[chinawei]

Great times in Hong Kong

It was a pleasure to meet you at the show, Dr. John!
Theose Prestige Ronin was amazing.

 

[Lépine]

Do you think the Hugo TT2/Mscaler combo is the best source over other DAPs you have for Ragnar? I am also considering to get the combo for my 2ch system and drive my Viking Prestige at the same time.

I think this is a more complicated question that appears on the surface. The biggest problem with using a HugoTT2/M-scaler is getting the source PC and software combination working correctly. Today I am playing with some DSD128 files and I am having trouble getting a stable playback from the Microsoft computer I am using. The sound of Foobar2000 with ASIO Chord 1.05 sounds bad. It crackles and pops. It sounds hollow thin and distorted. I switched over to JRiver Media Center 31 next. It again just hates playing DSD files and I am getting chirping sounds and crackles and an occasional white noise blast. It also is having trouble sending data at 5.6Mhz to the HugoTT2. Once I switched over to the HQPlayer without upscaling and setting the limiter to 44.1/128 the sound is glorious.

By contrast, playing off the SD card on the RS8 the DSD128 files has no drama. It just plays and sounds full, complete, holographic, with no timbre issues. It sounds to me perfect with the Viking Ragnar. Everything is working fine and the rendition is huge and believable. If I switch to USB Tethered mode, the music sounds mostly the same as being read from the SD card. Something is being lost though in tethered mode. It just feels slower. Something harder to identify is being lost and the sound stage seems to collapse a bit too.

I can get the HugoTT2/M-scaler to sound better than my DAPs, but it takes a full gaming computer like an MSI with a top of the line 3070 GTX NVidia board 32 GB Ram and I think 32Gb Video memory with the CUDA API going. I have read others complain that the GPU will introduce buzzing noises in the signal path. I don't have this problem.

Getting back to the Viking Ragnar, wow, what a great IEM. The RS8 is a great match, I don't like to use terms that I don't understand that people come up with in this forum. I will say the in my own words, that the ability to imaging you are really there is much improved with the Viking Ragnar over the 64 Audio Fourte Blanc. The sound is so natural with the RS8. It is not as natural with my HugoTT2. I probably need to setup my dual laptop setup and go back to HQPlayer, which I hate because of the file format limitations, but love for the DSD sound.

I have not listened to the Ragnar with the Sony 1ZM2. Mine apparently doesn't have enough hours on it. I am not that much of a fan of the Sony. I will try the SP2000 later on. I do like the Astell Kerns SP2000Cu so will likely spend time with it later on.

 

[Lépine]

If you are playing just FLAC files with 24bit 192Mhz, well within the capabilities of a normal laptop, the HugoTT2/M-Scalar sounds fantastic.
To me it sounds likes a DAP killer.

 

[Lépine]

Thanks for checking in! Well, it is not the MHA200 that was under repair but the TT2. 2 months now and still waiting! Hope to have it back in October.

I was actually waiting for the MHA200 to be delivered and it has. It was delivered to my home in Singapore and I have since hand-carried it back to Vietnam. I love the MHA200 but you are right that with Ragnar it can be too much of a good thing! Intense! I did persist though and my brain seemed to have burned-in to the intensity and eventually adjusted for it.

I do love the MHA200. My first tube amp and am not sure if it is representative of what a typical tube amp sounds like but I am really enjoying it! Can't wait to get the TT2 back so that I can use it as a pre-amp into the MHA200.

My personal opinion is that there is a bit of a myth to how a tube amp sounds. It's all about the implementation and also the tubes themselves.
I have a few vintage tube gear and it can have a wide difference in how things sound much like how iems can sound quite differently. MHA200
in my opinion is more of a traditional sounding tube amp with midrange forward and a lot of midrange detail. When everything is working right,
it brings more dynamics into the music like a well tuned midsize concert hall. I heard the WooAudio Eclipse portable tube amp, that one redefined for
me what a modern tube amp can sound like. I was at first doubting the tubes were actually in line with the audio circuit, it was the most solid state
sounding tube amp I have heard to date.

One last thought, do not buy cheap XLR interconnects for the MHA200 to HugoTT2, you will hear the difference. If you think you can hear the difference
between thousand dollar IEM cables, the XLR interconnect (hopefully you are going full balanced connection) will drive you crazy with how good or bad your system will sound.

 

[yaps66]

My personal opinion is that there is a bit of a myth to how a tube amp sounds. It's all about the implementation and also the tubes themselves.
I have a few vintage tube gear and it can have a wide difference in how things sound much like how iems can sound quite differently. MHA200
in my opinion is more of a traditional sounding tube amp with midrange forward and a lot of midrange detail. When everything is working right,
it brings more dynamics into the music like a well tuned midsize concert hall. I heard the WooAudio Eclipse portable tube amp, that one redefined for
me what a modern tube amp can sound like. I was at first doubting the tubes were actually in line with the audio circuit, it was the most solid state
sounding tube amp I have heard to date.

One last thought, do not buy cheap XLR interconnects for the MHA200 to HugoTT2, you will hear the difference. If you think you can hear the difference
between thousand dollar IEM cables, the XLR interconnect (hopefully you are going full balanced connection) will drive you crazy with how good or bad your system will sound.

Thanks for the tip. Any recommendations on interconnects? You have a favourite?

 

[Lépine]

Thanks for the tip. Any recommendations on interconnects? You have a favourite?

I like the Kimber Kable brand and I have all copper Kimber Kable Hero which is okay, but it wasn't expensive.
I upgrade a couple years ago to Kimber Kable Silver Streak, that is a lot better. Much more clarity.
I plan to try the Kimber Kable Select 1136. It's pretty expensive so it's going to be a while before I can buy
a $4000 XLR cable. Considering the MHA200 costs half the price of the cable, I have a problem spending
double the price of the amp, yet, I don't think the Select 1126 hybrid is going to be enough since I already
have pure silver XLR (detail detail detail).

Do you have a recommendation? What have you been using?

What do you use for your computer? I have as my normal computer a Surface Pro 7 fully loaded version.
It's great for work and the Internet( less heat, much more portable, touch screen, no fan noise) , but the
USB ports I don't believe are fully compliant to the specifications
and no matter what the battery settings I change, there's some problem with the USB ports that provide less
data speed than I need to support anything well above 24/32 bit 192Khz. When I am in a serious listening
mood, I just have to go get my MSI laptops out, then everything is much better.

 

[yaps66]

I like the Kimber Kable brand and I have all copper Kimber Kable Hero which is okay, but it wasn't expensive.
I upgrade a couple years ago to Kimber Kable Silver Streak, that is a lot better. Much more clarity.
I plan to try the Kimber Kable Select 1136. It's pretty expensive so it's going to be a while before I can buy
a $4000 XLR cable. Considering the MHA200 costs half the price of the cable, I have a problem spending
double the price of the amp, yet, I don't think the Select 1126 hybrid is going to be enough since I already
have pure silver XLR (detail detail detail).

Do you have a recommendation? What have you been using?

What do you use for your computer? I have as my normal computer a Surface Pro 7 fully loaded version.
It's great for work and the Internet( less heat, much more portable, touch screen, no fan noise) , but the
USB ports I don't believe are fully compliant to the specifications
and no matter what the battery settings I change, there's some problem with the USB ports that provide less
data speed than I need to support anything well above 24/32 bit 192Khz. When I am in a serious listening
mood, I just have to go get my MSI laptops out, then everything is much better.

Thanks for this! Really appreciate your response which has given me something to think about!

 

[Lépine]

Thanks for this! Really appreciate your response which has given me something to think about!

Great! I am so happy to hear this. Most people never play around with the computer and assume all computers sound the same.
Since I work in IT, I have half a dozen different laptops at any given time. I can tell you honestly that computers do affect the way
the HugoTT2 sounds. Also if you have a application like JRiver Media Center, try the Kernal Direct drivers, with some music, I think it
sounds better than passing through the ASIO or WASAPI drivers. All of them in theory should sound the same being "bit perfect"...
They don't to me especially if I configure Kernal Direct to 32-bit.

 

[Lépine]

And also with JRver the "Automatic Background Library" update function should always be off. This introduces an occasional click on the HugoTT2.

 

[fejnomit]

I think this is a more complicated question that appears on the surface. The biggest problem with using a HugoTT2/M-scaler is getting the source PC and software combination working correctly. Today I am playing with some DSD128 files and I am having trouble getting a stable playback from the Microsoft computer I am using. The sound of Foobar2000 with ASIO Chord 1.05 sounds bad. It crackles and pops. It sounds hollow thin and distorted. I switched over to JRiver Media Center 31 next. It again just hates playing DSD files and I am getting chirping sounds and crackles and an occasional white noise blast. It also is having trouble sending data at 5.6Mhz to the HugoTT2. Once I switched over to the HQPlayer without upscaling and setting the limiter to 44.1/128 the sound is glorious.

By contrast, playing off the SD card on the RS8 the DSD128 files has no drama. It just plays and sounds full, complete, holographic, with no timbre issues. It sounds to me perfect with the Viking Ragnar. Everything is working fine and the rendition is huge and believable. If I switch to USB Tethered mode, the music sounds mostly the same as being read from the SD card. Something is being lost though in tethered mode. It just feels slower. Something harder to identify is being lost and the sound stage seems to collapse a bit too.

I can get the HugoTT2/M-scaler to sound better than my DAPs, but it takes a full gaming computer like an MSI with a top of the line 3070 GTX NVidia board 32 GB Ram and I think 32Gb Video memory with the CUDA API going. I have read others complain that the GPU will introduce buzzing noises in the signal path. I don't have this problem.

Getting back to the Viking Ragnar, wow, what a great IEM. The RS8 is a great match, I don't like to use terms that I don't understand that people come up with in this forum. I will say the in my own words, that the ability to imaging you are really there is much improved with the Viking Ragnar over the 64 Audio Fourte Blanc. The sound is so natural with the RS8. It is not as natural with my HugoTT2. I probably need to setup my dual laptop setup and go back to HQPlayer, which I hate because of the file format limitations, but love for the DSD sound.

I have not listened to the Ragnar with the Sony 1ZM2. Mine apparently doesn't have enough hours on it. I am not that much of a fan of the Sony. I will try the SP2000 later on. I do like the Astell Kerns SP2000Cu so will likely spend time with it later on.

To be honest this is a large part of the reason for my transition to DAPs, too. I had the MScaler and the TT2 with crazy good BNC cables. I had two powerful, dedicated computers, one as core for upsampling through HQPlayer and the other just as a renderer. I had top-of-the-line filtered Ethernet cables and USB cables with the best LAN cards and purifiers and USB cards and purifiers, all with the best clocks. I used optical connections wherever possible. I had dedicated circuits and fancy power outlets and power conditioners and grounding boxes. Tons of $$ to make digital playback the most noise-free it could possibly be. And I'm not kidding when I tell you that my RS8 playing into my Ronins sounds as good, if not better. More natural, that's for sure. Tethered to my MacBook Pro via USB, where I use new HQPlayer 5 to upscale, it also sounds brilliant - largely because of all the new filters in HQP5, it rivals and/or surpasses the RS8 alone, and is certainly still cleaner and more natural than the old spaghetti chain. Never going back. Luckily I was able to sell all that stuff and buy my modest IEM/DAP chain and sock away a year of college for my daughter. No joke.

 

[tfenton02]

I think these are the first Ronin Prestige + in the wild. Simply spectacular art. Some beauty shots below, @FullCircle was kind enough to include a fragment from the wood. The Wizard strikes again. I will send listening impressions when I spend more time but overall I would say they are like OG, maybe a hint more lush. Vocals are unworldly with great instrument separation. I’ll get some better pics. A bit under the weather today. Special thanks to John. Looks like these are configurable @MusicTeck.

In my view these surpass Phonix LE, Mentor which I cycled through fairly quickly.

 

[phiemon]

I think these are the first Ronin Prestige + in the wild. Simply spectacular art. Some beauty shots below, @FullCircle was kind enough to include a fragment from the wood. The Wizard strikes again. I will send listening impressions when I spend more time but overall I would say they are like OG, maybe a hint more lush. Vocals are unworldly with great instrument separation. I’ll get some better pics. A bit under the weather today. Special thanks to John. Looks like these are configurable @MusicTeck. In my view these surpass Phonix LE, Mentor which I cycled through fairly quickly.

Very nice pictures, thanks for sharing!

Do you possibly have the possibility to compare Ronin and Ronin Prestige+ with the same cable (Ronin's stock or Ronin Prestige+'s stock)? That would clarify if there are differences through the shell - and to what extent.

 

[FullCircle]

Two sets were made from that particular block

 

[tfenton02]

Very nice pictures, thanks for sharing!

Do you possibly have the possibility to compare Ronin and Ronin Prestige+ with the same cable (Ronin's stock or Ronin Prestige+'s stock)? That would clarify if there are differences through the shell - and to what extent.

Unfortunately I parted with my Ronin OG before I received these. “If” there is a difference it appears to be marginal at this point. I’m going to burn them in today. Upon reflection I’m picking up a tad more lushness to the vocal without losing detail in the rest of the frequency range, but that could be my brain vs any real difference

 

[Lépine]

To be honest this is a large part of the reason for my transition to DAPs, too. I had the MScaler and the TT2 with crazy good BNC cables. I had two powerful, dedicated computers, one as core for upsampling through HQPlayer and the other just as a renderer. I had top-of-the-line filtered Ethernet cables and USB cables with the best LAN cards and purifiers and USB cards and purifiers, all with the best clocks. I used optical connections wherever possible. I had dedicated circuits and fancy power outlets and power conditioners and grounding boxes. Tons of $$ to make digital playback the most noise-free it could possibly be. And I'm not kidding when I tell you that my RS8 playing into my Ronins sounds as good, if not better. More natural, that's for sure. Tethered to my MacBook Pro via USB, where I use new HQPlayer 5 to upscale, it also sounds brilliant - largely because of all the new filters in HQP5, it rivals and/or surpasses the RS8 alone, and is certainly still cleaner and more natural than the old spaghetti chain. Never going back. Luckily I was able to sell all that stuff and buy my modest IEM/DAP chain and sock away a year of college for my daughter. No joke.

Yeah, no you are supporting my feelings as well. It's a lot more money and a lot more work to get HugoTT2/M-scalar really working where it is clearly better than an RS8 or Sony 1ZM2. Most of the time, it is so much simpler to just warm up a DAP and just enjoy.

Because of my aging eyesight, for me my Surface Pro is very convenient to search and type with a full size keyboard. Finding reading glasses and a stylist to type on a DAP is sometimes taking away from my enjoyment. The footprint is small and usually strong enough for JRiver sending data to the HugoTT2 as long as it isn't DSF DXD DSD.

Sounds like you did the same thing as I am doing now, dual computers; one to render and one to upscale. Seems crazy to those who haven't gone that far, but there is no substitute for GPU computational power when it comes to HQPlayer. I prefer to use laptops over bespoke towers since the noise from the cooling systems would bother me with open back headphones.