Joshua, many thanks for the link to the review of the Sotm sMS 200 Ultra. That's really helpful, a great review.
Marc... Hans seems pretty cool and his comments in the video on the sound and his unbound enthusiasm for the experience of music making through the SOTM is almost exactly reflective of my own experience with it both in terms of it's sound and also how it ultimately makes music. For me the Sotm does have question marks hanging over it in terms of the ease of setup but that may well just be because I am only barely mid level in my geekdom.
It has been many years since I sat up through an entire night playing music just because of a new component going in to the system. It has only really happened twice in the last decade or so... once with the arrival of the Maggie 20.7s and then again just recently when I put the SOTM ultra200 in the system. Music making is absolutely addictive through this little beastie when all is playing tunes and working well.
In particular Hans' comments on the coherent quality of the bass and it's agility and expressiveness is the area that for me really separated the SOTM from the other players, servers and transports that I have heard. I agree also with Hans' read on the level of resolution with the sMS-200 Ultra... it is quite remarkable but yet not at all out of balance with all the other qualities of it's sound. It is the coherence and the balance in the nature and capability of the SOTM sMS-200 that is it's core strength. With visceral, lively and full bodied speakers like Harbeth (and probably your Zu's I would imagine) it provides just an ideal amount of both body and resolution. The soundstage is certainly amongst the deepest and widest and for me seems to be almost ideally formed.
Hans was clearly taken by the sense of attack and perceived responsiveness in speed of ebb and flow of the music and I'd agree absolutely with that and as very much alive as the sense of attack is still also the rate of decay (for me) is in largely perfect order and relationship to the attack. The music carries you through time effortlessly. It's portrayal of musical energy seems to honestly reflect the spirit of the music and the range of expressing vitality from the most pensive moments of calm right through to thrilling, explosively alive and vibrant is wide and absolutely convincing and deeply expressive. It is for me the first affordable front end digital solution that I have heard that doesn't leave me wanting anything more in it connecting me to the music or any aspect of sound or purely the essential nature of the sound itself. I do believe that putting it up on exceptional resonance control is critical with the SOTM as apparently digital clocks are super sensitive to vibration. Perhaps your fantastic Stacore fetish will come into play in a very positive way with your digital setup.
So sonically and in terms of making music there are absolutely no hesitations from me with this lil' beastie.
CAVEAT; Well Yes... so where are my reservations?
1. The unit instruction manuals and support need to be much, much, err much better... the video that Han's did for review is just so many times better an explanation of the SOTM and how it works. It is so much clearer communication than anything I have seen elsewhere, including on the SOTM website. Don't get me wrong, I love the SOTM gear but the written and video support needs to be more in depth and detailed.
2. The setup may not really be quite as easy as suggested in Han's review. Sync delay and buffer settings are not necessarily default and these are critical to trouble free replay and also I found managing the analysis speeds and sync delay also in Roons settings ended up being important and an issue that led me to suffer some long seemingly random bouts of stuttering replay and an ensuing deep and dark depression known as computer nightmare syndrome. Resetting all the settings in the unit after a power loss was just one of my early bad experiences of the SOTM made even more stressful because when it is working properly it is so joyful and addictive. Even just the choice of player strategy... Roon or HQplayer, minim, uPnp etc. could do with a better explanation on the wisdom in choice of these... this needs to be explored more for sure. Also some of the random replay reliability issues with dropouts that I have experienced may well prove to just be my ageing 2011 mac air processor that I'm using just as a controller for accessing the system player and roon... I'll know more if that is the issue once I've picked up a new Macbook pro to run Roon from.
So sonically and musically I am absolutely 100% happy to give this a very clear and enthusiastic recommendation for you to demo (I'd also go 12 Volt and run with a purely linear external supply rather than a hybrid SOTM SMPS unit however.)
But there is a big qualifying question mark Marc on ease of setup with this and in computer audio in general... especially if you are at all computer challenged. At least have the Eera plus your analogue on call as plan B and C for music as backup for those inevitable bad computer days... tho everyone's computer experience will likely be variable and also therefore the connected amount of moments of music and joy and also the attendant occasions of pure IT torture. YMMV... hope this in some way helps.
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