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SMS 200 Help Required


Guest gnnett

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I tried my HDD powered / filtered by an IFI IUSB Mini today. I really couldn't hear any discernible change in the sound. The IFI unit delivers very clean power, cleans up the flow of data and provides galvanic isolation. I even put some ETI Express Toppers on the HDD. I think the SOTM is quite well sorted with regards to powering up and dealing with the incoming stream from an external (2.5") drive. Actually, it's a well sorted machine full stop.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 11/05/2017 at 11:03 AM, Bilbo said:

FLAC requires the CPU to unwrap the Codec into WAV and then send it to the DAC

If a dac plays flac why does it need to be converted to wav to play.

Using DB poweramp flac can be ripped uncompressed no need for to be uncompressed for playback .

Batch converter can convert flac to uncompressed.

 

Peter

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Well I bought sms-200 and my first ever DAC metrum musette a few weeks ago and yesterday I got around to trying to get it going.  Following Bilbo's suggestion I bought the Soundirok app.  It seems to be "seeing" the one album I loaded in .wav format from a CD onto a 2.5 inch spinning type 1TB Samsung hard drive with no dock.  So my Soundirok app is connecting by wifi to my modem, which is connected to my SMS-200 via Ethernet cable and seeing what is on my hard disk.  Nevertheless, I hit a few stumbling blocks / queries and have had no sound at all as yet.  I am hoping someone here can help.  The problems seem to be:

 

1.  On the Eunhasu page on the MPD DLNA icon when I clicked on the "cog/gears" icon in the "MPD config" section under "Audio device" section, there was no audio device listed.

 

On the docs.sotm-audio.com they show a screen shot where an audio device (DAC) should be listed.  From said web sight:

 

"The chosen USB DAC is displaying in the light green box"

 

Weill mine, nor any other, DAC is displaying.  This seems to be a problem that gnnett had.  Gnnett I assume this problem resolved.  May I ask how?

 

2.  I cannot tell wether I was/am supposed to download MPD onto my IPAD before I use Soundirok?  Does Soundirok depend on this?  Downloading MPD which is Linux based seems difficult.  Furthermore it seems the developer stopped supporting it about 2 years ago.  (They haven't posted or updated for 2 years).  Do I need to download some other version of MPD such as MPDlux?   Could this be why Eunhasu is not interacting with my one album music library?  Or even my DAC?

 

Soundirok seems to "play" any track on my album (silently) as judged from the "dot" moving to the right and counting to about three seconds.  It then stops displaying the moving dot and stops counting seconds.

 

For what it is worth I have ordered two quiet linear 12V to 5V converters based on the 7805 chip for about $20 each, which I planned on buying anyway to give the 2.5" hard disk and the Metrum Musette DAC clean quiet power from one of the optima yellow to D31a 12V batteries Bilbo suggested.  The battery would also power SMS-200.   All of this was for sound quality purposes.  I have not purchased the battery yet.  At $400 it will be a waste if I can't get any sound at all.  

 

I like Gnnett am requesting help with the Sotm SMS-200.  It will be much appreciated.

 

Kind regards to you all,

 

Ben

 

 

 

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43 minutes ago, gonefishing999 said:

If a dac plays flac why does it need to be converted to wav to play.

Using DB poweramp flac can be ripped uncompressed no need for to be uncompressed for playback .

Batch converter can convert flac to uncompressed.

 

Peter

 

Your DAC doesn't actually play FLAC or WAV or any other CODEC for that matter.

The source (a computer in this case) reads the file on your storage medium (a HDD for instance) in whatever format (CODEC) you have saved it in and unwraps it into a PCM data stream that is sent to the DAC.

The DAC converts the PCM data stream into an analogue signal which is output to your preamp.  

The source CPU has to do more computational work to unwrap a FLAC file as opposed to a WAV file.  Many people believe this extra work by the CPU degrades the sound.

 

But as I said previously, "I think the debate over FLAC and WAV file formats pales into insignificance compared to the grunt and quality of power supplies which I think are far more important."

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3 minutes ago, Bensoundresearch said:

Well I bought sms-200 and my first ever DAC metrum musette a few weeks ago and yesterday I got around to trying to get it going.  Following Bilbo's suggestion I bought the Soundirok app.  It seems to be "seeing" the one album I loaded in .wav format from a CD onto a 2.5 inch spinning type 1TB Samsung hard drive with no dock.  So my Soundirok app is connecting by wifi to my modem, which is connected to my SMS-200 via Ethernet cable and seeing what is on my hard disk.  Nevertheless, I hit a few stumbling blocks / queries and have had no sound at all as yet.  I am hoping someone here can help.  The problems seem to be:

 

1.  On the Eunhasu page on the MPD DLNA icon when I clicked on the "cog/gears" icon in the "MPD config" section under "Audio device" section, there was no audio device listed.

 

On the docs.sotm-audio.com they show a screen shot where an audio device (DAC) should be listed.  From said web sight:

 

"The chosen USB DAC is displaying in the light green box"

 

Weill mine, nor any other, DAC is displaying.  This seems to be a problem that gnnett had.  Gnnett I assume this problem resolved.  May I ask how?

 

2.  I cannot tell wether I was/am supposed to download MPD onto my IPAD before I use Soundirok?  Does Soundirok depend on this?  Downloading MPD which is Linux based seems difficult.  Furthermore it seems the developer stopped supporting it about 2 years ago.  (They haven't posted or updated for 2 years).  Do I need to download some other version of MPD such as MPDlux?   Could this be why Eunhasu is not interacting with my one album music library?  Or even my DAC?

 

Soundirok seems to "play" any track on my album (silently) as judged from the "dot" moving to the right and counting to about three seconds.  It then stops displaying the moving dot and stops counting seconds.

 

For what it is worth I have ordered two quiet linear 12V to 5V converters based on the 7805 chip for about $20 each, which I planned on buying anyway to give the 2.5" hard disk and the Metrum Musette DAC clean quiet power from one of the optima yellow to D31a 12V batteries Bilbo suggested.  The battery would also power SMS-200.   All of this was for sound quality purposes.  I have not purchased the battery yet.  At $400 it will be a waste if I can't get any sound at all.  

 

I like Gnnett am requesting help with the Sotm SMS-200.  It will be much appreciated.

 

Kind regards to you all,

 

Ben

 

 

 

 

1)  I have no experience with the Metrum Musette so can't offer any advice there, however if you contact SOtM they will connect to your SMS-200 via "Teamviewer" and sort it out for you.  They are very good with support issues.  @gnnett may also be able to help.  One thing to check though is in Eunhasu go to "System Setup" and select the System Config icon, there are two useful links provided at the bottom left of the page. One is "Detailed system information" and the other is "DAC information".  They only appear as small text but they are actually links to reports.  Select the "DAC information" link and see what the report says. 

The report I get displays this information about my DAC (plus some extra info not shown here) so it clearly recognises the Vega.  What does your report show?

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: A20 [AURALiC USB Audio 2.0], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

 

2)  Not trying to teach you how to suck eggs but maybe some clarification is necessary here.

MPD (Music Player Daemon) is a free server that plays music files.  It has been around for a long time and is not updated very often because it is simple and it works.

The SMS-200 comes with an MPD server already installed and you activate this via the Eunhasu interface just as you have done.

Soundirok is simply an app that communicates with the MPD server on the SMS-200.  You don't need to install anything else.

 

The fact that Soundirok starts playing the track shows it is working with the SMS-200 so you don't have a problem there.

It stops playing because the SMS-200 is having problems outputting data to your DAC and therefore can't send play time updates to Soundirok.

Solve the DAC issue and it should work fine.

 

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Ah Bilbo,

You posted one minute after me.  Yes I agree regarding CPU work and FLAC vs WAV.  From what I have read those that can hear a difference prefer WAV over FLAC or even over AIFF.  Not that I have had the chance to listen to any of this for myself as I haven't been able to get any sound out of my SMS-200 yet.  As my previous post mentioned, I think the problem may be that SMS-200 does not "see" my DAC.  Do you any thoughts as to what could cause this or what a solution might be?

Kind regards,

Ben

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@Bensoundresearch

OK - the SMS-200 cannot see your DAC.  I get that display if my DAC is turned off.

 

Try the following:

1) Check that you are using the dedicated audio USB output at the back of the SMS-200.

2) try a different USB cable to connect to the DAC.

3) disconnect the HDD from the SOtM and run the report again to see if the DAC shows up.

4) contact SOtM for assistance.

 

I do hope you get it sorted as I'm sure you will be impressed with the sound quality once your are up and running. :thumb:

 

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Thanks Bilbo,

I had already emailed SOtM and sent the screen shot of the DAC report.  I then tried your suggestions with no luck.  

 

Interestingly  I went to look for an alternate USB cable thinking a shorter one than the 6 ft provided by Metrum might be better.  The only one I could find, a printer cable, was also 6 ft.  Eventually I will replace long ones with short ones, perhaps making some 120 mm ones of my own.  

 

Regarding getting sound, looks like I will just have to wait for SOtM to contact me back and listen to vinyl till then.  

 

Thanks for all your help.

 

Kind regards,

Ben

 

 

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Guest gnnett
11 hours ago, Bensoundresearch said:

Thanks Bilbo,

I had already emailed SOtM and sent the screen shot of the DAC report.  I then tried your suggestions with no luck.  

 

Interestingly  I went to look for an alternate USB cable thinking a shorter one than the 6 ft provided by Metrum might be better.  The only one I could find, a printer cable, was also 6 ft.  Eventually I will replace long ones with short ones, perhaps making some 120 mm ones of my own.  

 

Regarding getting sound, looks like I will just have to wait for SOtM to contact me back and listen to vinyl till then.  

 

Thanks for all your help.

 

Kind regards,

Ben

 

 

Hi Ben

Sorry missed this and what I can say is my experience is that it will be frustrating in the same way all things computers have been for me  since DOS 3.1 was no longer supported. :-)

However, generally problems are simply fixed and once it works the frustration dissipated.

 

If it is the DAC then sotm will resolve eventually. I could post you a little dac that proved plug and play, if not ultimately musically satisfying, that you could at least get it up and running for proof of concept.

 

Cheers

 

Grant 

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Guest gnnett

PS : Try switching things off and doing the connection sequence and power up as per sotm sequence helped me when what worked once stopped working.

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Thanks ggnett and Bilbo,

On the advice of John Daly of Sublime HiFi, from whom I bought sms-200, I tried switching both sms-200 and metrum musette dac on and off.  It still didn't work for many attempts and I am still not sure what I did to get it to work.  It may have been starting soundirock and switching musette on during the four secon window that soundirok plays for before it (previously had) switched off.  Anyway apart from three dropouts, it works and I have played a complete album without drop out.  So thanks to everyone's help really.

 

Bilbo, may I ask how you decided on your Optima Yellow Top D31 battery to power your sms-200?  In your post you mentioned it having 975 cold cranking amperes and that that seemed to be important to sound quality/dynamics.  Thing is that battery is about $400.  I found another battery, a century that has 910 CCA rating for $211.  I think it has a higher amp hour rating than the Optima.  Do you think this could be a worthwhile option? 

Thanks for allyour help so far.

Kind regards,

Ben

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@Bensoundresearch

I actually bought a different battery (a gel type) that the battery expert told me had lower impedance than the yellow top and so I assumed that would be better.  I took my new purchase over to a friends place as he had a yellow top.  When we compared the two we found the gel type I had bought sounded a bit dull and lifeless so I promptly returned the battery and got a yellow top instead.

 

I gather you are not in a position to make a comparison but the one I bought had about the same CCA as the one you are considering and yet it was not as good as the yellow top.  Maybe try your car battery first before you take the plunge.

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Guest gnnett

Hi Ben

Glad you have it up and running. I understand exactly what you said about:

 

"It still didn't work for many attempts and I am still not sure what I did to get it to work.  It may have been starting soundirock and switching musette on during the four secon window that soundirok plays for before it (previously had) switched off."

 

I didn't use it for a week and am now in my second hour of switching things on and off in different sequences, but still cannot get it to work again. I think these devices and software are just too flacky for me at the moment and am starting to understand why $3K is the starting point for shop bought all in one systems.

 

Having paid a very cheap price for Soundirok, because the alternative of Roon plus blah blah starts to add up, get frustrated with a buttonless piece of software "App" what ever it is called that disappears into "loading your music library" that sometimes lasts 20 seconds, sometimes 20 mins.....

 

And then at 1hr 15mins, it starts working again.

 

By that stage have no interest in enjoying the music, or even thinking about what effect a different power supply might have. Will probably just give it all to my Millennial friend and continue with my vinyl based system.

 

Shame really as I was hoping this would connect me to some new music.

 

Cheers

 

Grantn

 

 

 

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@gnnett

Have you tried a different DAC as the musette seems to be the common link in the problem?

I have a couple of friends that have the SMS-200 and they have had no problems at all with their DAC's.

 

As for Soundirok, I have had to rerun "Refresh Soundirok database" a couple of times to get the entire library loaded after running "Update MPD database".

When I run "Update MPD database" I wait until I see no activity on the SMS-200 (right hand green LED) before I run "Refresh Soundirok database".

This only occurs when I change HDD's in the dock.  After it loads the library (finally) it works fine.

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Guest gnnett

@Bilbo

 

I have two DAC's that work fine, and it is Ben with the musette, that now is working for him, so think that there is now no problems there.

 

Your experience with Soundirok is pretty close to mine, so I just need to develop a longer fuse and improved technique, as you have. May be staying on my medication would help too. :hiccup

 

It is working fine again now so will concentrate on expanding my library on a regular basis for 2 weeks and setting up an easy way to transfer from computer to HDD, wondered about SSD momentarily and getting back to "enjoying the music".

 

Cheers

 

Grantn 

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Yes Gnnett,

I find this digital music world slow to master too.  Regarding getting the dac seen etc, what I try to do now is switch off sms-200 with eunhasu, load a cd onto usb hard drive on my computer with dbpoweramp, try to switch the four devices, i.e., sms-200, dac, usb hard drive, and soundirok playing a track I already had on the hard drive on at the same time.  Then use the technique described above by Bilbo to get Soundirok to load up the newly ripped files.  This seemed to work this weekend.  

 

One annoying issue I found with Soundirok is that the last cd I ripped was a compilation and Soundirok treats each track as an album and will only play one at a time.  Going back to the iPad every track?  Now that is less convenient than vinyl.  If I could make a "play list" with Soundirok that would solve this problem.  Does anyone know if you can make a play list with Soundirok?  If not does anyone know if you can with iPeng?  

 

Bilbo, what was the reason you chose Soundirok over iPeng?  I know you said Soundirok was sufficient because you didn't require roon or tidal etc, but was there any other reason, perhaps concerning CPU requirement and sound quality?

 

Gnnett, I am a bit older than a "millennial" too, born in '68.  I too love vinyl.  I suspect I will keep playing it on my origin live turntable and tone arm with salience phonostage.  I also have an equally large cd collection and the sms-200 is for that.  I feel committed to sms-200 for now - no millennial is getting it, but they can use it at mine as long as they learn how to change the record and clean the stylus too - ha.

 

Thanks everybody,

 

Ben

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@Bensoundresearch

Soundirok can be a bit frustrating with no help/guide/manual available however since version 2.6 all the things you wish to do are possible.  

 

At the bottom left of the app is the settings menu (cog icon). Select that then "Library" from the displayed menu.  The 4th item in the right hand pane is "Default Action" so select that then choose "Play Now".  The 3rd item in the library pane is the view style and I use "Journal" as it is by far the best as it gives you information about the artist plus links to Wikipedia, Discogs and other info sites. iPeng does not do this. Exit settings with the cross at the top right of the screen.

 

Now when you touch a track it will play that track and any others that follow in an album or playlist.  If you touch and hold on a track a menu will pop up that allows you to play the track or add it to the current play list or add it to a stored playlist. If you select "Add to playlist" another menu will open to select a stored playlist or create one. It also has "Add to collection" which is similar to a playlist but only works in Soundirok.

 

I use playlists because these are text files with the file suffix ".m3u" that are stored on the micro SD card and can be shared or edited via your network using Windows Notepad. This also allows you to back them up as well as use them in JRiver and other players.  If you drill down into the sub directories below "Eunhasu" when viewed from Windows File Manager you will find the playlist directory under Eunhasu/mwdata/playlists.

 

Once you have created a playlist you can access it via an icon on the left side of the screen. The first icon is a search function, the second is your library and a third one will appear once you have created one or more playlists.

 

To control the actions in the current playlist select a track then go to the playlist window by selecting the little arrow at the bottom right. There are 4 icons at the top of the playlist window that will now open. The first icon sets shuffle, the second sets repeat, the third sets play only one track and the fourth removes the track from the playlist after it has played. The icons turn red if they are selected. I usually have them all set to off. Now when you select the first track of an album or playlist it will play the entire album or playlist.

 

I hope I've covered enough to get you on track and enjoying the functionality of Soundirok. :thumb:

 

PS* The apps like Soundirok do not have any involvement in passing a music file from your storage medium via the SMS-200 to your DAC. They simply send a "play" command via MPD to the SMS-200 and therefore have no effect on the sound quality.

Edited by Bilbo
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  • 2 years later...
14 minutes ago, billy170468 said:

I dont have one yet but will be purchasing one early next year. 

I have a Crucial MX500 SSD and also one of these docks: http://blueendless.com/cn/productDetails.asp?proid=3

Is this a good starting point?

A powered dock with SSD is a good option, and better than a USB stick (unpowered).  Not sure how much you know of the SMS-200, perhaps this primer may help?  

 

By the way, my AVAST virus scanner blocked the url for the dock.  Please virus check your own system...

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