A Confused streaming system - Mutec / SOtM Ultra

[octaviars]

So a big surprise.  I guess I have never been 100% convinced by the SOtM kit, but I did not expect my "£200 off eBay" universal device to edge it out.  Maybe something to do with taking the PC and network out of the chain, and instead using a simple bit of audio circuitry to send a digital file to the MC3+USB?  Maybe a result of taking USB out of the chain altogether? 

There is no way of telling for sure.  Which ever way you look at it though, it does indicate that there is a little bit of extra performance to be gained somewhere from the streaming system.  This has also got me thinking again about that Weiss DSP501, which outputs S/PDIF AES/EBU, I wonder what the retail price will be?

 
The question you wrote @Confused "maybe a result of taking the USB out of the chain altogether" is something I have asked myself after trying out a different streamer runing AES to my TAD dac. Either USB from my SOtM rigg is not as good as the streamer I tested runing AES or perhaps the USB input on my DAC is not as good as the other inputs.

The Weiss looks intresting but after a bit of Googeling I found prices in Hong Kong and with added VAT it looks like a 501 will cost around £7000 and a 502 around £8000 (could be more or less). That is a lot of money for just having an endpoint outputing AES even if Weiss have a lot of functions built in to the DSP models.

I still think you should try a dCS Network Bridge with AES directly to your Devialet that would be intresting as it sounded really good in my system and a much lower price than Weiss.