Hugo M Scaler by Chord Electronics - The Official Thread

[jjazzy]

i just replaced my m2 mac mini with the new m4 mac mini running headless roon with honor magic pad 2 roon remote. amazing small form factor. 16gb 256 ssd m4 silicon chip. 16gb now comes as standard with base model. i installed amphetamine to keep it awake indefinitely.

To be honest mac mini looks more sexy than roon nucluous

 

[AndrewOld]

To be honest mac mini looks more sexy than roon nucluous

Not to mention the Mac has far better support, especially outside the USA, is a lot more versatile, has good WiFi as well as Ethernet, and has a better resale value.

Edited to add: plus doesn’t lock you in to Roon.

 

[ecwl]

Did you notice a big difference with or without the Intona 7055-C USB3 ?

I wouldn’t say a big difference.
Previously, with a grounded USB source, I found that the sound is just slightly bright/harsh and sometimes in complex symphonic passages, I’m getting slight confusion in the sound. It annoys me a lot that I can hear the difference.
This just doesn’t happen if I plug my iPad in via USB or if I feed the M-Scaler with a Toslink source.
That’s why I switched over to a USB to Toslink converter for the past 4 years. But having tried 2 different converters and 3 types of Toslink cables, I can’t consistently get 192kHz sound so I decided to try Intona a month ago.
Basically, iPad/iPhone via USB vs Toslink vs grounded source+Intona USB sound the same to me in my system now.
Intona is definitely a more expensive way to go than a USB to Toslink converter but if you want consistent 192kHz or even higher sources, you may want to consider Intona.

 

[Amberlamps]

To be honest mac mini looks more sexy than roon nucluous

Hater

Mind you, I don’t like the Roon Nucleus either, they are a complete rip off for what they are spec’d at and I wouldn’t trust roon for support, as they are useless when it comes to their software, I can only imagine what their hardware support would be like.

Just looked at the price, they are selling on peter tysons for £1700 complete with no hard drives and a i3 cpu, thats a punch in the face, then they want us to spend hundreds on their consistently buggy software.

 

[jjazzy]

Hater

Mind you, I don’t like the Roon Nucleus either, they are a complete rip off for what they are spec’d at and I wouldn’t trust roon for support, as they are useless when it comes to their software, I can only imagine what their hardware support would be like.

Just looked at the price, they are selling on peter tysons for £1700 complete with no hard drives and a i3 cpu, thats a punch in the face, then they want us to spend hundreds on their consistently buggy software.

I like the software and what it does (besides the bugs). I got a discount to use it for this year, but it is too expensive for what it is. Have to see if I keep it.

 

[Amberlamps]

The problem im having with it is, the three … next to a travk that you push to add a track to your library or playlist, as soon as I push it the roon ios app crashes, time and time again, so I can’t add new tracks


I have tried posting over at roon hq but as usual nobody replies, so I gave up, it may or may not be related to ipad os 18 and 18.1.

 

[Amberlamps]

mods delete please, it was accidental

 

[Progisus]

Hater

Mind you, I don’t like the Roon Nucleus either, they are a complete rip off for what they are spec’d at and I wouldn’t trust roon for support, as they are useless when it comes to their software, I can only imagine what their hardware support would be like.

Just looked at the price, they are selling on peter tysons for £1700 complete with no hard drives and a i3 cpu, thats a punch in the face, then they want us to spend hundreds on their consistently buggy software.

I’m a roon lifer but try to suggest lms sounds better and it’s run for the flame suit. I wish they would stop all these silly features and fix the sound.

Topical comment…. Mscaler does help though

 

[ecwl]

Or folks can go the roon rock route and solely just have roon rock running on it and nothing more. Roon Nucleus are just an intel nuc in a fanless case, but they charge waay more for an inferior nuc than one that you can buy and build yourself with much better specs.

Nuc’s really are cool if you need something small to do a dedicated job, i.e media server / streamer.

I have to agree that Roon Nucleus is “overpriced” when compared to buying a NUC and installing ROCK yourself.

But I have to admit, nowadays, I have enough work to do and limited free time.
So with Windows 10 phasing out next year, I debated whether to switch to a Mac, buy a NUC and install ROCK myself or just get a Roon Nucleus One.
The Nucleus One just got delivered 30 minutes ago. Transferring my Roon backup from the PC to Nucleus One was super simple.
So the time I would have spent fiddling around with a NUC and ROCK, I’m now spending to listen to more music.

Nucleus One is US$500. I had to pay Canadian taxes and import fees for UPS (because once again, I didn’t want to clear customs myself to save time).
My guess an equivalent NUC is probably about US$200-250. For many, that’s a huge price difference. But sometimes, we are just trading time for money.
Ironically, I cut my own hair (with limited hair left to cut) and I vacuum and clean my own place instead of hiring a cleaning lady. I just cooked lunch myself.
I guess it comes down to what you value and enjoy.

As to whether Roon is worth it, that’s also a fairly subjective thing. I have to admit I have been super lucky that Roon has not been super buggy for me. But I’m not going to gaslight people into saying they don’t have Roon issues. I mean, we all have different hardwares so our software setups are all different. It is always difficult for software companies to support many hardware configurations. It probably explains why Apple software OSes are less buggy than Microsoft OSes.

P.s. I actually like the look of Roon Nucleus One. But I guess one can decorate one’s NUC to one’s heart’s content. I just noticed people really love decorating their Rimowa luggages (which I don’t own by the way, just a random non sequitur, like our digression on Roon on an M-Scaler thread).

 

[Triode User]

I’m a roon lifer but try to suggest lms sounds better and it’s run for the flame suit.

As I’m sure you will know, I also have a Roon lifetime bought quite a few yers ago but I keep going back to LMS + Squeezelite with my Mscaler / Dave because the sound is just so beguiling.

 

[bpcans]

As I’m sure you will know, I also have a Roon lifetime bought quite a few yers ago but I keep going back to LMS + Squeezelite with my Mscaler / Dave because the sound is just so beguiling.

So @Triode User, given my present setup what would be the simplest way to implement LMS + Squeezelite so that I could compare it to what I have? Thanks

 

[Amberlamps]

I’m a roon lifer but try to suggest lms sounds better and it’s run for the flame suit. I wish they would stop all these silly features and fix the sound.

Topical comment…. Mscaler does help though

I’ve never tried LMS so I don’t know what its all about, I do have Jriver but they are even worse than roon, maybe the sound quality is good, but they keep adding tons and tons of stuff to it that just isn’t needed and now its one big piece of bloatware.

On a different topic, I cracked open my dead hard drive thinking that maybe its just the board thats the problem, so I bought a new enclosure in the hopes of taking said board off the broken drive and putting a new one on, eventually I smashed my way in to the dead hard drives case, only to find that it uses a different connector to all other drives, the mini sata/power connector is connected directly to the hard drive instead of a normal sata and power connector that normally would plug in to a small pcb at the front of the enclosure. Pita, as I was hoping a new pcb would fix it.

 

[Amberlamps]

Is LMS the old Logitech media server now named Lyrion music server ?

 

[Reactcore]

I do have Jriver but they are even worse than roon, maybe the sound quality is good, but they keep adding tons and tons of stuff to it that just isn’t needed and now its one big piece of bloatware.

I have both Jriver MC and Foobar.

I like Foobar most as it is lightweight and more stable, you add only the plugins you need and custimize how it looks and be operated. I have 3 different control apps on my phone and tablet to choose and work flawless.

I use Foobar on an old Wyse 2core fanless thinclient PC with external PSU and optical network SFP running (by most forgotten) win7 embedded. No bothering updates and also no useless extra's vs win 10/11.

I probably never change this player as its perfect for me.

 

[Lgn3]

Is LMS the old Logitech media server now named Lyrion music server ?

Yes