[andrewd01]

Not took a lot of notice with the new line up of Antipodes Music servers but was just having a look is the S40 a replacement to the CX as it is a fair bit cheaper?

The antipodes web site has prices before import taxes and tariffs etc. I have not seen any confirmed prices on retailer web sites yet.
Import duties and tariffs can add a lot to the price.

Edit -Just found that Elite audio have updated their site. It looks like the UK prices in £ are the same as the antipodes web site price in $. So S40 will be £5000 or £7000 with the fancy power supply. Not exactly cheap!

 

[Whazzzup]

Nothing in Canada. Hifi centre in Vancouver Has no antipodes listed as if they are waiting for the new line.

 

[andrewd01]

The good news is that there is a good chance of picking up a traded CX or EX from authorised dealers.
I think I would like to get a CX for my Roon core but will hold off until next year.

 

[Progisus]

Nothing in Canada. Hifi centre in Vancouver Has no antipodes listed as if they are waiting for the new line.

I am wondering what the upgrade process and pricing may be like. I believe you went through that with your Antipodes .

 

[andrewd01]

A question for @Kapiti
Hi Mark, is there any benefit of running two EX’s as a more affordable alternative to CX-EX? Or in the new series two S30’s instead of an S30 and S40? The reason I ask is that I am not sure I need the high processing power of the CX. I mainly listen to streaming services and only have a very small local library. I do not do any significant processing eg DSD upscaling. I currently run a Roon core and HQP for PCm upscaling on a single Ex and performance is fine.

 

[Whazzzup]

I am wondering what the upgrade process and pricing may be like. I believe you went through that with your Antipodes .

yes initially it was like 25% to upgrade, but my route was unique and was a trouble shoot upgrade. But each jurisdiction will be on a different time line and price points I’m sure.

 

[andrewd01]

K50 is £15k, which equates to $20k USD.

 

[Kapiti]

A question for @Kapiti
Hi Mark, is there any benefit of running two EX’s as a more affordable alternative to CX-EX? Or in the new series two S30’s instead of an S30 and S40? The reason I ask is that I am not sure I need the high processing power of the CX. I mainly listen to streaming services and only have a very small local library. I do not do any significant processing eg DSD upscaling. I currently run a Roon core and HQP for PCm upscaling on a single Ex and performance is fine.

I do not recommend an EX+EX. The sound is unpleasantly bright.

 

[Progisus]

A question for @Kapiti
Hi Mark, is there any benefit of running two EX’s as a more affordable alternative to CX-EX? Or in the new series two S30’s instead of an S30 and S40? The reason I ask is that I am not sure I need the high processing power of the CX. I mainly listen to streaming services and only have a very small local library. I do not do any significant processing eg DSD upscaling. I currently run a Roon core and HQP for PCm upscaling on a single Ex and performance is fine.

I moved my core from the EX to a NUC/Rock. I connected that by the supplied ethernet cable to network 2. This didn’t provide any sound improvement so I run the core and HQPlayer on the EX as you do. I can see moving the core for large libraries perhaps.

 

[andrewd01]

I suppose one of the reasons I am curious to try this is that I have some limited experience that shows that network switches can make a difference to sound quality. I was thinking about trying a high end network switch, but from reading user experience of a dual computer CX-EX system it seems that a big part of the sound improvement is that the CX does the job of a high end network switch by providing a very clean ethernet signal to the EX. If that is true then I thought that perhaps a dual EX installation might achieve the same thing.

 

[andrewd01]

I do not recommend an EX+EX. The sound is unpleasantly bright.

Thanks Mark, Is there a technical explanation why the combination sounds bright?

 

[Progisus]

EX is probably all one needs with a small library.

I have a copy of Audirvana and tried that with EX as a renderer using MPD. Very detailed but I like roon/HQPlayers analog sound better.

 

[Kapiti]

Thanks Mark, Is there a technical explanation why the combination sounds bright?

I should have said there is a level of digital glare that is unacceptable, rather than brightness. The hardware that works best with the renderer apps tends to work poorly with server apps and vice versa. But, on top of this, when using two similar pieces of hardware together you have more intermodulation effects to try to eliminate.

 

[Kapiti]

I should have said there is a level of digital glare that is unacceptable, rather than brightness. The hardware that works best with the renderer apps tends to work poorly with server apps and vice versa. But, on top of this, when using two similar pieces of hardware together you have more intermodulation effects to try to eliminate.

And using two identical devices (in this case two EX) means intermodulation effects are maximised.

 

[cczero17]

Clive, Looking forward to your thoughts comparing HQP upscaling to your m scaler. I am currently running Sinc-L (2M taps) with LNS15 noise shaper.

Pretty sure Sinc-L isnt 2M taps, unless you are upsampling to something obscene lol.

Having queried ratio to upsample to 352.8/384 myself with Jussi, 16/44.1 is just over 1M...

"sinc-S:
44.1k -> 352.8k = 4096 x 8 = 32768 taps
96k -> 384k = 4096 x 4 = 16384 taps

sinc-L:
44.1k -> 352.8k = 131070 x 8 = 1048560 taps
96k -> 384k = 131070 x 4 = 524280 taps"