Prise the Lord and pass the popcorn.
BTW, my friend in FR may be back soon. Yesterday I got the unfortunate news that her Mom passed away. Good thing they went early!
Brinkmann Nyquist DAC - technical jewel with marvelous sound
- Thread starter Kuoppis
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Prise the Lord and pass the popcorn.
BTW, my friend in FR may be back soon. Yesterday I got the unfortunate news that her Mom passed away. Good thing they went early!
Kuoppis
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Ok, it’s time again to tweak the tweaks: Larry from HDPlex was kind enough to send me one of his custom made XLR/ 4-PIN cable connectors to connect the HD Plex 200W LPSU to the Synology NAS. Power from the wall coming via a Shunyata Venom 3 HD cable into the LPSU.
Listening to three pre-selected tracks :
- Bill Evans/ Undercurrent: My Funny Valentine (PCM via Tidal)
- The Doors/ L.A. Woman: The Changeling (MQA via Tidal)
- Vital Tech Tones/ VTT (44.1K WAV from HDD)
This was one of those tests where my preconceived notion was something like: Well, long day, tired from work, I probably don’t hear a difference anyway. Way off.
To be honest, in the regular wall wart setup the Bill Evans piece tonight would not have gotten me put of bed today, sounding a bit flat and lifeless. The Doors piece a bit better and VTT as well, being a quite dynamic piece.
This test once again confirms my prior understanding: whatever you do, please get the power in order first. The NAS was before a bit better in naturalness vs the Aurender, while the latter had a tad more warmth (Aurender already getting good Shunyata Triton + Alpha cable power). The sound changed very significantly to adding more meat, texture, creamyness to the sound. Totally perplexing, not subtle at all. And it’s not just the sound, it’s also the sound stage now being partly behind me, inside my head on the VTT album.
A not very expensive, but definitely worthwhile mod. Running a NAS? Get your HDPlex today. Please ask Larry for the XLR p/ 4-pin cable to feed the NAS directly with good quality power via the LPSU.
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Listening to three pre-selected tracks :
- Bill Evans/ Undercurrent: My Funny Valentine (PCM via Tidal)
- The Doors/ L.A. Woman: The Changeling (MQA via Tidal)
- Vital Tech Tones/ VTT (44.1K WAV from HDD)
This was one of those tests where my preconceived notion was something like: Well, long day, tired from work, I probably don’t hear a difference anyway. Way off.
To be honest, in the regular wall wart setup the Bill Evans piece tonight would not have gotten me put of bed today, sounding a bit flat and lifeless. The Doors piece a bit better and VTT as well, being a quite dynamic piece.
This test once again confirms my prior understanding: whatever you do, please get the power in order first. The NAS was before a bit better in naturalness vs the Aurender, while the latter had a tad more warmth (Aurender already getting good Shunyata Triton + Alpha cable power). The sound changed very significantly to adding more meat, texture, creamyness to the sound. Totally perplexing, not subtle at all. And it’s not just the sound, it’s also the sound stage now being partly behind me, inside my head on the VTT album.
A not very expensive, but definitely worthwhile mod. Running a NAS? Get your HDPlex today. Please ask Larry for the XLR p/ 4-pin cable to feed the NAS directly with good quality power via the LPSU.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Kuoppis
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[emoji3] Agree, in this case power gives authority (to the musical presentation).
The Aurender will be put to good use at the summerhouse, but only after Roon has figured out how to identify MQA albums.
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Kuoppis
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Listening to this St. Germain album I’m amazed how the Roon/ NAS based approach has improved dimensionality and soundstage, after adding the HD Plex LPSU. Different layers, width, depth, details and clarity. Quite remarkable actually, who might have guessed.
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Kuoppis
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Regarding the same album I must add that this time I prefer my 44.kHz/ 24bit version from the NAS to the Tidal MQA stream. This might be as the Nyquist tells me this MQA version is just 44.1 kHz.
There also seems to be something odd going on between Tidal and Roon, as the otherwise well performing SW is very slow to add albums to the library marked as favorites in the Aurender Conductor or Tidal app.
Also, while in the locally stored albums I can see resolution, bit depth and dynamic range this info is not provided for Tidal streams.
Locally stored 24-bit file:
Tidal MQA stream:
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There also seems to be something odd going on between Tidal and Roon, as the otherwise well performing SW is very slow to add albums to the library marked as favorites in the Aurender Conductor or Tidal app.
Also, while in the locally stored albums I can see resolution, bit depth and dynamic range this info is not provided for Tidal streams.
Locally stored 24-bit file:
Tidal MQA stream:
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Use the Tidal app for that and then Roon will find it.
mep
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This is the HD Plex LPSU powering the NAS, great piece of kit. Built like a tank.
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You have exceeded the maximum bend radius for that power cable as you can see by the pressure being exerted on the female side of the plug. The plug is pulling itself out from the IEC connector.
Wow! That's awesome.
The awards keep stacking up... Editors Choice Award, TAS.
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Kuoppis
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Lack of a high quality remote in many DAC products was brought up as a point in another thread, so I thought I post a picture of the Nyquist remote.
Nice, solid, excellently working aluminum remote. Audiophile grade.
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Nice, solid, excellently working aluminum remote. Audiophile grade.
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UltraFast69
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Lack of a high quality remote in many DAC products was brought up as a point in another thread, so I thought I post a picture of the Nyquist remote.
Nice, solid, excellently working aluminum remote. Audiophile grade.
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No input selections or power on that guy?
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Kuoppis , in one of tour posts I saw that you had Linn Klimax in your setup , as an owner of Klimax I would be very interested in your insights regarding the difference in sound between Nyquist and Klimax.
According to my experience it’s not easy to beat Klimax.
According to my experience it’s not easy to beat Klimax.
Kuoppis
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Hi Stigmater, yes the Linns are quite good. But I feel they’re kind of getting left behind a little, due taking an unnecessarily rigid stand on new formats like DSD, MQA and solutions like Roon.
When I had the Klimax I thought it was quite good. But it sounds much more digital compared to the Nyquist. In the development process only Brinkmann high performance turntables were used as a sounding reference for the Nyquist.
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When I had the Klimax I thought it was quite good. But it sounds much more digital compared to the Nyquist. In the development process only Brinkmann high performance turntables were used as a sounding reference for the Nyquist.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk