astrostar59

I would burn the SMS 200 in for a couple of weeks first. It may change signature (warm up). I think what you are hearing now is a new unit, and also increased detail from the better renderer. I would be surpassed if the bass is less and less body, as I suggest I expect it is more transparency you are now getting (more detail).

Thanks for that good advice. My system idea would be: Netgear router with fibre optical 600mps > Ethernet 1000 base T > Mac mini with 12v DC mod running Room Core > SOtM 200 Ultra Neo with attached ext SSD > USB > DAC input. I would use the SOtM 500 power supply, and possibly the external clock. The whole system is run off the PS Audio P10 power regenerator. My question is then, would the external clock improve sound quality much? Or is the USB Tx more effective. The clock is expensive, thus my question.

A few questions on the SOtM 200 Ultra Neo set. 1. Does the Room Core need to be on a dedicated server? i.e.. not a work Mac. I have a setup where I can use an optimised Mac mini with Uptone 12V mod just as Roon Core, or an iMac that I use to do work on. If there is a degrade in sound I would of course use the Mac mini. 2. Do you get as good or better sound quality running your library off an external SSD or NAS v using a large SD card sat in the 200 (with the system on and music files as well)? 3. What SQ jump do you get with the USB Tx v the external clock unit?

Yes, you need to convert your new Mac Mini to run off an LPS feeding it clean DC to then elevate it to a decent music server player. Without that is will be no better than a Laptop. I have said this before on this thread but been attacked ~(mainly by those who have not even tried this mod). On different commuter for the player or streamer, I am not sure I see the benefit. If you have Roon as a player on your Mac Mini, with the system on SSD and running in memory, and if you run an external Firewire drive with your library, then you should be good. I am still looking for a designation music server that beats my optimised Mac Mini, using screen share to control it and running Roon. The biggest issue I have right now is most servers don't support wifi and many don't screen share to my iMac via Ethernet. Controlling Roon via an iPad and with wifi is rubbish, too slow to respond instantaneously and becomes too annoying. Also I don't want to spend 5K+ on a server that basically is a closed solution, out of date and hard to customise to my needs. Now if the Aurender units ran Roon....

More thoughts on this Agreed, the AN UK copper caps are bad, really poor and lumpy bass, rolled of treble. No idea why Peter Q uses those in the AN UK DAC 5 Special I had, but they are rubbish. Possibly to keep the DAC 5 Signature sounding better by simply changing the caps? I also don't buy into the silver transformers and such which cost a packet and claim to sound so much better. It is the same circuit, yet the Signature costs 15K more! 15K for 2 x 'better' output trans and 2 'better' I/V trans. Ridiculous. Peter can sell ice to the eskimo's.... The AN DACs are old now, way overpriced and can be bettered. Things have moved on IMO. But the Kit 4.1 tweaked up is a sweet spot. I have kept mine and will never sell it, and use it in a second headphone system. My main DAC is the Aries Cerat Kassadra which does everything much better than the AN UK DAC 5 did, MUCH better. Bigger dynamics, incredible detail yet super smooth with it, massive soundstage, bass of the scale good and fast. The AN DACs are sow, and get confused quickly as things hot up. I believe the caps and power supply can't cope, it all needs to be bigger IMO. And the digital board is the old AN UK DAC 4 board going back to 2004. Are they really saying they can't improve it? Don't believe it. I could say more but will stop short. I would recommend the Kassandra and at 18K euros is a bargain v the AN DAC 5. I have tried many DACs now, and the Kassadra is the end game for me, as good a the best TTs IMO. PM me if you are in Spain and want to hear it. Hope this helps.

There is MORE... You can further improve the PS board with oversized Kassai caps. I mounted mine on a separate board at the front. It is a squeeze but will fit. The bass and bass control improves with this upgrade. The digital board is the kit version. The AN UK DAC 4.1 and 5 board is much better, has decent regulation on it. I got a blank PCB and built mine up. It can run off the kit reg board as well. Sounds much better than the kit digital board which is really the original 1.1 kit board. The best tubes are the Bendix on the PS. Peter Q says don't use that, but everyone does, inc on his DAC 5 and M5/M6 pre amps. The Mullard ECL82 is the best reg for the same board. On the line board I liked the Tungsol 5685 best, NOS 1950s. The I/V connections to the digital board and line board needs to be loaded correctly, AN UK use a different loading to ANK Canada. I used the AN UK loading with 680pf caps and 220k tantalums. The tants on the line board can be 2 waters, or better the new ceramic ones from AN UK. Hope this helps.

Lets get back to the start, and if SMPS affect sound quality. There is a lot of information on the internet about this, I suggest you read it. Also, if SMPS's don't affect the sound, why does 99% of amplifiers over say 1K not sue them. I accept Chord do, but they hump through heculian hoops to make them work. Also there is tons of measurements out there that say SMPS create a lot of noise. I am not entering into this closed loop. There are those that know a little and stop at the bottom of the mountain..... others are open to learning....

I am an obsessive audio nut like most on here. I haven't felt this excited about a brand for a long time. Aries Cerat are quite a new company, and some of their design ideas are in the Audio Note / Zanden / Kondo camp. But in Aries Cerat DACs they go much further, extreme even. Size and weight is of no consequence if it affects the sound in any way. Of course we have output transformers, tube gain stage, no filter etc. These are I found the magic sauce, crucial to a good NOS design. This approach to built it big if required is most refreshing to me. In the world of DAC I am fed up with measurements and claims of vanishingly low noise levels, but when I hear those very DACs they sound flat, boring and lifeless. That is why I have had a 'thing' about 'the digital sound'. I can tell you I am free of that finally with the Kassandra. Here some more pics I took today with the V281 headphone amp sat on top (looks tiny).

wrong is again saying your opinion is FACT and it is not. It is your opinion, you can't have it both ways. I gave my experience with my own Mac Mini as I went through the stages of base, Audirvana+, and other player software, Uptone Audio mod, LPS, SSD and more memory. And in these stages the sound increased each time. I am telling my story. If you want more 'fact' spend a bit of time on the Uptone Audio Mac Mininthread on this forum, and ask some folk who have actually done it. Then come back here. No point is thawing out 'facts' when you haven't actually tried it, or talked to others who have done it. Now that is Wrong. Going back to 'not making any difference' really this is baby stuff. We all know PCs and Mac and various build of each DO make a difference to the sound you end up with. Streaming maybe, but as a player sending data to a DAC, it has a massive effect.

It is my music room, I use it as my demo for Aries Cerat. I have updated my signature. Hope this helps.

Agree odd review, and no mention of it's suitability to audio (high end) use. I spoke to Sonore and they told me the more powerful Intel chips produced later on (Mac and PC) can inject more noise by the very nature of how they work. Plus more heat of course. You don't need more chip speed unless you are converting PCM to 256 DSD for example. I need to decide what to do if my 2015 Mac Mini blow up. Probably get a dedicated one box music server that can run Roon. The Roon Nucleus+ looks interesting. If Roon advance that a bit more, maybe....

I have it in my profile and I said in my post: 4 weeks ago I started offering my music room for demo’s for Aries Cerat and became the distributor for them in Spain & Portugal. I bought the Kassandra before I became any kind of dealer. I bought at full price. And believe me when I say, I would not put any audio gear in my own system unless it was better than the previous unit it repaved, even if I am now a dealer for Aries Cerat. Proof is in the listening, hence why I invite any DAC to pitch against my Kassandra. Hope this helps.

There are tons of measurements and technical papers on how SMPS inject noise into audio. Have a dig around. It is not a new subject. SMPS are cheap, dead cheap to produce, and can handle different line input voltages so easier to stock US/Japan/EU models as one model. It is not designed in as a sonic benefit IMO. Any Music streamer worth it's salt will have a nice LPS supply or even battery to avoid such chaos. I went from a base Mac Mini to Uptone audio mod with LPS and the sound quality jump was huge, less hash and the treble got super smooth and analogue like. I don't need measurements to confirm what I can hear. Likewise when I upgraded my various USB chains over to LPS supply, especially the Rednet 3 ethernet to SPDIF, the same thing again. Added up all these things make a new source IMO, one that can compete with the mid Aurender units. I had 2 at home and the Mac Mini was on par in my system. I prefer Roon to the Aurender app hence why I still use the Mac Mini. Have you emailed Uptone Audio to see if they do the mod?

My R2R DAC journey I came across NOS DACs (R2R) about 15 years ago and have been DAC hopping mainly with this type of DAC ever since. I find this DAC architecture sounds right to my ears, very natural and smooth, and closer to my old vinyl rig I used to love so much. I must admit I have had a love / hate relationship with digital from the outset, but R2R DACs seem to do more things right, possibly less well on the tech specs, but have such a realistic timbre and music flow, it is hard to resist them. I have owned or had at home: 1. Pink Triange DeCapo with battery supply Remember this one? A classic and quite radical at the time. 2. Various Meridian DACs circa 1995 3. Various Naim DACs circa 2000 4. A Linn CD12 (borrowed for 4 weeks) (2014) 5. MSB Platinum inc Signature Powerbase (2016) 6. CH Precision C1 (2017) 7. Chord DAVE (2017) 8. Lampizator Golden Gate (2017) 9. Naim CD555 (used item - 2017) 10. Audio Note UK DAC 3.1 (2014) 11. Audio Note UK DAC 4.1 (2014) 12. Audio Note kits 4.1 heavily modded (2015) 13. Audio Note UK DAC 5 (2017) I also owned as a second DAC the Metrum Hex, later the Metrum Pavane, the AMR DP-777 and a used Meridian. And heard many more at shows, friends houses, and borrow for a while. All of these DACs did somethings extremely well, but fell short in other crucial areas. The C1 for example, initially I was super excited about this DAC, and had it for a full day in my system. But after 3 or 4 hours it began to unravel and I found certain types of music didn't sound good on it, particularly strings and female vocals. Others such as the Naim had great rhythm and drive but lacked soundstage and transparency. The DAVE had soundstage and transparency but lacked weight and realistic timbre. Others sounded too digital in the true sense, a coldness and lack of three dimensionality, boring even. The Audio Note kit 4.1 when modded was actually very good within it's envelope. In fact I have kept that DAC, partly as it is 'my creation' to an extent. But still not there.... Here is the Audio Note 4.1 kit DAC I modded it over an 18 month period with AN UK parts, Duelunds caps and Sowter transformers. 1. ANK Canada output transformers (very good). 2. Upgraded power supply with AN Kassai caps x 3 and big Duelund caps on the regulation, V-Caps on the rectification. Bendix 6X5 equivalent (superb tube). Mullard ECL82 NOS. 3. ANK gain stage with 2 x 5687 Tundols NOS tubes, AN tantalum resistors, Duelund Copper Cast caps (superb caps). 4. AN I/V transformer T-496. 5. Digital board form an AN UK DAC 5. I still own it, and at the same time had the Audio Note DAC 5 as my main DAC. Both these DACs sound really good. I sold the DAC 5 last year. I bought this AN UK DAC 5 used for 8K, but it is 30K new. It is a 2008 spec model, but the current model DAC 5 is almost identical. IMO that is too high a price for it, as even though it does some things very well and is refreshingly un-digital, there was a lack of fine detail in the mid-upper treble region and the dynamic were compressed. I swopped out the Audio Note caps on the gain stage for Duelund Copper Cast which made it a different DAC completely, and makes me question the sound of the original caps holding it back so much. But frustratingly, even then I was not totally happy. Enter the Aries Cerat R2R tubed DAC I have owned the Aries Cerat Kassandra Ref II since February 2018. It was a game changer for me, and I wanted to share my experiences with members here. It is an unusual DAC, with some similarities to the Ypsillon, Zanden and top end Audio Note models. However, I have found it leaves those models in the dust. It is a huge DAC, and weights in at 60 kilos, built like a tank with stainless steel chassis and a 10mm thick smoked glass faceplate. The power supply is also massive with a big capacitor bank for super smooth power supply. The digital section is also quite unique using the AD1865N-K chip but this time 16 of them. The digital board spans the whole width of the DAC and half the depth. The DAC is 54cm wide by 52cm deep. It has a non up sampling, no filter architecture which many believe (including me) sounds more natural than DS or 1 bit technology. It uses transformers on the I/V stage and output transformers to driver the final stage. The tube stage is a very well engineer small SET amplifier in it's own right and is part of the magic / secret sauce to this DACs sound. Like many I would guess, I have spent many years fighting with digital sound, from the very first 18bit DACs at crazy prices, through the upsampling and oversampling years of disappointment, frustration, love and hate of digital sound. I have been through quite a lot of DACs, some bought new, others used, I have assembled kits, modified kits, had kits made for me. Still the search went on. The closest I got in all this was the ancient Audio Note DAC 5, which seemed to do a lot of the things I wanted, but frustratingly not everything. As is the nature of this hobby, the things it DIDN'T do became a bigger and bigger issue for me. So having made a ‘leap of faith’ I am now an avid fan of Aries Cerat products! The Kassandra cost me 18K, and although not cheap is good value IMO compared to the others I have tried at home. In the flesh it is a beast and superbly built. I recently ordered the Aries Cerat Genus SET integrated amplifier. Ironically I used top run Audio Note Monoblock SETs 300B amps for 5 years, before I went solid state on the amplifier front. There is something I miss about SETs sound, and the Genus I have heard has none of the usual lack of dynamics and loose bass of my previous Conquest MBs. 4 weeks ago I started offering my music room for demo’s for Aries Cerat and became the distributor for them in Spain & Portugal. I am in España (SPAIN), so if anyone wants to hear the Kassandra in my own system please PM me, you are more than welcome.

The OP asked for advice I offered my advice, I am no way saying it is fact. BUT to my ears and my 2 year tests it worked well for me. I don't spend any money on audio unless I absolutely have to. I don't do anything to my system to make it worse. I do not regard 'journals' as helping me find better sound. Back to my posts, I did in fact want to say SMPS is bad for audio, yet you claim it isn't????? Odd. Lets get back to sharing our opinions and experiences, that is what I am doing. I am not going all 'journal' or accusational. Too much of that in politics. I would NEVER chastise anyone lookijg for advice. Believe me, I have been round the audio merry go round and have appreciated much of the advice I have got along the way. But I go back to my advice, the Mac Mini is basic without the mod, so don't buy it and leave it at that. Buy a music server instead. Or buy the Mac Mini, do the mods and enjoy...