Point of higher priced streamer?

One issue Swenson claims is an issue is literally just that, typical analog ground noise. The other would be internal system ground noise, which is real, but readily dealt with.

He throws around his chip design experience quite readily, but that does not make you a system level expert, and certainly has not provided him with the tools to clearly illustrate his claims matter, or he does, and chooses not to publish said results.


Of course he didn't think twice to link to a "review" where someone was taking pictures of a TV screen and claiming big differences between cables and power supplies, even though it was quite obvious to any amateur photographer that there were significant variations in image brightness resulting in saturation in some images, and differences in shadow detail in others, and then there was out of focus blurriness in others, though given the TV and camera sitting on a tripod method, vibration could have caused blurriness as well.

I see no reason for an expensive streamer. Buy a nice DAC and get a reasonable streamer. Streamers are merely computers anyhow.

There are major differences between streamers that can be heard. Each streamer when connected to a dac puts out varying amounts of jitter and electrical noise/interference which can generated by the streamer and or nearby electrical components, wifi, etc. The differences between my old bluesound node 2i, my aurender streamer and my cd transport can be heard very easily. It is not just ones and zeros like many claim. There are real world differences. I would have taken my aurender back during my 30 day trial if it did not sound significantly better than my bluesound node 2i to my ears.

A LPS seems to be a popular choice for he Rendu’s, especially over the stock PS. I have now bought it and will give it a go. Unfortunately, they are out of supply until February. Once reason that I am doing this today and not it in the past, is that today my system will allow me to hear the improvements, if any exist.

Here is some very useful info from UpTone Audio on using the UltraCap LPS 1.2 with a microRendu.

Thank you you for your interest in our groundbreaking UltraCap LPS-1.2 linear power supply.

Yes, it absolutely works with the Sonore microRendu (also designed by my partner John Swenson). Just set the LPS-1.2 to 7 volts.

There is a special situation unique to the LPS-1.2/microRendu combination:

The Sonore microRendu is the only component we know of that is not tolerant of the final 10 millisecond ramp time of the UltraCap LPS-1.2’s LT3045 output regulators. When the LPS-1.2 boots to green and turns on its output, there is that very short ramp (it does not go from zero volts to 7V instantly).The microRendu will not boot properly if it gets its power following the ramp.

All you need to do is to power on the LPS-1.2, wait until it gets to green, and then connect the DC output cable to the microRendu (does not matter which end was disconnected, whichever is more convenient for you).

This issue does not exist with the ultraRendu, nor with the original LPS-1. It is only the microRendu/LPS-1.2 combo. Minor inconvenience. We recommend you leave the UltraCap LPS-1.2 and microRendu on 24/7 anyway.

This bug is not an issue for me.

Getting a EtherREGEN is a question for the future when I buy my next DACs. If anyone is interested here is the EtherREGEN’s designers comment to my use case.

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/57519-uptone-audio-etherregen-listening-impressions/?do=fin...

Unexpected result I ran into - I'm running what I'd call a modest system, all separates, about 10k maybe if bought when brand new.  I picked up a Node 2 because I'd never had a dedicated streamer except for my laptop/Audrivana setup.  I thought the Node 2 sounded better (and it freed up my laptop duties), so I wondered if the Node 2i would be even better.  Turns out IMO that the Node 2 separated the instruments/vocals better and was more dynamic than the 2i.  I have an Ares II so I didn't use the inboard Node DACs at all, but I was semi-surprised that the 2 sounded better than the 2i, even though I'd seen a few reports of the two streamer portions being pretty much the same and not worth the upgrade, as long as you keep the software up to date.  I was expecting that the Node 2i might have an edge over the 2 or at least that they would sound pretty much the same on my system, so I ended up getting rid of the 2i.  I have no experience with more expensive streamers, so I think I would upgrade all of my other pieces before I updated my streamer.