**HOME DEMOS THIS TUE - WED - THUR / 13th - 14th - 15th** FOR THE MONACO SERVER/SGM 2015

hifial

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Apr 7, 2013
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Ed Hsu, Consult for Sound Galleries will be available for in home demos of the Monaco server this Tue, Wed and Thur. Ed and I will come to your home if you live in the Metro NYC, NJ, Long Island, CT and Philly areas within a reasonable driving distance. Say around two hours of NYC. But ask, you never know.

We will bring the Monaco/SGM to your home so you can hear it in your own system. But because of the limited amount of time available it is on a first come first serve basses.

If requested we will also bring the T+A DAC 8 DSD. But this is primarily a Monaco demo.

Just private message (PM) me.


Cheers, Al.
 

hifial

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Apr 7, 2013
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Just an update that Wed is taken.

Cheers, Al.
 

flyer

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hello hifial,

just a thought, as i read your posts here, can it be you have a commercial interest? If so, would it not be more open to put this in a disclosure or your signature?
 

wisnon

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Dec 12, 2011
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hello hifial,

just a thought, as i read your posts here, can it be you have a commercial interest? If so, would it not be more open to put this in a disclosure or your signature?

Some nice brands there...A Cerat and Stenheim!
 

flyer

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Some nice brands there...A Cerat and Stenheim!

Thanks!

I am picky in the brands I want to represent. And one brand is still missing, the EVO streamer which, at a substantially lesser cost though having more features (e.g. on-board ripping), holds up against the biggest boys in town.
 

wisnon

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Have you heard the BEAST and the Memory Player? You also should hear the SGM for comparison too...

I am yet to listen to any of these...
 

flyer

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Have you heard the BEAST and the Memory Player? You also should hear the SGM for comparison too...

I am yet to listen to any of these...

Haven't heard (nor even seen!) the Beast or the Memory Player. The prototype of EVO's top model was tested against the SGM and the Aurender and it was an ex-aequo against the prior and a winner against the latter.
 

flyer

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Does it upsample to high rate DSD?[/

It does handle DSD but no upsampling to 512 or 256 stuff. With such good server, chances you have a better DAC as well that is ladder based. And a ladder DAC doesn't play pure DSD anyway... sorry if I party-crash this hype :(
 

wisnon

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Does it upsample to high rate DSD?[/

It does handle DSD but no upsampling to 512 or 256 stuff. With such good server, chances you have a better DAC as well that is ladder based. And a ladder DAC doesn't play pure DSD anyway... sorry if I party-crash this hype :(

Flyer, I have a Lampi Golden Gate with discrete Ladder PCM to 384khz and TWO separate DSD engines...one attached to the ladder doing DSD256 and a separate discrete "chipless" DSD512.

My pal who has similar was not convince about upsampling even to 256. He now upgraded his chipless to 512 and for the first time says its Worth it to upsample. RBCD upsampled to DSD512 in his opinion even beats the ladder PCM (which he loves too).

To be fair and frank, the SGM is not just a "server" at that price. Its a powerhouse ultra-low noise computer that can handle the Bloatware hog of Roon while upsampling on the fly with HQP...both of which are resource hogs. People are buying it for that with the caveat that it gives the SQ they want. Whether the EVO with the 432hz tech is another way to skin the cat, I cant say...but it seems like they are aimed at different customer sets. I for one am glad to have MORE choice on the marketplace.
 

bonzo75

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Haven't heard (nor even seen!) the Beast or the Memory Player. The prototype of EVO's top model was tested against the SGM and the Aurender and it was an ex-aequo against the prior and a winner against the latter.

Which Aurender?
 

flyer

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Flyer, I have a Lampi Golden Gate with discrete Ladder PCM to 384khz and TWO separate DSD engines...one attached to the ladder doing DSD256 and a separate discrete "chipless" DSD512.

OK, if you have a separate 'DSD engine', it kind of confirms that a ladder DAC does not do DSD as it gets/needs a by-pass. Good for you it has 'best of both worlds' then.


My pal who has similar was not convince about upsampling even to 256. He now upgraded his chipless to 512 and for the first time says its Worth it to upsample. RBCD upsampled to DSD512 in his opinion even beats the ladder PCM (which he loves too).

'even beats the ladder PCM' ... that he has. In other words, it should not be excluded that the DSD upsampling is making up for shortcomings of his current ladder DAC.


To be fair and frank, the SGM is not just a "server" at that price. Its a powerhouse ultra-low noise computer that can handle the Bloatware hog of Roon while upsampling on the fly with HQP...both of which are resource hogs. People are buying it for that with the caveat that it gives the SQ they want. Whether the EVO with the 432hz tech is another way to skin the cat, I cant say...but it seems like they are aimed at different customer sets. I for one am glad to have MORE choice on the marketplace.

Well, if you want to be fair, as you write, you should not cherry pick in comparing one feature with another. Now, the fact you seemingly do not have a commercial interest, I am assuming this is a pure coincidence.

The EVO does have an option to change the ground frequency to 439, 438, 437 all the way down to 432. I personally don't use it though but quite a few customers seem to have this plugin activated.

EVO is as much Roon-capable. check the page with Roon partners: https://roonlabs.com/partners.html

HQ Player is a terrific upsampler costing 117 USD and integrated in the SGM. The EVO-engineer developed the upsampling logic (can be activated as well or not) which is not as feature-rich as the HQP but very straightforward with possibility to upsample till 24/768 for those that are in need of upsampling. Is it better or as good as HQP? No idea, I only reported before that the server (with all its implementation) was playing as good as the SGM (with all its implementation) connected to my Aries Cerat Kassandra Signature DAC. To which element exactly that quality has to be assigned at each brand is less important... they both were given the opportunity for a best shot.

On the 'powerhouse ultra-low noise computer': well, a server that plays that well evidently has its power house-keeping well executed, there is nothing special about that.

So, you DO have more choice in the marketplace effectively, happy you :)
 

wisnon

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Dec 12, 2011
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No commercial interest. Merely telling you the target market for SGM, a development I have followed closely form the start due to academic interest.

I didn't quote Room as a feature ( I agree, nothing unique there). I was trying to say that Roon is the user friendly interface to control HQ , which is the raison d'être of the server. However, the drawback is that BOTH pieces of Software are resource hogs, for different reasons. HQP native playback is not stressful, but DSD512 up sampling certainly is computationally intensive and when combined on the same machine with resource hog Room, even the powerful i7 6700K is pushed to the limit and will have to be aggressively cooled. However, as Audiophile hate any noise acoustic or electrical, a fan is out and so massive copper heat sinks are used. They then use bespoke clocks and power supplies they find quietest, in order to not add any detriment to the number crunching environment.

This server is a homage to HQ Player up sampling and is targeted to people who want to go the number crunching route...it is not in and of itself an Aurender competitor, though I imagine they hope to convert some of that crowd into number crunchers. This is my take based on what I see and know.

As to what approach is better for a given set of ears, I don't know...only direct experience can say. Not sure the price of the EVO, but if far less than Euro16K, then it could indeed be the better VALUE play.

Is this more clear now?
 

flyer

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Dec 16, 2012
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As to what approach is better for a given set of ears, I don't know...only direct experience can say. Not sure the price of the EVO, but if far less than Euro16K, then it could indeed be the better VALUE play.

Is this more clear now?

All is fine.

I will open a separate thread on the EVO once the prototype is finished and getting commercialized, this will be before Munich as the EVO server will be the source of choice at the Aries Cerat room in Munich.
 

hifial

New Member
Apr 7, 2013
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hello hifial,

just a thought, as i read your posts here, can it be you have a commercial interest? If so, would it not be more open to put this in a disclosure or your signature?

Hi flyer and thank you for reminding me to update my signature.

At the time that I posted this I had no commercial interest with the SGM2015 Server.

But since then I have become an Ambassador for Sound Galleries and the SGM2015 Server.

I have updated my signature. But while I have noticed it has updated on my other previous posts I see that on this thread it has not yet. If someone knows why and can tell me how I will do so.
 

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