Hi all, Hope everyone is safe and well!!
I bought my SBT in 2007 and I spent some time trying to make it work for me. I was using Mediamonkey to rip CD's and LMS to stream to the SBT from my Asus gaming laptop via wifi. My system is a Meridian G08 CD player connected by XLR cables to Bryston SP25 DA pre, XLR cables connecting to bi-amped Bryston 3BST power amps. Originally the speakers were PMC lb1 monitors, but these have been upgraded to PMC PB1i's, bass drivers are fed by lower 3BST in the rack and the mid and HF drivers are fed by upper 3BST in the rack. In comparison the lb1's play sounds, but the PB1i's play "music". The SBT was connected by SPDIF coax to the BP25's DAC. I gave up as the sound quality playing CD's ripped to flac files while listenable was not up to what the G08 was producing in direct comparison, so I stuck with the G08. I recently purchased a Bludento HD bluetooth receiver and a Chord Mojo DAC which are feeding the BP25 pre by an analogue Audioquest Forest RCA cable and have been happily listening to Spotify premium on a 3 month free trial during UK lockdown. I have never listened to so much varied music in my life!! I had been looking at network streamers as I still want to be able to rip my 2000 or so CD's to a SSD hard drive attached to my laptop and stream by ethernet, I was considering the Pro-Ject stream box 2 ultra or the Allo USBridge Signature. My SBT had been gathering dust sat on the G08 CD player, good things have been written about EDO via USB so I dusted the SBT off and gave it a second chance before choosing either the Pro-Ject or Allo streamer, it seemed silly to not try the SBT again. The SBT USB is EDO enabled and feeding the Chord Mojo via an Audioquest Forest USB to micro USB cable and power is via an Ankar iQ power pack and USB to barrel jack cable. The power pack works well with the SBT and is an improvement in sound quality over the supplied switched wall wart. I have no problems with the power pack switching off as others have found and it has lasted a couple of evenings listening so far with the SBT in standby in between before needing recharging. My problem is although the SBT sound quality is much better than with my original setup, if I do a direct A/B comparison with the CD playing in the G08 and the same ripped flac file streamed by ethernet using Cat8 cable, there is still a difference in the high frequencies. The SBT highs are slightly tizzy/grainy/distorted especially with some of Pavarroti's best, female vocals are not as smooth as when played via the G08. Louder volumes get tiring and unpleasant, but not with the G08 playing!! I intend to eventually change to Quobuz hi-res and Roon with the SBT as an end point if I can rectify the tizzy highs. There is no tizz/distortion using my Samsumg Note 9 streaming Spotify premium via bluetooth to the Bludento bluetooth streamer and SPDIF coax to the Chord Mojo. Any suggestions, thoughts to how I can improve the SBT sound quality please or is this as good as it gets and my system is exposing the limitations of the SBT. I was wondering if putting an iFi Micro iUSB3.0 Ultimate Audio-grade USB Power Supply between the SBT and the Mojo would correct the tizzy highs, but this is currently £429, so not cheap if it doesn't clean up the signal and improve the SQ as advertised. Of course there are cheaper (and more expensive) alternatives. Many thanks, Regards, Barry ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Barry.B's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11625 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=112612
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