[gryffe]

I am personally a huge fan of the built-in DAC, so much so that I have actually started selling things because I like it so much.

I run there NEO with a simple 4.4 to XLR cable into my Geshelli Archel headphone amp. It depends on the mood but I like bit-perfect mode mostly, and if I'm listening to dynamic fun music GTO setting hits the spot.

For my own personal tastes the built-in gives me all I think I've been looking for.

You would need to find a cable to suit your needs of your other equipment, don't forget the NEO has preamp volume capability.

How that helps you out!

Cheers!!

I'm still not sure what to use as settings on the pre amp and the Neo. I ran RCA analog cables from the Neo to the DAC/preamp and then selected Analog on the Neo menu. I then changed the menu on my DAC/preamp to be ANLG (I normally have this set to USB) but I just got a horrible rumbling sound from the speakers. Maybe it wont work if your DAC is also a preamp, but also more likely I have the config wrong

 

[srkbear]

Power Supplies…

Over the weekend I had a chance to compare the 15v iPower X to the 15v iPower Elite in use with the NEO Stream. What follows are some thoughts and observations I had during the testing of these units, and some differences I heard.

Having the Zen Stream for quite a while now, I can tell you that The iPower X is hands down my favorite PS to use with that unit, and has been for quite some time. I never felt the Elite brought anything (to my ears) that warranted the use of it with the ZS.

A note…

I am a big believer in Synergy when it comes to separate Audio products, and to be clear I have no idea how this happens or why for that matter. To me, it’s one of those mysteries that if figured out, might save some of us some valuable time and money, lol. But when this Synergy presents itself, it is very obvious, and of course very subjective as we all hear slightly differently.

So with Synergy in mind, for my listening enjoyment, the hands-down winner is the NEO Stream paired with the Elite power supply. To me, it brings a more Dynamic, full-bodied sound to the NS. I perceive a more well-rounded overall sound to the unit, with better bass and a Slightly punchier presentation.

Now that does not mean the X isn’t good, it is! But for my listening, the Elite just hits that Sweet Spot. The First thing I noticed, and I do not claim to know how this can be, but with the Elite powering the NS, and being fed to the Geshelli Archel 2.5 with XLR I found myself listening at a lower volume dial position than I normally did when using the X. This difference in my setup was not subtle, and in one instance a 12-1 o’clock dial position with the X was reduced to a 10-11 position using the Elite. Why this is I have no idea, but all I can do here is report what I experienced, I would not even attempt to say “Why” that is, other than Synergy!

I also measured a lower overall case temperature using the Elite. With the X, the external temperature of the NEO hovers around 88-89 Fahrenheit, but when I measured using the Elite an average of 82-83 degrees was found. If I were to go on that alone I would probably use the Elite if only for this reason.

I checked this because it had previously come up in the ZS thread that the unit ran cooler, and the same thing holds true here, again why I will leave it to those more knowledgeable than I am.


So to sum up, for my money it’s the Elite for the NEO. If you decide to check the two out, buy from a reputable retailer with a good return policy and see which one works for your setup.

Cheers!!

You know how much of a fan I am of yours, but I’m afraid I’m at a loss to explain this, although as always I respect your efforts!

There’s no amplifier circuit in the NS—as you know it is purely a streamer and a DAC. Choices of power supplies can make a considerable difference when it comes to amplifiers, which have to draw a surfeit of clean power, and the resultant audio that is achieved by type of power supply (switching vs linear) and its quality can surely be impacted.

But the NS is nothing more than a computer—and the power supply is really just a simple variable voltage transformer that steps down the wall voltage to a fixed DC wattage sufficient to make the device’s motherboard elements function.

This unit doesn’t even have a pre-amp circuit. The truth is that the choice of power supply has no impact on DACs or streamers, simply given the science behind the way they work. The former is just crunching numbers, the latter transporting a digital signal. Choosing a more expensive power supply wouldn’t achieve any difference any more than it would with a PC.

Without a proper blinded A/B test with a large sample size, I’m afraid your conclusions can’t be attributed to anything other than cognitive bias my friend, which is an evil that thwarts all of us! PLEASE don’t take offense or hate on me, I’m just the messenger! And in this case I feel a duty to advocate for the collective wallets of the folks on this thread

 

[Clemmaster]

You know how much of a fan I am of yours, but I’m afraid I’m at a loss to explain this, although as always I respect your efforts!

There’s no amplifier circuit in the NS—as you know it is purely a streamer and a DAC. Choices of power supplies can make a considerable difference when it comes to amplifiers, which have to draw a surfeit of clean power, and the resultant audio that is achieved by type of power supply (switching vs linear) and its quality can surely be impacted.

But the NS is nothing more than a computer—and the power supply is really just a simple variable voltage transformer that steps down the wall voltage to a fixed DC wattage sufficient to make the device’s motherboard elements function.

This unit doesn’t even have a pre-amp circuit. The truth is that the choice of power supply has no impact on DACs or streamers, simply given the science behind the way they work. The former is just crunching numbers, the latter transporting a digital signal. Choosing a more expensive power supply wouldn’t achieve any difference any more than it would with a PC.

Without a proper blinded A/B test with a large sample size, I’m afraid your conclusions can’t be attributed to anything other than cognitive bias my friend, which is an evil that thwarts all of us! PLEASE don’t take offense or hate on me, I’m just the messenger! And in this case I feel a duty to advocate for the collective wallets of the folks on this thread

And yet we can hear a difference. Funny how that works!

 

[guyp2k]

Resolved, DNS issue. Added custom DNS in the NS and Tidal Connect now works fine.

New owner of an iFi NS and all seems to work fine w/ the exception of Tidal Connect, Android phone and laptop. iFi's Streamer shows up in the Tidal app, but once I select no audio and track does not start to play. I can play Tidal via ROON to the NS no issue. Any sugestions?

 

[AnotherBrick]

You know how much of a fan I am of yours, but I’m afraid I’m at a loss to explain this, although as always I respect your efforts!

There’s no amplifier circuit in the NS—as you know it is purely a streamer and a DAC. Choices of power supplies can make a considerable difference when it comes to amplifiers, which have to draw a surfeit of clean power, and the resultant audio that is achieved by type of power supply (switching vs linear) and its quality can surely be impacted.

But the NS is nothing more than a computer—and the power supply is really just a simple variable voltage transformer that steps down the wall voltage to a fixed DC wattage sufficient to make the device’s motherboard elements function.

This unit doesn’t even have a pre-amp circuit. The truth is that the choice of power supply has no impact on DACs or streamers, simply given the science behind the way they work. The former is just crunching numbers, the latter transporting a digital signal. Choosing a more expensive power supply wouldn’t achieve any difference any more than it would with a PC.

Without a proper blinded A/B test with a large sample size, I’m afraid your conclusions can’t be attributed to anything other than cognitive bias my friend, which is an evil that thwarts all of us! PLEASE don’t take offense or hate on me, I’m just the messenger! And in this case I feel a duty to advocate for the collective wallets of the folks on this thread

I'm curious if an inefficient power supply - and I'm not saying this is the case - could affect the data being passed via USB. Could small fluctuations in the current distort something like the clock or cause data packets to be dropped? Or is the USB technology built with so much redundancy that this would never happen?

 

[Webofsound]

Having some issues with getting the Neo Stream to play locally stored files I purchased online. Audirvana does not recognise the NS when I try to play any of these tracks. Anyone know why this might be ?

 

[gryffe]

New owner of an iFi NS and all seems to work fine w/ the exception of Tidal Connect, Android phone and laptop. iFi's Streamer shows up in the Tidal app, but once I select no audio and track does not start to play. I can play Tidal via ROON to the NS no issue. Any sugestions?

I have no issues with Tidal Connect. Assuming it's not working for you when you select the Tidal Connect option in the Neo menu you could also try the AIO selection from the menu because this should also allow you to play music with the Tidal Connect on your Tidal app on phone.

 

[gryffe]

Having some issues with getting the Neo Stream to play locally stored files I purchased online. Audirvana does not recognise the NS when I try to play any of these tracks. Anyone know why this might be ?

This works ok for me. I just select DLNA on the Neo menu and Audirvana detects the Neo and plays back songs ok.

 

[rlw6534]

I'm curious if an inefficient power supply - and I'm not saying this is the case - could affect the data being passed via USB. Could small fluctuations in the current distort something like the clock or cause data packets to be dropped? Or is the USB technology built with so much redundancy that this would never happen?

USB audio is not error correcting (no redundancy) but you would expect transmission errors to cause audio dropouts rather than musical quality changes.

 

[guyp2k]

I have no issues with Tidal Connect. Assuming it's not working for you when you select the Tidal Connect option in the Neo menu you could also try the AIO selection from the menu because this should also allow you to play music with the Tidal Connect on your Tidal app on phone.

Tried both, the Tidal app connects but no audio and no status on the selected track. I have a couple of Raspberry Pis running Volumio which is the OS for the NS and Tidal Connect works fine, go figure. Also this morning for the second time, my music DB is gone even though the mappings are still there. Last issue, NS is set to analog to a PARASOUND P6 that controls the volume amongst other settings, so I configure the NS's mixer to NONE once I set the volume to 100% and upon a reboot the NS sets the mixer back to SOFTWARE. What am I missing here?

In addition I have reset the NS and rebooted both router and switch, no change.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

I'm still not sure what to use as settings on the pre amp and the Neo. I ran RCA analog cables from the Neo to the DAC/preamp and then selected Analog on the Neo menu. I then changed the menu on my DAC/preamp to be ANLG (I normally have this set to USB) but I just got a horrible rumbling sound from the speakers. Maybe it wont work if your DAC is also a preamp, but also more likely I have the config wrong

If you wanna send me a PM perhaps we can figure out how to do your hook-up. If the NEO is indeed set to Analog then that engages the internal DAC and sends the signal out of the RCA outs on the back, other than making sure your Volume is set to software if you need that it should be pretty straightforward.

Cheers!!

 

[gryffe]

If you wanna send me a PM perhaps we can figure out how to do your hook-up. If the NEO is indeed set to Analog then that engages the internal DAC and sends the signal out of the RCA outs on the back, other than making sure your Volume is set to software if you need that it should be pretty straightforward.

Cheers!!

Cheers, but I also asked in the Mytek Brooklyn forum and was told it couldn't be done.

 

[srkbear]

And yet we can hear a difference. Funny how that works!

Yes, our ears really do trick us—we’re all susceptible to it! Audio manufacturers that charge a fortune count on it. Our wallets suffer for it. And I mean no harm or disdain by trying to fight it. Peace

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

You know how much of a fan I am of yours, but I’m afraid I’m at a loss to explain this, although as always I respect your efforts!

There’s no amplifier circuit in the NS—as you know it is purely a streamer and a DAC. Choices of power supplies can make a considerable difference when it comes to amplifiers, which have to draw a surfeit of clean power, and the resultant audio that is achieved by type of power supply (switching vs linear) and its quality can surely be impacted.

But the NS is nothing more than a computer—and the power supply is really just a simple variable voltage transformer that steps down the wall voltage to a fixed DC wattage sufficient to make the device’s motherboard elements function.

This unit doesn’t even have a pre-amp circuit. The truth is that the choice of power supply has no impact on DACs or streamers, simply given the science behind the way they work. The former is just crunching numbers, the latter transporting a digital signal. Choosing a more expensive power supply wouldn’t achieve any difference any more than it would with a PC.

Without a proper blinded A/B test with a large sample size, I’m afraid your conclusions can’t be attributed to anything other than cognitive bias my friend, which is an evil that thwarts all of us! PLEASE don’t take offense or hate on me, I’m just the messenger! And in this case I feel a duty to advocate for the collective wallets of the folks on this thread

No offense taken!

I have no explanation for what I heard, other than what I heard! If I had heard no difference between the two I certainly would have posted this and encouraged people to save their money. But to simply say "follow the math" is also not in my DNA, and I have certainly followed that in all my posts. I would love to know why things do what they do, or why I hear what I hear, maybe one day I will understand.

I did an experiment for myself to try to prove to myself that I wasn't nuts about what I was hearing. The test was done at the time with two very popular streamers, and with help from my highly skeptical but by-the-numbers friend. Now of course I have no way to prove this so a bit of trust must be given here. I am intentionally being vague here as I am not looking to offend anyone or any manufacturer. This test was done using Digicheck, and an RME DAC, and to the best of our ability time matched. You may have to watch this video a few times to see where the differences are, and there is no sound in the video due to obvious copyrights on youtube. In the video you will see two streamers, overlayed, time matched, with the same cables, and the same song. Yet one has differences. It was not until after we did this that my friend told me although the difference wasn't dramatic, he could now understand what I said I was hearing.

Please pay attention to the fact that there are only differences at some frequencies and not all, if they were all different that would be one thing, but it seems to be only a few.



To conclude...

I think sometimes it may come down to "levels", and what I mean by that is I am not the type of person who is going to spend 500 dollars on a cable, in most cases a good quality cable is all one needs unless they hear a difference, I can not tell anyone to hear a difference. I have always been this way, and I always encourage people to do their own tests and listen.

A Story...

Some may know that I spent most of my life in bands and the music business, in all those years being in some world-famous studios and at times working near/watching/or observing people in the business, I never ever heard anyone stop a session, or ask a producer for a better cable, unless the one they had was buzzing, lol!! No one ever said why aren't you using Audi****st between those two components, it just doesn't happen! But that also does not mean I have not heard some differences that some cables can give, I just believe in "levels".

Again no offense taken, and no insults given/intended!

Cheers!!

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

Tried both, the Tidal app connects but no audio and no status on the selected track. I have a couple of Raspberry Pis running Volumio which is the OS for the NS and Tidal Connect works fine, go figure. Also this morning for the second time, my music DB is gone even though the mappings are still there. Last issue, NS is set to analog to a PARASOUND P6 that controls the volume amongst other settings, so I configure the NS's mixer to NONE once I set the volume to 100% and upon a reboot the NS sets the mixer back to SOFTWARE. What am I missing here?

In addition I have reset the NS and rebooted both router and switch, no change.

Please post your full chain of equipment so we can troubleshoot for you, if you are only using the NEO let us know that too. If I missed this I am sorry, trying to do catchup, lol

Cheers!!