Great! Noting a decent few folk prefer the U18 to the R26 LAN, but that was not my experience in my system.
The Phoenix has a far better oscillator than the OCK-2 (Mutec Ref10 level), same re its Sean Jacobs linear PS, a higher league as it ought to be at
USD4k. Sounded amazing with the R26 in the month I was loaned it but your money would be better spent upgrading your DAC first.
Did you use the U18 off of a clock as well?
edit: nm I see you had a separate line for when you used it with a clock. Was the disparity between the U18 and the LHY option large or relatively close? Wondering if it is similar to the switches were they can be brought close with reasonable fuse upgrades like the Gustard ceramic ones.
I use LAN from my laptop to a mesh router just for this and back to the R26 and HQ Player recognizes the R26. Upsampled to 768 with files from my hardrive dragged into HQP desktop as a player. HQP Client is also included in the package and allows search and stream from Qobuz through the upsampler. Qobuz ques suggested matches after your selection when it is finished and I do sometimes make discoveries from this. Qobuz streams hirez FLAC but files from my hardrive sound the best. So I preview anything I want via stream with my subscription and then buy it through download if I really like it, quite often in 24/192 WAV, for the discounted price of $12 as a Sublime level Qobuz subscriber
I wouldn't want to have an audio system that did NOT have a computer in it now.
This whole LAN thing is crazy to me. I'm sitting at my desk, in front of my computer where my FLAC files are, but instead of plugging a cable from my computer to the DAC, I have to send the files to my router over wifi and then run a cable from there to my computer and somehow that's less lossy than just using USB? Why can't they just make a USB port that works as well as an Ethernet cable? Doesn't using WiFi introduce lag due to the distance and extra processing? Does anyone use the R26 as a PC DAC for other things than music, I play games and watch videos as well, would I just use the USB for those purposes and switch inputs?
This whole LAN thing is crazy to me. I'm sitting at my desk, in front of my computer where my FLAC files are, but instead of plugging a cable from my computer to the DAC, I have to send the files to my router over wifi and then run a cable from there to my computer and somehow that's less lossy than just using USB? Why can't they just make a USB port that works as well as an Ethernet cable? Doesn't using WiFi introduce lag due to the distance and extra processing? Does anyone use the R26 as a PC DAC for other things than music, I play games and watch videos as well, would I just use the USB for those purposes and switch inputs?
LAN is practical when you use a media server on a computer (I use a NAS) to send files from all kinds of services, including files on hard disks and streaming services. I can mix my own local tracks with my favourites on for instance Tidal as random play or to show Tidal favourites together with my local albums.
For me dabbling with all kinds of software, cables, gadgets and clocks makes no sense. I just stream over LAN to my R26 (and to other units in other rooms) and enjoy the musc, that's that.
This whole LAN thing is crazy to me. I'm sitting at my desk, in front of my computer where my FLAC files are, but instead of plugging a cable from my computer to the DAC, I have to send the files to my router over wifi and then run a cable from there to my computer and somehow that's less lossy than just using USB? Why can't they just make a USB port that works as well as an Ethernet cable? Doesn't using WiFi introduce lag due to the distance and extra processing? Does anyone use the R26 as a PC DAC for other things than music, I play games and watch videos as well, would I just use the USB for those purposes and switch inputs?
I like the LAN input of the Gustards since it is less cable sensitive. I hear big differences between USB cables and finally found a great one without breaking the bank in the Supra Excalibur. But a $12 Cat6 cable sounds better. Well, two of them actually. And a $130 Netgear mesh router in between since I couldn't get the networking of my laptop player/ server to simultaneously connect wirelessly to the internet and LAN to the R26. So now the laptop and the R26 connect via LAN to the extra mesh router, and that connects wirelessly to my main wireless network for internet. This also isolates the LAN from the internet cable cable to the street. Not that that made any difference.
This whole LAN thing is crazy to me. I'm sitting at my desk, in front of my computer where my FLAC files are, but instead of plugging a cable from my computer to the DAC, I have to send the files to my router over wifi and then run a cable from there to my computer and somehow that's less lossy than just using USB? Why can't they just make a USB port that works as well as an Ethernet cable? Doesn't using WiFi introduce lag due to the distance and extra processing? Does anyone use the R26 as a PC DAC for other things than music, I play games and watch videos as well, would I just use the USB for those purposes and switch inputs?
In your use case I’d just plug the usb in and use that, don’t worry about what some random dude on the internet says. Most people don’t want a PC plugged directly into their DAC, PCs can be noisy and noise can pollute the DAC, it’s not about losses, non of these methods lose any data, the only concerns are noise levels and Jitter.
Theoretically using the inbuild streamer can have a number of advantages as the streamer and DAC use the same local clock, in addition there are options for optical isolation of the Ethernet interface if you want to go down that road.
I overcome theoretical noise problem by using optical from a streamer. I compared this to the Ethernet connection and inbuild streamer and sound wise they were indistinguishable.
Use whatever is easiest (initially at least) if you want to try better USB cables then do so, if you try a mid price one (say £30) and hear no improvement then that’s something you can then ignore, many improvements that people report are either system and environment dependent or completely imagined, if in your system and environment there is no difference than be happy that you don’t need to waste £££ on such things.
“Does anyone use the R26 as a PC DAC for other things than music, I play games and watch videos as well, would I just use the USB for those purposes and switch inputs?”
You could but these are usually multi channel (5.1 7.1 etc) so you could only play in stereo.
Does anyone use the R26 as a PC DAC for other things than music, I play games and watch videos as well, would I just use the USB for those purposes and switch inputs?
For Teams calls, YouTube, games, Internet Radio, flac/DSD music, Tidal streaming etc.
PC-->USB-->DDC (U18)-->IIS-->R26
Works amazing.
FWIW, there's an option on my motherboard to completely kill power on the USB port to (possibly) reduce the line noise.
Not sure it matters, given the DDC in the path, but I disabled it anyways.
"
The options are as follows:
• Normal: Keeps the original output voltage. • Disable USB bus power: Disables the power of the USB connectors. High-end audio players may connect
their own external USB power source.
• Voltage Compensation +0.1V: Adds 0.1V to the original output voltage.
• Voltage Compensation +0.2V: Adds 0.2V to the original output voltage.
• Voltage Compensation +0.3V: Adds 0.3V to the original output voltage.
Is there a newer firmware for the r26 that brings max quality back to the LAN connection? Or is something weird with my R26? Are you all able to stream at higher rates than 44 via LAN right now?
I wonder if getting that new Wiim Ultra Pro and feeding the Gustard via Optical would be any better than the internal LAN streamer. Anyone tested a weird solution like that out?
I wonder if getting that new Wiim Ultra Pro and feeding the Gustard via Optical would be any better than the internal LAN streamer. Anyone tested a weird solution like that out?
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Patience Grasshopper!
