Sonore's microrendu is out - the first audiophile microcomputer?

jkeny said:

So, I guess the answer is no, then. For a start, the idea of keeping a modern high-powered computer constantly busy is both a foolish & wasteful goal.

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No to both. Not answering just means not answering. As to your second sentence, this is more of lay techno argument in dire need of data and computer architecture to back it.

As I mentioned, the moment you decide to get your music data through a network connection, you have already signed up to have a computer "constantly busy." Every packet of data that would take hundreds of lines of code to fetch from flash media or hard disk, now entails thousands and thousands of lines of code to fetch from a network interface. And lots of interrupts to go with networking queue management.

And as I explained from audio point of view, less could mean more audible distortion. We like random activity that by definition means lots of activity. What we don't want is sparse activity that occurs due to regular internal events. Those correlated events get translated into deterministic noise and jitter that are really bad.

The only way to build such an "audiophile" computer is to have your own OS that is completely tailored to have constant footprint. This is what happens in a CD player where there is not even an OS there. The little micro just sits there updating the front panel display.

The device in question is most likely running Linux and if so, then there is nothing audiophile about that. You cannot control what Linux does as a kernel. Nothing in the Linux kernel says, "oh, I am an audio device I better keep my activities random so that they don't create correlated noise." And those activities drive the CPU which is the highest power device in the system causing most EMI and power line issues.

What this means that whether you use this little device or a computer, you are signing up for a huge blackbox that is general purpose and does what it does. The solution then is to invest in DAC products that immune to upstream computers or streamers. Doing so then frees you up to use any device you want: Mac, Windows, this streamer or other devices like it.

The notion that you start with a crappy implementation of a USB DAC and then want to reduce that problem with "quieter" PC is completely misguided and "foolish" to use your terminology.

Another side note: all of these devices need constant security updates/fixes to keep them safe. Alas, what these companies do is give you a copy of Linux and leave it be without updates. As new exploits of the OS are discovered, hackers use them as a guidebook to go after all the copies that are not updated. The Linux that our server uses for this server gets updated. Copy of Windows or Mac gets updated by their respected owners. Who updated your little Linux box you got as a streamer? No one. What access does it have in your home network? A lot, including what is on your NAS. Get into this box and the hacker will have full access to spread other exploits.

Now, chances of this happening is very low but if it happens, there will be severe damages. So I don't want to overly alarm anyone. But do ask whether security fixes are pushed down to the appliance or not.

amirm said:

(...)
What this means that whether you use this little device or a computer, you are signing up for a huge blackbox that is general purpose and does what it does. The solution then is to invest in DAC products that immune to upstream computers or streamers. Doing so then frees you up to use any device you want: Mac, Windows, this streamer or other devices like it. (...)

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We have been waiting for 30 years for such highend quality DAC. Should we wait more 30? I have not listened to all existing DACs, but those which attracted my preference were very sensitive to the digital source.

And, yes, I also own the Berkeley Audio USB AES/EBU box.

amirm said:

No to both. Not answering just means not answering. As to your second sentence, this is more of lay techno argument in dire need of data and computer architecture to back it.

As I mentioned, the moment you decide to get your music data through a network connection, you have already signed up to have a computer "constantly busy." Every packet of data that would take hundreds of lines of code to fetch from flash media or hard disk, now entails thousands and thousands of lines of code to fetch from a network interface. And lots of interrupts to go with networking queue management.

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Your portrayal of yourself as having a deeper understanding of computer tech is betrayed by your answer. The fact that you consider the execution of 1,000s of lines of code in a bursty network, represents a "constantly busy" CPU is, to me, a lay person's view of networking & of the power of modern CPUs. This traffic is bursty & if you ever did any analysis of CPU & traffic usage you would be aware of that - anybody can use the Performance Monitor in Windows to see this.

And as I explained from audio point of view, less could mean more audible distortion. We like random activity that by definition means lots of activity. What we don't want is sparse activity that occurs due to regular internal events. Those correlated events get translated into deterministic noise and jitter that are really bad.

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You are still clinging to the concept that this is random activity - please check out Performance Monitor

The only way to build such an "audiophile" computer is to have your own OS that is completely tailored to have constant footprint. This is what happens in a CD player where there is not even an OS there. The little micro just sits there updating the front panel display.

The device in question is most likely running Linux and if so, then there is nothing audiophile about that. You cannot control what Linux does as a kernel. Nothing in the Linux kernel says, "oh, I am an audio device I better keep my activities random so that they don't create correlated noise." And those activities drive the CPU which is the highest power device in the system causing most EMI and power line issues.

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You have built your strawman & your sticking to this blinkered viewpoint despite the fact that using a non-reactive power distribution network solves all the issues you are raising with your strawman argument

What this means that whether you use this little device or a computer, you are signing up for a huge blackbox that is general purpose and does what it does. The solution then is to invest in DAC products that immune to upstream computers or streamers. Doing so then frees you up to use any device you want: Mac, Windows, this streamer or other devices like it.

The notion that you start with a crappy implementation of a USB DAC and then want to reduce that problem with "quieter" PC is completely misguided and "foolish" to use your terminology.

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And again, you show yourself to be so far from reality in this matter - probably because you are a slave to your "measurements" which tell you all is right in computer audio.

jkeny said:

Your portrayal of yourself as having a deeper understanding of computer tech is betrayed by your answer. The fact that you consider the execution of 1,000s of lines of code in a bursty network, represents a "constantly busy" CPU is, to me, a lay person's view of networking & of the power of modern CPUs. This traffic is bursty & if you ever did any analysis of CPU & traffic usage you would be aware of that - anybody can use the Performance Monitor in Windows to see this.

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Windows Perfmon? You can't see system activity that way. You need to profile the operating system (as I have) to see high-resolution data. Using Perfmon for that is like thinking you can tell how fast your car is going by sticking your wet thumb outside your window!

This is my qualification on this topic: http://www.amazon.com/Optimizing-UN...PNY_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462393326&sr=1-1

I will repeat the bottom line: I don't care for another technical theory made up by someone who doesn't have hands on experience in this area. If you have measurements, I love to see that. Otherwise, I m not interested in lay opinions of a highly technical topic.

amirm said:

Windows Perfmon? You can't see system activity that way. You need to profile the operating system (as I have) to see high-resolution data. Using Perfmon for that is like thinking you can tell how fast your car is going by sticking your wet thumb outside your window!

This is my qualification on this topic: http://www.amazon.com/Optimizing-UN...PNY_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462393326&sr=1-1

I will repeat the bottom line: I don't care for another technical theory made up by someone who doesn't have hands on experience in this area. If you have measurements, I love to see that. Otherwise, I m not interested in lay opinions of a highly technical topic.

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Nobody needs to see high-resolution data to know if a system is constantly busy (as you are maintaining) or is active in bursts (as I am maintaining) - Perfmon is ample to do this.

amirm said:

This is my qualification on this topic: http://www.amazon.com/Optimizing-UN...PNY_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462393326&sr=1-1

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Looks like a deal... 1 cent, used in good condition.

BobShermanEsq said:

Looks like a deal... 1 cent, used in good condition.

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Those were the days though when publishers paid you to do these books but even then, it was slavery wages when it was all said and done. You don't write tech books to make money. You write them so that you can link to it in threads like this.

Tech books die out in a year or two and I wrote that in 1997. But I think royalties kept coming for 5 to 10 years.

What I don't understand is someone who wrote this book on networking still maintains that a network delivering music files keeps "a computer "constantly busy."?

jkeny said:

What I don't understand is someone who wrote this book on networking still maintains that a network delivering music files keeps "a computer "constantly busy."?

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I didn't tell you networking keeps a computer constantly busy. I said that if you care about the impact of a computer on an audio system, you want to keep it constantly busy as opposed to bursty activity that occurs with frequencies that in the audio band. And regardless, you have no control of what the operating system does. So your best path is to treat the computer as a black box, as nasty as it wants to be, and build isolation outside of it in the interface to the DAC. This way you don't have to string a powerful CPU and network streamer together.

Don't go spending money on a streamer because you think this and that is occurring without any instrumentation, validation or architectural understanding of the system. Apply some verification to statements companies make to sell products.

If this sill makes no sense to you John, then that is that.

microstrip said:

We have been waiting for 30 years for such highend quality DAC.

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You have been waiting that long. I have not. Here are measurements of DACs using my ordinary "noisy" laptop as the source but through two good USB to S/PDIF converters (Berkeley and Audiophilleo)
http://audiosciencereview.com/forum...performance-pc-server-interfaces-async-usb.8/



This is through a completely obsolete DAC/Processor. Correlated distortions rise only to -124 dBFS through the Berkeley (and -110 through Audiophilleo).

Again, this is with my everyday laptop running a bunch of stuff pumping data to the Berkeley and on to the Mark Levinson. Where are the distortion products I would want to eliminate using a streamer???

Should we wait more 30? I have not listened to all existing DACs, but those which attracted my preference were very sensitive to the digital source.

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I can't address what goes on in people's minds. What I can address is technical statements made that doing so and so in the power supply for the ethernet, USB and such makes for a better audio source. To that end, I am asking for data such as above. Technical improvements where the theory is stated is easy to verify. What you say, not so much.

amirm said:

I didn't tell you networking keeps a computer constantly busy. I said that if you care about the impact of a computer on an audio system, you want to keep it constantly busy as opposed to bursty activity that occurs with frequencies that in the audio band. And regardless, you have no control of what the operating system does. So your best path is to treat the computer as a black box, as nasty as it wants to be, and build isolation outside of it in the interface to the DAC. This way you don't have to string a powerful CPU and network streamer together.

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Well I have read your statement a number of times but can't seem to interpret it in the way you now are suggesting "As I mentioned, the moment you decide to get your music data through a network connection, you have already signed up to have a computer "constantly busy."

You have hung your hat on this strawman - that a busy computer is the answer & I keep telling you that 1) this is a foolish & unachievable goal 2) that you are overlooking the actual issues which is the noise spike injected into the ground plane by spiky current draws & this is best addressed by using a PS that doesn't do this

Don't go spending money on a streamer because you think this and that is occurring without any instrumentation, validation or architectural understanding of the system. Apply some verification to statements companies make to sell products.

If this sill makes no sense to you John, then that is that.

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It makes complete sense to me, Amir - it's your quoting of Keith Johnson's impossible goal & now your backing away from that position which doesn't make sense to me.

amirm said:

You have been waiting that long. I have not. Here are measurements of DACs using my ordinary "noisy" laptop as the source but through two good USB to S/PDIF converters (Berkeley and Audiophilleo)
http://audiosciencereview.com/forum...performance-pc-server-interfaces-async-usb.8/

This is through a completely obsolete DAC/Processor. Correlated distortions rise only to -124 dBFS through the Berkeley (and -110 through Audiophilleo).

Again, this is with my everyday laptop running a bunch of stuff pumping data to the Berkeley and on to the Mark Levinson. Where are the distortion products I would want to eliminate using a streamer???


I can't address what goes on in people's minds. What I can address is technical statements made that doing so and so in the power supply for the ethernet, USB and such makes for a better audio source. To that end, I am asking for data such as above. Technical improvements where the theory is stated is easy to verify. What you say, not so much.

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Yes, we know you can not address what goes in people minds. But people minds is the essence of the highend stereo reproduction and unfortunately most of the measurements you quote have little correlation with what we perceive. And fortunately some people have expertise enough to understand the preferences of a group and try to develop equipment that pleases it.

microstrip said:

Yes, we know you can not address what goes in people minds. But people minds is the essence of the highend stereo reproduction and unfortunately most of the measurements you quote have little correlation with what we perceive. And fortunately some people have expertise enough to understand the preferences of a group and try to develop equipment that pleases it.

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And it is those minds precisely that the marketing statements play to. So you are well taken care of if you want to believe.

The purpose of my posts is to analyze those technical statements, bring what I know as to whether they have the stated effect, and ask for data where none exists to verify merit. The goal is for us as consumers to be better informed and not be disadvantaged by the knowledge of the people behind the product.

amirm said:

And it is those minds precisely that the marketing statements play to. So you are well taken care of if you want to believe.

The purpose of my posts is to analyze those technical statements, bring what I know as to whether they have the stated effect, and ask for data where none exists to verify merit. The goal is for us as consumers to be better informed and not be disadvantaged by the knowledge of the people behind the product.

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As far as I know the objective of forums is information and collecting opinions of members who listen to the equipment. It is what is happening. The people behind the product are welcome to announce their products and for their help on their use and debating them.

My Devialet sounds different with different power cables and different digital connections, even using the Berkeley Audio box. I doubt that the standard AP measurements will show any audible difference.

Since when is Keith Johnson, a preeminent expert in audio recording, a computer and software expert?

Steve Bruzonsky said:

Since when is Keith Johnson, a preeminent expert in audio recording, a computer and software expert?

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Ever heard of Reference Recordings, Spectral and HDCD?

This is Andrew from Small Green Computer. I though I would answer a few of the questions asked here.

The microRendu is an extremely low electrical noise computer made for audio playback to a USB DAC. There is a lot that when into our design other then just lowering electrical noise.

But does it really make a difference in sound? We gave this device to quite a few different people and didn't really tell them what it was. We told them to tell us how it's sounded. Every tester said it sounded amazing. Many said it was the best they had ever heard. You can read Chris from Computer Audiophiles article where he comes to that conclusion.

Of course there are going to be skeptics and there should be. This is why I love user forms such as this one. You can get the real experiences of real users. Not just data and graphs posted of manufactures web sites that were made under perfect conditions.

We are shipping out our first batch of microRendu players to the general public this week. So there should be a lot of people soon who cananswer questions based on real world listen experience.

Now some specific questions

1. Does it support Roon? - Yes it's actually the worlds second RoonReady certified player. The first was our Sonicorbiter SE.

2. Will it work with my DAC? - Yes even DACs that require drivers under Windows will work without driver on the microRendu.

3. Does it come with a power supply? - No, many audiophile have a great supplies already they can use. We sell the iFi if you need it.

4. Can it replace my Computer? - No. But we sell products that do.

The microRendu does one thing, play music to a USB DAC. It doesn't do upsampling, and it's not a server. That is why we sell the sonicTransporter. The sonicTransporter can turn any NAS or USB drive filled with music into a full Roon solution. It also runs DLNA, Squeezebox, and SAMBA servers for all your other network players.

So basically we have a two box solution. The sonicTransporter for the server and the microRendu (or Sonicorbiter SE) for a player. Once you have both you have a complete solution. No computer required.

But wait what about CD ripping, upsampling, caching storage? My PC does that how about the sonicTransporter? - Sure we can do that but now you are talking about the sonicTransporter AP. The AP has a 8TB internal drive to store any sized music collection. It can also auto rip your CDs.

The sonicTransporter AP is a Caching Music Server. It has an SSD drive that caches the spinning drive so it most cases the drive doesn't spin up and it has a fast processor plus lots of RAM for upsampling etc.

We try to have a solution for everybody. No matter if you want a player the works with existing server software on your PC or a complete Ripping/storage/playback solution.

Thanks Andrew.

I bought my CAPSv3 Zuma (modded with larger case and a Sapphire/AMV video card for HDMI multi-channel audio output compatible with my then Theta Casablanca 3HD SSP, not Theta Casablanca 4) and later my CAPSv4 Pipeline from Andrew.The CAPSv4 is a later model using lower power and sounds appreciably better on 2 channel than the CAPS3 (they both have a SOTM USBExp card). This sort of makes me a believer in that objectively, lower power translates to better sonics. Note that Aurender uses this same approach with their media servers.

I use ROON!!!@@ Love it!

Initially I used Roonserver with my CAPSv4, with my CAPSv4 doing everything re audio sample/bit rate conversion (including DSD files to PCM) and USB audio output and ROON's web interface for title/track/genre/artist/etc info. Recently with ROON v1.2 I've been able to let my CAPSv3 (otherwise used exclusively for multi-channel HDMI audio, as the CAPSv4 doesn't have HDMI output)do the ROON web interface with CAPSv4 only doing the audio sample/bit rate conversion and USB audio output, with my subjective perception again of a nice improvement in audio quality.

My Microrendu is arriving tomorrow!!@@@

I respect and appreciate Amir's experiential and objective thoughts on the Microrendu. Like Amir, I also use a Berkeley Audio USB to digital converter (which I bought from Amir - thanks). I can understand why Amir theorizes that if you use the Berkeley that the computer providing the USB audio output shouldn't make a difference sonically. But I have found that the computer outputting USB audio can make a difference sonically.

I don't think Amir intends to totally pooh pooh on the Microrendu. He is raising concerns from his knowledge and experience as both a top notch software engineer And top notch audio enthusiast/hobbyist.

Steve Bruzonsky said:

Thanks Andrew.

I bought my CAPSv3 Zuma (modded with larger case and a Sapphire/AMV video card for HDMI multi-channel audio output compatible with my then Theta Casablanca 3HD SSP, not Theta Casablanca 4) and later my CAPSv4 Pipeline from Andrew.The CAPSv4 is a later model using lower power and sounds appreciably better on 2 channel than the CAPS3 (they both have a SOTM USBExp card). This sort of makes me a believer in that objectively, lower power translates to better sonics. Note that Aurender uses this same approach with their media servers.

I use ROON!!!@@ Love it!

Initially I used Roonserver with my CAPSv4, with my CAPSv4 doing everything re audio sample/bit rate conversion (including DSD files to PCM) and USB audio output and ROON's web interface for title/track/genre/artist/etc info. Recently with ROON v1.2 I've been able to let my CAPSv3 (otherwise used exclusively for multi-channel HDMI audio, as the CAPSv4 doesn't have HDMI output)do the ROON web interface with CAPSv4 only doing the audio sample/bit rate conversion and USB audio output, with my subjective perception again of a nice improvement in audio quality.

My Microrendu is arriving tomorrow!!@@@

I respect and appreciate Amir's experiential and objective thoughts on the Microrendu. Like Amir, I also use a Berkeley Audio USB to digital converter (which I bought from Amir - thanks). I can understand why Amir theorizes that if you use the Berkeley that the computer providing the USB audio output shouldn't make a difference sonically. But I have found that the computer outputting USB audio can make a difference sonically.

I don't think Amir intends to totally pooh pooh on the Microrendu. He is raising concerns from his knowledge and experience as both a top notch software engineer And top notch audio enthusiast/hobbyist.

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I would disagree with you that Amir's thoughts on the MicroRendu are objective - they seem rather biased to me from my interactions with him here

Theorising about the immunity of a USB DAC is one thing but experiential knowledge is a different matter. The Berkeley DAC advertises itself as galvanically isolated but this is only after the USB receiver. My testing of such isolation has shown me that there are sonic improvements in isolating the USB signal itself & not just the I2S signal coming out of the USB receiver as the Berkeley does.

I believe you are being naive in thinking that someone whose bible is measurements & who theorises that there is no basis for it improving audio quality would not pooh pooh such a device.

Maybe when your MicroRendu arrives & you try it with your Berkeley DAC you can post your impressions but expect certain members to tell you that if standard audio measurements show no difference then you are just delusional - such is the nature of this