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Tidy folders in roon12/10/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() So there you have it: this is the best Roon music playback I’ve heard so far. And even if you’d spring for the N10, you couldn’t run Roon on it. ![]() There’s still a small difference in terms of treble refinement and image focus and layering, but getting this last bit right does cost serious money. Timbre, bass power and articulation, PRAT, tonal richness, fluidity and soundstage width: they’re all comparable with the N10. This time around however, with the AudioAanZee hardware, the Euphony Audio Transport comes incredibly close to the Aurender N10 that is my current reference. My reasoning for this is based on experience with the best Meridian hardware running Sooloos and Roon, and although Roon was very good and Sooloos was better, I found at that time that the Aurender N10 sounded best with the Meridian 818v3 and Ultra DAC. I haven’t tried the other options but I’m sure that they all sound equally good, given that Roon and MPD are both all the way up there. I also tried MPD and this works as advertised, and sounds just as good as Roon. Using the AudioAanZee Reference Flow hardware, an AudioQuest Diamond USB cable and an Exogal Comet DAC there is no doubt that the Euphony software is state of the art: I’ve never heard Roon sound better than done this way, not even when using the best Meridian streaming endpoints. I’ll tell you right now: Euphony Audio Transport works brilliantly and sounds fantastic. For my tests, I used the AudioAanZee Reference Flow music server because I know that it has excellent hardware.įor more precisely assessing the Euphony’s audio qualities I moved the music server to the main setup. Most computers less than 4 years old should be fine for use with the Euphony software. As I mentioned above, the computer hardware however is co-responsible for the end result. What’s more: you might also already have an old PC lying around doing nothing to get you started. But hey, if you’re a digital fan, you probably have a nice DAC already anyway. Imagine having Sooloos comfort and sound quality at very low cost by using the Euphony Drive, Roon Core and your choice of hardware to run this on. The above setup was used to assess the initial Euphony functionality and sound quality. From that point onward you can control every aspect of the Euphony Drive. Just type “Euphony” in your favorite internet browser, and the Euphony installation is automatically found. The Euphony Drive is available as 1 TB 2,5″ or 2 TB 2,5″ with pre-installed Euphony Audio Transport and ample storage for your music library. Installation really is too simple: take out the old hard disk, connect the new disk, boot and Bob’s your uncle. The choice is then yours: by going to an easy-to-navigate web page you can select between Roon Server, MPD Server, HQPlayer, SqueezeLite endpoint, Roon/Sooloos endpoint and Euphony’s own player. This software can be downloaded or purchased preinstalled on an SSD by the name of Euphony Drive. What if I told you that you can now have all of these options and more available at the click of a mouse, all embedded on a single Plug and Play SSD?Įuphony Audio Transport provides just that: a highly tuned, minimalistic operating system with bit-perfect sound no matter which player solution you choose. Now I’m sure there is no magic involved if you ask a Linux programming expert with an audiophile understanding about it, but still, a computer does not sound great by default.Įven if you have obtained a minimalistic music server with great sound, you are limited to either Roon, MPD or something else. The former however looks more like something of a black art. If you are somewhat technically inclined, the latter is not too difficult to get sorted. As I have come to learn, the basic ingredients to getting good sound from a computer is by making sure that A: it doesn’t do anything else than playing music and B: by getting the hardware right. Music Servers are seen by many as being merely dumbed-down installations on computers with dedicated outputs and to some extent, this is usually indeed true. Then came the Dutch company AudioAanZee with their Ultra Flow music server and later the Reference Flow music server, and these servers neatly showed me that digital audio could most definitely sound every bit as good as my best CD player. At that time I was convinced that computers would never sound as good as a high-end CD player, and in spite of my best efforts, they indeed didn’t. I learned this early on when comparing standard Windows PC’s with CD playback. In these “streaming audio” times it is easy to think that, much along the lines of the belief that “digital is digital”, a music server is a music server, and thus all servers should basically sound alike. Instant High End Music Server software Retail prices: ![]()
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