Focusrite RedNet (AOIP Nervosa)

My own modded Mutec is still on the way so I guess I'll see. Removing that paragraph from my OP since I'd rather focus on what I've actually heard myself, which was that the microRendu and the Rednet 3 were extremely close.

FWIW, out of the four audiophile friends who tested my Rednet 3 with their speakers, two of them are now buying the RN3. This is good stuff.

 

10 Mb connections would have no trouble with 16/44.1 audio (which is only about 1.4 Mb/s), but you'd run into issues by 24/192 (9.2 Mb/s) as your raw data rate is right on the limit. With a dedicated connection it might work, but it'd fall apart the moment there was any other traffic on the network.

One of the nice things with Dante is that it absolutely does not require a dedicated network, and there's no audible benefit to giving it one ... it will sound the same provided it has enough bandwidth and few-enough collisions that data arrives in a timely fashion (and if it doesn't you don't get changes in audio, you get dropouts). Since the data will often arrive out of order anyway, timing is irrelevant beyond latency concerns and the data is guaranteed bit-perfect.

That's not to say that it isn't easier to setup with a dedicated switch or network; that'll certainly circumvent issues with borderline configurations, but I wouldn't do it out of concerns about sound quality (and that's coming from having tested it in both manners).

 

I went the Dante Rednet D16 + Mutec MC-3+ path for transport of digital data to a DAC. Utility is great. No longer tethered to 5 meter USB cable length restriction. Subjectively I believe this transport method improves the DAC performance. Any DAC. Singxer SU-1 XMOS DDC is no slouch, competes favorably with the D16 but is stuck with the 5 meter length restriction along with far less utility as a DDC dedicated to a single PC. That last restriction is not a problem for audiophiles in home use. Studios and Acoustic Labs can make great use of the Dante system.

 

Thanks for that. I don't have anything over 24/96, so I could probably get away with it. But still... I'll hold that downgrade!

 

The only few reasons against the rednet Dante is the size and price of the unit.

Let's draft a petition letter to focusrite and ask them to consider coming out with a smaller form factor rednet 2channel aes.

AES is key to extracting the best out of Yggdrasil, the second being a glass toslink or high quality BNC.

 

My 2¢…
Here we are, still, with 1K$ cables (with a box in the middle) to run from the computer to the dac.
Yes there are (and by the looks of things coming down the road) less expensive options (ie. singxer SU-1), but even so 'cleaning up' the data audio feed into the dac seems to be really important to getting the best out of digital audio.

As torq mentioned, I too am using the aes output from my RN3 into my PWD, because it is 'Better' than the SPDIF feed and certainly better than my previous USB attempts, at least in my system.

But I find it mysterious that these digital streams needs to be spoon fed and to such an extent that re-clocking, multiple times in a row, can make a difference.
After all bit are bits according to some, and as such it should make NO difference,
yet it does.
And just like cables and fuses they shouldn't make any difference either,
yet they do too.
As do LPS's and word clocks, and 10M clocks, etc.

Clearly there is more going on, than just E=IR.
And I suspect it has to do with the nature of the music signal itself.
It isn't static nor fixed and we still don't have much, if any, means of determining why we are hearing these changes, let alone dynamically testing, nor quantifying what we are hearing.
At least not in a way that directly ties these 2 sides of the equation together (hearing changes vs. measuring aspects of electrical performance), while playing music.

And theoretically digital audio should be even more immune to these sorts of variabilities,
but it isn't.
And there are those who hear these changes as having greater impact than others, which tends to muddy the waters so to speak.
I figure it's just part of the journey we are engaged in while pursuing this hobby to the extent each of us is willing and able to do so.

But for those who do hear these improvements and willingly continue down this rabbit hole, the results can be enticing and captivating and addictive.

Us early adopters of the RedNet box approach, are exploring where the big gains are to be found, their limits and their cost effectiveness.
These results are already trickling down into lower cost alternatives with more to come.

And as I see it, we all gain from all of these efforts at figuring out what constitutes 'Better', especially in dialing in this digital signal path to our dacs.

JJ

 

That has already been done, and their initial response was they would look into it, but the price would only drop by ≈ 30% or so…
We also figure the chinese will come up with something that will reduce the price to entry, even more.
The question is when, and what will be involved (proprietary or open), and how well does it all work together.

Ethernet requires multiple levels of h/w and s/w fully, seamlessly and reliably melded together and so far Audinate seems to be leading the pack in terms of that portion of all of this. And their prices while not exorbitant aren't 'cheap' either.
It is a pro audio approach after all.

JJ

 

The burning question that is still unanswered right now.

Which is a better investment for Yggdrasil dac owners: Lynx AES16/E22 or Rednet D16

 

This is not surprising. There's a lot that has to go into that sort of unit and if you can do two channels it seems trivial to add a few more. And smaller margins and having to push them out into the distribution channels (Focusrite has an extensive network).

I don't know what will happen in the next year but I agree with JJ that the Ethernet cat is out of the bag and something excellent and more affordable (or suited for the two-channel enthusiast) will shake out.

 

The thing is given the steep price of the Rednet D16, won't it be better to buy something like @Hands excellent soundaware transport? http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/soundaware-d100-transport.1580/

30% price reduction still means alot. I am more for the space saving though.

 

@drfindley and I were talking about this yesterday. We will try to resolve the question in SoCal with @RKML0007 and hopefully @shaizada . The answer may not be specific to Yggdrasil DAC owners, but we should be able to pick out the different characters of the two units.

I think the Soundaware transport is likely good too, but If you like Roon, Tidal, etc. then I think you need to look elsewhere.

 

On a theoretical level, I'd be inclined to steer away from anything that had to live inside a PC, or even an outboard PCIe enclosure (for modern Mac users). I haven't put that into practice though and probably won't, because it's simply not a configuration I'd personally run (even if it did wind up sounding slightly better).

Not sure why you'd want to go with the D16 over the RN3, unless the 1U vs. 2U form factor means a lot to you. Yes, you can run a standard AES/EBU XLR cable out of the D16, but getting the proper cable for the RN3 is trivial and a lot less expensive than the price difference between the RN3 and D16.

 

Looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with!

But, as you say, I am both a Roon and TIDAL user, so transports like that are instantly off the table for me, no matter how good.

 

The fanless outboard PCIe enclosure is just fine. Very convenient form factor, also. I'd have gone with RN3, but I prefer the auto sampling rate switching with Lynx vs manual with RN (that'd be a PITA for me). It's also probably a hair more cost effective to add optical isolation with the Thunderbolt optical cable vs the cat5 converters (?), though not entirely sure about that. Cost really shouldn't enter in to it, though. I mean, shit, once you get the card and the enclosure, then you decide you want to power it with an LPS, add an optical cable (I haven't done so yet)... you are easily at the RN3 price anyhow. I personally endorse the LPS, too.

 

Both the microRendu and the Rednet do auto sampling rate switches. Is that what you meant?

 

Focusrite introduced automatic sample rate following to the RedNet with the August update.

They are pretty legit with their ability to respond to customer requests and (most importantly) deliver.

P.S. in case you guys don't get far enough along with measuring G-factors between the Lynx and D16 in three weeks, I'll probably still have my RedNet up here (unless it sucks).

 

Oh, fantastic news, then. I wasn't aware of the August update for RN. In that case, I could now be convinced to go with RN3... but I'll reserve final judgement until after the showdown. I actually would just go with the better sounding of the two, but still prefer the Akitio chassis form factor.

EDIT: Others are saying the auto-switching for RN is buggy?

EDIT2: LOL @ measuring G-Factors. Yes, we need a G-factor meter. I'm hoping G himself provides it.

 

AOIP, at least as we are using it now requires such low bandwidth that just about any 100MB or above hardware will be more than enough.
And if you run the Dante network s/w on a dedicated network, for our needs (single channel (l&R pair) up to 192KB), there is nothing to be gained by adding switches or routers etc.
If you install the Dante s/w on top of your existing network, depending upon what other network traffic is running, there could be bottlenecks created, which will cause dropouts, at most.

The big bug-a-boo of latency is really a non-issue for us as well since we are only sending (and not receiving) a digital audio data stream and not mixing it with any other digital media.
In the Pro Audio world it IS a big deal and that is where Audinate (and the other network s/w offerings) are paying close attention because it is of critical importance.

For instance my dedicated to AOIP, 2nd network port is running at 1.1MB/s Tx and 1.98KB/s Rx with 88.2KB sample rates and it jumps up to a whopping 2.4MB/s Tx and 2.4KB/s Rx when running 192Kb sample rates.
These data rates are minuscule in comparison to 'normal' ethernet traffic.
So adding a switch, router, or hub is not going to make any difference.
And even the Focusrite dedicated pcie ethernet card is really only going to make any difference in a pro audio setting with many many channels of both up and downstream audio all running at the same time.
Again mostly due to latency issues, which simply isn't even a factor for us.

JJ

 

I think I differ from many in that my ultimate goal is not, simply (or at least not always) "best possible reproduction". That's conflicted, sometimes heavily, with aesthetic and convenience considerations. Too many moving parts with the PCEi card model as an nMP user. I'd think differently about that as a PC user. But that's a very personal thing for me, and I can very easily see it being markedly different for others!

Yes, you're right, a Thunderbolt Optical Cable is about 10% cheaper than a gigabit Ethernet Data Isolator (and easier to deploy), though it comes at the cost of placement limitations, still. There's already so much galvanic isolation (up to, and including, potential air-gaps) in a proper Ethernet setup, however, that I'd bet it's impossible to measure, let alone hear, any difference as a result of noise on the digital lines. Even then, it only matters from the NAI to DAC anyway.

This would be the very last thing I'd, personally, worry about.

I am, at the end of the day, much more interested in simple solutions, because everything you add to the chain, while a potential opportunity to improve things (as long as we stay in the digital domain), is an even bigger opportunity to mess things up.

Even so, I'm very interested to read about what you guys come up with, and even hear it if I can make it in November, and I do not, in anyway, mean to question what you're doing or finding ... I just have different, personal, biases and needs.

 

Yes and the sample rate following feature doesn't seem to work on Mac at least while using Media Center.
I have contacted both Focusrite and Audinate about this and have yet to hear back with any results other than they are looking into it.

JJ