Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Many years ago I used to have a lot of 70's & 80's B&O as I really like the design. Most of what I sourced I picked up for cheaps from quite high end hifi shops where customers had traded it in for something new. In one, the owner was really friendly and took me into one of the listening rooms to show off the £250,000 speakers they just had in. There was a sofa to sit in, and I was played a selection of music. At one point in the demo, the owner walked over to the speakers and removed a tiny little cover from a tweeter and in true Alan Partridge style asked me "can you hear the difference?". It was cringing. I couldn't hear any difference at all. None.

After a bit of back and forth, we exchanged places and I put the tiny little cover in and out while he listened with his eyes closed. It appeared he couldn't hear the difference either despite being adamant he could. It was an awful experience.

focal chorus 706s

Like these?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Focal-JM-Lab-Chorus-706-Speakers-and-Stands/303142688785?epid=77999264&hash=item4694b65811:g:8LwAAOSwck5czCv7

obvs no good for you, but thought I may as well post in case anyone else was interested.

Close but not quite. These are post Focal rebranding from JMLab. These ones. I ordered the stands too. Again, from a place that is happy for you to return anything you're not happy with for a flat fee of $10. Really great service. Makes me far happier about dropping a grand on speakers and stands. They're massive for bookshelf speakers. I mean, really, they're standmounts - but given my budget, I'm yet to hear anything even remotely close. Especially given you can grab an ex demo pair for $550 / second hand for even less. Not many reviews of them around, weirdly....

I have an Armstrong 625.
It's been gathering dust for a while now but in great cosmetic condition.
I'm looking to get it serviced. I cannot tell you how much LondonSound want to do this.
I'm in Cambridge and it seems like a bit of a desert for simple AV servicing, but I don't really want to post it off.
Anybody think it's worth saving? Know any engineers who could do the job closer to Cambridge?

Hi all, I am after some advice on ripping CDs, storage and playback. This is probably the equivalent of a sweet baby blue fixeh first post, but bear with me, I’m a late adopter here but was in no rush to bin off my cDs to MP3 and regret it later. Now with kids and middle age my priorities have changed a bit, i’d prefer something neater and more convenient than CD and with cheap storage I don’t think audio quality need be compromised much. I only want to do this once, and I wanna do it rite. With any luck one day my Beard Valve Pre-Power combo will come back out the loft and my digital archive will be a serious source in a high end system. I recall seeing some good stuff on this thread but haven’t the stamina to re-read the whole thing!

So yeah i want to rip a few hundred CDs, and the occasional one I might pick up from charity shops. I listen in three ways:

1. with headphones and iPhone
   
2. on a ‘proper’ two-channel hifi in our main living area. I have good amplification and speakers sorted.
   
3. Well, this third one isn’t real yet but I can envisage a Sonos type thing in additional rooms
   
   

I have an iMac with a CD drive and have trialled ripping a few as ALAC files to iTunes. It’s slick. From what I read, this format is top-tier quality (any opinions welcome) and I like iTunes because i can set it up to sync compressed versions to my iPhone automatically. It seems to find all the metadata and artwork every time.

I’m currently storing on the imac’s Drive but this won’t do ... I have a 5TB HDD I can use as l storage. I am toying with a cloud subscription too but not convinced yet. More on this later.

So far so good, BUT I can’t use my iMac as the source for my two-channel hifi because it’s in a different room with no possibility of a physical connection. So I was thinking of a streaming device that can access the library via WiFi and effectively replace my CD player. Ideally controllable from an app. This is where I get a bit lost. I reckon I need something like the Yamaha WXAD10. But if my hi-res library is stored on an external HDD sitting behind an iMac, will I be able to access it in this manner? Do I need to configure it as a Network Attached Storage (NAS)? Obviously I could stream from directly from my iPhone but that would be lo-res. I imagine cloud storage would make this whole part easier, but we’re probably looking at around 1TB so one pays for the privilege.

The other consideration is about adding rooms. I know people on here like Sonos, in fact I am fully expecting a ‘just get a Sonos’ answer, but would it fulfill the first part of the brief? I.e. to act as a source without the active speaker bit.

DAB radio would be a bonus too - don’t some media streamers have this built in...

Maybe I am overthinking this... ?
Sorry if I missed something.

I do something similar - cds via ALAC to itunes.

If you get a Sonos connect you can connect it to your 2-channel Hifi.
You don't necessarily need a NAS, you could use your 5TB HD, but then you'd have to leave the mac on all the time. the NAS means you can shut down your mac and listen on the Sonos.

Then you can add active Sonos speakers later as you like.

Sonos Connect (nb not the new or old *Connect AMP* ) and a NAS is the right answer here.

The Sonos gives an analogue or digital output that goes into your existing amp setup. It can access all your files that are on your NAS and play them through your hifi.

Your iPhone can also then play from the NAS.

One downside to this setup is that you won't easily be able to access your music library when out of the house. You may be able to buy a NAS that makes this easier.

Some routers allow you to plug the hardrive directly into them and have it always available on your home network. They tend not to be the most powerful option but are essentially free.

Agree with the NAS solution; it's what I have.
Configure in RAID to give you protection against a HD dying.

You can also use it to store photos and other valuable files which you want some protection against losing.

What’s your budget?
Do you want to play the same music in several rooms simultaneously?

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F202673520009

Sonos Connect for under £200

Oh by the way, I forgot to mention that it will do DAB streams as well.

The only annoying thing about Sonos, from a streaming point of view, is its awful support for BBC iPlayer radio catch-up content. It uses TuneIn radio, which is the origin of the awfulness.

You can work round this by using a Chromecast or Bluetooth dongle plugged into the Sonos unit, but it is not at all perfect.

What’s your budget?

Well, I had hoped to keep it under £500.
For £569 you can get a Brennan B2 2TB which would solve many of my problems, has a nice tactile interface, looks great... it’s Sonos compatible apparently... could I get it to drive my iTunes when out and about though?

Since I already have a large HDD, cd ripper, iMac etc could i do something a lot cheaper?

Do you want to play the same music in several rooms simultaneously?

Yes (but not right away)

Thanks for responses all x

Always buy your audio equipment from an older hobbyist who is happy to drive an hour to your place to fix it for free, a year after purchase. We're not quite done yet (RPMs are back, but the left signal is gone) but he'll be back with cables and a soldering iron next week.

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I used DBPowerAmp to rip to FLAC (has lots of error checking, auto-naming, etc) but not sure if it's available on Mac.

FLACs are stored on a NAS so they're always available and I generally use Plex for playback (at home and on mobile) and downloading to my phone.

I've got various devices that I use for playback. As well as working with Plex frontends Plex also serves up music via DLNA/UPNP so stuff likes amps and TVs can see it. In addition I use a raspberry pi and fire stick for frontends.

In terms of cloud storage the cheapest I've found is actually buying MS Office, which you can get for about £40 a year, and that gives you 1TB of storage (and you get Office as a bonus).

Yes. Someone. Please.

Best solution for clear dialogue?

.

@Olly398 if you want wireless streaming, multi-room and music over the internet then Sonos won't do that. Also, sorry to say it but your budget probably won't even stretch to covering the NAS, let alone any drives to go in it or client devices, especially given the price of Sonos devices. And that's before you get locked into another parallel ecosystem (like Sonos or Roon).

What will work for you is Airplay 2 which does all these things. What I'd probably suggest is get an old iphone or ipad mini, add a mobile DAC (something like this https://uk.creative.com/p/sound-cards/sound-blasterx-g6) and you're all set with 32-bit/384kHz, 130dB THD digital audio for about £120 per room.

I've also looked longingly at the Brennan.
Have this huge pile of CDs, mostly shit I'm guessing, that I'd like to do similar to you.
The Brennan I read is not as simple as it seems (it's a raspberry pi in a box) so you have to be willing to tinker.

I wanted a tinker freeet solution

What did you do in the end?

Sorry I remember lots of posts, but forgot the conclusion.

I ripped 500 cd's in a week last year. Took an entire week pretty much day and night. Used XLD on a Mac. It has error correction and lookup for metadata.

Things I learned :-

Rip to Alac, I prefer Flac but OSX is still not that friendly about it.

Work out what naming convention/directory structure you want and program that into XLD before you start the process.

Use a machine with the fastest reading CD drive that you have, might even be worth using a fast external one. Its the biggest bottleneck.

You will not be bothered to listen to them all if you sign up to a streaming service for £10 per month. They are mostly worth having on a shelf when you want to look at a physical collection to choose something to play.

Your mileage may vary but I wouldn't spend a lot of money ripping them.

Me likey. Focal Chorus 706s. Head and shoulders above the Dali’s. Stands are lovely too. Deserves a better amp. They don’t sound as warm as they did in the store that was being used with a $1000 NAD. Won’t be spending that much if I keep them but very happy so far. Huge sound.

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Nothing. I did nothing.

It's OK.

I'm still researching bathroom ceiling speakers.

if you want wireless streaming, multi-room and music over the internet then Sonos won't do that.

Huh? Those are literally the three things that Sonos does.