HenSch

So here is the impression from me, another non-Phasure user: After receiving the Lush on Thursday this week I have appr. 6 hours of listening behind me. My audio pc is running Daphile and I'm using a heavily modded Silverstone USB card with Dexa Neutron Star clock. The Lush is directly going into the USB receiver of my artistic fidelity Afi USB DDC which is feeding a TotalDAC D1 Dual DAC via AES/EBU. Before the Lush I was using a short DIY USB A->B Adapter with Neotech upocc silver leads inside. That adapter was giving a slightly better sound than the Tellurium Q Black Diamond USB cable I was using before that, the difference was however only in very nuances. The Lush now is more of a night-and-day sort of thing to me. It is really stunning how transformative this cable is to my whole system. Music sounds like real now, something I was looking for a very long time when tuning around my DIY power supplies and all that stuff. Now I'm so much closer to the sound I'm dreaming of - thank you very much Peter! My system is already sounding relatively warm and "dark", but the Lush has not changed the balance further, which is a good thing for me. Biggest improvement with the Lush is pinpoint imaging, width and depth(!) of the soundstage and the 'oh so' natural timbre of both instruments and voices. Pure beauty! All the best, Henning

Hi, the uPD720201 or uPD720202 from NEC / Renesas is a very well regarded chipset for audiophile quality USB PCIe cards. The separate USB card will most probably give you a small step in SQ (should sound a bit meatier and less thin). So just look for an PCIe card with the above mentioned chipset and I would buy one with just two ports and not more. I'm using a Transcend PDU3 card with great sucess. Only difference is that I've heavily modded mine with low-noise power supplies and a separate clock. All the best, Henning

Very interesting infos coming up on the SMS-200! I'm really curious to see the first comparisons with the microRendu. The hardware design approach seems to be significantly different between the two. I'm seeing quite a few switch-mode dc-dc-converters on the SOtM board, whereas the microRendu likely features low-noise linear regulators all over (as I've understood). Unexpectedly the SMS-200 seems to feature an internal SATA port, so maybe the SMS-200 could be quite easily transformed to a very interesting semi-diy solution for an audiophile NAS server!? All the best, Henning

Hi everybody, the day before yesterday I received my Intona back from the factory for a firmware upgrade. Before that upgrade I could not get it to work with my Auralic Vega (XMOS input). After writing with Daniel he stated that he had found some compatibility problem with an older XMOS implementation, which the Vega obviously has. After the firmware upgrade everything is working rock stable from the first moment on. Didn't even have to fiddle around with different cable configurations. The Intona is such a great device. Bettering my Regen with Neutron Star Clock mod! All the best, Henning

Hi Jole, I'm also using a similar hdmi de-embedder and experience crackling as well, on the left channel only. DAC is an Auralic Vega via optical input. In my case I could get rid of the crackling by using an external power supply, rather than feeding the converter via the USB socket of the Blueray transport. So I suggest that you try a different power supply. Furthermore, please try the optical out of the de-embedder, it should give you the same crackling. If this is the case, your DAC is definitely not the root of the problem Cheers, Henning

Hello, I've already tried hard to find a hint how to activate the BruteFIR mode with Daphile with no result. On some screenshots I can see a small icon on the Audio Player screen in the lower right corner iconing some tone controls. That's not shown on my screen unfortunately. Has anybody an idea how to activate it? I'm running newest beta of Daphile. Thanks so much in advance, Henning

Not really, sorry that I expressed myself not clearly enough obviously. Language barrier is a tough one. The toslink input connector is just an opening in the enclosure of the Vega and thus a small open door for EMI entering the inside. Better understandable?

Yesterday I made a really exciting and unexpected experience with my Vega. The overall sound quality of my system had become suddenly remarkably better. I noticed details I've never heard before, voices had become even more realistic and with even more emotional expression. All that had come up during some casual listening together with my wife. Although being no experienced listener, she easily took notice of the bump in sound quality as well. I was speculating the whole evening what might have caused that change in my system to explain all this. The only thing I had done the night before was changing my optical toslink cable from a cheap one with plastic connectors against one from Lifatec, which has machined connectors made of Aluminum. I'm using the toslink only to connect my Blueray transport, but my music is fed through USB to the Vega. So apparently the change of the toslink cable could not have led to the better sound quality, since the USB input is being used and not the toslink. To make long story short, I found out that the Aluminum connector plugged into the toslink must provide something like an additional shield against EMI that might propagate through the toslink input into the Vega and interfere with the USB input board, which is internally mounted directly above the toslink input. To verify this theory I wrapped some self-adhesive copper foil around the toslink connector and connected this foil with an additional strip of copper foil with the casing of the Vega. This measure resulted in an even clearer result of better sound. The naturalness gained again a bit and furthermore the sound image has become rock stable with a great layering. Haven't heard it any better before with the Vega! So my recommendation to you is to just give it a try as well. You will be most probably blown away as much as I am. The easiest measure is tacking a small piece of Aluminum foil from your kitchen in front of the toslink input jack, covering it completely. I'm very much forward in hearing from your results. All the best, Henning

Practical use! I've powered the Regen via the 5V output of a HDPlex LPSU.

Running the Regen with 5V is absolutely no problem, when your DAC doesn't need any power through USB. I've been powering the Regen with 5V already without any hiccups.

Hi Kimmo, first of all a big 'thank you' for all the work that must have been put into that project. The result is really great indeed! I'm running Daphile 64bit RT on a thin client (Futro S550) which features an internal CF-card for storage. The SQ is best when the music is played directly from the CF card. Unfortunately only max. 16GB capacity is supported by the main board. So a really neat feature would be that the tracks from the current playlist are automatically copied to the internal CF card and being played from there. So basically something Aurender is doing with their streamers, where the music files from the playlist are copied to a dedicated SSD. What do you think? Cheers, Henning P.S.: RAM is only 1GB, which seems to be too less for RAM play of an entire album

Hi Zerung, I have to give the Neutrino a serious listening session against the Neutron Star. I hope that I'll find some time for that during the weekend. Keep you posted. Henning

Hi Lateboomer, please go with this configuration as follows: USB drive > usb 3 type A cable > Regen green > USB B to A hard converter > Bryston. Please refer to the foto in my post #2 in this thread. There you can see the correct connection of the Regen to an USB input of a streamer, such as Aries and your Bryston. That will work! Henning P.S.: I've made a mistake in my previous post. The output side of the Regen has a type A USB connector of course.

Hi Lateboomer, maybe the Regen ist connected in the "wrong direction" in your case? Please make sure that the Regen Input is connected to the Bryston DAC. The output of the REGEN (B-type socket) has to face the USB drive. Hope I could help! All the best, Henning

Congrats Pepi, beautiful build indeed! Just one thought: The areas around the two mounting holes of the Neutron Star are connected to the clock ground. Because of the metallic screws you've used, the whole chassis is now tied to the clock ground. In order to keep this insulated to the Regen ground, it is important that the USB B-socket of the Regen is insulated to the chassis. It looks to be so on the pictures, but to be more secure you could try to use some Nylon screws and Nylon washers beneath for fastening the Neutron Star. What PSU are you using for powering the Neutron Star? I've found out that the clock is pretty sensitive to the power quality. In a few days I'll come back with some information on my final setup here. All the best, Henning