I’m actually listening to more music than I ever have and 90% of that is 2-CH so it’s a testament to being happy with the system. It’s good to just disconnect from the minutia of it all and just enjoy.
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Random observation of the day.
Every 2 or 3 months, my Optical Rendu gets into a bad state, where it will no longer act as a Roon endpoint. As far as I can tell it has failed to initialize the kernel Alsa module, so even though it recognizes that the DAC is connected, it just fails any request Roon makes to play something on it.
Invariably it’s excessively hot when this happens and the fix is just to disconnect the power wait 30s for it to cool a little and plug it back in.
I have to wonder why it gets so much hotter on these occasions, i.e. what causes it to freak out.
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The next time it does that try running the DAC diagnostics and see what you get. I’ve experienced similar events but instead of jumping right to a power cycle, if there is no USB DAC shown when you run the diagnostics, I’ve found unplugging the USB and plugging it back in will reestablish communication and play fine after that.
All my reading also points to one of the few Achilles heel issues of the Sonore which is they don’t like to power down ungracefully meaning system > power down.
You could be seeing something entirely different but figured the USB thing is worth adding to your process.
I did, the DAC is there and recognized, tried unplugging the USB device, tried restarting the USB device, even running a reboot from the network panel doesn’t fix it, it has to be unplugged long enough for the temperature to drop a few degrees.
The Roon diagnostics show the alsa driver is failing to support any format.
And putting my hand on the case it’s clearly warmer than it is when functioning normally,
Yeah then that’s clearly all she wrote there. You using 2.8 still or did you get 2.9?
Still on 2.8, I’ll probably upgrade at some point.
I got 2.9 but have not bothered to install it - heck haven’t even opened the bubblepack they sent it in yet.
Interesting, the pics I’ve seen of some units didn’t have the heatsink over the processor. Does the lid have the RF shielding material? Other than the power it really is an opticalRendu in every other way. Just goes to illustrate how important power is on the digital front end.
Yes! Just a small patch over the area.
True but is it worth the premium over the optical Rendu.
When you factor in the cost of a quality power supply for the opticalRendu to get to the Signature neighborhood, it’s more than likely a wash.
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The opticalRendu V2.0 has arrived just in time for Black Friday…
The opticalRendu V2.0 improves on the previous design by offering a new Super Ethernet Chip, improved power regulators and a revamped board design.
Should see a good price drop on the OG opticalRendu because of this. Would love to see some reviews on this new model but I suspect that there won’t be enough in it to upgrade if you’re an existing opticalRendu user. I’m actually hoping I’m wrong as it would be nice to continue to make gains on the digital source front.
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Is it an upgrade? Or a side grade to improve availability of parts? The $1600 bundle price for this week is a pretty good deal.
Just picked up a pretty sweet setup with the Ultra Rendu and will be setting it up over the weekend. I currently stream over AmazonHD via Wiim Pro and Bluesound node.
Will amazon work with the Ultra Rendu? If not what other streaming services would you recommend for ease of use, cost, and a decent selection of lossless/hd content? I would prefer to avoid roon but perhaps open to Qobuz, Audirvana, or Tidal.
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Pretty much everything should work with UPNP if it works with streamers at all.
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It does not have any native AmazonHD support. You might be able to get it working by installing the BubbleUPnP Server App, but I’ve not made the attempt. I just went ahead and made the switch to Roon and Qobuz when I got my UR.
Thanks… if you go with qobuz do you have to go through roon or are the two separate services? Or if you went qobuz would you go through bubbleupnp ?
I did it through Roon. I think it can stream both Tidal and Qobuz natively via the DLNA Renderer though.
You can also download Spotify Connect onto it.
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Did you buy the Iris DDC as well? I can’t speak for the ultraRendu since I’ve only used the opticalRendu but you’re likely going o see a wide performance gap between your previous streamers and this especially with a good power supply like you’ve paired it with.
Yep got all 3 the lps, ultra rendu, and iris along with a I2S cable. Will be feeding it to Holo spring KTE and possible switch to the Exogal comet plus. Then try both the 2 channel and hp chains.
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