[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by John Jordan

Stephen-

Beautifully written essay with much detailed information as to how you arrived where you are. It is certainly a great guide for those of us who are flondering with next step "computer" audio decisions.

Do you still have your MacMini away from the audio rack and stream to an Airport Express connected to the DAC via the MR? Do you think this new Gen 5 USB would allow the elimination of the MR/Express and allow you to have the mini on (or near) the rack connected directly to the Gumby via USB?

Thanks for all of this!

Hi John,
Yes, I still have the Mac Mini away from the audio rack. I don't want it anywhere near the audio rack because general purpose consumer-electronics computers are noisy, grungy, hashy things, and I don't want them anywhere near my audio amplification chain and speaker cables. Also, having the Mac Mini in the bedroom office lets me connectly it directly via Ethernet to my network router, which results in much better connectivity with Roon, the Mac Mini via screen sharing, or the Roon app running in Remote mode. The other main reason I still use the Sonore microRendu is that it serves as a Roon-ready endpoint, and lets me stream "Lossless" (bit-perfect) audio the Gumby.

You could connect your computer in your audio rack to Gumby's Gen 5 port and obtain excellent performance. My understanding is that USB regenerators/reclockers like the microRendu, or or Uptone Audio IsoRegen are not necessary as the Schiit Gen 5 USB implementation eliminates the need for any of this. But then, Gumby is not a Roon endpoint, and would only provide "High Quality" streaming audio from Roon rather than "Lossless" (bit-perfect).

This is alone would be sufficient reason for me to use the Sonore microRendu.