artur9

That's what an Ethernet switch is, in contrast to an Ethernet hub.

I used to have some SMGa. Loved them, esp. loved the look of people that didn't believe they were speakers. But no room currently for anything like that. In terms of amplification, I have some Odyssey Audio Stratos mono blocks that sound great. I think they'd be wonderful with the Maggies. And Odyssey Audio amps start at under $1000.

Firstly, thanks. Good to have results from a consistent set of ears and hardware. Secondly, yeah, mpd is something else, UI-wise. I use minimserver, upmpdci and Linn Kazoo to tame it. Roon, not my thing. AO/PL is running where?

OK. I wouldn't download it from the Zimbabwean store either. Good thing I already have it. ;-) You could try using the command line client, mpc. Or maybe one of the Bryston MPD apps. Theremin on the Mac worked fine. Or are you Windows-based?

I've done this in MPD mode with mpod, which is a free iOS app. Download that, start it and go into connections. I think it should show up under DISCOVERED PLAYERS as MPD on eunhasu. If it doesn''t you can manually add it if you know its IP address. I connect the stick(s), go into mpod settings, hit refresh local cache and update database a few times. Then I go into Browse and I can see the USB sticks. It's doesn't seem to be the quickest at noticing that sticks have been added/removed so it's a bit frustrating.

With the MPD option on the SMS-200 you can do DOP, at least there's a checkbox for it.

Not sure what you're getting at? I've been enjoying mine for the last 6 months. It's an all around stellar device.

That's one of the things I like about the MinimServer/Kazoo interaction. I can configure MinimServer to present custom metadata and Kazoo has no problem navigating such. Not that I believe that Kazoo is somehow unique in this respect. But it's less crash-y than some of the other control points I've used.

I use MinimServer and Linn Kazoo on my iPad. Sadly, no Bubble for iOS.

I have a phono amp (link to PDF manual) with USB out and I have needle dropped a few albums but... I have heard that my preamp over USB isn't that faithful to the RIAA curve. What I'd like to do is find a reference LP with a sweep or something that I can use to measure the preamp's output so that I can correct non-linearities digitally (on the computer). What would you all recommend for such an LP? I've seen some old measurement LPs but I don't know which would be any good.

Or even eBay. I got a set of Odyssey Audio mono blocks for $600 from eBay. Shipping was killer, thought.

You'll probably have to buy Roon if you haven't already. The help they provide is pretty good for their customers. If you just want to hear the device I found it pretty easy to copy some music to a thumb drive and then play it with the MPD setup if you already have an MPD client.

New(?) review: SOtM sMS 200 Streamer | Hifi Pig I didn't find much difference with the SMS-200 and the 2 different LPS I tried with it. One was cheap JamesCo and the other a cheap Chinese LPS about 4x bigger. In terms of hard drives, if I listen closely to a drive I hear all these chirping noises from the capacitors (I think) charging and discharging. Can't imagine that would be good for the sound. There's a guy over on another forum who's decided that thumb drives are the way to go. I have my SMS-200 fed from an old laptop via MinimServer/upmpdcli into its MPD interface. Sounds fantastic to me. (roon not ready for classical yet).

You might find this microRendu vs Aries thread interesting.

I have a Foundation as well, which is an awesome device ;-). I use a Wyred4Sound uLink to convert USB to S/PDIF. My chain, which I think sounds fantastic, is MinimServer -> SoTM SMS-200 -> uLink -> preamp. Your chain, with Roon, would be Roon -> SoTM SMS-200 -> some converter -> preamp. I think if you could avoid the USB->S/PDIF converter you'd be better off. The tradeoff is there's a lot more choice in devices that output USB and some forms of high resolution music can only be output over USB. If you have no interest in high res music than a Sonos Connect is a good choice. I haven't heard the Brystons but they seem a bit overpriced. You can get the microRendu or SMS-200 for less than 1/2 of what Bryston costs. Then again, adding a good converter brings you right back to the Bryston prices. You could always go really cheap for now and get the HifiBerry and see how you like that.