that is awesomeMany thanks for the kind comments. As my living/listening room is rather small, it could not host my vinyl and tape collection. It is stored in an adjacent area. I have a small bookshelf in the listening room where I bring the LPs and tapes I want to listen to.
Actually, it is the secondary system that went through a much bigger upgrade than the main system. In the coming weeks, I will provide some update on that front.
Congratulations Denis! I am in complete awe with your dedication to analog and digital systems. What an incredible achievement!!! I switched to Merging trio back in 2021 and concur with your assessment, NADAC trio brings realism and transparency of highest order and presents an ultimate path to hear music precisely as it was recorded and mastered by the sound engineers. The addition of +CLOCK stirs emotions unlike anything I’ve experienced before….the music touches your heart with the purity of the sound.It has been a while since I gave an update on the little barn. I will only cover the main system though there have been some changes in the secondary system, and I even built a small office system.
I previously mentioned that I was looking at improving the playing and streaming of high-resolution files. I still have a TAD D600 for playing CDs and SACDs, but I wanted to replace the Weiss 501 DAC and the ageing Aurender server. The Weiss was purchased for my secondary system but stayed in the main system until finding my « ultimate digital rig ».
I wanted something relatively compact and remain within a « reasonable budget ». Breaking the bank was not an option unless telling my two kids that I would stop supporting them in their final years of graduate school.
I considered two options: one comprising a more recent Aurender server combined to a better DAC, and one built around a Roon Core. As the Weiss 501 DAC and my office system’s Naim Uniti Atom are both Roon ready, this is an option I wanted to explore.
After many auditions at B&M stores and at friends’ places, I retained two solutions for a thorough home audition:
1 - The Aurender N20 server with the most recent version of the Thrax Maximinus DAC. According to the local Thrax and MSB distributor, the Maximinus is a serious contender against the MSB Reference DAC. As I have a Thrax Libra preamp, he recommended the Thrax Maximinus over the MSB Reference DAC for better synergies.
2 - The Merging Technologies combo comprising the NADAC+Player, the separate power supply, and the clock. The NADAC+Player is a DAC which integrates a Roon player.
I carefully selected high quality cables (PC, interconnect, digital and ethernet) to ensure a fair confrontation.
Both solutions were much better than my current one.
When using my old Aurender server, the Thrax Maximinus DAC was intrinsically better than the Weiss DAC. With the Aurender N20, listening to high resolution files stored on an internal SSD was a major step up compared to the modified X100L with its big external LPS.
I thought I had reached the pinnacle, but the Merging Technologies combo was even better by a wide margin. I know that the wording « natural sound » raises eyebrows with some members but this is exactly what I am feeling when listening to the Merging Technologies setup. The clock plays an important role. Replacing the standard BNC cable by a SOtM clock cable brought some improvement. The same happened by adding a full specced SOtM switch with its external power supply and clock synchronization.
I also discovered Roon which I find much better than the Aurender Conductor app.
The high-resolution files are stored on a SSD directly connected to the NADAC+Player whereas the CD rips are stored on the SSD of a Nami Uniti Core server located in my study. The Weiss DAC has moved to the secondary system. I have now a seamless Roon ecosystem in the house.
As the Merging Combo moved in the Stacore custom rack, the TAD player is on a Daiza platform sitting on small custom rack that hosts the power supply for the preamp. A pair of 4 meters long Argento Flow XLR interconnect cables as well as a 4 meters long Signal Project Ultraviolet AES EBU cable are connecting the TAD to the preamp and the NADAC respectively.
There are some other changes that took place (room treatment and analog front end) but that will be for another instalment.
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That’s quite understandable as you have much more $$$$ vested in Analog. I never thought I could give up on my TT but that changed after acquiring NADAC combo. I plan to upgrade my +CLOCK to U level once I am settled with W20SE or N30SA. BTW, I am using Telegartner M12 Switch Gold with JCAT Optimo 3 DUO LPS ahead of Merging combo.
I did notice the SoTM switch in your pictures…I‘ve been thinking about trying the SoTM switch with the sCLK-EX (internal clock) and 10 MHz master clock connector. Still on the fence as I do not know how much of an improvement SoTM would be over my Telegartner M12, which is universally praised as one of the best Ethernet switch for audio. When I spoke to SoTM, they suggested using three SoTM switches (one with master clock input and two switches without master clock) in line array configuration for best outcome. I thought that was pretty crazy and bit discouraging to even bother with it.
That’s what I suspected and it was confirmed by another user of SoTM switch with external master clock (Mutec Ref 10 SE). The difference was there but subtle. He end up going with Melco switch with Pink Faun OCXO clock / internal wiring upgrade that yielded much better performance in his system. The cost of this upgrade was much higher but worth every penny. And I concur with you on BNC cable upgrade, I had the similar experience when I swapped stock cable to Acrolink BNC cable. There is this rich tonality across the board. The bass and treble response further improved to reference-level, and the midrange is fully articulated and colorful. I was immediately struck by how all concepts of imaging and staging were redefined. The performers took on a palpable body, with noticeable air around and behind the performer. I couldn’t believe a BNC cable could have this much profound impact in this particular application.
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