About my reference setups, part 2

After describing the equipment I use for my three reference setups, I got remarks that just mentioning the equipment was not easily understood. So this time schematic representations of how all equipment is connected. Let me start with some disclaimers. First, the equipment is chosen and setup to make my work as easy as possible. If that wasn’t the case, I probably would have bought a system like the active Grimm speakers with their MU1 player. But how do you judge a quality DAC if your playback system also does the digital to analog conversion.

00:44 - By choosing for separate components, things get slightly more complex to setup and to operate. On the other hand upgrading is easier since parts can by added, like the Syntaxx power supply for the Mytek DAC, or replaced, like the Auralic Aries G2 that took over from the SOtM sMS-200Ultra NEO. Second, since changing the setups is so easy, they will get upgraded from time to time. The description in this video describes the March 2020 situation. Updates will be made to the list of equipment I published on theHBproject.com. Let me start with the network.

01:27 - On the third floor we find the ZyXel GS1900-10HP switch to which the Intel NUC7i7BNH is connected. It runs Roon ROCK on an M.2 SSD and has the music stored on a 10 TB Western Digital drive in a USB3 housing. Also connected the Synology DS1819+ NAS with DX517 extender offering 70 TB of storage and caches on two 500 GB SSD’s. As said, it mainly functions as back-up for my videos but is also used for testing audio servers if I think speed is important. On the other side of the spectrum I use two sub € 100 single drive NAS’ses, the Synology DS120J’s, since that is more realistic for domestic use.

02:21 - As you have seen I rather connect a USB drive to the Roon Rock server and since it is shared as a volume on the network, it can also be used for systems like Sonos and Bluesound. The advantage of using a simple NAS is that it consumes less power than a computer and can do all kinds of other things, like back-up and make files available to, for instance, your smartphone on the road. Enough about that. Two of the three reference sets are located at the third floor and from the central switch there is an ethernet connection to the AQ Vox AQSwitch SE placed near these two setups. Why the AQ Switch? Well it is of the same quality as the SOtM sNH-10G switch but has no SFP port for glass fibre. I wanted to use glass fibre between the 3rd floor and the ground floor so the SOtM was placed downstairs and since I already had the AQ Switch, I placed it upstairs.

03:24 - It does give some audible improvements in setup 2 but close to nothing in setup 1. Time to have a look at the ground floor. As said I use glass fibre between the central switch on the third floor and the switch on the ground floor. That used to be the SOtM switch but was recently replaced by the even better Uptone Audio EtherREGEN, that also has an SFP port. By the way, to use glass fibre with these switches you need special modules, the so called small form-factor pluggable transceivers - indeed, abbreviated to SFP. I use Finisar transceivers, simply because they were recommended by my supplier.

04:04 - The SFP is on the ‘dirty side’ of the EtherREGEN as is the connection to the cable modem that provides internet to the network. As we have seen the AQ Switch SE provides the cleaned up network connection to both setup 2 and 3. In setup 3 the amplification is done by the NAD C316BEE, the speakers are the Mordaunt-Short Avant 902’s that can be assisted by the REL T5 subwoofer. The Allo USBridge, mounted to the Sparky small board computer, normally runs as Roon endpoint but can easily be used with other software if needed. The AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt DAC does the digital to analog conversion.

04:52 - A nice touch is that the DragonFly can also render MQA when the decoding is done by the player software. Especially in this price range this can make the difference. Alternatively I can use the Audiophonics RaspDAC LTE I-Sabre ES9038Q2M Streamer that is Raspberry Pi based but does higher sampling rates. Both are powered by the AudioPhonic LPSU power supply. Here the amplification is taken care of by the Marantz KI Pearl Lite that drives the Acoustic Energy Radiance One loudspeakers.

05:33 - They are supported by the REL T5 subwoofer and both are connected to the loudspeaker terminals of the Marantz. Three digital sources are used in setup 2: the BlueSound Node 2i, the Auralic Aries Mini and the combination of the Allo USBridge Signature and the Chord Mojo, powered by the sBooster BOTW P&P ECO. All three normally function as Roon Endpoint although the BlueSound and Auralic are used with their own system if for instance I want to listen to web sources that are not supported by Roon. The USBridge Signature can easily be converted to being its own streamer by inserting a microSD card with other software. I use Volumio alternatively. Access to the network in setup 1 is through the EtherREGEN that on the ‘dirty side’ is connected to the cable modem over a network cable and to the central switch on the 3rd floor over glass fibre.

06:37 - On the clean side of the EtherREGEN there is only one network feed at 100 Mbit/s. But let’s first introduce the Audio Note Soro SE that had many upgrades over the years. It drives the efficient Audio Physic Scorpio’s. From here on a number of variants are possible, the most basic being the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge DAC and Roon Endpoint connected with a network cable to the EtherREGEN switch. One step up is using the superb Syntaxx power supply to power the Mytek in stead of the built-in switch mode power supply.

07:15 - The Syntaxx is powerful enough to also power the EtherREGEN switch. A further improvement is to insert the SOtM sMS-200 Ultra NEO in between the EtherREGEN and the Mytek, using it as network bridge. Now the Mytek’s own built-in network bridge is no longer used, so it is in fact used as a normal Mytek Brooklyn DAC+. The connection between the EtherREGEN and the SOtM is a network cable and between the SOtM and the Mytek a USB cable. The SOtM is powered by an sBooster BOTW P&P ECO MK2.

07:53 - The ultimate configuration replaces the SOtM by the Auralic Aries G2 streamer. It can be used as streamer that plays music from a share or internal 2.5 inch drive. I use the shared volume of the Intel NUC when using it with Auralic’s Lightning DS app. But often I just use it as a Roon Endpoint. Still further improvements are available. When I add the MiniDSP SHD Studio DIRAC processor, room acoustics problems are corrected and to get the deepest of deep base, I add the REL Brittanica B2 subwoofer that, like its smaller brother at the 3rd floor is connected to the loudspeaker terminals of the Audio Note amp.

08:36 - This is the setup I normally use for recreational listening. Every day I start with reading questions and remarks you send me. Please only use the comments space below the videos in Youtube for your question. It is impossible to give personal buying advise or solve your problems. I just don’t have the time. Although I read almost all reactions you send me, I only respond to those on YouTube, if I can respond at all.

09:09 - Questions like product comparisons, which one is better the brand X model Y or brand K, model L, are impossible to answer as I have explained many times. But questions that might be relevant to more than a few persons I do answer. Sometimes directly below the question and sometimes by producing a video with the answer. Like this video. I have a zero tolerance policy for people that are rude, impolite, react without having watched the video and those that want to tell me that what I hear is impossible because bits are bits. Especially when they haven’t even bothered to check my experiences.

09:51 - Luckily these form only a small portion of the questions and are removed by the moderator. But if you have a question or remark outside these categories, please do post it. It’s great information for me when thinking about subjects for new videos. It often helps to look at somewhat complex matters from more than one side. That was the motivation for making this video this way, in reaction to your reactions.

10:23 - The complexity at the same time is the versatility, although I understand it can be hard to imagine what setup variant leads to what sound quality. I am therefore introducing in a more detailed classification. In all three setups the amp, speakers and sub remain as a constant, in setup 1 the DAC also remains the same. But the other source components vary and all have their own letter. So for setup 3 it looks like this. Setup 2 has three variants while setup 1 has four variants.

11:00 - I expect I will not always use these sub classes for judging sound quality also has to do with sound character. Let’s try this for some time and see if this is workable. Please let me know when things are not clear. But also realise that it’s not always a matter of better or worse, as I have explained with the Bluesound Node 2i versus the Auralic Aries Mini. And that brings us to the end of this video. There will be a new video, as always at Fridays at 5 PM central European time. If you don’t want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you’ll be informed when new videos are out. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially, it keeps me independent and thus trustworthy. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on Youtube.

11:57 - I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music. .