Pale Rider

Reached out to Mitch this morning. He was immediately responsive. Within a few minutes, I had paid the PP invoice, and I stalled the files. My SR1a cans and HSA-1b amp are part of a headphone rack that includes the T2/Stax 009S, Mjolnir Carbon CC/Stax 007 Mk1, and Trafomatic Primavera/Susvara combinations, all fed by a Roon Nucleus+ and MSB Select II with Network Renderer. With Filter No. 2, the SR1a may be king of the hill. The Sus still has better bass, but the SR1a has enough to really appreciate the incredible ribbon speed without feeling like one is sacrificing overall tonal balance. Still playing with speaker angle, but this is wonderful. Thanks Mitch!

I use CCC as well, and have been on Big Sur since July on two of my iMacs and both laptops, and on my 2019 Mac Pro, where I do “real work,” since September. Took me a while to get used to the look, but it’s been remarkably stable, and two key things have worked well for some time: (shockingly) my Wacom Cintiq Pro and Capture One.

Thanks for all the input Amadeus; it is much appreciated.

Thanks Chris. I have reached out to him. In the meantime, I have another question or two of EMM or anyone with experience. I am a network audio guy, and generally don't care for USB solutions, but I'll follow the best SQ wherever it leads. Right now, I have a Roon Nucleus+ feeding my various systems. The EMM DV2 does not of course have a direct network input, and I noticed you solved this aspect with a Sonore Rendu Optical. Makes sense. I plan to test an EMM NS1. Any thoughts on whether to use the NS1 with direct access to my NAS using mConnect [ugh, my last experienced with mConnect was really awful], or just to use the Necleus+ and the NS1 [two "streamers"?]. Second involves MQA, and I don't want to start anything here, but I thought I would ask about this note in the NS1 manual and whether it will change in the near future: " *When playing MQA® through the NS1 coupled with MQA®-enabled DAC, the NS1 will output MQA® Core decoded signal. The MQA®-enabled DAC will display the original sample rate of the MQA® stream. In case of the DV2 DAC, the Optilink input currently cannot fully render MQA® streams beyond the Core decoding of 24bit, 96kHz.

Talk about teasing the animals!

Chris's review is timely. I just this past week placed an order for Rossini+Clock, but the comments about internal-vs.-external clocking got me to thinking and researching. So, I'm getting a demo of the DV2 scheduled for next month.

I am intrigued by the Summus, and also have some questions. I've heard a demo of the Euphony software, and it's not bad. I prefer the Roon GUI over the Euphony, but that may be personal taste as much as anything; Roon has certainly had more time to mature, and community support to facilitate that evolution. The circumstances of the demonstration were not set up for comparative listening, but I take at face value the assessments of reviewers who state that Euphony has better SQ than Roon. I'm certainly willing to believe that's possible. Right now, I run a Nucleus+ and am extremely pleased with it. All the files are on an NAS in a separate part of the house isolated via fiber, the Nucleus+ is dead quiet, and it is also nicely isolated from the multiple DACs it serves. It appears to me that the Summus [like the Euphony Zenion PTS before it] must be connected to a single DAC over USB, is that correct? I won't call that a non-starter for me, but I sure do see it as a disadvantage. I am not a USB fan, even when "done right," and I am not at all sure I want another box, however compact, in the headphone rack or speaker system cabinetry. I went that route with various Sonore and Mivera streamers in the past and, while I have nothing but high praise for both, the [inherent] lack of flexibility in a USB streamer is very frustrating. Summus may be fantastic, but I do wish it had an all-network capability/option.

Coming up on release date. I know there have been a couple of (unsurprisingly—read into that what you will) enthusiastic reviews, but have not heard much else. Anyone else take the plunge?

Fun read, and interesting music selections [one of the main reasons I read reviews is to discover new music]. Made me realize I should have Mrs. Vanderbilt, which I thoroughly enjoy, in my headphone test playlist. And it's funny, even with the Stax, the Susvara, the SR1a, etc., I still haven't stopped checking in on occasion with my HD800, flaws and all.

I did not.

No pops here. I did have the occasional very brief dropout with both the PS Audio LANRover and the SuperStream (less frequently on the latter), but the VLAN solved that issue. Both the USB and Network Renderer sound very good with DSD. I have been doing some back and forth between the two inputs, and though I don't quite have the volume level perfectly equal, I think the USB side sounds just a bit better. However, the Network Renderer is served by a different NAS, a Synology RS815 running minimserver. And it is not in the same VLAN.

Very interesting discussion. I have both the QuadDSD and Network Renderer in my Select. Waiting on the I2S module to add that as well. The Select is my only not-Roon-ready DAC, and so, I also added a M_i_v_e_r_a Superstream [really, do we have to be so petty as to not only block the human, but also to screen out his company name? how does that help forum members here?], rather than have a PC or Mac sitting near the Select. I tried the MSS as both Roon server and as Roon endpoint. I preferred it as an endpoint. Roon running on my Synology RS2416+RP seems a bit more open and revealing than when the MSS is doing the lifting of both file delivery and Roon service. The 2416 is completely isolated from the audio side via fiber. The Select and the other DACs are also isolated from the rest of the copper by media converters with linear PSUs. I have actually run out of things to tweak on the NAS side, short of moving up to a bigger/faster NAS. The audio devices get their own regenerated AC. This is a headphone only setup. The Select feeds a Mjölnir-Audio Carbon CC driving either Stax 009 or 007Mk1 cans. My preference would be to send network files to the Select through the Network Renderer. But right now the QuadUSB input from the MSS sounds better than the Network Renderer relying on UPnP/DLNA.

And FWIW, I intentionally updated my 105 to the latest firmware before starting, to see if there would be any problem. Obviously, none.

Been watching this development from the start. I am fortunate to have a PS3 configured to run SACD_Ripper, and that it has performed for me very well for several years now. But it does, as others note, run hot, and at some point, all that disc spinning will take its toll. I set up the files on a small 1gb thumb drive, and the ISO2DSD plus Java on my Mac [running beta of OS X Sierra 10.12.1], all on wired Ethernet. No surprise that the setup does not run a whole lot faster than on the OS3. Actually, it ism a surprise, inasmuch as it is running over the network. Although, I do have to run back and forth to my Oppo, which is downstairs, and I do choose to do a 2-step conversion process using ISO2DSD, so as to lessen spinning wear on the Oppo, this allows me to manage the process more centrally from the Mac on which I do all my file management. Very, very sweet. P.S. I did a check of a few SACDs I had previously ripped on the PS3—identical files. And after the second step in the process, identical file names. Metadatics does the rest of the lifting.