Some pictures from Sound galleries in BMW world

[Phison Audio - Sonny]

But on the other hand. You have a nice website I could direct them to.

 

[Thomas savage]

This is what everyone wants. Except for computer geeks. This would be a $10000 system if sold at typical Hifi margins through a dealer network. So there's no room at all for anyone to make profit at this price point.

Yes your right Mike, basically your then providing a source too much like a cd play. It takes a stumbling block away and would of increased sales for you imo.

Of course the profit to allow you to do that was in the PD2 so just selling the server is a downer, to make it worth while you will need to either
A. Put it with another high profit margin product
B. Put the price up

Not sure really what's in it for you making them for someone else to boost sales of a product you dont profit from??

 

[Mivera]

But on the other hand. You have a nice website I could direct them to.

Yes and my 1st product will be the $350 Mivera Audio Microserve. It's a turnkey solution for those who just want Roon, but don't need the upsampling. All you need is this tiny box connected to the USB port with USB adapter (no cable) and a mobile device to run the Roon app for control.

 

[Mivera]

Yes your right Mike, basically your then providing a source too much like a cd play. It takes a stumbling block away and would of increased sales for you imo.

Of course the profit to allow you to do that was in the PD2 so just selling the server is a downer, to make it worth while you will need to either
A. Put it with another high profit margin product
B. Put the price up

Not sure really what's in it for you making them for someone else to boost sales of a product you dont profit from??

Without a companion DAC to go along with it, there's not much profit to be made. But audio to me is not about making money, it's fulfilling a passion. I have other ventures on the go for profit with some Scandinavian partners to the north of Sonny

 

[Thomas savage]

Without a companion DAC to go along with it, there's not much profit to be made. But audio to me is not about making money, it's fulfilling a passion. I have other ventures on the go for profit with some Scandinavian partners to the north of Sonny

Just be careful they don't 'pillage your village '

 

[Mivera]

Just be careful they don't 'pillage your village '

This other venture is not audio related.

 

[amirm]

FYI: we had a server built by a local shop that is the clone of the one I built (http://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/amirs-music-server-build-thread.415/) and the price, complete with the OS was just over $1,600. This is a fanless, quiet PC in nice looking German case. It is Skylake i5 CPU but can be i7 with just that price differential.

 

[Phison Audio - Sonny]

I really don't know how you get the pc parts that cheap. It is not possible in Denmark

 

[Mivera]

FYI: we had a server built by a local shop that is the clone of the one I built (http://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/amirs-music-server-build-thread.415/) and the price, complete with the OS was just over $1,600. This is a fanless, quiet PC in nice looking German case. It is Skylake i5 CPU but can be i7 with just that price differential.

Is it machined from a single block of aluminum and only 2" thick? Does it have a power supply with only 1 mv ripple noise? Did it come preconfigured to run Roon/Hqplayer headless? My server won't even have a video port on it. Because it doesn't need it.

 

[EuroDriver]

FYI: we had a server built by a local shop that is the clone of the one I built (http://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/amirs-music-server-build-thread.415/) and the price, complete with the OS was just over $1,600. This is a fanless, quiet PC in nice looking German case. It is Skylake i5 CPU but can be i7 with just that price differential.

The Sound Galleries Music Server team have also built a fan cooled i7 Skylake PC's at a price south of US $1,000 This machine can run HQ Player using the Polysinc family of filters and up convert to DSD 512 and feed this to the T+A DAC 8 DSD over Windows USB ASIO

Sounds jolly good too. However we on the SGM team are audiophiles who want to squeeze the last drop of sonic performance out of HQ Player, so that involves reducing RF noise and improving timing.

The major sources of RF noise are the CPU, RAM, SSD, PWM fan control

Going totally fanless when you are running close to 50 watts of CPU power is not easy. We had to totally redesign our case and go to heatsinks milled from solid copper to achieve low stable core temperatures.

CPU + Chipset + mobo noise is addressed by our power supply which has micro volt ripple, two 3.6 kg chokes and 660,000 farads of Mundorf caps. Not cheap, but highly effective. We could have used cheaper caps, but we can hear a difference. So being honest to our audiophile roots, there was only one way to go.

RAM noise, guess what, every brand and timing sounds different

Try powering the SSD with a lithium polymer battery, guess what it sounds better. That's what we did at Munich last year. It took us 4 months working with two different groups to get a power supply solution that sounded better than a Li-Po battery

The OCXO, we can hear a difference, and we think other audiophiles can too.

The other Elephant in the room is the OS. For DSD 512 on the T+A, there is no choice it has to be windows. The SGM has a custom built OS that is stripped to the bare essentials but still allows Roon+Tidal and HQ Player to run. Not easy to get to the SQ level that we achieved, but everyone is free to try their hand at tuning Win 10 to get comparable results

The end result is expensive, but it delivers a sound quality at DSD512 that has to be heard to be believed. As Michael Lavorgna said "Clarity Squared"

A note on the Kodo, I have never heard Hypex amps sound as good as these, but as all ways you have to hear it and YMMV

Elberoth on WBF and CA has good ears, and a fantastic system at home. We were his No 2 system at Munich, only bested by Magico's powered by Solution 701 Monoblocs that go for a cool $ 155,000. The No 3 system also had Solution amps, at a multiple of cost of our total electronics package of US 25,000

I don't think the SGM team needs to be embarrassed by the price / performance of our system

 

[Mivera]

The Sound Galleries Music Server team have also built a fan cooled i7 Skylake PC's at a price south of US $1,000 This machine can run HQ Player using the Polysinc family of filters and up convert to DSD 512 and feed this to the T+A DAC 8 DSD over Windows USB ASIO

Sounds jolly good too. However we on the SGM team are audiophiles who want to squeeze the last drop of sonic performance out of HQ Player, so that involves reducing RF noise and improving timing.

The major sources of RF noise are the CPU, RAM, SSD, PWM fan control

Going totally fanless when you are running close to 50 watts of CPU power is not easy. We had to totally redesign our case and go to heatsinks milled from solid copper to achieve low stable core temperatures.

CPU + Chipset + mobo noise is addressed by our power supply which has micro volt ripple, two 3.6 kg chokes and 660,000 farads of Mundorf caps. Not cheap, but highly effective. We could have used cheaper caps, but we can hear a difference. So being honest to our audiophile roots, there was only one way to go.

RAM noise, guess what, every brand and timing sounds different

Try powering the SSD with a lithium polymer battery, guess what it sounds better. That's what we did at Munich last year. It took us 4 months working with two different groups to get a power supply solution that sounded better than a Li-Po battery

The OCXO, we can hear a difference, and we think other audiophiles can too

The end result is expensive, but it delivers a sound quality at DSD512 that has to be heard to be believed. As Michael Lavorgna said "Clarity Squared"

A note on the Kodo, I have never heard Hypex amps sound as good as these, but as all ways you have to hear it and YMMV

Elberoth on WBF and CA has good ears, and a fantastic system at home. We were his No 2 system at Munich, only bested by Magico's powered by Solution 701 Monoblocs that go for a cool $ 155,000. The No 3 system also had Solution amps, at a multiple of cost of our total electronics package of US 25,000

I don't think the SGM team needs to be embarrassed by the price / performance of our system

I can completely understand how all of these fancy tweaks could make a big difference if used with a DAC with inferior USB interface implementation. Based on reports from you on CA, the T+A DAC 8 DSD is very sensitive to different source computers. You said you can even hear the difference between different processors with it. To me this proves that the USB interface implementation that's based on the Amanero, is a poor one. What other DAC's have you tried with it? Have you tried any DAC's with both galvanic isolation and reclocker in the USB interface such as the Phison PD2? In my experience, only DAC's with a USB interface built this way, and Ravenna have been immune to the quality of the server connected to them.

 

[Purité Audio]

It would be really interesting to run an unsighted comparison between the Sound Galleries super server and an ordinary laptop, through the same DAC .
Keith

 

[EuroDriver]

I can completely understand how all of these fancy tweaks could make a big difference if used with a DAC with inferior USB interface implementation. Based on reports from you on CA, the T+A DAC 8 DSD is very sensitive to different source computers. You said you can even hear the difference between different processors with it. To me this proves that the USB interface implementation that's based on the Amanero, is a poor one. What other DAC's have you tried with it? Have you tried any DAC's with both galvanic isolation and reclocker in the USB interface such as the Phison PD2? In my experience, only DAC's with a USB interface built this way, and Ravenna have been immune to the quality of the server connected to them.

IMHO the T+A DAC 8 DSD has a well above average galvanic isolation implementation

HiFi News in the UK also were of the opinion that the GI was well done

 

[EuroDriver]

It would be really interesting to run an unsighted comparison between the Sound Galleries super server and an ordinary laptop, through the same DAC .
Keith

Hi Keith,

We will be in the UK in June and a unsighted shootout with a laptop could certainly be arranged

 

[Mivera]

It would be really interesting to run an unsighted comparison between the Sound Galleries super server and an ordinary laptop, through the same DAC .
Keith

The end result will be 100% based on the DAC used and how good the digital interface is built.

 

[Thomas savage]

Hi Keith,

We will be in the UK in June and a unsighted shootout with a laptop could certainly be arranged

I want to come too... Will dig out my horse box

 

[Mivera]

IMHO the T+A DAC 8 DSD has a well above average galvanic isolation implementation

HiFi News in the UK also were of the opinion that the GI was well done

It's you that keeps saying how you can hear every little change with the server. This proves it's a poor USB interface implementation. I have had an Amanero for 2 years now and I can assure you that the only way to get decent sound out of it is with a reclocker. Galvanic isolation simply isn't enough. You have come up with a $20000 solution to a $10 problem.

 

[Mivera]

Hi Keith,

We will be in the UK in June and a unsighted shootout with a laptop could certainly be arranged

Make sure both are running Roon/Hqplayer with the exact same settings. Because 95% of the sound improvements with your server are due to Hqplayer. And the Phison PD2 should be used for the DAC upsampling to quad DSD with Poly-sinc-short-mp filter and DSD 256+ modulator. Because it will be the only 1 bit DSD DAC Keith has that is quad DSD capable, and also has a proper built USB interface.

 

[Thomas savage]

Make sure both are running Roon/Hqplayer with the exact same settings. Because 95% of the sound improvements with your server are due to Hqplayer. And the Phison PD2 should be used for the DAC upsampling to quad DSD with Poly-sinc-short-mp filter and DSD 256+ modulator. Because it will be the only 1 bit DSD DAC Keith has that is quad DSD capable, and also has a proper built USB interface.

Maybe you should come too

 

[Mivera]

Maybe you should come too

I would gladly throw my $2500 upsampling server machined from a solid block of aluminum in the shootout. Then Keith can throw in his laptop running just Roon on it's own with no Hqplayer. An ipad can be used for the GUI, this way it's super easy to switch outputs via the app. The Roon outputs can be labeled server #1,2 and 3.

Why not make it 4 and I'll throw in my $350 Microserve as well! I'm confident that even it will beat the laptop.