I've been doing some pretty extensive testing recently, trying to figure out if going the microRendu route is the best way forward for ultimate sound quality. Right now, the resounding answer is NO. My two PCs running from RAM-OS both sound substantially better than my mircoRendu - the gap is pretty large. This could be down to the cheap iFi power supply I'm currently using with the mircroRendu, so hopefully, I'll get a chance to try it with a better PSU in the near future. But that's not the purpose of this thread...
As part of my testing, I captured a number of tracks at the ouptut of the iFi DAC (compatible with the mircroRendu, whereas the NOS1a is not) being fed from the audio PC in my office. As a reference, I captured some outputs from the NOS1a too, again being fed from my office audio PC. When I was listening back, I was really disappointed with the sound of the NOS1a compared to the iFi - the NOS1a was marginally better, but not really any more 'musical' than the iFi. And then it occurred to me that after the last reboot I had left the RAM-OS HDD in the audio PC during the NOS1a captures (and not during the iFi captures). I took the HDD out and re-did the captures from the NOS1a.
For anyone who is interested, this is difference between keeping the RAM-OS disc in your PC and taking it out:
OS running from RAM, but with HDD still inside PC:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfR25XbHFYZWV5QzQOS running from RAM, but with *NO* HDD or SSD in PC:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfbFpfOTMyOEhFdjgIf your experience of listening to these two files is anything like mine, you will be amazed at the difference. Having the HDD in the PC simply kills the musicality... and to think we've been doing this for years, and years... until Peter offered us the RAM-OS.
Mani.
