Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Advice needed please. I've been thinking about audio for my house as it's being refurbed. In the kitchen / family room I'd like the following. Small speakers with a box for streaming and amplification. Needs Bluetooth so I can stream from phones etc . I'd like to also connect it the TV. So far I have seen the denon PMA 30, tangent ampster 11. There is also the Yamaha rs202d, but it is big. Any opinions or other options out there? May connect to a raspberry pi streamer too

Speakers would be something like q acoustics, monitor audio 50, or even some satellites with an active sub.

I'd also consider active speakers like ruark.

I'm using Topping DX3 pro with active Genelec speakers. USB from raspberry pi, optical from TV, which still leaves 2x coax inputs unused.

Edit: the headphone amp is supposedly also quite decent.

Kind of. Very unscientific and only a few tracks, but I queued up the same album on the Tidal app to CCA and Spotify to Sonos and got my wife to switch between channels without saying which was which. Couldn’t discern much of a difference, certainly not enough to double the monthly subscription and miss out on decent artist radio etc.

Totally. The better my system gets the more I notice awful recordings and mastering. Equally, the well made records really stand out - when something sounds great I actually now look at who engineered and produced it and seek out their other work. Nice to have another avenue for music discovery too.

And make you hate records that you used to love?

I saw a video with a guy saying he realised that MQA files were being streamed about a few dB higher which gave the impression of better clarity. When he equalised the levels he couldn’t pick them apart. I think 16/44 Tidal sounds better than Spotify.

Thankfully I’ve not come across too many of those. You got any ringers?

I’ll test it on my router and report back - one sec

If you’re refurbing can you fit ceiling speakers at the same time?

What’s your budget?

Look at Audio Pro, Swedish brand. They have a well balanced sound. They have quite a few options though from cheap to not cheap.

Budget is not huge. I'd like to come in sub £500 all in . Ceiling speakers are an option, but I imagine that install, firehoods etc will eat into budget a bit . Sound travels through the house quite a bit, so I do wonder how audible ceiling speakers will be upstairs. A muuch visually neater solution though

Ta , they do look nice

I got one of the discontinued ones recently to use on site and it was great.

That battle was lost when people started discussing wireless

@Chalfie -its called D-LINE MICRO DECORATIVE TRUNKING

Look on the Amazon reviews first to see peoples' set ups/installations. Screwfix has loads of parts and full kits plus I'm pretty sure it's cheaper.

Ta thanks!

Ok so I tried it but couldn’t get the usb drive to read despite it mounting successfully and an hour of fettling. Might be a formatting issue (possibly Apple FAT32 ≠ Windows FAT32) but I don’t have a PC to hand to test that. The usb drive is getting quite hot for some reason, and I suspect you’ll need a reasonably decent processor in the router to cast to several devices simultaneously if you do go down this route. DLNA from my NAS to CCA works fine using mConnect in case that’s helpful.

Edit: I’d be tempted to try upgrading the router it and if it doesn’t work out I’d add a headless micro pc (or a Mac mini) to the mix as a dedicated server.

Nope, 'cause I don't go there!
Probably stated before, but upstairs we have HK 430 Twin, NAD C 660, Signet L260B/U and some wee Koss M60 Plus in the kitchen.
Down in the vault lies the NAD 7020i, NAD C521BEE, Rega P1 and and Radio Shack Nova 8B.
Mid-level veering to cheap as you can see, but I'm happy with the sound these components produce.

Why not a raspberry pi with an optical out hat? About £50 for that.

Or even a raspberry pi as the server and CCAs as clients

https://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Media-Server-MiniDLNA/

In the kitchen / family room

Wide dispersion innit

raspberry pi

FYI I think the zero w is back in stock at the PiHut.

I’ve recently got my Quad 33-303 setup back up and running, however it is doing this. Any ideas? Thanks.

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Yes, I wouldn't recommend one of those as a NAS, the Pi 4 has much faster network and USB connections, but for a music player for about £25 they're great.

For those who don't know, ensure that you get the Zero WH to avoid a lot of soldering.

Yeah. Sorry should have been clear I was just thinking about a DAC rather than NAS.

Currently hunting the cheapest Allo hat online.

Still not really sure how I'm going to use it ...