5/7/2023 0 Comments Audirvana studio grand premierHonestly, I can take my damn time evaluating any DACs to succeed the MHDT Pagodas. I put the G1 on the Zu Druid system, and the G2.1 on the Suz Definition system. The Aries G1 impressed me enough to get an Aries G2.1. My disc player is relegated to Bluray only. You just put a cheap USB computer optical drive on it. Better yet, since playing a spinning CD is just loading data into the 1gb cache for recolocking and dejittering, EVERY CD sounds better. The Auralic G1 alone puts streaming digital in a peer position with other sources. My mhdt Pagoda DACs have sounded truthful, dynamic, energetic, tone-dense and authentic for the years I've had them (and the Atlantis) in place. So they developed their own alternate decoding simulation for MQA content and it's successful in my listening. Third, Auralic views MQA as what it is - a compression technology - not consistent with highest fidelity. Jitter from any input effectively vanishes. They have two Femto clocks, one for USB, the other for the remaining digital I/O. Anything inputted gets cached and dejittered. Second, this streamer includes a 1gb FIFO cache for any incoming digital signal. The reason is they've implemented Wifi to be quieter than wired Ethernet. First, Auralic put great effort into Wifi, to the point they recommend Wifi as the connection of first resort even if you can easily run Ethernet to the G1. There are three particularly great features in the Aries G1. After a wide-ranging survey, I bought an Auralic Aries G1. So I focused on deciding about a true high-res streamer to elbow aside the music streaming role AppleTV has been shouldering. I thought initially I'd run wired to the Zu Druid system which is physically close to the server, and go wireless to the Zu Definition system for which a wired connection would be a pita. Thinking on this evolved continuously over the past four years. Recently, I started making decisions about my endpoints. Streaming from Roon was my tertiary source. Sometime Tidal direct from its own app sounded better but sometimes not so much. None of it sounded spot on but Roon was pretty good. On SQ, I initially had no real qualms about Roon because. No matter, it's good in that respect, and any other changes I made would be criticized by someone else with different ideas. I'm a career software professional, so I agree the UX/UI is better than any other music management software on the market, but of course there are things I would change if I were the product manager or leading the company. When I first got Roon a few years ago, I was reasonably impressed with it. It's a challenger to giants in objectivity, resolution and tone no DSD supported. The Pagoda is a 24/192 R2R ladder DAC built around the revered BB PCM1704 chip, with discrete transistor (no op-amp) I/V conversion and a tube buffer output. For the past several years I've been using MHDT Pagoda and Pagoda Balanced on the two systems, lightly modified, and using (via adapters) CCa tubes in place of the stock 5670 family. None are the full truth and nothing but the truth, so you look for the more objective ones (or some people look for their preferred colorations). I am always scanning for DACs and will make another push for trials in that category. Now the project shifts to making digital streaming a peer source to spun CDs and vinyl. Clearly better while I got the rest of the project done. I further improved the ATV streaming by using the iFi SPDIF iPurifier dejitterer and clock between the ATV TOSLINK output and the DAC input. It sounded fine not stellar not really bad in any way. So while I got this all organized I've just been streaming 16/44 content through AppleTV, which converts everything to 16/48. Digital streaming has been a tertiary source for me, analog vinyl being primary spinner CDs being secondary before streaming. I have to get one server's music to two complete hifi systems and I'm not running cable all over the house. I bought the Roon perpetual license maybe three years ago.Ĭompleting this project means choosing my endpoints. I also have used Tidal HiFi for the past five years or so, both discretely and from within Roon. The data editing is the time sink now, but I listen to this hard-earned convenience. I am completing a four years project to rip 5500 CDs to a server, having taken the time to ensure bit-perfect rips.
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