A $15k music streamer reviewed on stereophile

[mocenigo]

"It takes a K50 about 2 months to burn in properly," he told me. "It sounds too thin and sharp for the first 200 hours. If you turn it off for any length of time, it will take about 3 days to get back to optimum performance."

What kind of stupidity is this bollocks. Are these people insane? How does a piece of electronics and circuitry lose performance. It doesn’t have any sort of memory or setting to retain or lose performance.

Capacitors, of course, do. Whether this is audible, is completely debatable. When I read such reviews however, my brain burns (not "burns in", sadly it just burns).

 

[sq225917]

Given there are no capacitors in the digital output path I shouldn't think so....

 

[antcollinet]

Capacitors, of course, do. Whether this is audible, is completely debatable. When I read such reviews however, my brain burns (not "burns in", sadly it just burns).

That is not even remotely debatable here.

 

[Ron Texas]

Wait, if it's made in New Zealand, wouldn't the Coriolis force have spun all the cable electrons in the wrong direction phase alignment causing an inverse circular polarization? No wonder it takes them 200 hours to get things sorted out again. I bet if they reviewed it in the southern hemisphere with similar planetary alignments, the burn in time would be much less.

It has to do with the sheep...

 

[mocenigo]

Given there are no capacitors in the digital output path I shouldn't think so....

It was just an example. But there are definitely some in the power supply. However, claims of such long warm-up times are very suspicious.

 

[voodooless]

Another interesting thing about the article is that on page 1, 80% text is quotes from the manufacturer, then some more exposition on what the manufacturer claims or did, and finally some facts about its operation. Since the quotes are almost indistinguishable from the normal text, it reads as if this is Stereophile's own content.

But hey, at least it was tested blind, so there is that

Well, almost. To arrive at the point where I could simply sit back, close my eyes, let out a sigh, and bask in the blessings of glorious music reproduction, I first had to determine which combination of outputs, server, player, and source delivered the most satisfying sound

 

[pseudoid]

It’s got better bits than your average streamer. “Bits, it seems, aren't bits, or not only. A digital datastream is also an analog signal. Noise and other signal errors endemic to multi-function computers not designed primarily for music playback can affect how music sounds.”

Sorry; I am a 'bit' confused.
In theory, what is labeled as 'bits' is 'composite of bunch of lower order sinewaves; not infinite because those bits have a finite Tr and Tf (rise/fall times). Not to get stuffy but besides these time constraints on 'bits' are not the only thing that makes them imposter analog signals, since the TTL (or whatever +/-Vcc they are railed to), inherently get modulated (like riding shotgun) on top (and bottom) of the [errrr...] the "zeroes" and the "ones". of course, a digital bit is an analog ridden signal thru even modulation theorem(s). Notice I have not used the word derivatives, Fourier-transforms or convolution, in the above but if you want the real low down on what bits are and may not be, here is your link (Lecture10?).

 

[Doodski]

"impressive" is a vector quantity

My magnitude is better than your magnitude. rflmaO...

 

[the_hamster 2]

Especially when all it is doing is getting hold of digital files and pushing them off to an external DAC. It doesn't do *anything* in the analogue domain.

The stupid: It burns.


What really hacks me off is I can build a streamer out of a Raspberry Pi for less than £100 - and it will do just as good a job sound wise as this ridiculously priced piece of willy waving.

“Willy-waving”…full marks, mate.

 

[Doodski]

"It takes a K50 about 2 months to burn in properly," he told me. "It sounds too thin and sharp for the first 200 hours. If you turn it off for any length of time, it will take about 3 days to get back to optimum performance."

What kind of stupidity is this bollocks. Are these people insane? How does a piece of electronics and circuitry lose performance. It doesn’t have any sort of memory or setting to retain or lose performance.

It loses performance from the day that power plug is engaged. How it always improves for the elites is the key to understanding here what is really happening.

 

[fatoldgit]

As a sane, objective Kiwi, I would like to apologize to the Fora on this board for my country foisting this over priced device on the world.

What I find interesting in the review is how they worked with a motherboard maker to tune the MB.

You cant "bread board" a MB in the same way you can most audio devices.. so the cost to iterate through MEANINGFUL chances to a MB would be huge AND the timeline would be long.

Maybe they did and that reflects the price but as a techie its seems more of a fable than a fact.

Peter

 

[Chrispy]

LOL, a Serinus review.....who can take that guy seriously?

 

[HammerSandwich]

But hey, at least it was tested blind, so there is that

> Well, almost. To arrive at the point where I could simply sit back, close my eyes, let out a sigh,
> and bask in the blessings of glorious music reproduction, I first had to determine which combination
> of outputs, server, player, and source delivered the most satisfying sound

It does sound a lot better than other streamers but only after you suffer thru the first month or two.

My magnitude is better than your magnitude. rflmaO...

That's only half the story. A surefire way to arrive late is to drive 300kph in the wrong direction.

You cant "bread board" a MB in the same way you can most audio devices.. so the cost to iterate through MEANINGFUL chances to a MB would be huge AND the timeline would be long.

Firmware tweaks? No comment on how many bits I suspect were actually changed.

 

[fatoldgit]

Firmware tweaks? No comment on how many bits I suspect were actually changed.

The review states:

"The company works with two manufacturers of industrial motherboards to ensure optimal tuning for precision and noise performance. "Tuning is really only available to a motherboard manufacturer," Jenkins said. "With their help, we can optimize audio performance. This gets us high-quality, great-sounding motherboards, albeit at a relatively high cost compared to using standard motherboards."

The implication is hardware level changes... in theory that means moving components around, changing tracings etc... which as I say would be expensive/time consuming.

Peter

 

[antcollinet]

It could just mean component changes - eg changing capacitors.

Any competent motherboard manufacturer would simply say their layout is already optimised. And since there is no way they can improve "accuracy" over and above the MB working reliably would have no design criteria to change it in any case. Not saying that some wouldn't do it anyway if enough money were handed over, but it would be an utterly pointless task.

"Great sounding motherboards" A prase that when translated from English into Audiophile means "give us $15K for a $5C PC" There aren't enough swears in the world.

 

[voodooless]

The review states:

"The company works with two manufacturers of industrial motherboards to ensure optimal tuning for precision and noise performance. "Tuning is really only available to a motherboard manufacturer," Jenkins said. "With their help, we can optimize audio performance. This gets us high-quality, great-sounding motherboards, albeit at a relatively high cost compared to using standard motherboards."

The implication is hardware level changes... in theory that means moving components around, changing tracings etc... which as I say would be expensive/time consuming.

Or they just fitted some audiophile caps and other nonsense... no special changes needed, just a special production run with different BOM.

Edit: @tonycollinet beat me to it

 

[voodooless]

If they really wanted to lower noise, they could have just cryogenically cooled the whole thing to just above absolute zero.. that is probably even doable for 15k.

 

[HammerSandwich]

The implication is hardware level changes...

Yes, but they imply more than they say directly. Extreme OCers coordinate with motherboard companies to customize BIOS settings for their exact usage, and that sort of tweaking would be consistent with what's actually in the Stereophile story. I certainly don't know that's all that changed for the streamer, but let's consider it from the other side for a moment. Suppose the development had involved a bunch of prototypes & the final product contains upgraded hardware. What modern, high-end, company would not trumpet that loudly? That's about 75% of their marketing! Here, not a word...

 

[HammerSandwich]

If they really wanted to lower noise, they could have just cryogenically cooled the whole thing to just above absolute zero.. that is probably even doable for 15k.

"You haven't listened to music all week, dear. Is something wrong?"

"Oh, it's just terrible! I ran out of liquid helium..."

 

[eriksson]

Ok, I am bit drunk and lost track in this review. Before I buy one I want to know - does it have golden floating heatsinks?