 A good network bridge will improve the sound quality compared to connecting a computer directly to the DAC. This one also does rune-rat, up-sampling and down-sampling and even converts DSD to PCM. Lindemann translated to English gives Lime Tree Man, which probably explains why Lindemann uses Lime Tree as a name for a series of products, the bridge being one of them. I presume Lindemann developed it to enable streaming for products that were introduced before streaming took a flight. For anything you try at it will be converted to either 96 or 192 kHz PCM. There is no transparent mode and although some might not like that, many will, for it solves the problem of having a DAC that does not do very high sampling rates, up and down sampling or DSD. The important question then is, how well does it sound? But let's first see how to use the Lime Tree Bridge. The digital output of the bridge is to be connected to a digital input on your stereo. Both SPIDF and TOSLink are available but there is no USB Audio Class 2 output. On the input side it has to be connected to your router over either WiFi or a network cable. You now can play music from streaming services like Tidal, Cobus, Hi-Res Audio and Deezer. Spotify is announced but not yet implemented. You can also play internet radio stations next to listening to podcasts which is quite unique for a network bridge. If you want to play music that is stored in your computer or NAS, you will need a DNLA or UPnP AV server program installed on that computer or NAS. A good and free one for audio is MinimServer. Remarkable is that you can connect a USB CD drive to the Lime Tree Bridge and play CDs from it, which is great. If you don't have a normal CD player, you just buy such a drive for 45 euros. The Lime Tree Bridge is fully controlled from an app on a smartphone or tablet. The apps are available for Android, iOS and iPadOS. RoonRat is also supported. So if you have a Roon server program installed on a computer, you can use the Lime Tree Bridge as endpoint, the name Roon gives to network bridges and renderers. Like all products in the Lime Tree series, the bridge is housed in a small aluminium box that uses a Woolward switch mode 5V DC 3A power supply. The top of the housing shows a Lime Tree leaf. The bridge measures 107 x 107 x 40 mm and weighs 300 grams. On the front left we see the power switch that doubles as a mode switch, on which later more. To the right the power LED, a LED that indicates the sampling rate of the incoming signal by color and the LED that indicates whether the outgoing digital signal is 88.496 kHz or 176.8 or 192 kHz. On the rear we see the 5V DC input, the LAN Ethernet socket, the WiFi antenna, aUSB-A connector for storage media or the CD drive, the WiFi protected setup button, the Toslink digital output and the SPDIF digital output. After opening the box, a blue circuit board attracts the attention. It is a Stream 810 streaming module by Stream Unlimited. This company was founded by ex-Philip's people 15 years ago in Vienna and offers universal streaming solutions. Like products of competitor Linkplay, you find their products often in serious audio products. It's like using a DAC chip instead of building a DAC with discrete components. The output of the streaming module is in I2S format having the data and clock signals over separate lines. After lifting the Stream 810 module we see the works by Lindemann. The DC input voltage is filtered and stabilized here and at several other places on the board. The system is controlled using a Motorola microcontroller. The I2S output of the Stream 810 is connected to the baseboard over a multi-pin connector. From there it is sent to the AKM sample rate converter that converts incoming PCM and DSD signals to either 88.4 and 96 kHz or 176.8 and 192 kHz. So two or four times oversampling for 44.1 and 48 kHz. Further the output stream is twice or four times the baseband is set by holding the power switch upwards for three seconds. From the sample rate converter the signal goes to the Burr-Brown digital audio transmitter that generates a 2's complement SPDIF signal. That is sent to the output transformer that provides galvanic separation for the SPDIF output. The Toslink uses the same signal to convert to modulated light used for the optical transport. On the bridge itself there is not much to set or control. As mentioned you can switch the output sampling frequency to either 2 or 4 times the base frequency and that's it. All further control is done using the free app. But first you have to connect the bridge to your network. There are two ways, using Wi-Fi or using an Ethernet cable. For Wi-Fi you simply press the WPS button on your router until a LED starts flashing. Then as soon as a LED on the bridge starts flashing, you use a paperclip or other pointy device to press the WPS button on the rear of the bridge and you're set. If you like me have no WPS button on your router, you have to temporarily connect the bridge to the router using a network cable and enter the name of your network and your password in the app settings menu by hand. After that you can disconnect the network cable. Or you can just use the network cable and forget about Wi-Fi. When you start up the app it will search for a Lindemann network player and when not found it will display this screen. If the bridge is properly connected, switched on and started up it will appear in the app. Tapping on it shows the sources available plus a list of last played music. Let's go to my music servers and select the SYN3T Synology DS119J that runs Minim server. Select Music and browse by album. Go to 90125 by yes and start owner of a lonely heart. Next to the cover art the properties of the music files are shown. It will loss less at 2920 kbps, 96 kHz, 24 bit 2 channel. It all works fine. Let's jump to Tidal, since it's the first time I log in I have to enter my username and password. I hope you don't mind, I don't shell that. After that just tap login and you'll see the standard Tidal categories like new albums. Let's go for Queen Naidja and press play. Then the internet radio menu and let's go to the local stations. Concerts in de Vredenburg Live is the station affiliated with the 8th Concert Halls of the Tivoli Vredenburg Concert Hall of Utrecht, The Netherlands at a 20 minute drive from where I live. Let me also show you the podcast function by searching for the American Dutch podcaster and conspiracy jester Adam Curry. He runs the No Agenda podcast with grumpy old man John C. Dvorak. Now let me show you some settings. For instance the wifi connection setting, where you enter the name of your wifi network, the so called SSID and the password, here called KEY. I'm not hiding my password for you of course but as you know there are some very bad people on the interwebs. As you see here wired connection is still active since the connection is selected automatically. Unplug the network cable and restart the bridge and it will use wifi for connection. The quality of a network bridge is defined by properties like a clean power supply and face noise on the digital output. These have influence on the correctness of the digital to analog process. Even the tiniest difference in both parameters can and often will be audible after the DA conversion. Even a good digital front end in the DAC can't correct for this. It will remain audible, clearly audible. Time to see how the bridge sounds. This is within its price class a very good sounding bridge. Technically correct would be a bridge that in its price class adds clearly less distortion than most. But that would sound rather negative while it is very good. Comparing it to bridges I already have is difficult since they all have USB port as output while the laundry bridge has spidive and tosslink. The only comparison I could make is with the Raspberry Pi with the HiFiBerry and Allo spidive boards. And those are just the class lower. Comparing it with the SOtM SMS-200 Ultra Neo with sBooster power supply is a bit tricky since I then use two totally different inputs on my DAC. It then is hard to tell to what degree the inputs on the DAC influence the sound difference. But the SOtM sBooster is the winner, offering more resolution overall and better sibilance control. Because on other DACs might differ depending on the quality of the spidive input and the front end of that DAC. It doesn't make the lindum in a bad product though, especially if you consider it's costing about half the price of the SOtM. And we can use an identical sBooster power supply but this time the Vifolz version. That does bring the lime tree bridge closer to the SOtM, especially sibilance control improves. It is indeed funny that also with final sibilance is one of the known problems. In the 70s Schuer issued a final record, an audio obstacle course for the introduction of the Schuer V15 type 2 cartridge. It was to be used for adjusting the tone arm and one of the tracks was Mas Canada by Sergio Mendez. The SMS gave severe problems when the cartridge was not mounted correctly or the tone arm was not adjusted properly. In the digital world I used Jennifer Warren's track Famous Blue Raincoat from the original release of the album with the same name. To clarify the lime tree bridge qualities, it finds its place about a third up in my setup one. Let me first make clear who should not buy the lime tree bridge. Those that want to connect the DAC using USB, for there is no USB output. Also those using an MQA DAC should look elsewhere since the sample rate conversion will kill the MQA flag. And those that don't want sample rate conversion of course. But all others buy a very good sounding network bridge for playing music from streaming services and their own collection on a hard disk. Even if that collection contains music at higher sampling rates than the DAC can handle. It's also a very good option for those that seek a rune endpoint of quality. Sure there are even better network bridges as we have seen but not at this price for as far as I know. If you know one, let me know. Just name the product, don't send links for those might not work. Next week I have another interesting product for you, a DAC that outputs enough power to properly drive loudspeakers directly. So come back next Friday at 5pm central european time. Afraid you forget it, then subscribe to this channel and follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up. I am blessed with viewers that support the channel financially, it keeps me independent. If you like to support my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHPproject.com. And as always, whatever you do, enjoy the music and keep safe.