airguitar Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 I'm looking for the very best streaming sound quality I can get with Tidal (plus Spotify or perhaps Qobuz as a bonus but not essential). No other services required - I only stream from the Internet for music so no need to be concerned over supporting local storage music libraries for example. I'm trying to keep this simple, sweet, putting sound quality ahead as the highest priority. I only need a streaming bridge - no need for a DAC (I will use a good quality external DAC) - but if it comes with a DAC anyway, that's fine. I'm just trying to spend my money where it counts, the streaming hardware in terms of investing in a good quality streaming transport (much like in the old days you would buy a hi-end CD transport for an external DAC). Research shows me so far that the SoTM sMS-200 Ultra and AURALiC Aries are contenders (around my budget, but I would spend less if I could achieve the same prowess when it comes to the sonics). Experience tells me that transports are important - for example, I was shocked how good an old Marantz NA-7004 performed as a transport to an old multibit DAC I have in my possession. This is when I first truly realised the importance of the first item in the chain! Can anyone come up with anything I have missed that's equally competent compared to the above two suggestions? Thank you! I don't want anything that will sound less able than the aforementioned. Link to comment
Jonny Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 I personally like the AURALiC Aries cause the Lightning DS app is so good and it has built in WiFi. It still won’t get close to the SQ of a good hi end CD transport though like a PS Audio. Link to comment
airguitar Posted January 16, 2018 Author Share Posted January 16, 2018 OK that's disturbing... a hi-end Aries won't get close to the SQ of a hi-end CD transport... nah I want at least equal to a good CD transport in terms of CD quality Tidal streaming. OK perhaps the sMS-200 Ultra then? Anyone else care to chip in? Link to comment
SeeHear Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 I've had (way better than expected) success with the Bluesound Node 2 (S/PDiF and USB). Also, the Aurender N100 (USB only) is great, too. The Node 2 also does the first unfold of MQA files. miguelito 1 Link to comment
Jonny Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 6 hours ago, airguitar said: OK that's disturbing... a hi-end Aries won't get close to the SQ of a hi-end CD transport... nah I want at least equal to a good CD transport in terms of CD quality Tidal streaming. OK perhaps the sMS-200 Ultra then? Anyone else care to chip in? Yeah I think you’d need to step up to something like an Antipodes DX or Aurender to equal the sound of a PS audio transport. But as with these things, it depends on how revealing the system is. Link to comment
mfin Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 What's the budget, and is the dac you have (or are going to get) going to be able to do full unfolds of mqa? Solutions can get better and better, but there's no point in suggestions that fall outside of your budget. Are you looking around £1000-1500? I assume so seeing as you mention the SOTM sMS-200ultra and Aries, as they fall about there. (EDIT: Sorry, I can see you have just mentioned it as being typical of your budget) The Aries can apparently unfold the mqa for you, the SOTM sMS-200ultra will not. Out of the two, if the Dac you choose will unfold mqa, there's more potential in the sMS-200ultra through further upgrades (a PSU upgrade is a must, and there's plenty of sensible choices from £250-£500), but if the dac won't unfold mqa then the Aries will be a better shout I think or you'll miss out. Or if you can be tempted to lump together your dac budget like you said you were open to, you could go for a Lumin? (I don't know about the models, someone will chime in). One extra note. You could unfold mqa (first unfold) and feed it to the SMS-200ultra by using software that does it, usually to a max of 96/24. Audirvana 3.x will do this and output to the SMS-200ultra when you run "MPD & DLNA" on the SMS-200ultra you will be able to select it as an output in Audirvana. Link to comment
mfin Posted January 16, 2018 Share Posted January 16, 2018 7 hours ago, airguitar said: OK that's disturbing... a hi-end Aries won't get close to the SQ of a hi-end CD transport... nah I want at least equal to a good CD transport in terms of CD quality Tidal streaming. OK perhaps the sMS-200 Ultra then? Anyone else care to chip in? I have an sMS-200ultra, with txUSBultra both powered off a single sPS-500, which is a bunch further than just an sMS-200ultra on its own. If I compare that to my outgoing Cyrus CD XT Signature transport it replaced, it is close on regular 44.1/16 material, certainly not much in it, but I would guess the SOtM combo wins. On good mqa material (my dac unfolds it all) it clearly is a lot better than that particular CD transport was. Interestingly, trying Qobuz vs Tidal on the regular 44.1/16 material (with both available to me at the moment as I am running a Qobuz trial) I am finding I go to Qobuz over Tidal. I think if mqa stuff wasn't available on Tidal I wouldn't choose it, but likely will in the end because of the extra mqa stuff and that it has much more comprehensive content for the music I like. I don't know if you'd call the CD Transport "good" though, as in that different people have different ideas of what "good" is. Link to comment
airguitar Posted January 17, 2018 Author Share Posted January 17, 2018 11 hours ago, mfin said: What's the budget, and is the dac you have (or are going to get) going to be able to do full unfolds of mqa? Solutions can get better and better, but there's no point in suggestions that fall outside of your budget. Are you looking around £1000-1500? I assume so seeing as you mention the SOTM sMS-200ultra and Aries, as they fall about there. (EDIT: Sorry, I can see you have just mentioned it as being typical of your budget) The Aries can apparently unfold the mqa for you, the SOTM sMS-200ultra will not. Out of the two, if the Dac you choose will unfold mqa, there's more potential in the sMS-200ultra through further upgrades (a PSU upgrade is a must, and there's plenty of sensible choices from £250-£500), but if the dac won't unfold mqa then the Aries will be a better shout I think or you'll miss out. Or if you can be tempted to lump together your dac budget like you said you were open to, you could go for a Lumin? (I don't know about the models, someone will chime in). One extra note. You could unfold mqa (first unfold) and feed it to the SMS-200ultra by using software that does it, usually to a max of 96/24. Audirvana 3.x will do this and output to the SMS-200ultra when you run "MPD & DLNA" on the SMS-200ultra you will be able to select it as an output in Audirvana. My budget is around £1000 - including buying USED so that I get a better unit for the money (in fact I'm more likely to buy used - anyone got anything good for sale here?). However the less I spend the better, but compromising too much on the front end will affect the rest of the system I've invested in (i.e. become the bottleneck). My current streaming front end is via a low-cost £30 Google Chromecast Audio (because after all I only stream music from Tidal and Spotify) going into a Chord Mojo (used in my separates system and not as a headphone amp). The sound is surprisingly very good - most of that attributed to the Mojo I'm sure of it! So my "new" more expensive solution should (I hope) significantly trounce my current combo else what's the point in spending more..? If you all think MQA is important then "yes", something that can deal with MQA should I guess be considered - like in your example the Aries - because Chord DACs do not do MQA. When it comes to DACs, well the whole reason why I'm wanting to get a good transport is so that I can hear all the DACs I evaluate at their full potential. As you can imagine, the CCA is not necessarily going to do that (albeit the Mojo is less sensitive to what's ahead of it, other DACs may be more sensitive though). There's a used MicroRendu version 1.3 kicking about, is that on par with the others I mentioned? Link to comment
mfin Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 Are you running Macs or PCs, what do you have in the way of devices, iOS or Android? How do you envisage wanting to browse and select music to play, and do wires matter to you? The above questions are important, as the Aries could be a good shout but if you aren't running iOS stuff the possibility is off the table. Also, how tech savvy are you, are you reasonably good with computers and network stuff (it also helps with choices and describing things). Link to comment
airguitar Posted January 17, 2018 Author Share Posted January 17, 2018 I'm running a 6 year old Windows 10 PC (I also have a Windows 7 Laptop), but only for surfing the web and running MS Office etc - so they are not part of the music ecosystem as it were. I just want to browse and select music using either an iPad or Android tablet - depending on what solution I end up with. Do wires matter to me? Well I guess not because I will need to run 'wireless' from downstairs to the BT Home Hub 5 router upstairs. Although it's easy to turn an Ethernet only device into wireless just by plugging in a wireless extender - ultimately though - Tidal will makes its way downstairs over the WiFi. Remember - I only want a solution that gives me the best sound using Tidal - nothing else - no local file libraries etc. Yep, I'm fairly OK with computers and network stuff - give me a Cisco Switch and I will configure it with vlans, subnets, layer 3 routing etc. So if a geeky solution ends up better sounding that a ready made Aries for example, and is cheaper (if possible) then I'll take it (as long as the usability of the product is still intuitive and nice to use). However saying that, I am still more than happy with plug and play, because I don't want to geek for the sake of geeking if I could have my music just as good served up on a plate ready-to-go. Link to comment
mfin Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 Ok, I think I would go Aries or Aries mini and control it from your iPad. You've now said you clearly want to browse and select music on either an iPad or Android tablet. (Note, it would have to be iPad as the Lightning DS App is not available for Android). I think you might be skipping past some of the things I am saying about the more "geeky" solutions like Rendus regarding mqa. Here's an example, you could put a copy of Bubble UPnP on your Windows PC, and using that you can create an Openhome Renderer of the Rendu, then you can load the Lumin or Linn Kazoo app onto your iPad select that Openhome Renderer as the output and you will be able to use the Lumin or Kazoo app to stream Tidal or Qobuz. You won't be unfolding mqa though. (The PC does not have to be sat next to your hifi, just be present on the same network and switched on, turn it off, and with no BubbleUPnP running the Lumin or Kazoo apps won't work). It sounds a little like you might be frustrated at sort of wanting a simple answer to the best way to stream tidal for the best quality, but understanding the limitations of the various approaches is key. Rendu's are fine when wanting full mqa when you are connecting them to a Dac that can do all the unfolding, yours doesn't. So, I was saying that there are some pieces of software that can at least do the first unfold for you when using a Rendu but not full unfolding, these pieces of software don't run on iPads etc either (unless Roon does it, I don't know, but Roon is expensive anyway, £400 of software and it doesn't sound like you have the budget for that anyway). Tidal's app will do the first unfold. One option might be to wait for Audirvana 3.x to be released for PC, run that on your PC, and then A+ Remote app on your iPad, outputting to a Rendu. Again, PC would have to be on when listening to music and present on the network. In the meantime, have you tried loading the Tidal desktop app onto your Laptop and running it via a USB cable into your Dac? If not, try it see what you think, just to set expectations and get some context on how you feel about how that sounds and how much you want to equal or better that. Link to comment
Jonny Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 Maybe go the Bluesound for the full MQA unfold via the RCA outputs on the Node? You also have the option to use an external DAC with it. I haven’t used one but read many great things about them. IMO the Mojo is not a good system DAC. That’s a bottleneck right there. Great headphone amp though. Link to comment
mfin Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 6 minutes ago, Jonny said: Maybe go the Bluesound for the full MQA unfold via the RCA outputs on the Node? You also have the option to use an external DAC with it. I haven’t used one but read many great things about them. IMO the Mojo is not a good system DAC. That’s a bottleneck right there. Great headphone amp though. Good shout but.... Note for OP is: "Bluesound Players are a full MQA playback solution. They will decode and render MQA playback up to 24/192. If however you are connecting an external DAC, the maximum output will be 24/96 and MQA processing is not happening in the DAC." So, digital out won't be the full unfold unless you are using the analogue outputs and completely bypassing your dac. I don't know if the same apples for the Aries Mini which has digital and analogue outs (worth a check). The full Aries will be ok though. Someone who knows the Aries Mini should be able to comment and help in letting you know if the digital out on that has the same limitations as the Bluesound. Link to comment
airguitar Posted January 17, 2018 Author Share Posted January 17, 2018 I agree that the AURALiC may be the way to go, but using the little Aries Mini is probably going to be a sideways step in the sense that I am looking for a hi-end streamer allowing me to hear the full potential of downstream DACs. I've done the BubbleUPnP thing already on the PC upstairs, and I created an OpenHome Renderer of a Yamaha CD-N500 I already own (trying to make the most of kit already in my possession that's likely to be a better transport than the CCA). I knew that the CD-N500 was a good streamer (oh and incidentally a CD Player too) but did not come with built in Tidal - so I researched how I could stream Tidal to the CD-N500 and hey presto - BubbleUPnP. All well and good, but the sound was poor. I investigated why, and was told that the PC I was running BubbleUPnP from was electrically 'noisy' affecting the real-time music stream to the CD-N500 (despite being physically separated from the CD-N500 using WiFi). So instead I installed BubbleUPnP app on an Android tablet, streaming Tidal to the CD-N500, this sounded much much better so there must be some truth in the above! When it comes to tethering my laptop to a USB DAC and enjoying music, that too sounded bad! I had to use a USB to SPDIF converter to dramatically improve the sound from the laptop rather than going direct USB out to USB in. Nothing is as simple as it seems. Probably because the laptop was not optimised for SQ, so the converter somehow reclocked and cleaned the signal up. There's the crux of the problem, if I were to involve other computers around the house then I would need to consider cleaning up their power supplies and optimising them to perform better with music - an expense (and hassle) I could do without - the more things in the chain - the more expense needed to deal with them all. This is why MicroRendus and SOTM devices exist, they are already finely tuned music making machines. There also comes the advantage of the Aries - it's a one box solution with Tidal already built in and (unbeknown to me) fully unfolds MQA to any DAC beneath it (I need to get that confirmed!). Link to comment
mfin Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 Cool. Remember that Aries mqa unfolding is not certified mqa, but it's what it sounds like that counts. I think I see where you're coming from, you want something good so when you get a better dac it remains a source worthy of that new dac. The full Aries would certainly be a at a higher level than your current dac is. A little bit like feeding an 18 year old student Grey Goose vodka. You sound like you've done some experiments, and going a Rendu root will involve other computers, and the Rendu itself can be improved a lot with more and more tweaks, the most expensive of which might be a good LPSU or LPS-1 etc. Link to comment
Guido Del Giudice Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 The Aries Mini with a good LPS power supply may surprise you as a streamer... Auralic Aries Femto > Yulong DA8 Hoer-Wege mods > KEF LS50W, [iSine 10, Denon D7200] Desktop - Adam Artist 5 and Sub 8 Link to comment
mfin Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 Just now, Guido Del Giudice said: The Aries Mini with a good LPS power supply may surprise you as a streamer... Yes, certainly with the Dac he has at the moment Link to comment
airguitar Posted January 17, 2018 Author Share Posted January 17, 2018 2 minutes ago, Guido Del Giudice said: The Aries Mini with a good LPS power supply may surprise you as a streamer... OK, so perhaps an Aries Mini with a stunning power supply will be equal to the Aries? What about the lack of femto clocks though? The clocking with never be as good from the Mini without the upgraded clocks (I would assume) and I specifically want the transport to squeeze the most out of downstream DACs. Guido - I notice you have a Mojo in your equipment list... please elaborate. 1 minute ago, mfin said: Yes, certainly with the Dac he has at the moment I wouldn't underestimate the Chord Mojo. Actually I have various DACs. Link to comment
Guido Del Giudice Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 The onboard DAC of the Aries Mini also does not cease to surprise when the Aries is powered with an SBooster LPS.. The Mojo is about on par with the onboard Aries Mini DAC...very different sound though so a bit difficult to quantize... I also have a Yulong DA8 which has been extensively modified and upgraded by HoerWege in Germany...it blew my BMC Puredac away quite easily...and that is quite a feat Auralic Aries Femto > Yulong DA8 Hoer-Wege mods > KEF LS50W, [iSine 10, Denon D7200] Desktop - Adam Artist 5 and Sub 8 Link to comment
Jonny Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 I had the Aries Mini with a good linear supply and also used a USB isolator with it. Once I got my Kef LS50 Wireless this combo was not a good sounding USB source to me. Grainy sound, has that not so nice digital sound to it. Link to comment
Guido Del Giudice Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 1 minute ago, Jonny said: I had the Aries Mini with a good linear supply and also used a USB isolator with it. Once I got my Kef LS50 Wireless this combo was not a good sounding USB source to me. Grainy sound, has that not so nice digital sound to it. hmm, strange...I am getting quite the opposite result... Auralic Aries Femto > Yulong DA8 Hoer-Wege mods > KEF LS50W, [iSine 10, Denon D7200] Desktop - Adam Artist 5 and Sub 8 Link to comment
mfin Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 1 hour ago, airguitar said: OK, so perhaps an Aries Mini with a stunning power supply will be equal to the Aries? What about the lack of femto clocks though? The clocking with never be as good from the Mini without the upgraded clocks (I would assume) and I specifically want the transport to squeeze the most out of downstream DACs. Guido - I notice you have a Mojo in your equipment list... please elaborate. I wouldn't underestimate the Chord Mojo. Actually I have various DACs. An Aries mini with a good LPSU will close the gap on the Aries, but the Aries will sound better again with a LPSU if it doesn't come with one. This is the general concensus on it. You are overestimating that Chord Mojo I'm afraid, to get the full potential out of something like a full Aries you would need a better dac. Wondering over femto clocks etc when your dac is a bottleneck seems a bit weird. All that I am saying though is going for an Aries might be a very good thing, because of it being a bit overkill at the moment but having more waiting untapped potential for when you get a better dac. Of course, if the Dac you'd get next was mqa certified then you could have gone with a Rendu etc. Or get rid of the stuff you have and just buy a Lumin. Link to comment
airguitar Posted January 17, 2018 Author Share Posted January 17, 2018 40 minutes ago, mfin said: An Aries mini with a good LPSU will close the gap on the Aries, but the Aries will sound better again with a LPSU if it doesn't come with one. This is the general concensus on it. You are overestimating that Chord Mojo I'm afraid, to get the full potential out of something like a full Aries you would need a better dac. Wondering over femto clocks etc when your dac is a bottleneck seems a bit weird. All that I am saying though is going for an Aries might be a very good thing, because of it being a bit overkill at the moment but having more waiting untapped potential for when you get a better dac. Of course, if the Dac you'd get next was mqa certified then you could have gone with a Rendu etc. Or get rid of the stuff you have and just buy a Lumin. The 'wondering over femto clocks etc when your dac is a bottleneck seems a bit weird' explanation is that a better transport (i.e. with better clocks etc) would allow me to 'experiment' with better and better DACs by hearing them at their full potential which is the premise of this thread. It just happens to be right now I am streaming through a Chromecast Audio / Chord Mojo combo. So these are the logical steps I am trying to take...: Step 1. Using the top down approach (garbage in garbage out) Invest in a good streaming transport, initially running this into the Chord Mojo (unless the streamer by chance happens to sound better with its own DAC, if it comes with one). Step 2. See if I can improve the transport further with an upgraded PSU. OK great - that's the first part of the build complete. Step 3. Try different DACs (spdif or USB, the transport however could just have USB out i.e. the sMS-200), with the assurance that I can now listen and evaluate all these DACs properly knowing that a good quality feed is coming from above allowing the DACs I try to perform at their best, therefore allowing me to easily hear difference between them. If I listen to a £1000 DAC with the CCA, I'm probably only hearing 20% of its potential. What a waste of money that would be! That's like saying humans only use 20% of their brain - oh actually we do - perhaps we should invest in better hats. The rest of my system is: Croft 25 pre-amp / Croft 7 Power amp - Role Audio Enterprise loudspeakers. Link to comment
miguelito Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 3 hours ago, mfin said: Ok, I think I would go Aries or Aries mini and control it from your iPad. You've now said you clearly want to browse and select music on either an iPad or Android tablet. (Note, it would have to be iPad as the Lightning DS App is not available for Android). There is currently no great solution. Closest to your ask and budget, I think, is the Aries mini: Pros: TIDAL+Qobuz streaming Airplay (if you're an iPhone/iPad user) Lightning DS controller app is pretty good If you have music files, you can serve them to the mini, or even add a small harddrive inside Includes a DAC Cons: No Spotify Connect - but could use your iOS device to stream via Airplay No MQA decoding - if your DAC does full decoding - or you don't care - this is not an issue Auralic is not updating the firmware - only beta updates, for over a year! NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul system pics Link to comment
davide256 Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 I had the Aries mini with an HDPlex LPS, it didn't resolve at low volume levels... the microRendu did that far better with same LPS Regards, Dave Audio system Link to comment
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