Argon Audio

[litemotiv]

Curious how this compares to optical jitter on the Mac mini (2010)... Do you have the opportunity to make such measurements?

I'm afraid i don't have a Mac Mini available for testing currently, if i come across one i will try to provide the same measurements.

 

[Snoopy]

For that sale price of 149€ that someone mentioned I would definitely grab one for roon+Chromecast.

 

[litemotiv]

For that sale price of 149€ that someone mentioned I would definitely grab one for roon+Chromecast.

Yes that was me, i've been using it for a while now and overall it's been very positive, it just works™.

One thing i like is that it is USB powered, so i currently have it hooked up to a USB port without having to use another power adapter / socket. I think that is really convenient.

If you are in an area where Hifi Klubben has stores (Scandinavia / Germany / Netherlands), you can now get it for €199,-. So slightly more than the earlier sale price but lower than the €249,- standard price. Hifi Klubben is also customer friendly since they have a standard 5 year warranty on all products as well as a 60-day return policy.

 

[MaximXXL]

i've been using it for a while now and overall it's been very positive, it just works™

Have you had the opportunity to compare it with other devices? If so, with which ones?

 

[litemotiv]

Have you had the opportunity to compare it with other devices? If so, with which ones?

Not really unfortunately, our country has been in lockdown again for the last few weeks (until at least half January) so there is little movement possible. The only other streaming device i currently have here is an Amazon Firestick but that is HDMI connected, so not really useful to compare to the SOLO's optical port.

I used to have a 2011 Mac Mini but i sold it two years ago, that would have been a nice one to compare with.

 

[Kegemusha]

Argon Solo, a review, looks an interesting device.

 

[arno12]

Interesting products

https://argonaudio.com/collections/amplifiers-streaming

Hi Michael,
Regarding the solo streamer, thank you for this great product at this price! Listening now with apple music over the internal dac and feeling no urge to try my way more expensive external dac yet...
Setup was a piece of cake, everything works and no hickups whatsoever.
Last week I returned the ifi zen streamer at double the price, no dac and non functioning software. Now, I am a happy chappy!

Only one question, is there no way to log in into the solo for setup and firmware check/ update?

Arno

 

[litemotiv]

is there no way to log in into the solo for setup and firmware check/ update?

You can visit the SOLO's IP address in a browser to access the management page, you will be able to check and upgrade the firmware there as well as change a few other settings.

 

[arno12]

You can visit the SOLO's IP address in a browser to access the management page, you will be able to check and upgrade the firmware there as well as change a few other settings.

Ok found it. But where can firmware be downloaded? Can't find it on the Argon site..

 

[litemotiv]

Ok found it. But where can firmware be downloaded? Can't find it on the Argon site..

I don't think there are any firmware updates available for download (yet?) at this point. I'm not sure how Argon is planning to do the updates going forward, whether they will mainly do automatic updates OTA, or if they will offer manual downloads via their website at some point as well.

 

[Kegemusha]

Any idea if the Solo will stram from en external UpnP drive? this drive do not have DLNA.

 

[litemotiv]

Any idea if the Solo will stram from en external UpnP drive? this drive do not have DLNA.

Yes, if you use a UPnP compatible app such as BubbleUPnP. Other apps will likely also work but that is the only one i have tested with and can confirm that it works.

 

[seaman]

I'm the designer of the Argon Audio SOLO. Feel free to ask if you have any tech related questions.

-Michael

Could you tell:
1. what maximum audio quality it will handle when streaming hi-res through Airplay 2 from IOS device ?
2. is it able to stream from NAS ?

PS: given how busy WLAN could be in modern networks Ethernet port sounds reasonable. Especially if we are getting to hi-res streaming services era

 

[litemotiv]

1. what maximum audio quality it will handle when streaming hi-res through Airplay 2 from IOS device ?

16-bit / 44.1 kHz

2. is it able to stream from NAS ?

Yes but you'll need to use a 3rd party app like BubbleUPnP

PS: given how busy WLAN could be in modern networks Ethernet port sounds reasonable. Especially if we are getting to hi-res streaming services era

If you use 5GHz you can connect at 300Mbps+, that should be more than enough and the 5Ghz radio is a lot less congested than 2.4GHz.

 

[seaman]

Maybe I'm expecting too much from 200 Euro device )) but still wanted to clarify:
1. Can device handle stream to end devices wirelessly or only input streams are wireless ?
2. Can device output multiple steams simultaneously ? Meaning:
a. stream one source to multiple end devices wirelessly ?
b. stream one source to end device a and simultaneously stream other source to end device b ?

 

[litemotiv]

Maybe I'm expecting too much from 200 Euro device )) but still wanted to clarify:
1. Can device handle stream to end devices wirelessly or only input streams are wireless ?

The SOLO is itself an endpoint, so it is not primarily intended to stream to other devices.

However, you can group the SOLO together with other Google Home devices, so if you have more than one compatible endpoint you can use Google Home to determine the device(s) that will play an active stream.

2. Can device output multiple steams simultaneously ? Meaning:
a. stream one source to multiple end devices wirelessly ?
b. stream one source to end device a and simultaneously stream other source to end device b ?

2a Yes if you have multiple devices in a Google Home group.

2b No.

 

[Basement]

@Basement, when using digital out from the SOLO, would you recommend optical or coax for best results?

Good question. I made a few measurements. See attached. Jitter is mainly generated by the receiver. In this case the AP tester. So the quality of the link depends mainly on the receiver quality and the cable. I don't know how the APx555 compares here. I did not have the j-test signal on my server, so I used a low level 1kHz square wave for this test.

-Michael

 

[Basement]

J test for DAC and THD+N was what I was interested in to compare it with Allo Boss2 player.
For digital outputs you can provide jitter spectrum?

Jitter Measurements with APx

www.ap.com

I had a look at the collected QC data and typical values are approx. S/N 121 dB and THD+N 0,00035%. See attached.

 

[Basement]

for your ears or technically?) anyway, you should know that only the optical output completely breaks the electrical circuit between the source and the external DAC.

SOLO has a transformer isolated Coax output.

 

[Basement]

Hi Michael,
Regarding the solo streamer, thank you for this great product at this price! Listening now with apple music over the internal dac and feeling no urge to try my way more expensive external dac yet...
Setup was a piece of cake, everything works and no hickups whatsoever.
Last week I returned the ifi zen streamer at double the price, no dac and non functioning software. Now, I am a happy chappy!

Only one question, is there no way to log in into the solo for setup and firmware check/ update?

Arno

Hi Arno,

I'm glad you like the SOLO product. Firmware update is checked after 4 hours in idle state. It's always running the latest firmware as long it has internet connection and have been left idle for 4 hours.