Maybe I am missing a segment of the audio world but I have NEVER seen any negative comments nor reviews of the Sonore products. I have read some who claim it is the most important investment they’ve made in years.
@dlee I have had an ultrarendu and sonictransorter i5 for 2 days. I am trying to dial things in. Where is that menu screen shot from and do you know how I set up the conversion to DSD? I went through my roon ready settings and ultrarendu settings do not see a screen like that. I use Direct Stream Sr foDAC with USB feed from the ultrarendu.
Is the DSD out from ultrarendu better than letting The DSD Sr do the Conversion of PCM? I have tidal HiFI anQobuz studio streaming sources.
Do I need HQplayer activated for the conversion?
The sound is great and way better now just not wanting to miss capabilities that are potentially better.
Thanks,
Vmax
Great question. Here’s some insight to help you understand the differences.
With the DS DAC’s internal processing alone you have the following steps:
- Upsample 176.4kHz 24-bit PCM to ~56MHz ~50-bit PCM using Ted’s low-pass filter algorithm
- Lossless linear multiply for digital volume scaling (always happens even at “100” volume)
- Sigma-delta modulation and noise shaping down to 4xDSD (~11MHz 1-bit) for output
With Roon converting to DSD you have the following steps:
- Roon upsamples 176.4kHz 24-bit PCM to ~5.6MHz 64-bit PCM using its own low-pass filter algorithm
- Roon performs sigma-delta modulation and noise shaping down to 2xDSD (~5.6MHz 1-bit)
- Data is passed to DS DAC
- Upsample to ~56MHz ~50-bit PCM using Ted’s low-pass filter algorithm
- Lossless linear multiply for digital volume scaling (always happens even at “100” volume)
- Sigma-delta modulation and noise shaping down to 4xDSD (~11MHz 1-bit) for output
Which one is better? Well, the one you like the sound of the most.
All that technical analysis to come to that self-evident conclusion? 
If it were “self-evident” then the question wouldn’t have been asked.
Edit – or would you have liked me to pick a side?
This point is self evident, in every context:
“Which one is better? Well, the one you like the sound of the most.”
I honestly have no idea what your objective was for making these comments.
My point was, there was a lot of reading to be done in your post to arrive at that conclusion.
Not sure why that warrants the angry face. Ironically, resolving the problem requires more to read.
The way I personally approach Hifi is the “less is more” school of thought. That makes it attractive to do the fewest number of conversions, and I like giving the DS DAC unmodified data. Having a double set of low-pass filters, noise shaping and modulation, in my view, takes me further away from hearing the recording.
I feel the same way about pre-amps in general for similar reasons. But of course I’m in the minority there. And I don’t argue that other people are wrong to prefer the sound of their system with a pre-amp in place… I would just like them to understand what it is that they’re hearing, and I would like others to feel free to make their own decisions.
Hence my reply above. There are technical differences between the two approaches. Going DSD native into the DS DAC doesn’t eliminate some kind of processing, it actually adds steps. Knowing that can help people understand what is going on.
But it can’t tell somebody what they’ll like to listen to. And I was just acknowledging that.
Of all the people here who have gone from connecting their DAC/pre of whatever flavor directly to the power amps, to a dedicated pre-amp of whatever flavor, I don’t recall a single instance of anybody reporting they prefer the direct way.
We have other threads to discuss that, and I’d be happy to. But on this thread please try to see the point I’m making.
There is information about how systems work, and there is the experience of listening. Information can’t tell you what you’ll like but it can help you understand your own preferences and inform choices you need to make.
Thanks that is helpful.
Thanks for explanation. It is mostly more conversions as I thought. Probably not lot’s different than ripping your own files to DSD en playing back through the Direct Stream DAC. I will try both ways did you miss a decimal point showing 56 in Roon vs. 5.6 in Direct Stream?
I was hoping @tedsmith would have some pontification on the subject. I read he likes to rip his own DSDs and store them. Not sure if he uses Roon. The more conversions does seem there are chances of losing information.originally in PCM file.
You made a point in your post about pre-amps and I responded to that. So if you want to post in the correct topic I’ll be happy to follow.
Extracting (“ripping”) DSD from SACD is lossless - no conversion if you save as .dsf or similar.
And no… the decimal points in my post are correct 
It seems most of the posts there the had opinion renderer had no affects if one had Nucleus+ or thought it did not in there systems. In mine when you’re spouse says: “What did you do the system? I never heard it play so clear with so much bass with little volume. It seems like a total transformation. I wish we had it sound this good on the bedroom system. I would lay in bed listening to music all night long every night just so I could hear all the artist I know. I want to hear every piece of music to see what I missed.”
So yes the Sonore ultrarendu was worth it to me and a difference. She made all the same points I was hearing. I did not have a USB prior and was using optical feed. Is it just Sonic Transporter or the combination. I say who cares give the package from small green Computer still undercuts the Nucleus +with a audiophile grade USB.
Perhaps I don’t know which subjects you are interested in, but dvorak’s comments (as usual) are correct and more succinct than my usual posts. I generally recommend that people at least try sending tracks to the DS in their original format, but if you prefer some other path, that’s just fine. Converting to and from double rate DSD can in fact be lossless over the audio band, it will certainly change the ultrasonic noise, but that’s usually not an issue. Most of the differences in sound quality caused by various source settings have more to do with noise generated by the source doing the various processing interacting with the whole of your system than with the source mangling the actual data.
Do you guys know if any kind of upsampling+filtering+noise shaping will be effective in reducing the tape hiss of the recording? I am thinking about recordings with huge amount of hiss, such as Roberta Flack’s Compared to What.