Music Server Shoot out

A

AlterEgo

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Joined
Feb 13, 2017
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84
Location
Germany
The last two weekends I listened various alternative Music Server. The alternatives were


1. Stock MacMini à Aqvox Switch à SOtM SMS-200 (UpTone UltraCaps LPS-1) à UpTone Regen (LPS-1) --> VA SCD-025
2. Lampizator Superkomputer with Lampi GG balanced
3. SGM 2015 + Herzan TS-150 + Vitus SCD-025
4. Purist Statement 7 with Ultimate DAC and Statement DAC


After carefully and intensive listening the last two weeks my leaderboard looks like as stated below:

1. Purist + Ultimate DAC
2. Purist + Statement DAC
3. Lampi SK + GG
4. SGM 2015 + VA SCD-025
5. Stock MacMini +…….

In all variants I used Roon with HQ-Player.


Unfortunately we were not succesfull to pair the GG with the SGM (the reason was according to Lucasz and Edward, that the Amanero was fixed to the Linux-OS of the SK and so the SGM could not „see“ the DAC and we failed in resetting the Amanero chip) and to the second my own SCD-025 was defeated in this contest unfortunately. The Purist with both DAC´s was wonderful in his audio presentation. The Ultimate DAC sounds a little bit softer and warmer, the Statement DAC is a resolution wonder in my ears. In the comparison between the native Roon-player and the HQ-Player, the HQ-Player is clearly ahead. For the Purist I renounced of cross- and/or upsampling because both DACs (UItimate/Statement) uses oversampling in the hardware itself. With the Lampi SK and the SGM I upsampled with HQ-Player.

The differences between both Purist variants were very small. One step behind the Lampi-combination. Two more steps the SGM/Vitus-combo and a bit behind the MacMini/SOtM-combination.

Now I am looking forward to the delivery of the winner of the contest. :rolleyes:
 
Hi what were the valves on the Lampi GG?

Also did you use the Purist with the Lampi GG?
 
I don't see why are you combining the Lampi Server with Lampi GG alone? There is no synergy. To evaluate the best server, you need to keep dac constant IMO. For example, I am a big fan of the GG, not so of the server, and therefore I used Lampi and Vivaldi both to compare Aurender n100, x100, w20, auralic aries on both and dCS network bridge additionally on vivaldi via aes to compare. I intend to do this further with Melco and CAT

I would like to know what you think of Purist on GG. Things like Herzan below one component can skew results
 
Any thoughts on the new Melco servers? I have only only heard a couple of folks talk about them. Said they were a serious upgrade and give a much fuller sound. I think we are just seeing the beginning of the server rage. As we get going, I believe that servers will become much better overall. I love my rebuilt Mac Mini and have yet to hear a server on the market that comes close, but they are getting much closer. I will wait it all out and see where it takes us.
 
Ctsooner said:
Any thoughts on the new Melco servers? I have only only heard a couple of folks talk about them. Said they were a serious upgrade and give a much fuller sound. I think we are just seeing the beginning of the server rage. As we get going, I believe that servers will become much better overall. I love my rebuilt Mac Mini and have yet to hear a server on the market that comes close, but they are getting much closer. I will wait it all out and see where it takes us.
Click to expand...

No I still have to do that compare. And CAD. So far Aurender's the best, and the AES works best with dCS, so I assume AES works better than USB (I couldn't try it on my Lampi as I did not have an AES on mine but can get one).
 
Ctsooner said:
Any thoughts on the new Melco servers? I have only only heard a couple of folks talk about them. Said they were a serious upgrade and give a much fuller sound. I think we are just seeing the beginning of the server rage. As we get going, I believe that servers will become much better overall. I love my rebuilt Mac Mini and have yet to hear a server on the market that comes close, but they are getting much closer. I will wait it all out and see where it takes us.
Click to expand...

Remember - it's not just the server, it's the software and overall user experience.

Lumin and Aurender have the best IMO. Auralic's is getting better all the time.

I cannot stand JRiver. What a piece of bloat ware.

The other software packages that "interface" with iTunes like Audirvana, IMO, range from awful and unstable to mediocre at best.

Roon requires another expensive juiced up computer running.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
bonzo said:
I don't see why are you combining the Lampi Server with Lampi GG alone? There is no synergy. To evaluate the best server, you need to keep dac constant IMO.
Click to expand...

Basically you are right with your suggestion of using a constant DAC. There are two reasons why I changed this original plan.

In the beginning I did not really think about a new DAC, because I own a in my opinion good performing DAC with the VA SCD 025. I only want to compare Music Server SGM, the SK the SOtM and my MacMini.

The first change happened on the HigEnd in Munich. There I met a German guy who try to convince me to give the Purist a chance in the shoot out. In this discussion he told me that he compared the Purist with the Ulimate DAC with a 80k€ MSB-DAC. I don't know it exactly, but I assume the Select (II?). In his opinion this DAC-Contest was on eye-to-eye-level. I became curious and organized a Purist with DAC.

Responsible for the second change was Lucasz. He visited me after the HighEnd and delivered the SK. In his car on the rear seat there was the GG of the HighEnd. He asked me whether I wanted to test it.

In the following I listended the combinations which have chance of realization. Purist & GG was none of them, because the Purist DAC sounded better for me than the GG. Besides that Purist was a one-box-solution and much cheaper than Purist + GG.

More info later when I am at home.
 
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AlterEgo said:
Responsible for the second change was Lucasz. He visited me after the HighEnd and delivered the SK. In his car on the rear seat there was the GG of the HighEnd. He asked me whether I wanted to test it.

In the following I listended the combinations which have chance of realization. Purist & GG was none of them, because the Purist DAC sounded better for me than the GG. Besides that Purist was a ohne box and much cheaper than Purist + GG.

More info later when I am at home.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, the Purist vs GG was in the same system with the same server?
 
AlterEgo said:
Basically you are right with your suggestion of using a constant DAC. There are two reasons why I changed this original plan.

In the beginning I did not really think about a new DAC, because I own a in my opinion good performing DAC with the VA SCD 025. I only want to compare Music Server SGM, the SK the SOtM and my MacMini.

The first change happened on the HigEnd in Munich. There I met a German guy who try to convince me to give the Purist a chance in the shoot out. In this discussion he told me that he compared the Purist with the Ulimate DAC with a 80k€ MSB-DAC. I don't know it exactly, but I assume the Select (II?). In his opinion this DAC-Contest was on eye-to-eye-level. I became curious and organized a Purist with DAC.

Responsible for the second change was Lucasz. He visited me after the HighEnd and delivered the SK. In his car on the rear seat there was the GG of the HighEnd. He asked me whether I wanted to test it.

In the following I listended the combinations which have chance of realization. Purist & GG was none of them, because the Purist DAC sounded better for me than the GG. Besides that Purist was a ohne box and much cheaper than Purist + GG.

More info later when I am at home.
Click to expand...

thank you for all your work here and for posting about them. these types of efforts are much appreciated.

since I'm using the MSB Select II with the SGM right now, I will be curious if there is any further comments from the 'German Guy' related to the 80 euro MSB DAC??. I would appreciate knowing if that one is the Select II (likely it was).

I'm quite taken with this Select II-SGM combo.

soon I will be comparing the MSB Select II with the SGM to the Select II with the new Ethernet renderer from MSB.

too bad there were issues joining the GG and SGM. I had that in my system a few months ago and it it worked very well.
 
bonzo said:
Fair enough, the Purist vs GG was in the same system with the same server?
Click to expand...

First of all yes both initially in the same system with the same server. Both GG and the Purist Statement DAC with my MacMini. Both DACs were feeded by the SOtM SMS-200 via USB. But this configuration was only interesting in the beginning. In the final round I only compared the combinations SK&GG on the one hand side and Purist&Ultimate DAC and Purist&StatementDAC on the other hand because all three of them sounded better than the solutions with the MacMini-Server.

As I said I did not test the combination Purist (Server) & GG because this combination was not a possible solution for me because of

- pure Purist-solution sounded better (so no need for GG)
- Purist&GG is much more expensive compared with sole Purist or SK&GG
- I prefer - if possible - a one-box-solution.


One of the interim combinations was SGM&VA vs. Purist&VA. The SGM was connected via USB. The best sounding digital output of the Purist was the XLR at least in my system. Considerable better balanced sound than using RCA-Output from the Purist. These both combinations or better these both Music Servers sounded more or less equal. Perhaps a slight advantage for the Purist concerning naturalness and smooth playback. But over all they compete head-to-head.
 
bonzo said:
Things like Herzan below one component can skew results
Click to expand...

Only at the beginning I used the SGM&Herzan combination. For the contest itself all MusicServers of the shootout were isolated with Stillpoints Ultra 6s. So all of them had the same framework conditions.
 
Mike Lavigne said:
since I'm using the MSB Select II with the SGM right now, I will be curious if there is any further comments from the 'German Guy' related to the 80 euro MSB DAC??. I would appreciate knowing if that one is the Select II (likely it was).
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike.

Unfortunately my "chance acquaintance" of the Munich HighEnd didn´t mention the exact type of MSB-DAC he compared with the Purist Ultimate DAC and I at this moment was not very familiar with the MSB product range of DACs so I didn´t ask in detail. But this discussion on the fair was enough to make me curious concerning the Purist. Unfortunately I had no chance up to now to listen one of the MSB DACs but as I can read here in Audioshark your Select II must be a top-notch-DAC. Congrats.
 
Some Pics (I forgot unfortunately to make some fotos of the Purist :(--> so you will find only a picture from the website)
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This was only the arrangement for the fotos. For playing each MusicServer was placed in the Rack on the Stillpoints.
 
Thanks, that's a lot of effort. Can you please tell us the type of music tested? Rock, classical, etc?
 
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