Rock Grotto Exclusive! The Mini APE

[Deleted]

PSDoes anybody else find that their Aune Mini APE gives a very audible mechanical click as it changes from one track to another? (This is from the device itself, not audible through the audio output.)

Yes John, mine does EXACTLY the same.

Mick.

[JohnnyBlue]

Thanks, Mick. Just wanted confirmation that I didn't have a duff 'un.

OK, all USB sticks now working through the 4 port USB hub, didn't even have to re-boot the Aune this time, it read the new stick straight away.

Now I can relax and start enjoying listening to music!

[Deleted]

Mar 18, 2011 8:08:27 GMT JohnnyBlue said:

Thanks, Mick. Just wanted confirmation that I didn't have a duff 'un.

OK, all USB sticks now working through the 4 port USB hub, didn't even have to re-boot the Aune this time, it read the new stick straight away.

Now I can relax and start enjoying listening to music!

That`s great John, i will reload my HD fLAC files on to usb stick and try this method.
Can you confirm that you have the 4 port hub plugged directly into Ape, with the usb stick plugged into one of the 4 ports available.

Thanks Mick.

[JohnnyBlue]

Mar 18, 2011 8:35:34 GMT @heliharris said:

Mar 18, 2011 8:08:27 GMT JohnnyBlue said:

Thanks, Mick. Just wanted confirmation that I didn't have a duff 'un.

OK, all USB sticks now working through the 4 port USB hub, didn't even have to re-boot the Aune this time, it read the new stick straight away.

Now I can relax and start enjoying listening to music!

That`s great John, i will reload my HD fLAC files on to usb stick and try this method.
Can you confirm that you have the 4 port hub plugged directly into Ape, with the usb stick plugged into one of the 4 ports available.

Thanks Mick.

Yup, that's exactly how it is, although the Aune only recognised the newly-inserted USB stick immediately when I already had another one playing in another port. Subsequent attempts to get a USB stick to play straight from plugging it into the hub haven't worked, but a re-start of the Aune soon gets this sorted (no great hardship).

I've also re-tried inserting the USB sticks directly into the Aune and the result was as before: nothing. I have no idea what this USB 4 port hub is doing (it never worked properly in my old PC!), but at least I can now play music off my USB sticks!

[PinkFloyd]

How are you guys finding the sound quality? I just love my mini APE and find myself listening to it more than I do CD's these days.... I still think WAV files sound the best and as soon as I have loaded a stick with musak I defrag it.... I'm going to pink up the DacMagic and the Mini APE and see what difference that makes.

[Deleted]

Hi Mike,

Its a great sounding unit, i am using a combination of wav,mp3, flac, mainly on SDHC card (class 6) and they all sound great, and once you get used to the remote its very easy to navigate the different folders.

Build quality looks to be very good, but a set of feet would be nice at the production stage, stops it sliding around.

Time will tell on the reliability front, but so far money VERY well spent, giving excellent results.

Mick.

[freddypipsqueek]

Mike.

I understand that defraging memory doesn't make any difference - its not recommended with SSD's. The advantage with defraging hard drives is to minimise the time it takes for the read head to travel acroos the drive (the closer the files the quicker the time). With memory this is not a factor.

I stand to be corrected however as it over 10 years since I last dried to understand it all.

[Deleted]

I wouldn't recommend defragging flash memmory as it shortens its life (consumes write cycles) and doesn't make them any faster. They already have extremelly low latency/seek times and maximun transfer speed isn't impooved either with it.

More info:

ask-leo.com/should_i_defragment_my_usb_flash_drive.html

www.pcmech.com/article/never-defragment-flash-drive/

They can slow down (transfer speed, not seek speed) after a long period with many wites/deletes or short period of heavy W/D. To restore original performance a full format after backing up all files will be enough.

(Freddy beat me to saying this)

[clausdk]

Mar 18, 2011 11:34:46 GMT freddypipsqueek said:

Mike.

I understand that defraging memory doesn't make any difference - its not recommended with SSD's. The advantage with defraging hard drives is to minimise the time it takes for the read head to travel acroos the drive (the closer the files the quicker the time). With memory this is not a factor.

I stand to be corrected however as it over 10 years since I last dried to understand it all.

I was told the same, but on my SSD HD laptop there is a clear improvement, when it is defragmented..

I do not know why or how

[PinkFloyd]

I was told the same, but on my SSD HD laptop there is a clear improvement, when it is defragmented

Yup, same here

[freddypipsqueek]

Interesting. With SSD's I'd worried about their lifespan. Ther're cheaper now so here goes. . .

In my previous post I referred to dried in stead of tried. I'd like to make it clear that I don't abstain from alcohol every 10 years. Its much longer than that.

[Deleted]

I might be getting a little O.T. but...

There are many free benchmarking tools that you can download and try to confirm your findings like Atto disk, Iometer, etc. but use with care as writting reduces flash memmory life. The only thing you want to run once in a while is free space consolidation: run "defrag c: /x" from the command line, where C: is the unit you want to defrag or download Defraggler from www.piriform,com and use Action->Advanced->Defrag Freespace from the menu.

Defragging makes sense in mechanical drives where an arm with a reading head has to displace and read different parts of a rotating disk. In that case, putting together parts of the files that have been written to different areas so they are now secuential and can be read with less movements of the head and requiring a lower number of spins provides and advantage. Defraging also means placing all files in the fastest areas of the disk to increase even more reading/writting speeds. HDD loose I/O and transfer speed as they fill up, SSD and flash drives don't. Some defragging apps can increase the size of the MFT to reduce its fragmentation and also move and defrag the memmory swap file. Apps like Diskeeper and many other Enterprise defraggers are able to detect SSD disks so they are never defragged.

For HDDs tricks like "zoning", using small partitions in large drives so only the fastes area of the drive is used, also increase peformance.

In flash memory there are no mechanical parts so reading scattered parts of files means very little performance penalty files that most people don't think deserve improoving at the cost of reducing the disk life. What degrades most in flash memory is writting speed.

I use a few SSD disks (SLC units) in servers hosting critical apps like ERP's databases with many users doing simultaneous (and heavy) reading/writting and mail server databases/transaction log files and good performance is essential as is being hammered 24/7. I never defrag them, just a full erase every 6 months.

For SSD disks to stay in good shape you want GC (garbage collection) in the drives firmware and/or TRIM + TRIM aware OS (W7 or W2008 Server R2) but best way to return to factory new is, like I said before, sanitary erase.

[Deleted]

Very interesting Javier,

Never realised you could defrag a usb stick, but its seems perhaps its not the best thing to carry out in this instance, but i can see the obvious advantages on a "normal" HDD regarding less movement of the head, and having relating files next to each other.

I have said it before, but i say it again Javier, your English is excellent.

Mick.

[PinkFloyd]

Bloody hell.... the way I see it is I am going to keep those music files on the drive forever (the memory stick) so I load the files on and then defrag the stick.... I NEVER touch it again, it is now known as "music stick".

I cannot see ANY problems doing that, one defrag will not hurt anything.

[Deleted]

One defrag, or even a few hundreds, won't hurt , the problem is doing it regularly for an extended period of time (as in months or even years). Current SSD flash cells in MLC disks or USB drives have >5,000 write/erase cycles "theoretical" life. When a cell reaches its maximum cycles it just becomes non writable any more but there shouldn't be any data corruption, just lost disk capacity. That is the reason why SSD disks have wear levelling algorithms and "hidden" free space to extend the drive's life.

If you use flash as if it were a WORM device (Write Once Read Many) it'll keep the same read performace forever and ever. If you write and then consolidate free space you'll get the best performance out of it.



PS. Thx Mick you are going to make me blush

[Deleted]

Some more thoughts on the sound quality...

Just for the sake of it, I compared it against the laptop reading the memory (SD & USB) and running through the SCHA, as does the Ape.

The Ape is miles ahead, no contest at all. Detail retrieval, cohesion and realism of tone are obviously superior. The laptop (line audio out straight to the SCHA) can get tiring due to mainly, I think, a top end raspiness, the Ape is remarkably sweet in this region.

Being extremely picky, I'd point out the switch-on/switch-off between tracks detracts ever so slightly from the flow when listening to albums where one track leads into the next, something that is more disrete when running the laptop, though a small price to pay for the increase in SQ.

I have to say that, so far, the Ape is immensely more capable than I dared hope for before listening! I bought this as an easy solution for music at work. I have the nasty feeling, that unless the soon to be started "progeny-of-Will MPC" shows early signs of superiority on SQ, that this Ape will never make it to work and I'll need to buy another

[JohnnyBlue]

Feb 18, 2011 18:39:15 GMT leo said:

...I think the Left and Right analogue outputs may be reversed

Yes and no! Certainly the lower, red-coloured RCA audio output (which I assumed to be the right channel, because lower and/or red usually signifies right) IS the left channel, BUT it is also labelled as such!

I can't get the >>| or |<< on the remote to do anything, but since the manual suggests they are something to do with CUE sheets, and I wouldn't have different CUE sheets in the same folder, perhaps that's why?

I've found that the Δ (top left on the remote) switches the display on/off, which is quite handy.

I'm surprised the manual recommends 2.5" external HDDs (i.e., portable ones) because they draw their power from the USB, which can only be deleterious to sound quality for the Mini APE. I'm sure I've read somewhere here that a 3.5" external HDD with its own PS should give better SQ?

Finally, on SQ itself, I'm really enjoying listening to the Mini APE: it seems very musical, although I have a suspicion that I'm not hearing as much HF detail via CD as I'm used to (but this is in comparison to a decent CD player). I have yet to do any direct CD to APE comparisons, though, so will reserve judgement on that until I have. In any case the sheer convenience of having dozens of CDs on tap make it ideal for a second system, e.g., in the dining room, so I’m very pleased overall with this neat little device.

PS Agree with cj that the click between tracks from the device itself is quite annoying at times: I can't understand how all this music generation that's going on in the digital (or at least electronic) domain can result in a mechanical click?

EDIT:
Another question: what's the purpose of the USB A to USB B lead, which is clearly tucked in the box as an after-thought?

[Deleted]

PS Agree with cj that the click between tracks from the device itself is quite annoying at times: I can't understand how all this music generation that's going on in the digital (or at least electronic) domain can result in a mechanical click?

Perhaps it uses relays for MUTING between tracks ?
The better CD players used to use relays for muting, in preference to transistors, which could become noisy, or cause level imbalance problems.

[PinkFloyd]

My one doesn't click between tracks, but it's one of the first prototypes.... maybe the latest ones do employ a relay for muting, I will confirm this with Candy.

I just love my Mini APE and think the sound quality is amazing. It's taken me a while to get used to the concept of "music on a stick" but now I'm used to it CD seems so primitive

For the purchase price you cannot fault the Mini APE, what it does it does extremely well. Listening to "cluster one" (Division Bell) as I type and it lovely and organic, flowing with a palpable soundscape... years ago you would have had to pay SERIOUS money for this type of presentation.

I am (ever so slightly) preferring the sonics through a class 10 SD card (compared to USB stick) I have noticed that there is more seperation, particularly in the bass, and instruments are more "fleet of foot".... very easy to follow individual components..... It's great being able to home in on the bassline (for example) and follow each note rather than just be aware that there is "bass" plodding away in the background.

I have it on good authority that "MemoryStar" make SD cards for the "big boys" so bought a 16GB class 10 SD card for £16.97 shipped.... not a bad price and it's doing the business nicely..... see here This outfit are in Jersey hence the cheap price

[Deleted]

Mar 19, 2011 21:44:53 GMT @sandyk said:

PS Agree with cj that the click between tracks from the device itself is quite annoying at times: I can't understand how all this music generation that's going on in the digital (or at least electronic) domain can result in a mechanical click?

Perhaps it uses relays for MUTING between tracks ?
The better CD players used to use relays for muting, in preference to transistors, which could become noisy, or cause level imbalance problems.

Ah yes, I remember the original Exposure "CD Player" doing that , for the reason you say. That was a stonker in its day too.

Mike,
Thanks for the link on the SD cards, much cheaper than I've seen elsewhere.
What quality USB stick were you comparing to?

[Deleted]

I must be the only one who hasn't received it!!

[clausdk]

Mar 20, 2011 9:02:37 GMT @iancraig10 said:

I must be the only one who hasn't received it!!

No you are not the only one
But I paid a bit later..

[JohnnyBlue]

I was a bit alarmed late last night, listening to Shostakovich Prelude & Fugue No. 1 (piano with lots of space and silence around it, if you get my meaning!), as I heard, at a very low level, some low frequency fluttering noises, almost like a rhythmic rustling, out of phase in each ear (listening with headphones).

Long story short: I've just re-ripped the track in question in various formats and realised that the version I'd played last night was an MP3 at 192 CBR (done ages ago, before I learnt to mess with EAC's settings), and a 320 VBR rip was much, much cleaner-sounding. The noise disappeared completely with FLAC and WAV, so whoever mentioned earlier that the Mini APE was good enough to show up differences between MP3 and FLAC wasn't kidding!

The quality difference between FLAC and MP3 has long been noticeable on my little Sansa Clip+, but the APE shows the differences VERY clearly, as well as between 192 and 320 kbps rips. (Of course the downside is all those CDs I ripped back in the day at too low a bit rate: the quality difference on the Clip+ was there but not worth re-ripping for, now I'm not so sure!)

[JohnnyBlue]

My little Chinese system!

www.impulsion.plus.com/photos/Aune Mini APE & Guanzo 1393small.jpg[/img]

NB I don't normally have the volume control as high as this, I was just listening to the background warblings, as per my previous post!

[chris1967]

Mar 20, 2011 9:36:07 GMT @clausdk said:

Mar 20, 2011 9:02:37 GMT @iancraig10 said:

I must be the only one who hasn't received it!!

No you are not the only one
But I paid a bit later..

I hope i get mine in the week... everything i have ever ordered from China has taken longer than usual to arrive, longer than from the US for example...

I have ordered from coolfungadget some opamps, and it is now more than a month and still waiting...