Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Ha. If you find some, let me know - not convinced such a thing exists....

Even the Atacama aren't beautiful

Quite like these:

https://musicdirect.sirv.com/ASOLIDSS5B/ASOLIDSS5B.jpg?scale.width=572&scale.height=572&scale.option=noup

But $550 is almost as much as the value of my speakers so that's just stupid. The Bowers and Wilkins stands, which are nice, that match my speakers are also almost as much as my speakers, which is just insanity. Considered buying IsoAcoustics stands and just putting the speakers on my TV cabinet as they will fit on there, but I'm still not convinced I'll be able to toe them in enough and they're a rip off, too. Very conflicted. Currently using some Focal S700 stands that I need to return so need to find a solution that appeases my partner.

I'd also considered foam isolating pads but they're ugly as sin.

The new white Kanto stands aren't bad.

When you take the plunge and buy a decent pair of stands (or finally make some to a design that works for you) it's so worth it. It's one of the hardest parts of a system to prioritise but it matters on quite a few levels.

I made my own to match a list of preferences I'd developed after having a few different stands. I combined the qualities I liked about them and added a twist of my own. They've been brilliant for me.

You are lucky if you can find an off the shelf pair that work for your speakers, room and taste.

If you try isolating pads you should do some measurements of the room and the difference they make. They can be very effective at reducing standing bass waves but they'll need to be matching the frequencies you may have problems with.

Sorry man, I’m at home with a fever so not making much sense. here’s an attempt at a recap:

1. gigabyte brix or Mac mini holding your music. Install plex or any free DLNA software (or Roon) on it to play and also cast to other compatible clients in your home. External DAC connected to the brix, such as a a topping d30 or the sound blaster D5/6 DAC I linked to earlier.
   
2. QNAP ts-453 with western digital red hard drives. An external 3.5” hard drive to back up data over usb. I like plex and use google chromecasts as clients but you can use any DLNA Server software on the NAS (or again, Roon) and any client you fancy like Sonos connect or a SMSL DP3 or a brix or Mac mini.
   
3. Yamaha WXC-50 or SMSL DP3 (edit: or Sonos connect) or any other decent network music player. Shove a big usb pen drive or external 2.5” solid state drive in the back containing your music. You should be able to cast to other rooms with the Yamaha I think.
   
4. BlueNote vault or any other “all in one” player and storage solution like the one you linked to.
   
5. Sonos connect or whatever in each room and a Spotify / Deezer / tidal account. Sack off your cds and pay £10 a month
   
   

Obviously if you use a proprietary (non DLNA) server then you need a compatible client device.

There are probably other options but these are the ones I can think of. Hope this helps

I ordered the whiteKanto they've recently started selling. Maybe not as substantial as I'd like but the top plate swivels which is nice as the base can stay straight whilst you adjust the top plate for toe in.

That's something I included in my design. It's handy to be able to level the base in one place and then dial in the soundstage.

I also have the speaker tilted up at the front a little bit, not sure why but I had a pair of stands that do it and liked the effect. As a consequence the swivel had to happen at the base of the stand not the speaker plate.

Sonos connect or whatever in each room and a Spotify / Deezer / tidal account. Sack off your cds and pay £10 a month

Or playing ripped off your local file storage without a streaming subscription.

I used to think like this but I'm happy to pay £10 pm for the amount of music I'm streaming. If I play an album more than a few times I'll probably look for the best CD mastering or vinyl if the opportunity to get a good copy comes up.

Tidal has definitely increased my vinyl want list.

Wouldn’t that be option 2 or 3?

No, my point is that the Sonos connect can play local files from storage. Your post seems to imply that it is streaming only.

I realise that I seem to be a massive Sonos fanboi

Yep me too. I pay £20 pcm for Deezer hifi. Haven't bought a CD for nearly a decade.

But I do have about 1000 CDs ripped and in local network storage for playback when they don't appear in Deezer.

Haha ok cool. I had mentioned Sonos connect in option 2, I edited option 3 to explicitly state Sonos as well 😂

Buy my hand-made sub please thanks #spam

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Nice build. What's the rms and peak? (we use this for home systems? Or only car audio?)

Edit: what's the Watts?

Get @dbr to make you a pair.

Totally into that. Hit me up @JB

Streaming was hard for me to adapt to. The idea of not owning the material part of the music is still hard for me to accept. I'm enjoying whittling down a big collection of CD's to a shelf of classic albums and searching for new music faster and more effectively than ever before. With Roon and Tidal I'm having a great time finding and listening to new music, the best time ever imho. I do have most of my music cd's & vinyl digitised too. It's not a minimal approach :)

I've just set up a Sonos connect:amp with some white Q Acoustic 2020i's in my kitchen. Very impressive little amp and the wifi connection capability is great. The phone app is a little bit clunky but most of them are.

I don't live in the UK anymore otherwise I totally would @dbr

Do you think Roon is worth the cost even just as a front end for Tidal? Or are you using it as an interface for locally stored/streamed music, too?

Fair. Speaker stands aren’t really postable if they’re done right.

Incidentally, if anyone in London wants me to design and make a pair I’d be well into it. Maybe a steel / valchromat combo...

If you used it only with Tidal you will want to be using it in a stable high speed internet environment. I think it's worth the cost but that's a personal choice, it will take a few years for the cost not to matter. The lifetime membership in dollars is a pretty good proposition if you get a lifetime of use out of it. Like most people I have discounted that possibility in my mind. Software is notoriously flaky as a long term bet.

I use it with a large library on disk simply because I'm old enough to have a large digitised library. Roon have recently expanded their radio function to include Tidal. If you start from a well known track either on Tidal or your own library it will serve up choice tracks for days. It can't do it with the more eclectic dance music that I have. If you start with Sarah Vaughan you'll get dinner time jazzy blues for days, it is especially good with the jazzy genres, probably a reflection of the average age of users.

The main attraction of Roon is the added metadata. It's like a massive music encyclopaedia, the interconnections between artists etc. When you find a band you like it helps connect the dots to the next band. Also just the reviews and background info on artists that you are discovering.

I’m really interested in whether Roon is significantly better than Plex. I’d love to be able to justify an upgrade :) I think plex has the same features as Roon (auto tagging with metadata, gigs, auto playlists, band history from last.fm, similar artists, etc) but I’m not sure if I’m missing something in Roon that I’m just not aware of. I’m not a huge fan of the Plex UI (actually, it’s ok, just dark!), product development is leisurely (no published roadmap) and there isn’t a CarPlay app for it which is super annoying. Any other killer features you can share to help me justify switching to Roon?

I use Plex for movies and TV streaming. The audio tie in with Tidal is a secondary thing.

Easier to use than Kodi (XBMC) because I can't be arsed to do the full customisation.