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You're welcome ...............................!
I suspect lots of uRendii will be coming onto to the used market as the UltraRendu rolls out. I was able to scoop one up from a local audiophile who just upgraded and who keeps his audio gear up to date and in 'germ free' condition.
It came with a free in-home trial and installation!
Thank you......................................!
Came W/O a PS so I'm currently running it with the PS that came with the Regen. The uRendu only a small bit larger than the Regen so it can plug directly into the USB port of my DAC using the USB A-B plug that comes with the Rendu and the Regen.
Is it better than the Pi, they ask?
By a fair bit but not by HUGE, JAW DROPPING amounts.
OK, not five times better but as audiophiles, we know the upgrade math, don't we?
The Pi with the best of the HiFi Berry boards is the bargain of the century, for sure. The uRendu is a step up but a serious step up in $$$
It truth, I'd guess the uRendu with a cheap switcher PS is about equal to that of the Pi running on the LPS-1 Ultracap supply (which I also had a chance to hear). I'd also guess that the uRendu with the LPS-1 is another step up of about the same amount from what I am hearing now with the cheapo switcher.
Keeping in mind that it's not apples to apples comparison here as the Pi output is S/PDIF whilst the Rendu is USB. It's DAC dependent and who knows which input on my DAC is the better? Not me.
The LPS-1 is my next step, as soon as the dust settles.
I think it safe to say that we are now clearly above the level of my MacBook Air USB to the DAC even with an 'audiophile' USB cable. That's with the uRendu running Squeezelite and powered by the cheapo switcher which came with the Regen.
That was the goal all along.
Thank you......................................!
Follow Ups:
Going to fire her up Saturday. Need to rearrange my Kit!!!
I love Plug and Play!
Will
Did you get the v2.5 software release on micro-SD ? It's $20 via snail mail.
Sonicorbiter v2.5 release notes:
1. The base operating system and kernel has been updated.
2. All the pre-configured applications have been updated to the latest release versions and or stable versions.
3. DSD playback now supports Native DSD with pop-free PCM/DSD transitions.
4. New devices have been added that support Native DSD playback.
5. Spotify Connect has been added as a new output mode. This new output mode can be controlled by your computer or tablet running the Spotify application. The application can be installed and uninstalled from Software Manager. This application is based on librespot - an open source client library for Spotify.
6. A SongCast receiver has been added to the existing MPD/DLNA output mode. This new output mode accept streams from your computer running Linn Songcast. The application can be installed and uninstalled from the Software manager. The application is in Beta form.
7. This version also contains other bug fixes and enhancements.
But not the ver. 1.4 hardware.
That's gonna have to wait a month or two.
Next is the LPS-1 UltraCap Power Supply.
These types of gadgets may work wonders on some DACs, but not for others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Humility is the true mark of genius. Just get used to it."
-Anonymous
You got a chance at the pi with an LPS-1. Good to know that power supply first is a valid upgrade path.
Thanks
it can power the Pi with 5V as well as the Rendii with 7.5V.
And it DOES improve the Pi over the iFi iPower PS we compared it to.
I really feel the Pi (HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro) with the LPS-1 was close to the uRendu running on the cheapo 7.5V supply that came with the Regen, which is what I am running now.
I will be adding the LPS-1 in a few weeks, soon as my credit card settles down a bit.
Haha, I busted out a laugh.
How do you control that thing? Tablet?
nt
Cut-Throat
Germ Free Mints!
All of my Power Cords wear condoms. Before plugging in!
Cut-Throat
iPad and the browser on my MacBook Air.
Both work well, iPad and iPhone using iOS Sqeezebox app.
very nice that you can use a browser as well. that is very convenient.
off topic but I am happy with my modded Sonos. I can control with tablet apps and my Google Chromebook Pixel 2 laptop can run android apps so I control it with that too.
Happy to see you found something good.
Glad to hear this from you. Getting audionervosa since the Pi outbreak several months ago. Loving my W4S Connect though. Thinking about a dac upgrade.
Will
I use an Auralic Vega that was $2,500 used when it was $3,500 new. I see it is $2,700 or so new now, and excellent piece.It is crazy expensive but I think it would send you to another level.
I always think the sources are the first to be upgraded, including the interconnects, if you still use Mad Scientist Audio you should be set. If you want to be sent up the elevator look into a better DAC as a 10+ year investment like I do.
Edits: 07/24/17
What are you feeding the Vega with?
Will
Modded Sonos using Audioquest Diamond toslink cable into Vega.
Time to hijack Ivan's Thread...
Got the Vega
Let's talk about POWER CORD UPGRADES!
Will
I love gutwire power cables...
.
too anal with the cleanliness, but most of us are careful not to cough on each other's gear.
Those little pucks you see sitting on the audiophile components?
They are not there to damp vibrations, they're for dispensing disinfectant. :-)
I am happy you found something that works for you.
The LMS platform still seems to be the swiss army knife of digital audio.
for music on TIDAL or QOBUZ so it's not a problem.
It WILL be a problem if I decide to subscribe to a 'Hi Rez' streaming site like QOBUZ Sublime+ as I don't think the QOBUZ player in LMS will handle it. I doubt the TIDAL player in LMS can decode MQA either.
Not a big deal as I think I can use the Meridian DAC on the output of the uRendu for that(if I even care).
The great thing about the uRendu is that I now have the option of spending even MORE money on ROON and HQPlayer, whatever they are. ;-)
'Cause that's how we 'audiophiles' roll!!!
Some DSP choices including certain on-the-fly sample rate conversions like PCM to DSD can be quite CPU intensive in Roon or HQPlayer. The heavy lifting CPU intensive conversions are done on your PC or Mac music server, not in the end-point. In this case it pays to have a somewhat hefty music server and not a stripped down low power pico PC or low-end Celeron or Atom based NUC device as your music server.
I've seen CPU and memory utilization go up significantly on my Mac Mini when running certain DSP conversions. Not all but some require a lot!! This is on my 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core-i7 Mini with 16GB RAM. Intel Celeron, Atom, Core i3, may not be sufficient depending on the DSP conversions you choose. Core i5 will be better, and i7 much better.
The good news for me was that HQPlayer integrates nicely with Roon. In other words, I can run HQPlayer AND Roon on my Mac Mini but 'hide' HQPlayer's ugly spartan library management interface and use Roon 'on top of it' instead. HQPlayer does all the signal processing behind the scenes but you use Roon as your front-end. Same if you're using the Roon App on a tablet like the iPad. You don't even see HQPlayer, just Roon. Think of HQPlayer as an on-the-fly sample rate converter including PCM to DSD, and it also handles multi-channel if that's your thing.
Roon also recently added DSP capability but I haven't experimented with it much. These days I'm not even running HQPlayer, just straight Roon.
But again, the end-point doesn't do the heavy lifting DSP work. That's done with HQPlayer and/or Roon running on the music server.
I have an IMac, 3.2-3.6 GH, never any conversion problems with DSD Upsampling, on HQ, AV+, Korg Audiogate.
16GB Ram, but the Processor speed is important, higher=better.
I will check on CPU utilization to see what I'm getting.
"I will check on CPU utilization to see what I'm getting."
It is interesting to monitor CPU utilization for different DSP settings. It can vary considerably and Activity Monitor will give you a good idea of what's going on. In general, slower* CPU's will show higher utilization. On CPU's with 'room to spare' the utilization numbers will be lower. As utilization goes up you may also notice your fan speed increase to keep the processor cool.
*It is a gross generalization to assume that faster clocked CPU's will always out perform slower ones. It really depends on many other factors like how the application is written. If the application is highly threaded and can execute over multiple cores and multiple threads, it will benefit from more cores even if those cores are clocked slower than another CPU with fewer cores. Actual throughput could be higher and not directly proportional to just CPU clock speed. Many older applications are 'single threaded' while newer ones maybe 'multi-threaded'. Some CPUs that run at faster clock speeds may have fewer cores than others that operate slower clock speeds.
In general, many older legacy applications run faster on faster clock CPU's and my not benefit from multiple core.
I think they are worth the upgrade IMHO. Both of them.
Excellent!
I've seen a handful of lightly used microRendu up on Audiogon recently. Now's a great time to buy the original at 1/2 the price of a new ultraRendu unless you think the ultraRendu will be a jaw dropping improvement over the original. ;-)
I suspect that audible differences between network streamers in general will not be 'huge' in a true apples-to-apples setup comparison where you 'drop-in' one streamer for another.... all other variables being the same......
Same power source (if possible) on the streamers, using the same network interface on the streamers, same interface to the same DAC with same digital cable, and of course all the same downstream components.
I will reiterate my personal observation that bigger differences will be heard among different DACs, assuming there is nothing completely mucked up with the streamers being compared.
In any case, enjoy!
Doubt if that comparison will ever really happen as the Pi is S/PDIF and the uRendu is USB, even hooking the Pi up to a S/PDIF to USB converter (which I plan to do, as I have borrowed one to play with for a while).
Someday I may try to kluge the I2S lurking somewhere in the Pi and feed it into the I2S RJ-45 input to my Audio-GD DAC.
Just for fun and for no other reason, I plan to solder an optional BNC connector for the S/PDIF output of the HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro board, as my DAC also has a BNC input. Then try hanging it off of the back of the DAC using the BNC adapter pictured above.
Bottom line: The Pi ain't bad, the uRendu is better and adding the LPS-1 elevates either and both more that the differences between the two.
Seems like it's always the Power Supply that counts the most. Where have we heard that before?
I agree with you Ivan. The more revealing the system, the greater the impact of the power supply. The LPS-1 is damn good for the money.
I am just finishing up my review of the SOtM sMS-200ultra and the sPS-500 power supply.
And yes, you are an audiophile !
"...as audiophiles, we know the upgrade math, don't we""
You consider yourself an audiophile running "a" PI and a HifiBerry SPDIF??? OoohhhhKay !?!?
1st, you're comparing different interfaces and than a MidFi (at best) Pi setup with a quality commercial audio streaming device.
And then you're that much surprised about obvious differences...
Enjoy your uRendu.
What part of "Keeping in mind that it's not apples to apples comparison here as the Pi output is S/PDIF whilst the Rendu is USB." didn't you read?
Had the chance to compare my $100 Pi, the Pi/LPS-1 and the uRendu/LPS-1 in another 'audiophile's' (dare I use that term?) system and can't help but wonder what level of insecurity would cause a guy who spends his time hacking Sqeezeboxes and Pis to disparage anyone with taunts of 'consider yourself an audiophile' and 'mid fi'.
But you keep hacking away on your Squeezboxes and Pis and I'll continue to enjoy my 'mid-fi' 'audiophile' life-style. :-)
He does that to everyone making comparisons . :)
Definitely need to get your own LPS-1 with star quad DC supply cord!
Some people can't read and are quick to criticize. Similar thing happened to me when I posted about iPeng software. Similar style rant after he failed to read.... or failed to comprehend. Either way, it was uncalled for.
.
nt
Cut-Throat
n
nt
Cut-Throat
Soundchekk
I used your mods on the Squeezebox Touch back in the day. You certainly know what you are talking about.
Which of the current commercially available streamers do you like for a reasonable price ie. round about $2k.
Thanks
2k??
With an Allo Kali I2S reclocker, a pair of nice power supplies and of
course a good OS, my current RPI setup is all I ever wanted.
And all that at below 300$. And no. I don't have sell this setup after 1 year with a huge loss because there's again a new and best ever device popping up.
The Kali delivers an I2S quality that can compare with the best
USB-I2S interfaces (All USB DACs convert USB to I2S!) out there.
nt
Cut-Throat
The Allo Digione is their newest kid on the block.They pretty much added all the stuff (and more) we've been discussing
over at DIY-Audio related to their other products.Yep. Allo is listening.
Without ever testing it and for sure not going to test it (because I don't use a 2nd class audio interface anymore),
I'd expect they'll keep their promises/goal to build the "Absolut best S/PDIF output" to quite an extent.However.
1. At 99$ they also start pushing their limits. Though, if the device delivers what's been promised it's still more then a bargain.
Especially if you compare it to USB interfaces and the related USB trouble with associated cost to get these fixed.
2. I don't think it's a good idea to let the Toslink go.
Even if it's theoretically worse then SPDIF, it limits the
Digione use cases.
3. Devices behave differently in complex environments
They have to prove that they can cope with this.
4. From what I see on the pics there's no output transformer.
That'll be the best solution with attached devices that come with transformer on the input. Devices without input transformer though
might not be doing that well.
Perhaps a 2nd output would have been the more flexible approach.
5. I don't see an external power option. All Allo devices and other HATs
I've tried have shown better performance by using a separate power supply. You might have to heat up your soldering iron.
Bottom line.If you want to go SPDIF, the Digione is IMO the best SPDIF HAT out there.
A HifiBerry plays in a different league - at least when looking at the architecture and features of the boards.
I'd also expect that quite some USB-SPDIF interfaces will get a tough time
related to performance and for sure related to price.
Edits: 07/25/17
nt
Cut-Throat
E.g.
DietPi
PiCorePlayer
Volumio
have the driver already in.
Moode is releasing an updated version soon.
For sure you'll find an OS to play with the DigiOne.
********************
Looking forward to your feedback.
Yes, i had already checked on the picoreplayer support. I noticed that the latest release has support for the digione.
Cut-Throat
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