microRendu General Thread

@Sloop_John_B Actually I still have the NDS, pending completion of it’s sale, but it has been quite a while since I listened to it. In fact, you may have noticed my move away from being completely Naim’ed to now only running a pair of Ovator S600’s via a Devialet 200. A very nice match they make too, but the keys that unlocked a real step forward for me, and my system, were Roon and a modest Uptone Regen. The former was the software that I had always hoped Naim would develop, and the latter actually caused a big step up in performance of the USB input for the Dev (yes, the praise written on the Regen are true IMO).

The microRendu is designed by the same man who brought us the Regen, in fact it contains an improved version of Regen in it’s circuitry, so I was very keen on the mR as a potential replacement, not least because it consolidates what is needed (hardware-wise) to pass a stream into the Dev. It’s Roon Ready and alternatively connects to HQP via in-built NAA.

I have given a little more depth here mainly leading up to my conclusion that I am not missing the NDS / Naim system at all. The mR is still very new and maybe needs a fair few more hours burn-in (I have seen 50 hours as a rule of thumb target to achieving full performance), even now though it has surpassed the sounds I was achieving with the Regen, so the other parts of the mR are coming into play. SQ is extremely good, the best I have achieved since I switched out from Naim, better than NDS/500 system? Well that’s a tall order, but like I say, I am not missing Naim at all. Maybe that’s a good enough commendation :wink:

Just a bit more background. I had switched to Devialet as a 1-box solution hoping to use Devialet AIR, their very own streaming protocol or virtual sound card, but as @mdconnelly has intimated, AIR is unstable for almost all Devialet users. In fact, it’s a right PIA, but the Devs sound so good, AIR apart, the hardware is terrific, but it was a case of finding an alternative source and using one of the other inputs on the Dev. I opted for USB and have played with many sources utilising that connection.

Roon is the go-to software ( and I am not just saying that because we are on their forum), I realised that from the moment I started using it early last year, all avenues on the hardware side have been under-pinned that they must be Roon capable going forward. What with my take on the Regen, the mR appeared to me to be the ideal solution, and so far, I have to say, I have not been disappointed. The only fly-in-the-ointment is the Dev’s implementation of USB and power saving modes, which thus far, have been a cause of frustration to the use of linux based devices and HQP NAA. It points to Devialet, hopefully they resolve it eventually.

I haven’t A/B’d the CuBox-i with the mR; still burning in the mR. But there is one change I’ve noticed which may be of interest to other Vega owners.

The Exact clock setting on the Vega has the best SQ but can introduce artefacts. With DSD these take the form of white noise, sometimes cyclic (requires play to be restarted) sometimes continuous (goes away). One of the things that can affect this is power supply.

Since replacing the CuBox and its bog-standard switching ps with the mR and the iFi switching ps I have noticed a marked reduction in artefacts and a lower intensity.

I think I will get the UpTone Audio Ultra Cap LPS-1 ps when it is released. That might kill off Exact clock artefacts completely.

Quick question for you… I also have a Regen (with Curious USB link) and use a SonicOrbiter SE. If I was to replace the SOSE with a microRendu would I still need the Regen and does it replace that as well? I’m very curious as I’ve read great reviews but curious what improvements I’d hear over what I have now. On both the SOSE and Regen I also added LPS to each (CIAudio & Breeze Audio respectively).

@anon94274355 As you will know, the SE is a Cubox with customised OS via the Sonicorbiter software. The Cubox is a great little unit but it will not be particularly optimised against the usual ‘noise’ that one gets with computers. The mR on the other hand is completely optimised to accept ethernet in and USB out, John Swenson included an improved Regen circuit in the mR as I understand it, together with other optimised components with the intention to make audio out via USB as good as one can get. It also runs the proprietary Sonicorbiter software. It would be a perfect replacement of the Regen / SOSE in my estimation, not that I have experience of the SOSE, but I have used the Regen with a highly optimised MacMini and also a Pi2. My mR has replaced all those components, and improved the SQ to boot.

I would say, the better the power supply you put to the mR and you reap rewards (however, I would imagine diminishing returns apply here, as is the case with most PSU’s). I use the Uptone JS-2, re-purposed from the MacMini, but @andybob has noted the LPS-1 which promises to be a game changer, for reasonable cost, and also notably designed by John Swenson.

43 posts were merged into an existing topic: microRendu measurements thread

Unconvinced due to the big claims and lack of solid data in the marketing of this thing, and also in light of Amir’s measurements I decided to go with a basic RPi 3 as a Roon Bridge network device instead. £50 versus £600 for the mR and it sounds top notch on my extremely revealing headphone system. Worth a try first if you’re on the fence.

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mR is $640, not 600 GBP. Fairly significant difference.

Shipped, VAT etc for $640US, that’s a heck of a deal.

For me it was going to be $1000+ CDN to my door.

I understand that. But not everyone lives in the UK and pays UK VAT and customs for it. Just didn’t want every reader to think that the “price” of the mR is 600GBP. The price is $640, or about 436 GBP. I paid the equivalent of about 538 GBP, and that included overseas shipping, VAT, and local customs.

What it costs you to get it to your door varies greatly. For some reason I don’t understand, buying things in the US and shipping them to Canada is often more expensive than shipping them halfway across the world. 1000 CDN is about 532 GBP, which is exactly the point I was trying to make.

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You can buy the units in the UK from here:

@anon94274355 The microRendu sounds better then the Sonicorbiter SE + Regen. As @AllenB mentioned John put a better version of the Regen in the microRendu. Plus you get all the other noise reducing improvements.

Noticing a soft “pop” when playing upsampled DSD128 to the mR. About once a minute when using the closed form filter in HQP. Anyone else hearing similar ?

Edit: I think this was an Ethernet cabling issue. Reverting to non-shielded cable seems to have fixed it.

Shielded is just coupling your switch to the microRendu. Shielded has a place in data centers where the large amount of close proximety cables can cause interferience issues not with audio devices where you want as much isolation as possible.

Unshielded, good quality Cat 6 is the best option.

I was worried about the rats nest of cables, power conditioner, transformer etc behind my system. Turns out the solution was worse than the problem.

2 posts were split to a new topic: Comparisons of microRendu and Aries

It isn’t the shielding per se, it is that the shields are tied into the connectors thereby allowing for the noise coupling. I learned this lesson when I originally switched to Cat 7 cabling for exactly the same reasons you did and then went back to shielded Cat6a , which seems to be better than the 5e I started with and the Cat7 I tried next.

Update:

We have completed some updates to the Shairport output mode. Let us know if you here a sound quality improvement.

Please follow this upgrade procedure for the microRendu:

  1. Go to Apps and select Software Manager
  2. Now select Update
  3. Wait for “Back to main menu” to appear at the bottom of the screen and ignore any Complete notices

SONORE computer audio - Rendu | microRendu | Sonicorbiter SE

Look what my VP Adrian dropped off the other day as a surprise. Seems he had a little project going on that I didn’t know about.

Hard adapter replacement custom made for Sonore in the USA.


SONORE computer audio - Rendu | microRendu | Sonicorbiter SE

Are you shippig those with new microRendus? Can they be purchased separately?