Musiq

I’ve juste finished to make a few tests as I have both connect and port on board still for a few weeks until the connect will extinguish itself :) speaking about processing, there is no doubt that Sonos pass signal through its DSP in variable and fixed mode. By the way, even with the analog output you can hear it on high resolving systems. BUT, when you set the output to Pass Through… then you recover the Fixed output from the old Connect, even better. The DAC is I think better and you can hear it with a good preamp/integrated amplifier and interconnects. Details and sound stages even if they are not as good as high end dac are convincing from my point of view regarding a wam sound signature at the opposite from SABRE Delta-Sigma constructions. Connect was not analytical as well, Port is in the same sound signature, but with better silence and less boomy low end. I did not test the digital output yet, but as it is stated it will not process anything greater than 24/48. This is Sonos choice since years. despite that I like the client, the interface, the easiness to send flow of audio to multiple place in the house. the airplay 2 coupling works perfectly and without any delay from any source (iphone, ipad). upnp works also smoothly, integrating sonos into an openhome network with bubbleupnp or with room. Sonos can stream external flow, but with a slightly different sound signature depending on the sources I have tested (minim, room, qnap upnp). the internal streaming mechanism seems to be sensitive to this kind of jitter. This was my 5 cent on this topic, but, please make your tests in pass through mode (see S2 settings) to avoid going through the DSP and try to reverse powerplug because there is a HUGE difference there too (set phase on the upper pin, not the one close to the cable)

It really works fine with ASIO 64 driver, I have written an article as we did tests at our high end mag as well. There is a real diffence with pevious versions. you can read article here Regards

apologies, I have missed your question. The answer is for the moment 'no'. Regards, Musiq

Hello, I am actually writing a review on the M2Tech Vaughan for press and have tested it for more than two weeks in depth. This is one of the most nicer piece of equipment I have heard for a long time. The dirver is the same as the Young, so it does not need any integer mode at all as it is natively supporting more than USB 2.0 24/192 up to 32 bits native DXD and x16 upsampling. Have a nice day, Musiq

Yes, I did. This is a very good DAC where the tones are very close to those of Stello (April's other brand). This was especially good with high res material. The DACs is very well built and have somehow a look of a NAGRA... Music was very transparent with a special clarity that you can find in all DACs with XMOS USB Class 2.0 connection.

Hi Paul, The M2Tech hiface2 does not perform as well as Stello U3. Due to XMOS usage, music sounds very close with each of the transports. Clarity, details and firm bass are all present. With Stello U3, the global stage is better defined, tones are also more natural such as it is with EVO (especially on battery). Even if hiface2 is a very well positionned for such a price, Stello U3 outperforms it on all registers in the overall.

Hello, I did a lot of tests and have written an article a few days ago about the hiface release 2. if you would like, feel free to read it: http://musiq-audiophile.blogspot.com/2012/04/m2tech-hiface-two-english-version.html This is a very interesting upgrade compared to the first version, I also compared it to EVO box and Stello. If you wish to have more information on my tests, just ask Regards Musiq

This is a very interesting thread. In my opinion, as the site founder, I believe that everything rely in the quality of the respective Transport/Dac sections. In the overall, there are DACs that are ugly in USB but have very good S/PDIF performance, bad AES but good ST Fiber, etc. Regarding all these real time protocol (AES, SPDIF, TOSLink, USB Audio Class), none of them are reliable to transmit data WITHOUT error. In all these implementations there are issues with timing and jitter. At protocol level, the best implementation I have seen that allows to have pretty reliable clock is I²S. It also allows to transport information on low cost media, which I know is not at cable manufacturers taste

Thank you for the very interesting review, I have had a very long test session with Stello U3 box and published a short article there : http://musiq-audiophile.blogspot.com/2012/04/stello-u3-english-version.html

here is the way to do it : http://musiq-audiophile.blogspot.com/2011/12/comment-acceder-aux-stockage-nas-reseau.html

to this one I can answer, this is how I use it. So, the answer is yes. You can either skip, go back, pause, play, access to any list/search criteria that are available through regular remote features.

To access you NAS files, follow the note: http://musiq-audiophile.blogspot.com/2011/12/comment-acceder-aux-stockage-nas-reseau.html you will have to use google translation to have it un english. This is the way I use it and it works fine also with hibernation.

To Confirm Marcin's "it should work" and comfort users, I have fully tested JPlay and also with the Apple Remote. It works perfectly with both iTunes (native Remote support) and foobar 1.1 (with Wintense component+Bonjour installed). There is only one detail to raise: when the track is on pause, it does not display the current position but "0" (start) position. After you restart, it resumes at the correct position. This is a very minor drawback from the integration method. Regards, Musiq

I am reading this thread for some time now. I find it useful to add a comment on what you report as I have done extensive tests at software level on different players. What I can attest is that on the test computers I am working on, the output is slightly different depending on the OS tweaks and services running in the background with Jplay. With foobar, this is not so relevant as the background streaming process and real time display hook are taking resources and generating software+OS jitter.