Oepsie

Tonight I had a couple of friends over to double check my findings with another microSD card for the sms-200. Based on coincidences, I've been running my setup with a sandisk card so far. So wanted to try out for myself the aforementioned Verbatim Pro card (64 gb version) to see what all the fuss is about; to see if I could hear any differences 😬 An initial disclaimer about my experiments: I've played around with the cpu latency and the cpu throttling and I prefer the latency parameter turned off and no throttling; to my ears, these parameters 'thins' out the midrange and make the sound a bit brighter than the standard non-throttled settings. The effects are there with both SD cards but more noticeable with the sandisk card as (maybe because it is brighter to begin with, see below?). To my concern, I'm actually able to hear a difference between the sandisk and verbatim cards.. In direct comparison, the sandisk sounds a bit more open and bright, with a greater focus on instrument decay and a more balanced presentation. Switching to the verbatim card, the midrange becomes more 'full' with more details but the overall balance is a bit darker and instrument decay is not even across the frequency range. So my conclusion is that the sandisk card matches my system better, giving a more natural, homogenic character across the frequency range. The verbatim card gives a bit more boom to the base as well but generally has a very nice, detailed midrange. With some music, the sandisk becomes a bit bright and gives a slight metallic character. Opposite, with the verbatim card certain music looses a bit of energy, especially with rock music (the black keys, radiohead, audioslave, rage against the machine), noticeable in drums and electric guitars which sound a bit more muffled. Having owned the sms-200 with a Paul Hynes sr4t LPS for 3-4 years, a lot of changes has been made to my system with the sandisk card, so home court advantage is definitely there as the system has been tuned with cables and other components around the sandisk card signature.. 😁 A final remark is that my system in general is tuned towards a warmer character, making compromises in order to make rock music listenable. Maybe that is the reason why I find the verbatim a bit too dark in my system..?

I sometimes experience the same as Mahler above. The sms-200 restarts instead of shutting down. I use roon, and when the issue happens, it helps turning off the roon service and then turn off the sms-200 again.. The issue has been there from the beginning (since +3 years), I’m now on latest firmware.

Nice ☺️ Upgrade took 250 sec and kernel update about 6-7 mins. No time to listen yet 🤕

Having spent 14 days with the new update, in my system, the cpu latency tuning is not all good 🤕 I hear better sense of room and micro details on instuments, especially acoustic guitar or classic music but bas looses at bit of impact and music has less drive.. most noticible with rock musik with the black keys or the raconteurs as examples. Tried several times back and forth.. Any thoughts?

Have you tried copying the 5.1 image from the old sd card onto the new card and doing an update through eunhasu interface? That would be my next move if you haven’t tried that. And by copy I mean creating an image from the old sd card and burn in onto the new.. ☺️

Same success here. Dd image on macbook. Burn onto 16 gb sandisk class 10. Have done it several times with success. Have also tried making a backup image from older installation to burn onto a friends sd card. Also worked like a charm ☺️

Update went fine here, first try. Took 7 hours though. Had to check several times along the way but eventually it was done..

I tried several PSUs before settleling on the SR4T for my SOtM streamer. Even with this rather low-cost streamer (the basic sms-200), the improvement is noticable in aspects of naturalness, realism and PRAT. Some PSUs give a softer presentation, some more harsh (of the ones I tried). The PH is spot on in my opinion. Tried in my friends setup as well and the impact and sense of realism was the same, even on an external clock for his usb-s/pdif converter.

I borrowed a dhlabs power plus cable from a friend. No special connectors or anything.

Got to try another mains cable tonight with my sr4t. Annoyingly, the difference was clear. Better tonal balance, more natural timbre, better control of the bass. Still trying to figure out why a better cable makes a difference on the lps of a streaming device... sigh.. 🤯

Yes, same as normal sr4. Mine has 5, 7, 9 and 12 volts

Any other advice on suitable mains cables? The Furutech DPS 4.1 costs about the same as the SR4T WITHOUT plugs - so cable only. Too steep for my budget 🐵 Mine sounds great out of the box with just a standard cable but I'll definitely try other options..

Yes, it was part of the April batch. Ordered in February. I’m already happy with it. It has great speed and attack combined with finesse in details.

Yay!! My SR4T arrived today!! Looking forward to hearing it with my sms-200 :) With the upooc cable option.

Regarding PSU, I've tried out several LPS options (although none of the options mentioned in this thread 😆). Most of them gave a somewhat relaxed presentation with lots of details but with loss of dynamics opposed to my current favorite: A no-name LPS with a fan (that can be stoped with a paper clips 🙃). This gives the right level of attack and rhythm to the music and makes the sms-200 less soft. Realizing that this was not my final solution, I've finally settled on a Paul Hynes SR4 LPS (after reading much about it). I'm very curious whether it will give the balance between attack and musicality to fit my system. So fingers crossed - its a bit delayed due to the corona pandemic.