Owston 2022 - What're you bringing?

[Ant]

AMG and Hana umami

That'll do.

So my final rig looks like it's turning out to be -

Front end: That, or possibly Lenco 3A / SME3009 / VdH Black Beauty if I don't bottle out of bringing the VdH,
Pete Millett LR phono stage with AMB regulated supply,
Borrowed TVC,
300B push-pull monos,
Big Mets.

Now to find a van to rent as the Mets won't fit in the Lexus...

Let me know re the 3009, ill have to make an arm board insert for it

[Nick]

Will you be bringing your monoblocks, Nick ? It would be good to hear one driving the Purifi monitor.

If I have space.

[Ray P]

Thanks Ray - that could be an alternative source...

I've installed a trial version of HQ Player on my laptop and have been playing some tracks through the Valve and RTZ DACs so I have a viable simple set-up to demo the DACs next Saturday. As the laptop is not that powerful it isn't able to do any heavy-lift processing (like resampling FLAC PCM files to DSD) so I'll be restricted to only playing native DSD recordings but I have a reasonable selection of albums available in DSD64, 128 and 256 formats.

[Max N]

Hi Ray
Is it not possible to convert flac to dsd offline (not in real-time)
I mean use a converter to create a library of dsd files from some of your flac files.

[Ali Tait]

Thanks Ray - that could be an alternative source...

I've installed a trial version of HQ Player on my laptop and have been playing some tracks through the Valve and RTZ DACs so I have a viable simple set-up to demo the DACs next Saturday. As the laptop is not that powerful it isn't able to do any heavy-lift processing (like resampling FLAC PCM files to DSD) so I'll be restricted to only playing native DSD recordings but I have a reasonable selection of albums available in DSD64, 128 and 256 formats.

Are the DACs USB in? If so I can bring my Macbook Pro to use if you like?

[Ray P]

Yes Max, it is possible but I don't need to do it - I use HQ Player, which does it on the fly - and for the Owston meet-up I have plenty of DSD format recordings.

[Ray P]

Are the DACs USB in? If so I can bring my Macbook Pro to use if you like?

Yes, the ones I'll be bringing are USB in Ali, but i doubt your Mac will be up to the task of resampling FLAC to hi-rate DSD and my laptop is fine for DSD format playback. I have a linux server I use for on the fly resampling with HQ Player but it would be a real hassle to bring it.

[Ali Tait]

Well it's a 2.9Ghz quad core i7 with 16Gig of RAM. How powerful does it need to be?

[Ray P]

Well it's a 2.9Ghz quad core i7 with 16Gig of RAM. How powerful does it need to be?

If I assume your Mac has one of these;

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... GHz&id=832

the cpu benchmarks at 3100.

My server benchmarks at almost 11000 - that's enough to use the most demanding HQ Player filter options at DSD256 and some of the less demanding ones at DSD512.

[Nick]

But all of that doesn't matter if the conversion is not done in real time which was the point Max was making. TBH if I was using dsd like that I would have left the server converting the library into dsd versions of all the pcm files.

[Ray P]

But all of that doesn't matter if the conversion is not done in real time which was the point Max was making. TBH if I was using dsd like that I would have left the server converting the library into dsd versions of all the pcm files.

Quite, but I prefer the approach of resampling on the fly and having the options to explore the filter options offered by HQP.

[chris661]

Just a thought - I have a reasonably nice headphone setup:
Shure SRH1540s driven by a Motu M4. I can leave a laptop connected up, so just bring your music on a USB stick.

Anyone fancy it?

Chris

[Thermionic Idler]

@Nick - can you bring that Velvet Underground phono-stage torture record as I don't have a copy. I'm intrigued to hear how the Millett stage handles it if the opportunity arises.

[Nick]

I will try and find it, I have lots of other similar pieces

[IslandPink]

If I have space.

One is all I need