£200 streaming option beats all comers upto £5K

[baconbrain]

First listening impressions: it sounded great but definitely no ‘Wow!’ moments like I’ve had many times in the past and described by some of the people on CA. Compared to the same chain with the SOTM Sms-200 in place the changes are more subtle. What I can hear is about the same tonal presentation just a tad more bright. I do think it’s more true to the recording, brighter recordings sound brighter others about the same. What I can appreciate in this is the cleaner/‘blacker’ soundstage in which I can hear instruments decaying longer and (even) more delineated. Also overtones/harmonics can be heard better which attributes to the realness of instruments. Background vocals are clearer as well.

I did not yet try AL on the i7 server, will do sometime in the near future.

The original recipe as described by Romaz did include a high-end switch between server and endpoint. I don’t have that yet but I’m very interested in Uptones ETHERregen as I think this will improve through isolation.

Thanks for the impressions and glad that you are back to the forum. It is good to hear a more down to earth feedback on the NUC topic.

I also sense a bit of hype from the CA crew. Although I respect their findings, (they all have more knowledge and passion around the topic than I ever will..) statements like "end game" make me a bit weary. I also note a strong tendancy to push SOtM, which are excellent products, but probably not everyones' cup of tea. (I sold mine 4 weeks after I bought it ...)

Really curious about the switch idea. Given that you have been somewhat of a propagator of bridging in the past, why would putting a switch in between a server and an endpoint be preferrable to a straight bridged connection?