[CRITICALSHOT]

Bits and Pieces
I’m a software engineer by training and a computer scientist by profession, so understand binary 0 and 1. I’ve tried a number of network bridges and they have either reduced or not changed the musicality of my high fidelity system.

My hi-fi setup is Sonus Faber Electa Amator 2 augmented with Tannoy ST100 Super tweeters, REL Carbon Limited, Audio Research VT80SE, Chord DAVE + Mscaler connected via dual BNC, speaker cable Townshend Audio Fractal F1 and hooked up to the grid via a Shunyata Denali 6000 power conditioner, with Russ Andrews 500 Powerkords connecting the equipment to the Denali. All equipment is isolated on my custom Soundations equipment rack and the REL, VT80SE and Sonus Faber on Townshend Audio Seismic Podiums and Pods.

I have previous tried adding a Roon bridge with Pro-ject Stream Ultra 2 reducing musicality and the Aualic Aries G1 making no difference, however this changed with the dCS Network Bridge. I did serious A-B listening with the dCS NB connected via S/PDIF to Msclaer and QNAP Roon direct via USB to Mscaler these are my findings.

I trust my ears and am fortunate to be able to see live music both amplified and unamplified on a regular basis. Adding the network bridge to my system elevated the musicality to another level, with vocals especially affected, with a more natural presentation and a general more spatial presentation of the performance with separation, it sounds like a band, but playing in unison with every member able to be heard contributing to the sum of the parts being greater than the whole. The bass which is the foundation for music has acquired new found texture and tonality, a walking double bass is my benchmark and the harmonics are bang on. All frequencies benefit, with an added shimmer and decay to notes where there is some.

The much maligned at the time Sade and her “Never as good as the first time” has never sounded as live and musical with all band members clearly contributing to the groove and Sade sounding more sultry than ever.

If you value musicality and a natural presentation then the dCS Network Bridge is a must audition

Thanks for sharing your set up! I have a pair of Sonus Faber Concertos that are not currently hooked up that have a very similar look to those speakers. What are those 'tweeters' on the top of your speakers? I looked at DCS Bridge but it seems it does not have a USB output and I would like to have that option.

 

[jarnopp]

I have some dropouts/ or small reconfiguration moments, where also the soundquality light in the hugo 2 is flickering - is this because I have setup roon wrong?

Are you upsampling in Roon? For both processing power and SQ reasons, I would turn that off for Chord DACs.

 

[Deolum]

My daughter is early 30’s, synth player, classically trained and was of course a Spotify user for the same reasons. She scoffed at my insistence of Tidal and Qobuz superior sound with non lossy quality. She is now a Tidal and HiFi convert. As long as you can get a non lossy tier in Spotify as @ZappaMan states you will be golden. BUT... if you become interested in services such as Roon you will need T or Q.

So spotify 320 kbit + M Scaler would ne nice oder no? I stream to a Sotm SMS 200 which is fine without Roon. Tidal and Quobuz work via DLNA and Spotify via Librespot.

I never owned any CD nor Vinyl or anything. People who own CDs and listen to music in albums usually don't have problems with Tidal. But if you're used to playlists Tidal just won't work.

Sadly i don't find any answers to the topic spotify + M Scaler. Nobody who tried that?
I called a few shops here but they either think you are trolling when you mention spotify and M Scaler in one sentence of they just wanna tell you how much better Tidal is. One salesman i called even went on listing me studies that found out that MP3 causes depression.

The majority of songs i find on Tidal are around 600-900 kbits. I don't know how much Spotify songs have but let's say around 300.
Is it really so ridiculous to think that M Scaler could upgrade Spotify to the average Tidal quality?

 

[endre83]

Are you upsampling in Roon? For both processing power and SQ reasons, I would turn that off for Chord DACs.

No upsampling in Roon, just MScaler - have the processor on 70% because the fans of my laptop get loud

and that sucks big time spending a lot on gear to realize that my gigabyte aero laptop is loud as hell...

 

[ZappaMan]

So spotify 320 kbit + M Scaler would ne nice oder no? I stream to a Sotm SMS 200 which is fine without Roon. Tidal and Quobuz work via DLNA and Spotify via Librespot.

I never owned any CD nor Vinyl or anything. People who own CDs and listen to music in albums usually don't have problems with Tidal. But if you're used to playlists Tidal just won't work.

Sadly i don't find any answers to the topic spotify + M Scaler. Nobody who tried that?
I called a few shops here but they either think you are trolling when you mention spotify and M Scaler in one sentence of they just wanna tell you how much better Tidal is. One salesman i called even went on listing me studies that found out that MP3 causes depression.

The majority of songs i find on Tidal are around 600-900 kbits. I don't know how much Spotify songs have but let's say around 300.
Is it really so ridiculous to think that M Scaler could upgrade Spotify to the average Tidal quality?

rob watts says you need to use the full cd quality, so because spotify have resampled it, then, its not optimum.

 

[Progisus]

So spotify 320 kbit + M Scaler would ne nice oder no? I stream to a Sotm SMS 200 which is fine without Roon. Tidal and Quobuz work via DLNA and Spotify via Librespot.

I never owned any CD nor Vinyl or anything. People who own CDs and listen to music in albums usually don't have problems with Tidal. But if you're used to playlists Tidal just won't work.

Sadly i don't find any answers to the topic spotify + M Scaler. Nobody who tried that?
I called a few shops here but they either think you are trolling when you mention spotify and M Scaler in one sentence of they just wanna tell you how much better Tidal is. One salesman i called even went on listing me studies that found out that MP3 causes depression.

The majority of songs i find on Tidal are around 600-900 kbits. I don't know how much Spotify songs have but let's say around 300.
Is it really so ridiculous to think that M Scaler could upgrade Spotify to the average Tidal quality?

Sorry I didn’t really answer your question just lectured as boomers are known for. Mscaler will help of course. I don’t think it will be as good as Tidal HiFi if it is fed mp3 as there are bits missing.

 

[TheAttorney]

No upsampling in Roon, just MScaler - have the processor on 70% because the fans of my laptop get loud

I didn't spot anything obviously wrong with your Roon settings, but 70% processor usage is very wrong indeed if Roon is not doing any major DSP (PCM convert to DSD in particular). The only other time Roon really hogs the CPU is when it is updating its library when importing a large batch of new files - this can take hours for a big library.
But if Roon is steady state just playing bit perfect then I'd expect Roon to use up only 2-5% CPU and total system to use no more than 20%.

 

[gnomen]

I looked at DCS Bridge but it seems it does not have a USB output and I would like to have that option.

Don't let that stop you. Apparently dCS originally promised to include USB out but then withdrew the promise when they found they could not get a good enough performance.

My recently acquired Network Bridge sounds every bit as amazing as @watermad describes here. It has had rave reviews elsewhere. I am a computer professional myself and was quite amazed by the improvement even over good quality, less expensive bridge products such as the Stack Link and Auralic models. Connected by an SPDIF cable is in no way a limitation -- in fact I am just auditioning one of Nick's Wave cables for the SPDIF link and, again, it takes things up another level.

My system now sounds exactly like I hear in the concert hall. Maybe it can be even better, but I'm not obsessive enough to pursue 'better than real'! And the system? Roon on iMac->Ethernet->dCS Bridge->MScaler->TT2->ATC SCM50ASL active speakers. (I have had the ATCs for many years and remain impressed at how much quality they have in reserve as I improve the upstream components.) All connected with Wave digital cables where appropriate.

I know some of you will say 'wait until you have heard a DAVE instead of the TT2', 'improve the power supplies' etc. And maybe you will be right. But where does it stop? Right now I am listening to the best sound I have ever heard in my living room. Within minutes I forget about the system performance and become absorbed in the music instead.

That's the point, right?

 

[Deolum]

I just figured out that it's so easy to import playlists from spotify to tidal so i think i don't need a M Scaler. Out of 474 tracks Tidal didn't have 17 tracks which is okay i think. However 11 from those were in a techno playlist of 50 tracks. 20 % is kinda massive.
So i need a Spotify Premium account for that and Tidal Premium which makes 10 € per month additionally to Tidal. Makes 120 € per year or 30 years until i reach the price of a M Scaler. Let's hope Spotify offers highres till then.

 

[ecwl]

So spotify 320 kbit + M Scaler would ne nice oder no? I stream to a Sotm SMS 200 which is fine without Roon. Tidal and Quobuz work via DLNA and Spotify via Librespot.

I never owned any CD nor Vinyl or anything. People who own CDs and listen to music in albums usually don't have problems with Tidal. But if you're used to playlists Tidal just won't work.

Sadly i don't find any answers to the topic spotify + M Scaler. Nobody who tried that?
I called a few shops here but they either think you are trolling when you mention spotify and M Scaler in one sentence of they just wanna tell you how much better Tidal is. One salesman i called even went on listing me studies that found out that MP3 causes depression.

The majority of songs i find on Tidal are around 600-900 kbits. I don't know how much Spotify songs have but let's say around 300.
Is it really so ridiculous to think that M Scaler could upgrade Spotify to the average Tidal quality?

Depending on how your system is setup, you can play 320kbps streams from Tidal. Just turn from Master or HiFi streaming quality to High. Then you can test out whether you can live with 320kbps instead of lossless CD quality. Once you know you won’t miss lossless steaming, then go ahead and switch to Spotify.
I obviously can’t and I live in Canada so I’m still on Tidal. I think you’ll notice the difference more with orchestral music.

 

[ecwl]

I just figured out that it's so easy to import playlists from spotify to tidal so i think i don't need a M Scaler. Out of 474 tracks Tidal didn't have 17 tracks which is okay i think. However 11 from those were in a techno playlist of 50 tracks. 20 % is kinda massive.
So i need a Spotify Premium account for that and Tidal Premium which makes 10 € per month additionally to Tidal. Makes 120 € per year or 30 years until i reach the price of a M Scaler. Let's hope Spotify offers highres till then.

I got confused by your question. I thought you already have an M-scaler and wants to switch from Tidal to Spotify.
as others have said, M-Scaler definitely significantly improves Spotify sound. It’s just that you’ll get even more with lossless music. I would say whatever difference you hear between Spotify vs Tidal now will be what you get in terms of difference even with the M-Scaler

 

[Deolum]

Depending on how your system is setup, you can play 320kbps streams from Tidal. Just turn from Master or HiFi streaming quality to High. Then you can test out whether you can live with 320kbps instead of lossless CD quality. Once you know you won’t miss lossless steaming, then go ahead and switch to Spotify.
I obviously can’t and I live in Canada so I’m still on Tidal. I think you’ll notice the difference more with orchestral music.

Used Spotify for the last two hours and i can't. Noticed is especially with headphones that tend to have harsh heights those became unpleasent and soundstage was smaller.

I'm optimistic that chosing my playlists on spotify and import them on Tidal will be a good way for me.

 

[Deolum]

I got confused by your question. I thought you already have an M-scaler and wants to switch from Tidal to Spotify.
as others have said, M-Scaler definitely significantly improves Spotify sound. It’s just that you’ll get even more with lossless music. I would say whatever difference you hear between Spotify vs Tidal now will be what you get in terms of difference even with the M-Scaler

No i thought about buying one to minimize the difference between Spotify and Tidal because i like Spotify UI and playlists way more. Now that i can import spotify playlists on Tidal i have no need for a M Scaler because i'm very happy with Tidal quality.

 

[endre83]

I didn't spot anything obviously wrong with your Roon settings, but 70% processor usage is very wrong indeed if Roon is not doing any major DSP (PCM convert to DSD in particular). The only other time Roon really hogs the CPU is when it is updating its library when importing a large batch of new files - this can take hours for a big library.
But if Roon is steady state just playing bit perfect then I'd expect Roon to use up only 2-5% CPU and total system to use no more than 20%.

Sorry I meant i have limited the cpu to 70% - Roon does not take up so much, any other ideas why drops could accur?

 

[ZappaMan]

Sorry I meant i have limited the cpu to 70% - Roon does not take up so much, any other ideas why drops could accur?

maybe you can try dedicating a cpu to just processing roon, you can do that with utilities like process lasso, or fidelizer, but process lasso has a free version or its cheap anyway:
https://bitsum.com/
browsers can be terrible cpu hogs, keep them closed if possible.