Digital.

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mainscablesrus
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#1 Digital.

Post by mainscablesrus »

What do you use and why, and what pecking order does it hold for your overall music listening experience. I will start off.

Home system squeezebox touch and LAB12 DAC, sounds excellent and the touch was years ahead of its time IMO, still not much to beat it IMO.

Work, Lumin S1 with Fidata storage system, not heard anything better even stuff costing £50k+, as a good friend pointed out to me today why bother with vinyl when digital can sound so good!
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#2 Re: Digital.

Post by Ant »

Use an old Philips cd player every now and then
Use a mac mini and beresford dac very rarely.
Why bother with digital when analogue can sound so good?
There will always be both sides of the coin I suppose
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pre65
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#3 Re: Digital.

Post by pre65 »

Squeezebox Touch with MCRU PSU, Beresford Caiman SEG DAC, DIY 15v regulated PSU and Beresford Dorado PSU enhancer.

The SEG has an upgraded firmware chip from Stan.

When not using computer files the CD transport is a Cambridge CXC.

Sounds OK to me in the main system

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Mike H
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#4 Re: Digital.

Post by Mike H »

Most lately, laptop running iTunes and/or VLCplayer, via Bluetooth.

Reason: convenience, mobility and ease of use.

NB: the Bluetooth receivers (Chinese off of eBay) sound as good as anything else I've got, including my hifimeDIY USB DAC which I hardly use (cos then I'd have to use wires)
 
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Ray P
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#5 Re: Digital.

Post by Ray P »

Music library of FLAC files (mostly ripped CDs) held on a QNAP NAS

For secondary (TV room) listening the music library is accessed via AssetUPnP using BubbleUPnP as the control point interface and routing the music to my network enabled Denon Home Cinema receiver.

For the main music system The NAS is mapped to a dedicated 'server' running HQ Player, which upsamples the FLAC files to PCM384 or DSD256/512. The upsampled output is transported over the network to either of two renderers, both of which use a Beaglebone Black as the network renderer delivering I2S or DSD, via isolator/reclocker modules to either of;

(a)Twisted Pear ESS9018 equipped DAC powered by a full set of Salas shunt regulators and outputting via a Twisted Pear Legato I/V stage.

(b) Dedicated DSD-only decoder (no conventonal DAC chip involved) powered by Acko's ultra-low noise regulators and outputting via lundahl LL1684 transformers.

Both are streets ahead of what I achieved with my old Squeezebox setup and my previous networked music server/RAKK DAC. I prefer the DSD decoder over the sabre-based DAC, very organic and analogue (currently reworking this decoder off the breadboard and into a proper chassis). I'm hoping to be able to showpiece the DSD decoder at the next Owston meet. I plan to implement Roon quite soon to provide more convenient control of HQ Player via a smart device.

I don't do vinyl and nor do I have a CD player.
Last edited by Ray P on Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
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#6 Re: Digital.

Post by IslandPink »

Nick's Longdog DAC changed the game for me somewhat. Well-recorded pre-1985 vinyl will usually win out, but a lot of vinyl resissues of rare albums or modern music are not as good as CD through that DAC - hence my extreme wariness of current vinyl.
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mainscablesrus
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#7 Re: Digital.

Post by mainscablesrus »

IslandPink wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:16 pm Nick's Longdog DAC changed the game for me somewhat. Well-recorded pre-1985 vinyl will usually win out, but a lot of vinyl resissues of rare albums or modern music are not as good as CD through that DAC - hence my extreme wariness of current vinyl.
PLEASE try and make a visit to my shop sometime, analogue productions and mofi vinyl simply stunning!
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The Stratmangler
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#8 Re: Digital.

Post by The Stratmangler »

Ray P wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:13 pmBoth are streets ahead of what I achieved with my old Squeezebox setup
Which was?
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#9 Re: Digital.

Post by ed »

flac library on zyxel 325 running LMS
homemade 5v PS running:
beaglebone black running squeezelite
behringer uca222 DAC

into simple 5w latfet PP

at the moment can't justify spending anymore...the music is enough for me.
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Ali Tait
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#10 Re: Digital.

Post by Ali Tait »

Had a Mytek dac run from an NVA TFS which sounded great, really up there with the best of my vinyl. Now got a Lumin D2 which is even better, easily the best digital I’ve heard at home. Great bit of kit.
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Ray P
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#11 Re: Digital.

Post by Ray P »

The Stratmangler wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:39 am
Ray P wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 10:13 pmBoth are streets ahead of what I achieved with my old Squeezebox setup
Which was?
I owned a squeezebox touch and one of the earlier ones without the display, was it an SB3? I used them on their own and with my RAKK DAC (Mk 3) before I moved that to connect to a networked music server running JPlay and interfaced via I2S over an HDMI interconnect.

I did investigate extracting an I2S signal from a SB - doable but fiddly and a bit fragile IIRC.
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
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The Stratmangler
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#12 Re: Digital.

Post by The Stratmangler »

Ray P wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 1:49 pm I owned a squeezebox touch and one of the earlier ones without the display, was it an SB3? I used them on their own and with my RAKK DAC (Mk 3) before I moved that to connect to a networked music server running JPlay and interfaced via I2S over an HDMI interconnect.

I did investigate extracting an I2S signal from a SB - doable but fiddly and a bit fragile IIRC.
I just wondered how high the bar was wrt the Squeezebox players.
I'm still very happy with my Touch. I use it to feed a M2Tech Evo DAC, and both devices have decent linear PSUs.
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#13 Re: Digital.

Post by gninnam »

NAS Drive failed recently but backup the data to a couple of USB drives.
These now attached to my router and use an IQAudio PI-DAC+ running on a PI 2B+. Music streamer software is Volumio which I have had no issues with.
Connect to a Pure Audio A30 then through Jenna speakers.

Also use Spotify either streamed from mobile devices via the PI and Volumio or use Spotify Connect directly on the PI.

Also stream music to the two Sonos units (Sonos Base in the living room or Sonos 1 in the bedroom) either using Spotify or using the Sonos apps.

All sounds good to me and the wife but do prefer the vinyl!
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#14 Re: Digital.

Post by Ant »

To be honest i wish I still had the sb3, it was very convenient and the current computer based source is not.

Could see the sb3 display from across the room and the sound was reasonable. I use an apple TV as the head into the beresford dac but having to use the TV is a complete pain in the arse, kids on the computer means that the TV is in use for that all the time.
Using just the mac is no good as that is in use all the time too.
Using the sb3 was problematic when everyone and their dog was using the Internet, it kept dropping out even with wired connections. For me it's just not worth the effort. Its more convenient believe it or not to use vinyl or cd because it is not connected to anything else.
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#15 Re: Digital.

Post by Ali Tait »

Have a Drobo NAS which is great for backups as it shares the data across the drives so nothing is lost if I lose a drive- does it all automatically so don’t have to worry about it. Also keep a copy on a portable drive that I keep in my work laptop bag.
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