I've been a little COVID bored, so I started tinkering with my home audio. I have an aging AVR (Onkyo TX-NR1010) and a nice set of (also aging) Martin Logan electrostatics in a 5.1 config. Nothing too crazy, Aerius i, Cinema Center, Scripts in the back. It's always been really wonderful sounding to me. Many years ago I ripped all my CDs to a lossless format and have used a Sonos Connect to play my library. I've owned DVD Audio and SACD players, so I had a handful of those disks. I like the idea of higher resolution digital, but the multi disk players I owned (NAD & Denon) both broke in less than two years, so I kind of gave up on it. Neither format made it anyway. Thanks to this board, I decided to try an alternative to Sonos in my system. I had an Intel i5 based mini-pc gathering dust so I loaded Volumio on it and attached an E30. I ripped my DVD Audio discs and graduated to higher resolution audio. I have 3 SACD disks and I think I'm going to have those ripped for me rather than adding to my junk equipment collection.
I have to say, I don't believe I can hear a difference between Sonos and the E30 on regular CD audio, though I'm still listening. So far, I don't really think I hear much difference with the higher resolution stereo content either but I have so little content. The quality of the recording and engineering seems to make much more difference than the digital resolution and the DAC. I must also confess I'm addicted to the Onkyo's multi-channel stereo mode. It really does a great job of spreading out the sound stage and adding depth. I will write an update after I do more critical listening.
Two things I do want to report and praise.
The e30 certainly sounds great and functions flawlessly on a intel based Volumio installation.
What it offers is an amazing amount of flexibility in high resolution PCM and DSD formats. It is low cost, measures exceptionally and sounds great. Many thanks to this board, Amir and his reviews.
Next, Volumio is the bomb! What a terrific application. I do hope that someday there will be multi-channel 5.1/7.1 DACs and Volumio will be enhanced to support multi-channel content and DACs. In the meantime, I remain addicted to the Onkyo multi-channel mixing magic. I can also play the few 5.1 tracks I have directly through the Onkyo's DAC. Clearly, engineering good 5.1 content is much harder than Stereo. There are so few fine examples. A shining example remains the Eagles Hell Freezes Over DTS. I wish there were more multi-channel content of that quality.