Regen vs Gustard vs Micro Rendu

Mr Underhill posted:

Hi Mayor,

I found the U12 to be perfectly acceptable, but as you say it did lack in terms of dynamics - so I sold it. As a DDC I preferred the Audio Breeze DU-U8 (Talema). Problem is that this is a rapidly evolving area, the current DDC favourite for many is the Singxer SU1 - any of these frequently in combination with the Mutec MC3+USB.

The current flavour of the month for renderers is the microRendu, although this may be being displaced by the SOtM sMS-200 - or the Rednet D16 if you want to go for AOIP.

From my POV I will be sticking with my mR etc for at least another year, then see how things have progressed!

In the meanwhile I am listening to a LOT of music.

M

Interesting comments Mr. Underhill, I'm pleased that it isn't just me who found a lack of dynamics. Like most things I think wherever the USB signal is coming from is probably going to have an impact on performance which I'm sure accounts for people having different experiences. I think deep down I was also pleased not to have another box (although it is only small). It's always fun to experiment. Either way I'm pleased to now be the same as you... listening to a lot of music

Mayor, it is interesting that you find such a small effect with The Gustard, where I found a huge difference, without the Gustard my output from Mac Mini/Audirvana being distinctly inferior ot using ND5Xs as renderer, which I described as like a veil drawn over the sound, to being better than the ND5 with the Gustard in place (electrical SPDIF to Hugo).

one thing that has become apparent from various threads is that the computer can be quite variable in noise/rf injection, even between nominally the same machine, although I would have expected a headless dedicated Mac Mini to be better if anything than a Mac Book. For ref I only used a bog standard computer USB cable.

Of course the rest of the system will play a part, some being more revealing than others (mine at the time of trial was Musical Fidelity P270 power amp (no preamp), into IMF ref standard prof monitor speakers, so different from yours, though I have no reason to believe or expect  that your SN2-twenty23 would be that much less revealing.

As I say, interesting,  and perhaps unfortunate in that it doesn't give a clear answer to someone wanting to do this from scratch. If it wasn't more than double the Hugo's cost I'd suggest that the answer may be use a Hugo TT, which is immune, and a stepmup in resolution, though only small.

For Hugo I used optical cable from sys concept and it worked a treat and completely isolated the Hugo. IMO that is all u need. Optical source jitter is not a problem for the Hugo - it will measure almost identical to the TT and Dave using USB and coax. With USB and coax any differences you are hearing are probably down to noise (some like the hyped sound this can bring) or some processing in the signal path from your devices. For the most transparent sound use optical with Hugo and feed it a bit perfect stream. You are unlikely to hear any audible differences then whatever source or device you use. At least if u did abx blind testing.

Halloween Man posted:

For Hugo I used optical cable from sys concept and it worked a treat and completely isolated the Hugo. IMO that is all u need. Optical source jitter is not a problem for the Hugo - it will measure almost identical to the TT and Dave using USB and coax. With USB and coax any differences you are hearing are probably down to noise (some like the hyped sound this can bring) or some processing in the signal path from your devices. For the most transparent sound use optical with Hugo and feed it a bit perfect stream. You are unlikely to hear any audible differences then whatever source or device you use. At least if u did abx blind testing.

That may well be true of Hugo inputs - however it is not true of Mac outputs, where the best sound quality from Audirvana is using a dedicated USB bus because it bypasses the Mac soundcard and its limitations. That is where a convertor like the Gustard is needed with Hugo - but yes, the  Gustard's optical output could be used instead of electrical SPDIF to Hugo (that is something I didn'tbtry, though I believe some others may have).

player is unlikely to make any difference if bit perfect output and using optical out. the optimisations in audirvana are to reduce noise, its bit perfect output will be the same as any other bit perfect player if noise is eliminated by using optical. i challenge anyone to hear any difference in abx bind testing.

In theory true, but in practice that doesn't always apply, and there is an audible difference:

My a-b comparisons on a variety of music when I first had Mac Mini/Audirvana were as follows, using the ND5Xs I had used as renderer up to then as reference, all into Hugo:

First tried the USB output, exoecting good things from what I had read: abysmal, distincly worse than ND5 renderer, like a veil drawn over the sound

optical: about the same as ND5. I could live with that.

Having read more I took a punt on a Gustard, 

USB to Gustard then electrical to Hugo - Not only cured the veil, but better than the direct optical

Somthrough my system MI could hear a difference, though of course may depend on how revealing system is.

hi ib. i agree usb-gustard-hugo may well sound different to usb-hugo and different to optical-hugo. my view is that audirvana-optical-hugo will sound no different to jriver-optical-hugo or itunes-optical-hugo providing that all software players output bit perfect. i also suggest that the most true and transparent sound for hugo is optical (providing that you are using a high quality optical cable guaranteed to work at the bit depth and sample rate you are playing) though you might actually prefer the sound via usb or coax.

I certainly didn't prefer Hugo's usb input as the computer output's rh noise affects the DAC. As for optical and electrical spdif, I didn't compare directly. 

But using Gustard, to isolate the Mac Mini's usb output used for best quality from the excellent AUdirvana, gives the option of optical and electrical spdif to Hugo: so if optical is better (and I gather Rob Watts, Hugo's designer, says it is, then I agree that would be the optimum one to use. 

Innocent Bystander posted:

Mayor, it is interesting that you find such a small effect with The Gustard, where I found a huge difference, without the Gustard my output from Mac Mini/Audirvana being distinctly inferior ot using ND5Xs as renderer, which I described as like a veil drawn over the sound, to being better than the ND5 with the Gustard in place (electrical SPDIF to Hugo).

one thing that has become apparent from various threads is that the computer can be quite variable in noise/rf injection, even between nominally the same machine, although I would have expected a headless dedicated Mac Mini to be better if anything than a Mac Book. For ref I only used a bog standard computer USB cable.

Of course the rest of the system will play a part, some being more revealing than others (mine at the time of trial was Musical Fidelity P270 power amp (no preamp), into IMF ref standard prof monitor speakers, so different from yours, though I have no reason to believe or expect  that your SN2-twenty23 would be that much less revealing.

As I say, interesting,  and perhaps unfortunate in that it doesn't give a clear answer to someone wanting to do this from scratch. If it wasn't more than double the Hugo's cost I'd suggest that the answer may be use a Hugo TT, which is immune, and a stepmup in resolution, though only small.

Hi IB. Yes I was surprised as well after reading universal acclaim for the Gustard. Interestingly though, I think it's also surprising that some people find Hugo direct by USB so lacklusture in comparison to e.g. coax because I was always very satisfied with the performance direct via USB. I think initially I was so pleased because Hugo was better than 2Qute via USB in my system despite 2Qute having galvanic isolation.

I do wonder whether the potentially higher quality USB out of a Mac Mini may have a part to play in the differences heard with devices such as the Gustard. As far as I can see there is no way to allocate a dedicated USB hub on my Macbook Air. Furthermore, Bluetooth also resides on the only hub present, but I don't detect a difference in sound quality when I disable bluetooth.

All horses for courses I suppose but like you say, it is unfortunate that the waters are a little muddier than they seemed. All I can confirm is that Olimex is a good improvement and I suspect that is down to it's ability to remove much of that noise coming from the computer.