What next to upgrade?

My Nuc connects to Mutec MC-3 via USB then the Mutec connects to my DAC via AES/XLR.

This is really good advice, I’m not going to upgrade anything unless the general consensus is that there will be a marked improvement.
I was looking at a post about showing off your system, and noticed some people was running roon on a rack mount server, seems overkill to me.

For the kind of audiophile obsessed with line noise I’d think a rackmount with screaming 40mm fans is the last place you’d want an audio output. Not that I think it actually matters at all. Ever see what’s driving the 1000megawatt risers at a concert venue? Noise is clearly not a concern :wink:

I’ve actually heard people say that Roon’s minimum spec is underdone and you need somewhat beefier hardware to really run it. Personally my favorite core hardware is a little MS Surface Go with a Surface Dock. It’s technically under the minimum spec. It runs beautifully. Smoother than Tidal’s app. Way smoother than iTunes. And light years smoother than Spotify’s app (that was pre-installed on the machine!) maybe with a big 20,000 album library it’ll start showing it’s limits, but for now, it’s the smoothest running music front-end short of Foobar I’ve found on there. And that’s both core and renderer (the Dock is a nice USB breakout for it.) Someday I may move the core to the NAS for a variety of convenience reasons, but it all just works so well on that little tablet. Who needs rackmounts? Roon is amazingly efficient. I think some audiophiles are like Tim Allen’s character in Home Improvement from the 90’s. “More power!” :stuck_out_tongue:

Cables can make differences. Digital cables shouldn’t make meaningful differences unless they’re bad. But even for cables that do make differences (I’ve spent some excess there, but never in the extremes) dollar for dollar, you could spend that money into upgraded speakers, upgraded amplifiers, or some nice vintage tubes a lot more immediate difference than the very tiny cabling differences. If you have quality cables (not $1k luxury cables and wood blocks to “stabilize them” just good quality cables like Blue Jeans etc) and speakers/amps/tubes you’re happy with…just buy more records, or a Tidal/Qobuz gift card, Roon lifetime if you haven’t done it, and be happy, you’re done. Just delete those audio dealer advertising emails. They’ll get you every time. :slight_smile:

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You can upgrade anything and everything! But why? Is there something you don’t like about your current setup?

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Room treatment, system support, mains conditioning (done correctly) and analogue cables can all make a difference.

As with anything, it’s system and listener dependent. Personally I like Russ Andrews for support (Torlyte is quite unique and I’ve not found anything which betters it sonically), and mains conditioning. Kimber cable is also very good for analogue.

For room treatment, which you met even wish to explore first, I’ve found GIK Acoustics very good and very helpful.

I would say the top two things are speakers and room acoustics. Most people ignore the latter. Proper room treatment can result in jaw dropping improvements in clarity, focus and soundstage (as compared to marginal or imagined improvements with cables :-)).

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The AN-Es have enough upgrades available to keep anyone happy, surely? :grin:

Get your ears syringed?
Probably more effective, and a damn sight cheaper than any other ‘upgrade’! :wink:

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The case doesn’t make much of a difference. One advantage of rackmounts is that as long as you don’t care about fan noise or power consumption, you can find them cheap, used, on eBay. And because you can run multiple apps on them, they aren’t necessarily overkill :wink:

I agree. Although all parts of the system chain will have an effect on what emerges from your speakers, room treatment is probably one of the most important factors after hardware upgrades, especially if you have a room with a poor acoustic as I’ve generally had in the places I’ve lived. The other major factor that has a bigger impact beyond what cables you use is the quality of the power supply entering your building. This is something else that I’ve struggled with over the years. As digital equipment and improvements in equipment power supplies increase, in reducing the noise floor, it only emphasises any AC hash that is traveling down the power supply cables into your building and into your beautifully crafted, carefully designed audio equipment, thereby distorting the signal that it outputs to your expensive speakers. On and on it goes!

I agree that room acoustics are a critical next step. I chose to take measurements at the listening position with an inexpensive calibrated microphone using free software, REW. Then I sent the resulting sonic profile to homeaudiofidelity.com who created reasonably-priced filters for Roon’s convolution engine.

Digital room correction done well makes a huge difference.

The other most rewarding investment, for me, has been power conditioning. I was blown away by the improvements to detail, staging and, especially, dynamics made by a Shunyata Denali AC distributor together with decent 9-gauge, but not crazy-expensive, power cords.

So, room correction and power management are my top two recommendations.

Room treatment and DSP Room correction are NOT the same thing, they can go together fine though. You have a very nice system, Room Treatment IS your next step if you are still looking for improvements. Stop upgrading equipment for a while and start looking at your room. Most audiophiles are inderestimating two highly important things in audio, the listening room and proper real bass extension. Both have a much higher impact on sounstaging, dynamics, effortless sound, imaging etc then equipment upgrade ones you have reach a certain level, you have allready reached that level.