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Measurements of Sonore microRendu Streamer

RayDunzl

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BobShermanEsq

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The data and analysis add all the relevance needed. Lab power supply fixed distortions/noise that the included "audiophile" power supply did not. Clearly then that demonstrates that microRendu is passing through its power supply noise to external DAC. I explained how it could be fixed which every analog designer would agree with. If you are not one, I appreciate the incredulity.
Included audiophile supply? lol Now your are speaking for every designer. I am very impressed.

“Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym.”

Woody Allen
 

RayDunzl

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Gym.

Girls Gym.

In Junior High the girls locker room was on the other side of the wall from one of the storage rooms for the School Band, which seemed to have developed a couple of peep holes.

Mr Henderson, the new Music Teacher who replaced Mr Whatley, a squirelly looking little fellow (and by that, I mean his face resembled that of a squirrel) discovered the peep show, and went to have a little meeting with the Girls Gym Coach, whose name escapes me, but she was hot.

They ended up getting married.

The holes got filled, I don't remember any other repercussions.
 
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amirm

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Included audiophile supply? lol

This is what ifi says about the power supply I used which Sonore sold me as a package with microRendu:

"The central characteristic of iFi is in pursuit of the zenith in audio performance: it leaves no stone unturned. Well, the all new iPOWER is an exemplary example of this. Despite the fact that the iFi Ultra-Low Noise AC/DC adapter was exceptionally quiet and elevated the iUSB and iPhono to punch way beyond their respective categories, the all new iPower is even quieter, up to 10x quieter in fact."

Reads like an audiophile power supply to me. What do you think it is?

Now your are speaking for every designer. I am very impressed.
Some things are basic so yes, if you go to every tire store with a bald tire, they will tell you it needs replacement. Likewise, power line filtering and not letting 60 Hz get through is a fundamental basic.
 

John Kenny

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Are you saying that the microrendu "should solve" your ground loop issue because it seems likely that's what you have & that's what bobshermanesq is getting at?
Why not try the laptop running off batteries instead of plugged in?

From the above graphs I can see that the microrendu drops the "noise floor" by 10 - 15dB & with far less perturbations than the iFi DAC directly connected to USB - I would consider that a substantial improvement, wouldn't you?
 
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BobShermanEsq

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Some? You were pretty sure about all of them being that way just a minute ago. Tell us which laptop you have and do the test and report back. And which ones you have tested which don't work without battery.


Why you ask?


Perils of not reading the posts before jumping in. From OP


If you thought I was using a music server, why did you comment on use of battery in my laptop?
Please... nowhere did I say that all laptops do not run without batteries. My comment was basically that if you have the battery in the laptop it is running on the battery not the power supply. When you ran the tests did you remove the battery? That was a pretty straightforward question.

I read everything believe me and I'm not jumping to any conclusions, or jumping in. But you are a bit all over the place when you mentioned music server versus a streamer and not possibly understanding the device you are trying to test and that it does not necessarily differ from a quote music server. You are differentiating a music server from a streamer and your tests are not really an accurate comparison. Nor do we have any idea what your network is, or might add to the equation. You are testing a directly connected device with local storage, to a networked device, with an unknown quantity, your network. And still as John mentions the MR is actually much better, which your seem to ignore.
 
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BobShermanEsq

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From the above graphs I can see that the microrendu drops the "noise floor" by 10 - 15dB & with far less perturbations than the iFi DAC directly connected to USB - I would consider that a substantial improvement, wouldn't you?
Any reasonably person would. ;)
 
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amirm

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Are you saying that the microrendu "should solve" your ground loop issue because that's what you have & that's what bobshermanesq is getting at?
My ground loop problem? I had no such "problem" when I connected the ifi DAC directly to my laptop. It was the addition of microRendu with the supplied ifi DAC that produced the new line frequency distortion products.

And how did you determine it was a "ground loop?"
Why not try the laptop running off batteries instead of plugged in?
I am not here to chase stuff you throw at the board to see what sticks. Since the setup is still here, this with and without my laptop power supply with microRendu and ifi Power supply:

Laptop Battery with ifi DAC.PNG


Yellow is with my laptop connected to mains, and red is with it running on battery power. All the issues remain. So your argument is not valid on multiple fronts.
 
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amirm

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Please... nowhere did I say that all laptops do not run without batteries.
You assumed mine was. Why? Again, what does yours do? Unless you can provide some back up, I think you posted a lay assumption of how a laptop works and it simply was wrong. Please don't waste our time that way. Ask questions before asserting them.
 

BobShermanEsq

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You assumed mine was. Why? Again, what does yours do? Unless you can provide some back up, I think you posted a lay assumption of how a laptop works and it simply was wrong. Please don't waste our time that way. Ask questions before asserting them.
It is quite alright if you do not understand.
 

Thomas savage

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You assumed mine was. Why? Again, what does yours do? Unless you can provide some back up, I think you posted a lay assumption of how a laptop works and it simply was wrong. Please don't waste our time that way. Ask questions before asserting them.
 
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amirm

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From the above graphs I can see that the microrendu drops the "noise floor" by 10 - 15dB & with far less perturbations than the iFi DAC directly connected to USB - I would consider that a substantial improvement, wouldn't you?
Actually no. As I mentioned we are dealing with two completely different audio stacks in the measurements that I provided. Specifically, the default Windows player is going through the Windows audio stack with its dither component in place.

I re-tested, this time with Foobar2000 and Asio driver for the ifi DAC. Here are the results:

ifi DAC with Foobar2000 Asio Path.PNG


Green is ifi DAC connected to USB as before, using Windows audio stack.

Yellow again is the same old data with the data path now being through microRendu with my lab power supply.

The new graph in teal is using foobar 2000 using ASIO interface to talk to ifi DAC. The noise floor is now dropped by the same amount because of the removal of dither in Windows audio stack. And performance is now identical to using microRendu which likewise doesn't dither (it is a pass through device).

So in summary, microRendu has not improved anything when using it with my lab power supply. The output of the DAC is the same with or without microRendu. Using ifi Power supplied as provided by Sonore, substantially degraded performance however, as I showed before.

Objectively then, based on this data, microRendu has only potential to do harm. Again, I welcome other comments and data to the contrary.
 

RayDunzl

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Since the setup is still here, this with and without my laptop power supply with microRendu and ifi Power supply:

View attachment 2128

Yellow is with my laptop connected to mains, and red is with it running on battery power.

Could you repost that screen capture with a log scale for frequency?
 

cjf

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Ahh come on..thats chicken feed..Just imagine all the veils that might be lifted and ruler flat results on the chart...lol

I own the unit you linked to by the way. I haven't tried inserting it yet since I started using the mRendu because I wanted to get a feel for its sound as is before "tweaking" it. But with that said, I think I'll hook it up for tonights listening session and see what happens.

Also, thanks for testing the mRendu using the Lab Grade PS verses the iFi. This is valuable info and seals the deal for me that I will continue using my Agilent unit.

A couple more things that come to mind to consider. If I were a betting man I would say many folks using the mRendu are doing so in combination with ROON in a client/server mode where ROON Server is running on a remote system and the mRendu is then left to only pass on the pre-processed audio to the DAC. In this mode it's said to reduce CPU/RAM and other "activity" to a minimum. I guess in theory, less activity should also equal less noise/hash...etc from the device under test. I guess the reason I mention this is because it may be worth testing the mRendu in that configuration since its the most common way people are using it.
 
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amirm

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A couple more things that come to mind to consider. If I were a betting man I would say many folks using the mRendu are doing so in combination with ROON in a client/server mode where ROON Server is running on a remote system and the mRendu is then left to only pass on the pre-processed audio to the DAC. In this mode it's said to reduce CPU/RAM and other "activity" to a minimum. I guess in theory, less activity should also equal less noise/hash...etc from the device under test. I guess the reason I mention this is because it may be worth testing the mRendu in that configuration since its the most common way people are using it.
I just did that test with my laptop that has hundreds of processes running, a ton of open tabs to web sites doing whatever they are doing and as I showed in my last measurement, it did not improve with addition of microRendu.

Theories are good. We just need to add data to back them :).
 
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amirm

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Could you repost that screen capture with a log scale for frequency?
Sorry I can't do that anymore. I quit out of the app already. If I have to measure again for some reason, I will do that.
 

John Kenny

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My ground loop problem? I had no such "problem" when I connected the ifi DAC directly to my laptop. It was the addition of microRendu with the supplied ifi DAC that produced the new line frequency distortion products.

And how did you determine it was a "ground loop?"
I reckoned it may well be a ground loop but it now appears that it's probably introduced by your iFi power supply

I am not here to chase stuff you throw at the board to see what sticks.
I simply made a suggestion that you might try. Your animosity to my suggestion indicates to me that your previous comment "Thanks to those of you who questioned me on the level differences. Please keep it up! :)" is not sincere
Since the setup is still here, this with and without my laptop power supply with microRendu and ifi Power supply:

View attachment 2128

Yellow is with my laptop connected to mains, and red is with it running on battery power. All the issues remain. So your argument is not valid on multiple fronts.
It appears to me that the iFi is introducing a ground loop in your system.
 

Thomas savage

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Thanks for doing this amir :)

When the test results contest other folks agendas it's all to common to see a attempt to discredit the tests themselves.

But it's quite alright if they disagree.. Or don't understand :D
 

dallasjustice

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Amir,
I am thankful for you presenting your findings so that you can respond to the predictable critics. Having said that, it may benefit others with a shorter attention span to summarize what you've discovered about the micro-rendon't.
 
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