hifi_swlon

Yes I agree in general, I was more curious in the technical workings and also at what sample rate the internal mechanism runs to understand the ‘best’ or native rate to send them. I have a Devialet so am limited to its internal sampling rates but personally I play most music at 44.1 because that’s most of my collection. I experimented with upsampling and couldn’t tell it apart blind so abandoned it with my setup. But still I like to know how things work and it’s a pretty well published spec for any DAC/active setup these days. But I appreciate your reasoning especially in the audiophile world. Great news on the App, the stands (and bolting ability) and physical controls. May they all be beautiful.

Great to see you contributing here @mensink. I love the look of these and planning to demo them very soon (having a very challenging home living room space) as soon as a demo pair become available and I have a spare weekend! I have a few questions that I can’t find answers to on the D&D website if/when you have time (apologies if have already been asked above): What bit depth/sample rate does the internal DAC/DSP run at? Are the DAC, streaming module and amps proprietary or third party? Can you tell us a bit more about each? Whats the max input rate that can be fed in via AES and network (assuming RoonReady). Do you know whether they will be true RoonReady (ie be able to be grouped with other RoonReady devices) or a specific setup for D&D only. The website mentions a native native app for volume etc (which one would hope could run within a local LAN only), but all reviews point only to a very basic looking web app. How do the electronics keep cool? Many actives have large heat sinks even for class D, but these appear to have only a very small fan. I guess I’m thinking electronics lifespan being as they’re quite expensive and have a relatively short warranty. When a lower max volume is set at the speaker level, what’s happening? Is it a DSP reduction or are the amps running at lower power. How does servicing/repair work? Again, just thinking about longer term ownership. Would love to see a beautiful hardware wireless remote (Bluetooth or radio) for volume and input, and an ‘input box’ for additional sources to make them more family friendly (airplay etc). But this can all come later. Exciting times.

Mitch seemed impressed with Phantoms and their measurements? Yes I think had the Kii Control been wireless, and the inputs on a hidden wired box somewhere else (a far more elegant and domestically friendly solution IMO) I’d probably have bought kii’s earlier in the year! In a way glad I didn’t as there’s at least one other option now. Would really just love a beautiful remote and input selector on something like an 8c. Am spolit with my Devialet Expert remote which is beautiful and perfect and frankly one of the best things about the hardware. Hard to go back to something ‘worse’.....

Was there any reason Kii Threes were used as a main comparison, and not the Devialet Phantom Golds which I read your review of? I’m just curious since no one seems to compare the 8c to the Phantoms, yet your Phantom review was favourable and they’re quite a bit cheaper. The Phantoms aren’t for me but just curious as there’s not much ‘pro’ feedback. Does anyone have more info on D&D plans to make a proper physical volume control? I’ve heard rumours but nothing solid. On paper these speakers are perfect for me and I’d love to demo a pair, but that would be a deal breaker for me in a home environment where there’s no mixing desk! Using an outboard DAC or digital volume control seems counter intuitive since the speaker has everything built in already. As a general question, are there custom stands and can they be fixed to the stands? I have a young child and would be worried about them getting knocked over and hurting someone or worse (or no doubt damaging the speaker)

Any electrical contact cleaner's probably ok. Something like Caig deoxit, or just isopropyl alcohol.

I ordered the digiOne yesterday. I like the fact they publish their measurement data - if nothing else you can at least say they know how to engineer something. The fact the the USB bridge runs on their own SMB means they're pretty competent engineers. Ive already been down the USB route once so ruled it out for this test and decided to go spdif for a change. I don't know the USB bridge numbers but their claimed (and measured) jitter on the digiOne, using their basic £15 PSU, is 0.588 picoseconds if i remember correctly. Noise of 50uV. Will be interesting to see how it sounds, having never tried spdif. Juas as an aside their customer support was second to none.

Something not mentioned: they are unserviceable. Devialet claim this is due to their inability to open and reseal the cases. This could be important for prospective purchasers, since outside warranty they're essentially throw-away if they develop a fault. @cootI don't think you'll be able to connect your Aurender via Ethernet, but I could be wrong. All ill say is as an existing Devialet customer I ruled them out simply because they're Devialet. (And the fact that the Spark player went wrong in all three demos I had, despite very unconvincing assurances that it never happens. Not least since in one demo the guy said it happened all the time). They are amazing tech, but it takes more than that to make a good product.

Ability to set a fixed IP/netmask/gateway at the device level is a standard setting on every other networked device I have. I just don't understand the reluctance to provide the option, if anything all it would do is make the unit more reliable, and remove the DHCP service if not required. Same for mounting the device as a drive on the network. Why not allow us to disable it? Why would anyone not using the feature want it showing up across their whole network? It must also surely use resources. There are are some other gui tweaks that would make the device better, like allowing specific network modes to be updated (it often says it's up to date but then when you update anyway, you get a new version of RoonReady you didn't know existed), and a button renaming if for example pressing my save can also restart the mode. Anyway, off topic.

Or a fixed IP config option to be added to the microRendu web gui. A 5 min job..... Also an option to disable the network mount for the SD card while they're at it. I thought the idea was to keep the processes to a bear minimum, not add unnecessary ones....

It can.

Thanks Confused. Yeah I'm on the fence about burn-in (well I know the process happens as I've experienced it but think it might be more 'brain' than electronics) but for now it's just playing away and I'll swap the ifi back in at some point. I've also removed the Intona for now to give it a more direct connection (curious Regen link). One thing Paul Hynes does, which is very nice (when you finally get the unit), is give you a generous evaluation period 'to let it settle'. Again, whether he means the electronics or the human factors, I'm not sure.

My Paul Hynes SR3 arrived today after a short delay of a couple of weeks. It looks well built in a nice box, and the 'fine silver' DC lead looks nicely made with a very fine 3-wire weave of twisted pair type arrangement of some sort - clear insulation shows the silver off which is a nice touch. There's a blue LED light underneath too which never hurts IMO. It's plugged in and running, and out of the box my initial reaction is there's little separating it from the ifi - certainly nothing life changing - but to be fair I'm not really in a position to listen 'critically' tonight. Will report back once I've got a few more thoughts to share.

Maybe it wasn't aimed at multichannel users? Is that such a shock? I've been using it for over a year and love it, but don't have any multichannel files, so I guess I'm the target audience - at least at the moment.

There's a dumb gigabit switch - Netgear GS308. Everything's connected through that and it would be hard to remove as its the only switch I have. The router is just DHCP server and access to WAN. I know (and thank you), I was just trying to save you the cost/time/hassle if there's an easier/quicker route A hardware fault seemed less likely as there have been no other issues apart from this (and the Devialet connection but that's now a known issue). Will drop you a line - maybe you can remote in and have a look?

OK, after it not dropping off since my last post, it disappeared this morning. No other devices affected. Was convenient to reboot the router so I did so. No change. Pulled the plug on the rendu and after a reboot all was well. Maybe it's just intermittently not picking up its DHCP leases anymore? Without logs it's impossible to tell. Never had a single playback dropout, so I'm doubtful it would be cabling or anything like that, although I will swap all the patch leads to rule it out. Is there any way to do a clean OS re-install as a test?