Wanted to post some first impressions on this! Now, this is my first streamer and the vast majority of my thoughts have nothing to do with sound quality, so let’s get the sound quality TLDR right up front; when I switched from my iPhone to the microRendu, both running USB into my SU-2 KTE, I heard:
- Massively improved dynamics (like almost too much, lol)
- Quite noticeably improved transients
- Ever-so-slightly better everything else
…and I’m honestly not willing to claim improvements beyond that, mostly because of the timing of this particular purchase. I received this streamer only a week after receiving a new DAC, so my brain was already making a big adjustment from what I was listening to previously, and I don’t fully trust my ears to hear super-nuanced differences between the Mystique V3 with and without the streamer, at least not yet.
Actually, the bullet point format is kind of nice, lets keep that going:
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The microRendu has no screen, so you control it via a local web app. The sonicorbitor website should auto-detect the microRendu’s IP, but it doesn’t play nice with VPNs or my work machine’s security software.
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Once you have the IP address, it totally works on everything though, so maybe bookmark that URL on all your machines.
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The microRendu is small and light enough that heavy cables can lift it, so it might be worth putting a weight on top of it.
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The USB port is on one side and the ethernet cable is on the other side, which kinda sucks. Every other Sonore streamer has all the ports on the same side. (It comes with an extremely short USB cable to attach it directly to the back of your DAC. Thanks, but no thanks.)
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The screen on SGC’s linear power supply is very bright. Like, RNHP green input selector light levels of bright.
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The microRendu supports lots of protocols, including Shairport (for AirPlay 1), DLNA, and Roon Ready. I’ve tried it with AirPlay, Audirvana, mconnect, and Roon. The best user experience by a mile is Roon, even though getting started with Roon for the first time is a bit of a pain. (I couldn’t get DLNA to work with the native Qobuz app. Also, I’m not a Spotify subscriber, so I can’t speak to Spotify connect.)
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My work laptop is currently acting as my Roon core, and the ethernet in my office is connected over something like a 75-foot ethernet cable since my office is downstairs and my modem is upstairs. Not ideal, but hey.
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I need both Apple Music and Qobuz support, so the solution I’ve currently landed on is adding the microRendu “app switcher” page to my home screen. I’m mostly using Roon, and then I switch to AirPlay when I want to listen to Apple Music, and switching between the two only takes a couple seconds.
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When I rearrange my setup, I’m used to pulling up a browser on my phone or laptop to run some audio checks (left/right, sine sweeps, etc). I don’t know how people test their systems using a streamer.
So yeah, I’m still very much getting a feel for using a streamer, but I like it so far, and Roon in particular is great.