totaldac D1 server

[GuillaumeB]

The totaldac d1 server is here!!!

Here are some pics after unboxing. I've placed it next to the ARIES so you can see just how much bigger it is!

Guillaume

       

[patcam]

The totaldac d1 server is here!!!

Here are some pics after unboxing. I've placed it next to the ARIES so you can see just how much bigger it is!

Guillaume

Good Guillaume !

D1 Server, Aries, Moon Mind 180 and Devialet Air
and Totaldac ethernet cable versus Audioquest Diamond.
I'd very much like your opinion of these comparisons!

Thanks a lot Guillaume !

PatCam

[darthsteph]

Oh Guillaume !!!

i'm so impatient to read your feedback, and especially on the Totaldac !!!

[GuillaumeB]

Hi guys let me give you my first impressions!

As you could see from the photos the totaldac d1 is another creature altogether... it literally dwarfs the ARIES (in size!) and looks even better in the flesh!

It feels like it's the best sound I've ever heard from my Devialet. It's got all the immediacy/urgency and sharpness of A+ and AIR (which I loved) and yet there's a calmness/maturity to its presentation. Wonderful tonal texture and supremely musical. Literally rediscovering music tonight!

When Rufus can be bothered to join the party we'll post more detailed comparisons.

Guillaume

[GuillaumeB]

Left the d1 server playing overnight and it's sounding even better this am. Currently playing Mozart Complete String Quintets (Grumiaux Trio) on Philips... redbook FLAC.

   

It does seem remarkable that I've managed to squeeze even more performance out of my dual monos.

Someone on one of the french forums mentioned that introducing the d1 server into their Devialet system was a bit like going from stereo to dual mono... at the moment I'd be inclined to agree with him. It is that kind of improvement and the sound seems to have been affected in many different ways.

A proper/more objective comparison with the other streamers is coming of course!

Guillaume

[Antoine]

Wow, very nice and impressive!! Good luck, and of course lots of fun, comparing the whole lot!!

[thumb5]

Sounds like you're impressed, Guillaume - is it a keeper, then?

[GuillaumeB]

Sounds like you're impressed, Guillaume - is it a keeper, then?

Hmmm I fear so! As much as I love the ARIES LDS interface and flexibility with UPnP this clever (big!) box just does something really quite special.

I was impressed the instant I played the first track. It's literally in a different league, which I suppose you would hope given its (high!) price tag.

Set up was a little bit fiddly though... but it's all working perfectly now (phew!). You have to rename your NAS (which can do funny things to computers which connect to it) and creating a new shared folder (and dumping 30GB of music in it) pushed my RAID 5 into overdrive (all evening yesterday) causing the odd dropout... at first I couldn't get the music to play even though it showed up in the MPaD app on my iPad. Turned out I needed to go into the IPeng 7 app first and inside this app disable audio output... since this option prevents MPaD from reading files... Of course all this is explained in the manual which I hadn't bothered to read properly (I assumed I would only need to go into IPeng to use streaming services such as Qobuz). So not quite the plug and play of the ARIES and LDS but I got there in the end!

The MPaD app on my iPad is surprisingly good. It's a bit quirky in its operation (for e.g. you need to manually update the database and refresh local cache) after you upload new music files to the NAS... it also took me a little while to figure out why some album artwork wasn't showing although that's all fixed now though! There is an iPhone version of the app called MPoD which seems to work fine, but I prefer using the iPad app at the moment. MPaD seems to be very responsive and reliable so far.

(As an aside, at the moment I'm only using it to stream but it's also a reclocker accepting USB, AES/EBU. S/PDIF and optical inputs. So you could connect a CD transport to it for example. Will also try feeding it USB from my Mac to see how that compares).

Guillaume

[Kunter]

Sounds like you're impressed, Guillaume - is it a keeper, then?

Hmmm I fear so! As much as I love the ARIES LDS interface and flexibility with UPnP this clever (big!) box just does something really quite special.

I was impressed the instant I played the first track. It's literally in a different league, which I suppose you would hope given its (high!) price tag.

Set up was a little bit fiddly though... but it's all working perfectly now (phew!). You have to rename your NAS (which can do funny things to computers which connect to it) and creating a new shared folder (and dumping 30GB of music in it) pushed my RAID 5 into overdrive (all evening yesterday) causing the odd dropout... at first I couldn't get the music to play even though it showed up in the MPaD app on my iPad. Turned out I needed to go into the IPeng 7 app first and inside this app disable audio output... since this option prevents MPaD from reading files... Of course all this is explained in the manual which I hadn't bothered to read properly (I assumed I would only need to go into IPeng to use streaming services such as Qobuz). So not quite the plug and play of the ARIES and LDS but I got there in the end!

The MPaD app on my iPad is surprisingly good. It's a bit quirky in its operation (for e.g. you need to manually update the database and refresh local cache) after you upload new music files to the NAS... it also took me a little while to figure out why some album artwork wasn't showing although that's all fixed now though! There is an iPhone version of the app called MPoD which seems to work fine, but I prefer using the iPad app at the moment. MPaD seems to be very responsive and reliable so far.

(As an aside, at the moment I'm only using it to stream but it's also a reclocker accepting USB, AES/EBU. S/PDIF and optical inputs. So you could connect a CD transport to it for example. Will also try feeding it USB from my Mac to see how that compares).

Guillaume

Great quest Guillaume,

Can you compare external usb input as well? I understand you can just plug in a thumb drive and play the files on that? I wonder as the network components will be out of the question, if/how the sound will change?

from the manual, in case you missed it

"
Using a USB disk for the music storage

It is also possible to use a USB stick or a USB disc for the music storage. In this case the files are seen locally by the d1-server only. To add music on a USB stick or disk you must unplug it from the d1-server and plug it into a computer
"

NO USB powered 2.5" drives allowed though...

Cheers...

Kunter

[GuillaumeB]

Sounds like you're impressed, Guillaume - is it a keeper, then?

Hmmm I fear so! As much as I love the ARIES LDS interface and flexibility with UPnP this clever (big!) box just does something really quite special.

I was impressed the instant I played the first track. It's literally in a different league, which I suppose you would hope given its (high!) price tag.

Set up was a little bit fiddly though... but it's all working perfectly now (phew!). You have to rename your NAS (which can do funny things to computers which connect to it) and creating a new shared folder (and dumping 30GB of music in it) pushed my RAID 5 into overdrive (all evening yesterday) causing the odd dropout... at first I couldn't get the music to play even though it showed up in the MPaD app on my iPad. Turned out I needed to go into the IPeng 7 app first and inside this app disable audio output... since this option prevents MPaD from reading files... Of course all this is explained in the manual which I hadn't bothered to read properly (I assumed I would only need to go into IPeng to use streaming services such as Qobuz). So not quite the plug and play of the ARIES and LDS but I got there in the end!

The MPaD app on my iPad is surprisingly good. It's a bit quirky in its operation (for e.g. you need to manually update the database and refresh local cache) after you upload new music files to the NAS... it also took me a little while to figure out why some album artwork wasn't showing although that's all fixed now though! There is an iPhone version of the app called MPoD which seems to work fine, but I prefer using the iPad app at the moment. MPaD seems to be very responsive and reliable so far.

(As an aside, at the moment I'm only using it to stream but it's also a reclocker accepting USB, AES/EBU. S/PDIF and optical inputs. So you could connect a CD transport to it for example. Will also try feeding it USB from my Mac to see how that compares).

Guillaume

Great quest Guillaume,

Can you compare external usb input as well? I understand you can just plug in a thumb drive and play the files on that? I wonder as the network components will be out of the question, if/how the sound will change?

from the manual, in case you missed it

"
Using a USB disk for the music storage

It is also possible to use a USB stick or a USB disc for the music storage. In this case the files are seen locally by the d1-server only. To add music on a USB stick or disk you must unplug it from the d1-server and plug it into a computer
"

NO USB powered 2.5" drives allowed though...

Cheers...

Kunter

Great idea Kunter! Will try that right away!

Guillaume