Currently my Roon player is an ultraRendu/ LPS1 into a Singxer SU into Holo Spring DAC.
Is there a “player” (network DAC?) with Ethernet in sound out. I’d like a little bit more simplicity and elegance - and a remote, I miss being able to press pause and play. I quite like the sound of DSD512 so this would be necessary.
or would it?
I’m looking for ideas. Am I better keeping the DAC (I also have a Hugo TT) and getting … what DcS bridge, Auralic?
Come on, help me spend my money.
Or are we at a moment in time when I should just “stick” rather than “twist”.
If you want dCS, you’ll need more than the Bridge, since it is a renderer but no DAC. I think their Rossini player would fit the bill but is more than twice the 10K limit you’ve set. The PS Audio DirectStream DAC with Bridge II installed would do most of what you want for around $6500, I think. But the Bridge is limited to DSD 64K. They are rumored to be working on a Bridge III that will have more processing power but no official word on that yet. The Merging +Player with do DSD256 and is just 20% more than your target price. Auralic has a streaming DAC (Altair?) but I doubt it would sound better than what you already have. Their other options would be at least two box solutions. Chord is supposed to be working on a renderer (think Poly-like) device to add to the Hugo but given their struggles with the Poly, I wouldn’t hold my breath for that to come to market.
That’s for internal upsampling and processing but what it accepts on the digital inputs is different and way less. For USB it will handle DSDx2 but on the Ethernet input it is limited to DSDx1. The limitation is the HP of the input processor, not the internal FGPA DAC.
Yes with the additional network card. It is not yet fully certified as Roon Ready yet but working according to Mytek and since the Brooklyn is officially Roon Ready I’m sure it wont be long before the Manhattan is.
I saw something about a Play / Pause button. Maybe a RPi with 7" display and Ropieee could be an interface option that sits somewhere as a control for whatever device you have in the chain as DAC. I use this in several rooms where I dont always have a remote handy but want to be able to stop and start play or skip a track or just see whats playing.
There’s the Bricasti M1 DAC which has a network card option. Officially limited to DSD 128, but there are reports that it can playback DSD 512. Bricasti themselves told me that is possible, but they don’t put in the specs because they haven’t thoroughly tested it in all scenarios. They will be updating the firmware at some point to up the official DSD rates.
They also make the M12, which is the same DAC + a full preamp section, but I think that is over your price.
email them. The president of the company generally answers the mail. You can also call.
I have their one box network player (M5) which replaced a microRendu + LPS-1. It is significantly better. It is basically their network card in one box, no DAC. Bricasti and users say that with the card actually in the DAC the sound is even better (shorter signal paths, etc).
I’m not a fan of DACs using off-the-shelf chips, but if simplicity is what you’re looking for an Auralic Vega G2 might be the answer
apart being higly regarded, according to this post it should sound even better as a Roon endpoint, bypassing all its digital inputs and using instead the stock LAN card
Not completely sure on what your requirements are here, but as an all in one device, that is Roon Ready, I think the Naim Uniti Nova is fantastic. It would be top of my list of purchases if I had anywhere near the funds available!
