Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

I'm not even researching. I realised the limits of my time and money.....
Would pay @Olly398 to do my CDs though

They're not even that great tbh

Not quite HIFI but related, I just bought the Voyager golden disk re-pressing. Got to be one of the coolest, most depressing and beautiful things I've ever seen or listened to.

Sorry, i’ve just had a bonfire with all my CDs and stuffed my ears with fudge

I should be more specific. Sonos doesn’t allow you to play your own music over the internet outside your local network, or am I wrong?

No it doesn't allow remote access through Sonos. I'm not really sure what that would even mean, since you are away from where your Sonos hardware is.

But, there is no reason why you can't access your home music store using a different tech such as Plex or a VPN tunnel or whatever, whilst using Sonos to access it at home, in the rooms that have Sonos kit...

Fudge?
Oh my god I can't believe you're using fudge. The soundeobblecapacitance of fudge is so bad. Nougat is where it's at.

@freddo and @mashton thanks for clearing that up. Actually now i’ve thought it through, I don’t think I need to access my library outside the home, but I would want to sync compressed versions onto my iPhone (which is what iTunes does).

FWIW, I spent a few weeks ripping all of my CDs, I have a home NAS with external access configured.

But, I haven't bought a CD in years and years. I pay a monthly subscription amount to Deezer, previously to Google Play Music and, previous to that, to Spotify. The vast majority of my music listening is streamed from Deezer. I probably play less than a track a week from my NAS, when it something I own but can't find on Deezer.

Subscription streaming just ticks all of the boxes: access from anywhere; no worries about home technology setup, support or failure; voice control with all major systems; synchronisation across devices; offline download for mobile; huge convenience; vast library; known expenditure.

For me it is really a no brainer.

I can stream from my NAS to any device, anywhere in the world using Plex. In that sense it’s more like a private Spotify. @Olly398 I wouldn’t underestimate how useful it is not having to constantly sync or decide what you want on your phone due to space limits. But I’d still say Airplay 2 is a cheaper option for you. If you can stretch to a NAS then you’ll get better redundancy.
Also, are you sure iTunes writes compressed files to a device? If not you could also look at an ipod classic

iTunes will automatically compress ALAC to MP3 when it syncs the library to the phone. You can choose the mp3 bitrate up to 256k, it takes time though.

Don't really know the answer to your question but dialogue happens over a relatively large spectrum. A lot of the time it seems to be a problem baked into the production of a lot of tv programmes so not much you can do to improve it.

Is that for streaming? I ask because according to itunes the music on my phone has retained the same bitrate (320 kbps for example) as the music on my computer - I did read though that itunes sometimes "lies" by upscaling music files to make them look higher fidelity than they actually are.
Virtually all my music has been ripped from my own collection.

Thanks. I do like the idea of a NAS. I am currently in the rabbit-hole of whether I can create one for free using my HDD and an either my iMac or an old Linux laptop I have... plex looks great too.

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

Got an iPad mini in a drawer somewhere. Didn’t realise you could extract digital out, with a bit of tinkering of course :)
All very interesting.

EDIT: maybe I am being a dumbass here, but I am not quite getting how this would work. Where would the hi-res files be stored? And how would the iPad mini access them (assuming you envisage that as the ‘client’ device on a digital dock with a DAC)? iMac doesn’t support Airplay 2.

How old is the iMac? https://www.pocket-lint.com/speakers/news/apple/141261-apple-airplay-2-what-is-it-how-does-it-work-and-what-devices-are-supported
Files remain on iMac, stream to iPad, digital out to DAC (no dock required).
See https://www.the-ambient.com/how-to/use-airplay-on-mac-1578

@Olly398 - have a look at your home broadband router. It may well have a USB socket into which you can plug a USB hard drive. You definitely can with the BT Infinity Hub 6.

That will get your ripped CDs onto the network in the cheapest way possible.

Add in that Sonos Connect that I linked to above and you are away. Total outlay of under £250, depending on how big a hard drive you get. 1TB ones can be had for less than £50.

It’s 2011, okay great I was reading a different summary which said different. Looks like i’ll just have to have a tinker!

@mashton that option sounds good too. I’lol have a look at that.

I ended up buying a Yamaha V685 receiver for £400. It has a dialogue boost that you can set from 0 to 3 and a night listening feature that slightly reduces the volume of background music and sound effects. Using the 'sport' DPS preset helps as well but I avoid it unless necessary.

With my Monitor Audio speakers it gives quite a detailed sound and dialogue is better than using the TV's speakers with all the TV's dialogue-enhancing features enabled, and better than it was with my Marantz Amp. It's far from perfect but it is an improvement.

The downside is that music sounds worse with the AV receiver than with the stereo amp, but I imagine that will always be the case with receivers. Music from the receiver just feels less emotive and rounded than music from the amp, but the Yamaha is still nice to listen to and the combination sounds better than wireless Sonos etc.

Also, at lower volumes dialogue is still difficult to distinguish, but if I'm watching the TV late at night I just use headphones anyway.

I went to 4 stores and several people cautioned against buying Denon or Pioneer receivers if dialogue clarity is a priority. I was also recommended the Onkyo 686 but didn't get the opportunity to test it. I considered the Sony 1080 but it seems to be less reliable.

My next step is to try an additional centre speaker, probably a Monitor Audio bronze or radius 200. I expect adding a centre speaker will be another small improvement.

But the main problem is that sound recording & editing of modern films and high-end tv dramas prioritises realism too much. So you get lots of mumbling, heavy accents, and overly noisy background music & sound effects. It seems like there's already a backlash against it and BBC, HBO etc. are moving back towards crisper dialogue.

My next step is to try an additional centre speaker, probably a Monitor Audio bronze or radius 200.

I have a B&W CC6 for sells. Happy to take offers, forum friendly prices.

I mean it's an option on the sync page to tell iTunes to reduce the bitrate for storage on your phone. It doesn't do it unless you ask it to.

Not sure about iTunes lying but it fits with the general malaise. I'm all for having a physical collection and it makes sense to rip it but I've just not actually played much of it since because streaming opens up a lot of possibility for discovery. I am actively looking for good cd versions of albums though, where the mastering is well done cd is an amazing format.

Thanks, that makes sense to me.
Have you ripped any LPs? The few that I've done have worked well, but it's obviously even more of a time suck.

Only about 500 so far. I'd say I have the 'needle drop' down now! It gets easier after the first 30 or so. Once you get the key commands down for whichever software you are using.

One of the best pieces of software I have for needle drops is Squeed. It can use Discogs to apply metadata and write meaningful filenames once you have chopped the recording into tracks.

Something to think about for sure, I haven't actually digitized any LPs for about 8-ish years.