Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Further to my quest for a USB wireless DAC, my order for the NAD DAC 1 was cancelled by the vendor.

I then found a NAD DAC 2 reduced from £249 to £99 so bought that instead. It does everything I want.

Top-tip: it turns out that if you're a Spotify Premium subscriber, you don't automatically get 320kb/s - you have to change it in your settings.

It's only taken me four years to realise this.....

My experience with sonos is that they sound quite harsh and confused at higher volumes and more so with complex music. Not sure I'd want them as part of a home cinema system. With sonos you are paying for generally seamless operation and ease of use/scalability, not SQ.

Perfectly fine for background music or for filling smaller rooms in the house though.

If you watch a lot of films at home, go for a proper surround system. Centre channel speaker, and a good tuneable sub are critical.

For my money I'd still spend it all on a high quality stereo system though.

ubiquiti unifi WAP

Sorry for being a dummy but wat is this? My wifi router doesn't reach the kitchen from it's home in the living room - can this help me?? (I need it for the kitchen soundsystem so not totally OT)

a very good WAP, but afaik requires an Ethernet cabled connection - happy to be corrected on this, @mashton ?

Most likely will help with a better signal. plug it into your router and disable the built in WiFi in the router settings.

Sonos has a digital output and is bit-perfect, so should be just the same as any other digital source. You can use whatever dac you like.

Yep it needs Ethernet. Luckily I have run underfloor cat 5 from my router in the front room to the kitchen, then behind cupboards to the ceiling.

Me too. I have an old creative 5.1 PC system combined with a projector in my basement for a pretty good home-cinema vibe. At some point I will upgrade the front channels but it's fine for now and we have nice bookshelf speakers for zone 2 music listening.

In my opinion the suggestions of multiple sonos' for surround are slightly mental - it will end up a high price for poor sound, possible connectivity/lag issues and not really eliminating cabling as they all need separate power supplies (looks like external wallwarts too, which is even more annoying). I understand them for multizone in a large house with far-flung rooms but I would still put in slightly more effort near the beginning and wire proper speakers up if it were me.

Talking about their speaker systems, not the connect boxes.

Plus you're looking at £1400 + for a pseudo surround system.

http://www.johnlewis.com/b-o-play-by-bang-olufsen-beoplay-a9-bluetooth-airplay-dlna-music-system/p1989191?colour=Black

or these:

http://www.martinlogan.com/neolith/reviews.php

Should I buy this for me KEFs?
I think I'm just bored, but still, should I buy it?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-A-S501-Integrated-Amplifier-Silver/dp/B00OBM31H2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453386211&sr=8-1&keywords=yamaha+S500

do it, do it now...

https://youtu.be/a6P40wLThbc

I hope you bought that amp.

When you're at the stage of asking the question, you already know the answer.

Some advice please:

I have some new speaker stands but their construction doesn't allow for filling them. What are people recommending I do instead?

If I can't integrate the structure into the floor, what's the best way to isolate them?

Thank you!

You probably only have two options - spiky or squishy. I've always gone spiky, but if you've got a nice wooden floor you mightn't want to. You could always mass load the top plate with a slab of granite etc - I had a few of these kicking around from a garden centre

(or magnets)

Does anyone have a turntable they want rid of?

I have spikes and spike shoes so that'll be fine. I was thinking some squishy, marble, squishy, stands, squishy, speakers.

Although it'd be good to try the mass loading with granite on top of the stands. (Granite chopping boards are about £7 so not too expensive to experiment with.)

concrete's cheaper

It has to look nice and I'm not sure I can achieve the necessary aesthetic value to please the OH with concrete unless I disguise/paint it.

I did consider rubber matting - sorbothane is quite expensive but playground safety mats might work.

Although, with all this messing about, I might be better just buying new stands.

Paint it, heavens no!
Tell her it's a retro-brutalist art statement.

I might have a spare beogram 1200 if dazaa manages to fix it.

Cool. I have about six pairs of LS3/5a's. I may be able to offer the odd bit of advice, but I've never built a pair myself.

Hey Mr Rodabod, I've now got a pair too. Whahey, finished making them yesterday. Turned out great, plus I taught myself how to Veneer at the same time. Real Teak, 2 coats of Dark Oak flavoured bees Wax, lorra lorra work.

Yummy.

^superb.

In other news, Mission DAD7000 1st gen CDP and Creek T40 tuner for sale here

thinking of purchasing one of these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/REL-QUAKE-SUBWOOFER-IN-EXCELLENT-CONDITION/191801202516?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D35308%26meid%3Dcb781ae6e39d4244b21f263e16310c80%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D311538382309

any thoughts?
been hankering for a sub for as long as this has been in production, and not required one as I'm on the fourth floor, so my neighbours would hate me. But I'm over putting shit off, so this means purchasing one of these on the cheap off the bay.
Will be going into a front room set, of tannoy 607's as the main front speakers, some kef book shelf jobbies as the rear's and a yamaha av amp..

Any thoughts/alternatives? Let me know.