Me and Sonicorbiter SE [Resolved]

to the tune of Me and Bobby McGee - perhaps not!

UPS tracking tells me a Sonicorbiter SE is in Dublin and “currently in transit to it’s destination”. I thought I’d post a contemporaneous account of my experience with it.

First thing is finger’s crossed and hopefully I’m not charged any VAT, but it’s UPS and I have a sinking feeling I probably will. Our own postal service can be quite hit and miss on VAT collection.

Here’s hoping I have a RAAT optical connection to my Naim DAC by this evening.

SJB

Ha! A great expectations thread… I can only image you’re sitting frozen by the window, gazing outside in nervous anticipation?

Seriously: I’m nursing three little Cuboxes now – they’re great little buggers. Not to say I’m envious beforehand of you sporting a RAAT connection.

Enjoy the wait. :slight_smile:

Also waiting… now at Schiphol airport Amsterdam…then to Belgium and then the custom formalities. Hope that doesn’t take too long

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like Tonight’s the Night.

Just have to look forward to all tomorrow’s parties.

It better be worth it in the Long Run.

SJB

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A very compact parcel awaiting me, with no excise or VAT liability. So €60 euro postage the only monetary negative to living in Europe.

Dinner awaits, unpacking to commence later this evening and here’s hoping my optical cable fits and I’m not stomped at the first hurdle.

SJB

Okay, obviously I could have saved on postage by getting the power supply locally as I hadn’t really understood how small the SOSE is.

Now to try and set it up.

SJB

Luckily my Lifatec optical cable is of a size that fits into the optical slot on the SOSE.

So let’s plug it in and set it up…

SJB

It is indeed very easy to set up, a nice simple graphical interface. Enable Roon Ready and it shows up as an audio option and away you go.

However there is an issue with clock sync with my Naim nDAC which I’ve emailed @agillis about which hopefully can be resolved.

SJB

“What’s he talking about, that’s not so small, compared to that LP. Ooh, it’s a CD…”

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Well it’s turned out to be a brief fling with the SOSE, didn’t even get to Salinas!

There is a sync light on my Naim DAC that lights up to show “the clock is precisely synchronised with the input stream”.
With the SOSE, in any configuration, RoonReady, ShairPlay or Squeezelite the light lit up for 15 seconds, then there would be a slight pause in music as The light extinguished and then play continued.

Checking with Naim they said “you have an unstable clock from sonic orbiter digital output causing the Sync light to go out. This is a normal functionality in this event.”

Andrew doesn’t think a replacement will change matters and is surprised the "low accuracy " clock in the Squeezebox synchronises while the one in the SOSE doesn’t.

So ends my (first) brief foray with RAAT and SOSE.

One positive is that the iFi ipower powers the Squeezebox so postage back over the Atlantic won’t be quite as prohibitive as it might have been.

Pity, I so wanted the damn thing to work!

SJB.

Hi John,

Is a USB connection possible ? RAAT is designed to let the DAC own the clock but the spdif protocol (including over toslink) gets in the way.

Unfortunately not, there is no asynchronous USB connection on the Naim nDAC.

I do plan to get a Hugo TT but will probably try and match one of the new RAAT devices coming soon with it.

My thinking was to play with the SOSE until I had the Hugo and maybe go the microRendu route, moving the SOSE to have another RAAT endpoint in the house. But the optical incompatibility with Naim puts and end to all that.

SJB

The Naim has that sync problem with a lot of devices.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Naim+nDAC+sync+lock&oq=Naim+nDAC+sync+lock

But the Hugo TT should work great over USB.