koyie

In the Chord Hugo thread on head-fi, designer Rob Watts said that his current project is the successor to the QBD76, their flagship desktop DAC, but that it may be some time before it is released. It will have even more taps than the Hugo. I would guess that it would be a lot more expensive than the Hugo.

wisnon is quoting from Core Audio Technologies' technical articles: Battery Power Supply | Battery vs Linear Power Supply | DAC Power Supply | Core Audio Technology Core Audio Technology | Articles and White Papers I read all of them when I was researching linear power supplies after reading this article. The articles seem impressive, but I do not have the background to know if the information in them is correct.

Has anyone been able to compare the sound quality of Hugo vs the QuteHD with an external power supply such as the Hynes SR3-12? I have only seen comparisons with the stock QuteHD, which isn't a fair comparison since a battery power supply is better than a wall wart switching mode power supply. I am particularly interested in the sound quality of PCM over SPDIF.

This was a very good review. I own the QuteHD and connect to it via coaxial SPDIF from a Sonore Rendu renderer, which is CASH listed. I prefer to use a single purpose renderer and bypass USB altogether. The best possible conversion is not having to do the conversion in the first place. As I said in my review in the comment section of CA's review of the Rendu, a general purpose computer-based system was never designed to handle the real-time task of replaying music accurately. Music software does what it can to mitigate the deleterious effects of competing processes, cheap power supplies, electrically noisy components, etc., but it is better to start with a system that doesn't have the harmful effects in the first place. I was very intrigued by the idea of upgrading the power supply. Could someone explain how this is done. I thought that external power supplies have DC cables for their outputs. Is the Hynes SR3-12 the consensus pick as the best external linear power supply? If not, which other ones should I consider? By the way, the Hynes website is awful. It doesn't look like it has been updated since 2008. I couldn't find the SR3-12 on there nor any information on how to buy. Finally, how did the QuteHD not make the CASH list???

Also, you should think of a music server or renderer the same way you think about CD transports. High-end CD transports cost many thousands of dollars and include custom power supplies among other things in order to limit noise and jitter. A PC has a very noisy switching mode power supply and was never designed for low jitter/noise. All the music software out there do their best to reduce the problem, but it can never be as good as hardware that was designed from the start to never introduce noise/jitter into the system in the first place. Music software tries to reduce the effects of the computer's operating system and all of the other processes. The Rendu is not a general purpose computer and so it has no operating system or competing processes. It only does one thing - play music. Having said all this, I was still surprised just how much of a difference the Rendu made. I highly recommend giving it an audition.

I use my system only at work, so only headphones. I chose In Ear Monitors over open-ear headphones for the noise isolation. The JH16 FreqPhase IEMs are just phenomenal. CA wrote a great review. It surprises me that headphones get so little attention from audiophiles. One can get a top of the line headphone-only system for an order of magnitude less than a system that has to drive speakers. While headphones will never give one that visceral effect of bass hitting one's chest, headphones also completely bypass all of the terrible room interaction effects that plague systems with speakers. And I also feel that the resolution of the top of the line headphones is also better than just about any speaker.

Now that I've had the Sonore Rendu in my system for a while, I wanted to share my thoughts. But first, I want to thank Jesus for his incredible customer service. We must have sent a dozen emails back and forth, and he gave very complete answers to my many questions. It is such a rare opportunity these days to be able to interact with the designer/creator of something that you buy. So here is my setup: Western Digital WD Elements 1TB HDD connected via a USB 3.0 cable to a Belkin N300 wireless router. The router's firmware was replaced by tomatoUSB, which turns the router into a DLNA Music Server. Since the system has no access to the Internet, I created a private wireless network on the router. The music server (router) is controled via PlugPlayer on an iPad. The router connects to the Sonore Rendu via a generic CAT6 cable. The power cable for the Rendu is a Blank Sand Cable Violet Z1 MkII. The Rendu connects to a Chord QuteHD DAC via Audioquest VDM-5 BNC digital cable. The DAC connects to a Burson Soloist headphone amplifier via Audioquest King Cobra RCA analog cables. The power cable for the Soloist is a Blank Sand Cable Violet Z1 MkII. The Soloist connects to a pair of JH Audio JH16 Pro FreqPhase In Ear Monitors via a custom, solid OCC silver headphone cable. The sound quality of the Rendu is really striking. In my opinion, the ideal system makes me believe that I am there at the concert hall or recording studio. The Rendu brought my system much closer to this goal. Instuments sound more like they do when you hear them in person. In particular, the sound of cymbals was quite unrealistic when driven by my previous source (PC running JRiver). But on the Rendu, cymbals are startlingly realistic. The soundstage produced by the Rendu is both very precise and also very large. The soundstage extends way past my ears, which I didn't even know was possible with In Ear Monitors before. With my PC source, instruments tended to sound like they were on top of each other, but the Rendu gives all the instruments unique points of origin. The soundstage is also now very 3D. The resolution is also excellent. I love complex pieces, and with the Rendu, I am constantly amazed at how I now hear things in the background that I have never heard before. Dynamics are first rate. Bass is very tight and controlled, yet very deep. Voices sound incredibly realistic. Overall, I am extremely happy with the purchase and think that the Rendu is an incredible value.

I am looking to get a cheap laptop whose sole function will be to run JRiver or another music server program. I have a headphone setup (external DAC, USB cable, headphone amp, and In Ear Monitors) at work, so fan noise and an extra screen is not a problem for me. How much memory is recommended for playing high resolution music through JRiver? Is there anything else to look for in a laptop besides memory and hard drive space? Do solid state hard drives improve sound quality? Is there a difference between one company's USB interface and another's? Is there a difference Windows 7 and 8? Chromebooks are very cheap, but there are no music server programs for Chrome OS, correct? It is my understanding that the soundcard is bypassed. Is this correct? What brands of laptops do you recommend? Anything else to consider? Thanks in advance.