jbm0

I got my SE updated with the full-on Tier III upgrade/update to optical flavor, and I've been quiet here about it, but I can report that... it sounds very very good. Like... I waited to do the upgrade until after the initial opticalRendu batch had shipped, so that I could use an opticalRendu while the Signature Rendu SE was off getting surgery. And the opticalRendu sounded quite good, using the best power supply I had available in the house at the time capable of supplying enough current (a JS-2). But when the optical-ized Signature Rendu SE came back, and got installed right where the opticalRendu had been... there was another leap in the direction of naturalness and unfettered energy. I wish I had the budget to buy another for another system in the house. Now... YMM obviously V, and I believe that the opticalRendu takes another step toward being its best when powered by the new Sonore power supply through a short high-quality DC cable, but still – the Signature is really good, and you should hear it. (FYI, this particular setup involved the Rendus feeding the USB input of a Holo Spring 2 KTE via a Curious USB cable, in case you're curious). Yes, this is completely anecdotal and there was no formal testing. I just played some familiar and demanding tracks before and after a component swap.

Inconveniently, this is clearly a sensible move. I set up a new oR at my office, feeding the USB input of an Yggdrasil and powered by an LPS-1.2. It seemed to be working quite well, and the power supply got toasty but not frighteningly toasty. I congratulated myself on having propped the LPS-1.2 up at a 45 degree angle on a little stand to allow air circulation on both sides. I went home, and came back prepared to drop a note here saying it was working fine for me... but when I got back to the office the oR was offline, the LPS-1.2 cooled down to room temperature and blinking red. Clearly not a combination operating within the supported power envelope. Fine – I'll re-deploy a JS-2 for one oR, blow the dust off a 7V 2A Teddy Pardo and see how it works powering the other one. I had ended up using LPS-1s and later LPS-1.2s because after listening I preferred how things sounded when they were powering microRendus and later ultraRendus to how things had sounded with the conventional power supplies. Given that – one of my main regrets about not being able to use the LPS-1.2 here is that I don't know how sensitive the oR is to the DC power supply, and if it won't work with the LPS-1.2, I don't get to do that comparison to find out for sure what effect dropping back to the linears I'd earlier rejected with previous Rendus might be having.

Yay! Both due tomorrow (Friday), and thus before the weekend!

This news that opticalRendus are shipping now has me refreshing my email view and looking for potential message misfilings maybe a little too often. Hoping that one or both of the two I ordered will make it out in this wave!

Cool, thanks for the clarification.

Oh, so... what kind of fiber are your bundled transceivers expecting? I can't make out the writing on the little picture of an SFP module on the opticalModule page, but looking at the jacket color on the fiber patch cable you're selling, I'm guessing you aren't getting fancy with single-mode fiber, that's probably good ol' OM2 multi-mode? If so, great, this stuff should work well with my existing fiber runs even if I use your SFP modules!

Hurray!

I'm just curious - how many of the people fixated on getting a double rear plate to use along with the double front plate have actually handled an UltraRendu/LPS-1 pair joined by the double front plate? I'm using one of the double front plates, and the joined pair feel like a single solid device. There's no perceptible flex. I kind of understood the concern over potential flimsiness until I felt the complete lack of real-world flimsiness when I'd bolted things together with just the double-wide front plate from Sonore. Now I mentally turf all the rear-plate talk into the nervosa file.

No, it doesn't - at least, what I wrote earlier is dumb, because looking closer I see that the option is to detect MQA DACs, not an MQA bitstream. Can I really not delete or edit a post of my own which turns out to have been nonsensical? I don't like that at all.

That makes sense - I expect that when Audirvana is being told to recognize MQA, that's for the purpose of having Audirvana do the "first unfold", which makes sense to do when the destination is a non-MQA DAC but which would break things for an MQA DAC requiring an unmolested original MQA bitstream for MQA support.

If one has an original microRendu, I think one would upgrade as a matter of course. Jesus and his cohorts haven't yet released an upgrade, er, "update" which wasn't a step in the right direction, and the v1.4 upgrade cost is moderate. Enjoy it, and if you decide to sell it on I expect the market will prefer v1.4 units. (My microRendu package arrived in Florida this Monday, and I await with interest news of upgraded units winging their way back to me.) If there's sufficient cash in the kitty, immediately order an UltraRendu. These are separate truths which may or may not be interrelated.

Neither did I! The microRendu with LPS-1 sounded so much better than the other transports I'd compared it with that I assumed there couldn't be much room for improvement. Turns out there was still farther to go. It's kind of disconcerting.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I've swapped my new UltraRendu into several places where I'd gotten used to (and really enjoyed) the sound of a microRendu, and the improvement isn't even subtle. I've had to order a second Ultra. Dammit. (I've also got a 1.4-board microRendu update in transit, so I'll eventually see where that falls in the continuum. But the UltraRendu is so good.) Latest place I've tried it: feeding the Meridian Prime, whose DAC is currently my closest-to-high-quality MQA player. I've generally strongly preferred multibit Schiit DACs to the Prime's DAC for any straight-PCM (non-MQA-encoded) material, but ended up preferring the Prime when it has MQA to render... but the Prime (whose DAC is USB-only) seems to be pretty sensitive to what's driving it. With the Prime's analog electronics powered by Meridian's companion outboard power supply and its digital section using USB power straight from an LPS-1-powered microRendu, it was sounding pretty darned good... but with the UltraRendu swapped in, the sound just floats in the air the way you want it to, MQA or not. The thing is apparently capable of more than I'd realized, as long as its source is very very good.

My UltraRendu arrived today. I look forward to getting it home and swapping it into a system there which is more of an audio magnifying glass, but of course I wasn't going to wait that long if I could help it, and I dropped it into the desktop setup at work in place of a microRendu. What I can say for sure from this initial acquaintance is that the UltraRendu is very good. To the extent that I noticed a difference from the microRendu (based on aural memory, and across the setup delay) I'd characterize it as: Remember that thing I first noticed when replacing a Sonicorbiter SE with a microRendu and a good power supply - delicacy; the increase in subtle, delicate detail and just present-ness without an electronic-sounding overlay along for the ride? Even farther in that same direction. (Associated stuff: LPS-1 powering Rendu, Curious USB to a Singxer F-1, Audience Ohno S/PDIF to Gumby)

"What this country needs is a really good five-watt amplifier." -- Paul Klipsch