I have realised that what I stated in post #206 was not quite right, there was one time that I provided some feedback to Thierry and he sent me two sets of HAF filters to try, so it is actually one less iteration than stated above.
@Hifi_swlon - Yes, quite. Thank you for your kind words Sir!
Anyway, this morning I loaded up firmware 12.2.12 Beta 14. With a quick listen, I can't say that I noticed any significant differences to Beta 12. Let's put it this way, if I had not known the firmware had changed, I certainly would not have picked this up from sound quality changes. One thing I did notice, is that with Beta 14 I seem to need a lot more gain. I have not been paying much attention to volume levels recently but did today when doing a AIR versus SOtM / Mutec trial. Volume levels (gain) seemed much higher than I have needed to use in the past. For good order, I will note this in the 12.2.12 thread. I might even try reverting back to Beta 12 to compare properly, but I am out of time today.
So to a comparison of Beta 14 Roon AIR versus SOtM bundle, Mutec REF10 and MC3+USB. This was a fairly quick A/B comparison and something I would definitely like to try again if I have an idle hour or so free. This comparison was done with both scenarios using the latest HAF filter, so in terms of how things sound this offers a bit of a system reset in both cases.
One thing is clear to me, in absolute terms Beta 14 Roon AIR is superb, and is in my view very close to the SOtM / Mutec kit. Taking the PC out of the equation (the PC is a constant), there is a £7K delta between Roon AIR and the SOtM Mutec set up. There are differences between the two, but they are very subtle. With the SOtM / Mutec some sections of music has a little more atmosphere and is a little more engaging, a touch more dynamics, but to be clear, these differences are very small. I think you would need to have a very good system, very well set up and be very fussy, for the SOtM / Mutec kit to be worth £7K to you. This one was far closer than I expected. One other point. Prior to trying this, I did wonder if with the SOtM kit out of the equation and running AIR if the sound might be a little more full-bodied, even if AIR was a touch behind in other areas. What I actually found was that they did, in fact, sound very similar.
@Hifi_swlon - Yes, quite. Thank you for your kind words Sir!
Anyway, this morning I loaded up firmware 12.2.12 Beta 14. With a quick listen, I can't say that I noticed any significant differences to Beta 12. Let's put it this way, if I had not known the firmware had changed, I certainly would not have picked this up from sound quality changes. One thing I did notice, is that with Beta 14 I seem to need a lot more gain. I have not been paying much attention to volume levels recently but did today when doing a AIR versus SOtM / Mutec trial. Volume levels (gain) seemed much higher than I have needed to use in the past. For good order, I will note this in the 12.2.12 thread. I might even try reverting back to Beta 12 to compare properly, but I am out of time today.
So to a comparison of Beta 14 Roon AIR versus SOtM bundle, Mutec REF10 and MC3+USB. This was a fairly quick A/B comparison and something I would definitely like to try again if I have an idle hour or so free. This comparison was done with both scenarios using the latest HAF filter, so in terms of how things sound this offers a bit of a system reset in both cases.
One thing is clear to me, in absolute terms Beta 14 Roon AIR is superb, and is in my view very close to the SOtM / Mutec kit. Taking the PC out of the equation (the PC is a constant), there is a £7K delta between Roon AIR and the SOtM Mutec set up. There are differences between the two, but they are very subtle. With the SOtM / Mutec some sections of music has a little more atmosphere and is a little more engaging, a touch more dynamics, but to be clear, these differences are very small. I think you would need to have a very good system, very well set up and be very fussy, for the SOtM / Mutec kit to be worth £7K to you. This one was far closer than I expected. One other point. Prior to trying this, I did wonder if with the SOtM kit out of the equation and running AIR if the sound might be a little more full-bodied, even if AIR was a touch behind in other areas. What I actually found was that they did, in fact, sound very similar.
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
