Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Portable USB DACs two interesting products -

http://www.zorloo.com/#!zuperdac/ci25

and

http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/p-11520-adq-dragonfly-v12.aspx?gclid=CKKtsozjl8kCFUbmwgodU3UGkg

I wonder if the Audioquest Dragonfly is worth the extra £70 over the new Zuperdac.
Apparently the only difference is the USB stage is cheaper/inferior to the dragonfly yet the both use the same ESS Sabre chip. Other difference is file support/total resolution is higher on the Zuperdac.

Anyone use the Dragonfly? Does it work with OTG cables?

I use the dragonfly with an otg cable on android....sounds good.... I also had a Zuperdac briefly till it died! Sent it back as they said they have a new version coming out soon.. Didn't get much chance to compare the sound though...

Perfect, Cheers @Steves
Might just get the dragonfly then. It will be good to be able play my flacs through my phone. The Fiio E17 I have is a touch large for that use.

Funnily enough, that was exactly what led me to looking for a small dac! If you fancy trying cheap + cheerful, the HiFiMeDIY Sabre Android USB DAC is definitely worth trying at £27!

That does look good actually. Perfect as the headphone socket in my HTC is crackly and for £27 I won't worry about losing it. Thanks again.

So bought the Ruarks, fuck they are huge.

Decided to get stuck right into them, drivers out have a look inside. First thing looks like someone had stuck some 'extra' deadening in there, not the nice high density carefully cut blocks that the mftr placed in there, instead two sheets of felt wadding that you'd see inside a dog blanket, they were tucked in behind the main driver. So got rid of that.

Crossover looks almost home-made, I guess Ruark made it themselves or another small company/man with soldering iron made them.

Actual units are...
Vifa D27TG-35 26mm tweeter. £28 each to buy new. (Also fitted to Spendor S9e, about £3k!)
SEAS D21 RNX/DDP Woofer. £60 each, seem to be the only speaker to use these.
Crossover is fitted with parts from Expotus components and some with Ruark on them, but looking at Exptous's gear, its probably made by them for Ruark (same font etc).

Really surprised at how low cost (those are retail to punter prices, not trade) the components are, guess thats typical of this sort of thing? Feel like £80 (trade) of components is a not a lot for £1100 speakers to contain?

Managed to work out how to replace the damaged binding post, wanted to do all of them to keep them all matching, but a hell of a lot of joints to disturb, could be more hassle than its worth.

Sat them down for a bit and wired them up, left damaged speaker bridged the terminals and right OK speaker ran it biwire (as only one set of jumpers to hand), and left hand sounded way more appealing.

Peeled some of the prev owners black paint off, turns out they are poss the walnut colour underneath and it peels pretty easy. They are a fair size, and being matt black they are dominating the room as if someone had crashed a blast furnace into it.

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Did some paint peeling. Thankfully previous did not sand or prep the wood so paint fairly easily peels off. Weird sticky brown layer between the two, primer?

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Bet those b and w 601s sound better!

The plan was to refinish (they are solid mahogany on the front/sides), re-wire and then sell these ruark's on, but enjoying their sound far too much. Really impressed by their low volume ability, everything just sounds so effortless. Always avoided a floor stander in a small (ish) room as assumed they would just dominate and boom away, but couldn't be further from what these are doing for me.
At low to medium volumes the very low frequencies (below 50hz) and subharmonic stuff are amazing but not overpowering, had to move the sofa a few feet away from the wall to find the sweet spot which looks a bit daft but worth it for the brain massage.
Not the best things I've ever heard, but don't have the ability to spend £££ on gear, and the room doesn't lend itself to going crazy with it anyways, much more than happy right now :D

Sitting close to a wall can accentuate Bass response perceived by the listener as you start hearing the room reflections I was told by a clever speaker designer a while back.

Aye found being right up against the wall it was too much/unpleasant, about 5' forward of the wall = magic.

And/or putting a line of sofa cushions (high end audio tuning tools) along the radiator behind the sofa fixes it.

Best get busy with the Acoustic treatments then :)

Pfffttttt... those speakers must be pretty poo if it takes all that 'treatment' to make 'em sound good!

Nah, more like this...

Ah, the Ikea Toksvig swivel chair. As seen on Peep Show and in two rooms at my place.

Right, I need a DAC.

I want to hook the PS4 up to my stereo for Netflix, Spotify etc and will need to utilise the toslink port. Is it worth splurging on something nicer than the generic £12 jobbies on Amazon like this:

Or shall I drop £110 on a Beresford Bushmaster mkii that will also double as a headphone amp for non-disruptive gaming sessions?

Amp and speakers are quite nice but I honestly don't believe the hype with DACs.

So...

It turns out the PS4 can output audio from USB, which opens up a bunch of options. Ended up getting a JDS Labs ODAC.

If you haven't heard about it, it was designed by an anonymous engineer known as NwAvGuy who caused a bit of a stir in 2011/12 by measuring various equipment and calling BS on a lot of overpriced audiophile snake oil using actual objective data. He then designed this DAC and a headphone amp, released the designs under the Apache licence and vanished.
A few companies are making his designs but the licence doesn't allow for adaptations.

His blog is still up and makes a great read. This particular article on our hearing bias is really interesting, to some.
http://nwavguy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/what-we-hear.html

okay, thinking about the coming new years sales, was pondering getting a dab tuner/wi-fi streaming unit for the front room to team up with the AV amp I have there , so i wouldn't have to go through the faff of plugging in ipod/iphone to stream mixcloud, and so the set in there would get used a lot more musically.

Anyway these came up, but for the internet streaming capability you end up paying another £100-£150 quid.. Worth it? Should be said I need something which fits in with the restof the seperates in the room, and can be connected to the NAS I'll be buying in the near future...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00O8SLY6O?keywords=pioneer%20n50a&qid=1450808605&ref_=sr_1_1&s=electronics&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Denon-DNP-730AE-Network-Player-Black/dp/B00N43Z80M/ref=pd_sim_sbs_23_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=31mjZAHJ97L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=02SWDDH03X6WMJFKVHN2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00SJGAP2U/ref=pd_luc_rh_sbs_02_01_t_img_lh?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

there's also this which is hella expensive

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cambridge-Stream-Magic-6-Blk/dp/B007WZHNPG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450875266&sr=8-1&keywords=cambridge+stream+magic+6+v2

OSMC on raspberry pi. Cable from pi to amp.

Control pi by android app on phone. Music from web and wherever else i've got it stashed?

If you're happy using your phone as a controller, something like a chromecast (or apple equiv) is much more wallet friendly. Those are all very expensive if you consider that the average AV amp comes with it all baked in these days.

@cornelius_blackfoot apple tv?

I'm after an ingenious and cheap way of mounting my hi fi on the wall. It's an old component system- amp, CD player, tuner and turntable. I'd like it up away from my sticky fingered child, by that means i need to keep wires to a minimum so he doesn't pull them down. Any ideas? I thought about a long shelf so stuff is stacked 2x2, but cable wise that sounds messy.

Can I get some advice?

I wanted to get some speakers and amp for audio at home. Bored of wearing my headphones.

Can I go wrong with Cambridge audio? And would SX80 floor standers be a lot 'nicer' than their desktops?

I'm not audiophile, just want something non headphones.

Think I'll get an A651 and SX60 speakers. Seem to be good enough, then can just sit on desk. And if I need more base, get a subwoofer.

got #1 daughter an arcam mini-blink dac for chrimble, very impressed with the sound when sending her phone playlists into an old nad3020 and wharfedale l90s, very impressed indeed

So, I need a DAC. I don't have bluetooth so need something that's USB wireless from the laptop and connects via either a 3.5 mm jack or standard stereo output at the other end.

What's out there please?