so wifi would work for one and ethernet for the other. If, like most of us, you only have access to one network then decide which connection you are going to use and turn the other connection off in your configuration file because it's an unused connection you don't have to cycle through every time you change inputs.

So, are you better off connecting via wifi or ethernet. Ethernet has more bandwidth but I think wifi has sufficient bandwidth for high res music up to 24/192 (some one will correct me if I'm wrong). If you get good wifi reception with the Expert Pro then using wifi has 2 benefits, you don't need to buy cables and the signal path does not involve an electrical connection to the Devialet which means it's galvanically isolated from your network. People may argue over whether or not galvanic isolation makes a differen

What I think is not arguable is that not all inputs on the Expert Pro sound the same and there are all sorts of things you can do which change and perhaps improve the sound quality you get from a given input. You're using a USB device with your USB connection and I'm using an ETHERegen with my ethernet connection. Is USB with an added device doing something better than wifi or ethernet without any added devices, or better than ethernet with one or more added devices? You obviously think there are add on devices which can make a difference or you wouldn't be using one with your USB connection but that doesn't mean that any given device for improving ethernet connections will do what the manufacturer claims. Either they're all snake oil or some will be better than others and the differences made may be large enough to justify the price of the device for you or not large enough to justify the price. Only you can decide that. Wifi avoids added devices, all you can do is change your wifi router, perhaps to get better signal strength or for some other reason. Wifi offers a connection that you can't complicate, wired connections like USB and ethernet offer lots of options for complication and a lot of us like to play with those options.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#10
This topic has been discussed to quite an extent already. Search for words like "SOTM", "Ifi Stream", "dcs network bridge", etc.
I have had a Devialet for over 11 years now, that is before even the wifi board was installed in the D-Premier. I have tried quite a few things and talked to Devialet engineers in person several times.
In short: USB (asynchronous connection) gets the clock signal from the receiving end (the Devialet in this case), AES/EBU and spdif are synchronous connections and the source provides the clock signal. The Devialet doesn't have an extra high-quality clock and would benefit from being connected through the AES/EBU input providing the source has a good clock. I now use a complex/complicated streaming set-up (see my signature below) for one main reason. I still find HQ Player desktop + HQ Player NAA superior to Roon server and Roon Ready endpoint as several us here and elsewhere (check out Audiophilestyle.com forums). There are not many devices that can work as NAA and 5 years ago when I bought my SOtM, none of those had an spdif or AES/EBU output. So I ended up "having to buy" a Mutec MC3+USB DDC and eventually a REF10 master clock. I have now with me an Auralic Aries G2 and a Lumin U1 mini with Plixir linear power supply added. These units sound very close to my set-up but the Mutec reclocking is very good and elevates the SOtM to the same level. However, it's a lot of power cables, clock cables, digital cables of all sorts, etc. If I bought something now, I would either try an Aqua LinQ for HQ Player NAA or compromise and use Roon Ready in an Auralic G2.1 or a Lumin U1. If money was no object, I would buy a Grimm Audio MU1, but that is REALLY expensive.
There is one thing, I don't understand though, why recloking on a USB (output) streamer makes a difference when it gets its clock signal from the DAC (or DDC) but it does. My SOtM is also clocked with the Mutec Ref10 and the difference is audible but not as much as on the Mutec MC3+USB.
Win10/HQPlayer / Roon - Uptone Audio Etherregen switch / SOtM-SMS-200 ultra with clock input - Mutec REF 10 clock for the switch and the streamer - Denafrips GAIA DCC - Devialet D800 - YG Acoustics Carmel - Dual Elac SUB-2090 
power supplies: Uptone JS-2, SOtM SPS-500
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