Forums - She's back home

Pale Rider

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Posts: 1271

Re: She's back home
Reply #15 - 03/07/13 at 00:06:45

Paul McGowan has hinted that the next version or update/upgrade of the PWD could include DSD. That would be great, though I am not holding my breath. There is no real chip architecture barrier, but I believe it represents a significant expansion of technical commitment and resources.

FWIW, I am going to take a run this weekend at deploying minimserver on my Synology NAS. It's relatively simple, and I am not sure why I haven't tried it before. If that goes well, I may be tempted to try the Lumin in that environment. We shall see.

Cheers!

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beowulf

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Posts: 228

Re: She's back home
Reply #16 - 03/07/13 at 02:23:47

I was kind of digging around about the DSD thing with Chord Electronics and it seems you are absolutely correct with your statement about it will take some resources to incorporate DSD via Network streaming.

This is from an email with Chord Electronics (my question was simply ... can your network players stream Native DSD via Ethernet?):

Quote:

Thank you for showing an interest in Chord Electronics products.

Currently there is no way DSD can be streamed over a network player, our DSX1000 is DSD ready for when streaming technology catches up.

We are trying to help one of the biggest streaming engine developers to make this happen but there are no guarantees.

The only way it is possible at the moment is to connect a laptop via USB to either the Qute hd DAC, QBD76HDSD or the rear input panel on our Red Standard MK3 and Red Reference Mk3 cd players.

Use the program called J Rivers Media Centre and then down load their app called River remote. This remote then controls J River media centre and pushes the music to the dac.

I hope this has helped.

Kindest regards

Colin Pratt
UK Sales Manager

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Pale Rider

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Posts: 1271

Re: She's back home
Reply #17 - 03/07/13 at 14:44:33

Hmmm, not sure that is entirely correct, since it is clear that some people are streaming DSD, and certainly, that is what the 6Moons review was based on. [BTW, I just re-read that review, and I am not all sure the reviewer is not confused by many of the DSD challenges of file management, tagging, conversion, etc.] And it is quite clearly exactly what the Lumin is doing. It is also what the Linn Klimax DS does, with the recent addition of DSD, and I suspect its price tag of $20k+ is what has a lot of people excited about the Lumin. Anyway.........

Yesterday, I said:
Quote:

FWIW, I am going to take a run this weekend at deploying minimserver on my Synology NAS. It's relatively simple, and I am not sure why I haven't tried it before. If that goes well, I may be tempted to try the Lumin in that environment. We shall see.

I can't quite believe I said "it's relatively simple," though I guess in retrospect, it isn't that hard. Instructions for installing on a Synology NAS are here. I did this last night; took about 3 hours, rather than the one I thought it should have. Still, once it was running, it was picked up immediately by the Lumin, Kinsky, and eLyric iPad apps. Playback was very robust, except on my highest-res SACD rips. I think this indicates perhaps some necessary network fine-tuning.

As much fun as all this is, it sure does indicate that this is not ready for the audiophile prime-time [just read some of those threads on CA, where obviously smart people are struggling with these network and device issues], let alone for the broadermoderate high-end market.

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beowulf

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Posts: 228

Re: She's back home
Reply #18 - 03/07/13 at 22:15:25

Quote:

PR
Hmmm, not sure that is entirely correct, since it is clear that some people are streaming DSD, and certainly, that is what the 6Moons review was based on. [BTW, I just re-read that review, and I am not all sure the reviewer is not confused by many of the DSD challenges of file management, tagging, conversion, etc.] And it is quite clearly exactly what the Lumin is doing. It is also what the Linn Klimax DS does, with the recent addition of DSD, and I suspect its price tag of $20k+ is what has a lot of people excited about the Lumin. Anyway.........

Yes, I was pondering the same thing about his statement. You would think he would be in the know considering. Perhaps he was talking about their own Network player and not in general. Whatever the statment, I just read a review of the Lumin and that was the main reviewing point of the whole article.

I sent him a follow up email to clarify his statements and we'll see if he chimes in again.

Quote:

PR
As much fun as all this is, it sure does indicate that this is not ready for the audiophile prime-time [just read some of those threads on CA, where obviously smart people are struggling with these network and device issues], let alone for the broadermoderate high-end market.

Looks like it is not some simple task to get up and running and I doubt all but a small minority of dedicated audiophile/techies would go as far as you did spending 3 hours to install the software :D

Anyways, lets hope Lumin can get straigthened out soon as I see this device has great potential and I like the simple industrial design as so many things out there look like Darth Vadar's alarm clock Roll Eyes

p.s. I meant to ask you ... are you ripping DSD files using the (first gen) PS3 method?

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« Last Edit: 03/07/13 at 22:18:53 by beowulf »

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Pale Rider

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Posts: 1271

Re: She's back home
Reply #19 - 03/07/13 at 23:50:48

beowulf added:
Quote:

Anyways, lets hope Lumin can get straigthened out soon as I see this device has great potential and I like the simple industrial design as so many things out there look like Darth Vadar's alarm clock

p.s. I meant to ask you ... are you ripping DSD files using the (first gen) PS3 method?

Yeah, I admit I like the look of the Lumin very much, and I agree it has excellent potential. I have extracted quite a few of my DSD files from my SACDs using a PS3, and have also downloaded a lot of files from Channel and Blue Coast and others.

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beowulf

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Posts: 228

Re: She's back home
Reply #20 - 03/08/13 at 09:43:04

Colin from Chord Electronics wrote me back and this is what he had to say when I asked him to clarify because the Lumin and Linn products can do DSD.

Quote:

Our DSX1000 is ready for DSD playback however all streaming products will have to wait for Asset and Twonky to recognise these files. Until then no one will manage it over Ethernet.

The way Linn has managed it is playback via the HDMi input so you automatically require another source.

As for the Lumin, details are so sketchy that I would imagine their problem is getting round using HDMi (which is very expensive and constantly evolving/changing) and also waiting for Twonky and Asset as we are.

Fingers crossed for the near future though, it would be great to have it. You will, however need to make sure your network can cope!

Regards

Colin Pratt

I'll post this over on the General Forums since it seems like we kind of went off topic here ...

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« Last Edit: 03/08/13 at 09:46:11 by beowulf »

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