Great news the
Hyperdrive 16-port Thunderbolt 3 dock found it's way to me, and I've got it set up, and wow, it's great
The Hyperdrive 16-port Thunderbolt Hub is even more awesome than the
Hyperdrive 6-port USB-C Hub. I thought the 6-port was a heavy solid ingot of metal, this 16-port is just as dense and solid, but scaled up 4x+ larger to fit all 16-ports.
The 16-port dock Ethernet connected to Gigabit Internet is providing 919.42 Mbps Download and 40.72 Mbps Upload, first test.
I'm getting a lot of internet performance variance at home ever since everyone else started working from home. Normally at best I get 940/42, so I tested again just now: DOWNLOAD Mbps 938.61 UPLOAD Mbps 41.51. So I think the Thunderbolt 16 port dock Ethernet port is getting full performance from my internet connection - as bandwidth is available.
Comcast upgraded the router a couple of days ago because the router had a frozen configuration - Comcast couldn't change Wifi settings remotely, and it was locked from making changes for me too - which is why I called Comcast. Comcast couldn't fix the router remotely even with a firmware reload and reset, so now I have a new router.
The Biggest upgrade that came with the new router was 802.11ax, I'm now getting 776/40 on my phone Wifi, but the best the M1 Macbook Pro Wifi can do is: DOWNLOAD Mbps 651.46 UPLOAD Mbps 41.79, which is a bit low...perhaps it is time for my first M1 bug report?
The 16-port dock / Macbook Pro M1 / DisplayPort provides HDR - as does my monitor, but I'm not impressed with the visuals so I disabled HDR.
The 16-port dock DisplayPort connected at 144hz 1920x1080 the image is even nicer than the HDMI output from the 6-port - which in turn is nicer than the visual quality of the 2070 Super in my Ryzen 3700x PC.
Wifi internet browsing on the Macbook Pro M1 is fast - but the Ethernet browsing responsiveness is much snappier and page redraws now outpace my Windows PC by far.
I'm really liking the day to day usage under MacOS Big Sur 11.01 - so far - yeah it's only been a few days so far, but performance is not in any way disappointing compared to Windows responsiveness on the 3700x/2070S
I've played some Steam games, Borderlands 2, and I completed the Fenyx Demo on Stadia, and I am downloading more "Macintosh compatible" Steam games, a lot of my game library is playable on MacOS.
The real surprise is the 3.5mm audio port on the 16-port Hub as it is pumping out a lot more power than the Macbook Pro M1 3.5mm and the USB-C 6-port dock 3.5mm ports. Plenty of volume range to play with.
I haven't hooked up the 600 ohm Beyerdynamic headphone yet, but the DT770 16 ohm is rocking with only 50% volume vs 75% with the 6-port, which was also more than enough. The sound is a solid wide sound stage and plenty of dynamic range. I could live with this sound as is, it is that good.
I need to rearrange my setup and get right sized cables to finish the set up, as I'm now using DisplayPort instead of HDMI as I had planned. I still want to test the 2m USB-C to HDMI connected to the 16-port, later...
For now I am enjoying this weeks Mandalorian as I am typing this. I need to get offline, rewind, and chill for a while. Later!
Update: The Amphetamine app started doing it's thing, and the Macbook Pro M1 is currently running while closed in the vertical dock, connected up to an external 1920x1080 144hz display.
I'm using the
HyperDrive 6-port dock 3.5mm audio port and it is sounding quite nice on the Beyerdynamic DT770 16 ohm - requiring less drive than the 600 ohm models - I don't need to set the output to 100% on the Macbook.
Right now I'm running without Boom 3D - it got a bit tiring on the ears - probably the Bass Boost's effect, while exciting it's a bit wearing after a while.
All of the audio ports on both the 6-port and 16-port docks provide 24bit / 96khz quality audio. I wish it was a bit higher - I was expecting 24bit / 192khz, so I'll probably be looking to use a USB DAC later to see how the audio improves.
Right now I have a lot of software set up and configuration still to do, bringing my configurations from the PC and legacy Mac Apple Store installs.
Update: I finally installed Tidal and Amazon Music HD apps, and the sound coming out of the 3.5mm audio port on the 16-port dock is surprisingly awesome. The sub-bass reaches levels of authority I'm not used to even on my Topping A90 with these 600 ohm headphones. The audio circuitry on those 3.5mm ports are a cut above, so much so I could live with it as is, if only it fully unfolded MQA... so I'm going to need to connect up the A90 / D90 MQA soon - need to find that Toslink cable...more here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ama...-with-lossless-streaming.905493/post-16033514
Update: I'm going to try the
Jenving HDMI cables which are able to drive signals passively for much longer distances, perhaps the 2m version of those will work with the Macbook Pro M1? Same goes for a Jenving DisplayPort 2m. I'm also getting another longer
Jenving Supra USB 2.0 cable to reach between the Macbook Pro M1 Hyperdrive 16-port Hub and the Topping D90 MQA. I might as well get the Toslink and Coax cable from them too.
