Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Like the Yamaha. Will do some more reading. Cheers .

Bear in mind that CD players contain moving parts and a laser, so whilst they can last a long time, they are more prone to wearing out than say, an amplifier.

So I would avoid old models.

Also, broadly, they all sound the same.

Good point. I used to use a cheap DVD player actually...

THAT I could actually tell the difference with despite my hearing limitations.

I used to use a cheap DVD player actually...

If you literally just want a thing which will play CDs, get one with a digital out so you can add a nice DAC later. E.g. for ~£50, Sony DVP-SR760H has line out for immediate use and a coaxial digital for hooking up a #tartmode DAC later.

Nah I think I want something nice enough to sit on my beefy old Yamaha amp by my desk. I want something that works well, sounds good, looks good and feels quality. Cheers for the tips.

That Yamaha is perfect but no postage. And i'm not sure that driving from East Kent to Oxford to pick up a used CD player warrants breaking 7 weeks isolation for. Might drop them a line to see if they'll post given the current sitch.

Edit. emailed the seller.

If you really want it, suggest you organise a door-to-door courier (Parcel Monkey or something) - saves them contemplating going to the post office.

If you want to get modern, this one has network streaming capability as well:

https://www.hifix.co.uk/yamaha-cd-nt670d-cd-player

Apologies for not getting back to you, had a look online and those are mighty pricey..
Wasn’t planning on spending that much to be honest..
Drop me a pm and we can discuss.

So, almost as @mdcc_tester predicted, my foray into Chinese implementation of aptx Bluetooth chips has been a total failure.

I bought one which works off RCA lead and I plugged into the tape loop of my pre amp, and another one which plugged into a USB port on the laptop which serves as a network player.

The kind of irrelevant good news is that they both work insofar as they both connect to my headphones and output aptx HD, which does sound better than the native non aptx Bluetooth output from the laptop.

The bad news is that range is tiny, and the level of interference on the signal is very high, so it's effectively unusable.

What next? If anyone want to try one of these products, drop me a line and I'll post it.

I think I will revert to using a wired connection to my old Cowan Pleune player, which is small enough that I can have it in my pocket and move around the house.

Next wormhole: some nice wired cans and a headphone amp.

Which products did you test? What Bluetooth standard do they support? What does your device support?

BT 5.0 is supposed to have decent range btw

some nice wired cans and a headphone amp

Yup, that’s what I do. 5m cable from Amazon for under £15 works perfectly well. Added benefit is that you always know where your cans are :)

Topping MX3 headphone amp is supposed to be great, the THX AAA 789 is the higher budget YouTube hype king at the moment.

MX3 here. Apologies if you’re new to Z-Reviews, he’s an acquired taste.
https://youtu.be/jemvuUU_knA

The headphones are B&W PX7

The dongle things are

Sonaru BT1002 Bluetooth adapter from Amazon, and

Reiyin WT-HD06 Bluetooth Audio Transmitter from Ali Express.

The former is a small stand alone box, the latter a USB stick.

They both support Bluetooth 5.0 and Qualcomm aptx HD, plus adaptive low latency. They both use the CSR8675 chip.

Edit: yeah, long cable sounds like a good idea.

Cheers Steve, I'll have a look at those.

Also quite like the interestingly named Schiit amps, but none being made right now.

What do I need? Does this actually exist? Please forgive lack of technical terms / knowledge.

I have an old marantz separates amp, CD player etc, after a good long (15years) or so or service, the trusty old thing is playing up, keeps setting itself to mute at annoying 30 secs or 10 minute intervals. Problem is partially resolved by switching power on / off (yup that’s how good I am) then it does it again. Google tells me that it’s something worn that’s also well beyond me to fix.

If I have to replace it, I’d also like “something” to connect wirelessly and play music through the phone / tablet; currently use tablet / phone and aux jack.

So is there a thing that you can get that plays through existing / new amp and connects wireless through phone?

Does this query make any sense? Lockdown etc cheers in advance

Sounds like you need a chromecast audio or equivalent.

You can get several Bluetooth receivers (eg the chromecast audio or Logitech equivalent) that plug into a spare input on the back of your amp and let you stream music from your phone.

Sounds like your amp needs a service too though so might be best to sort that out first just in case it’s more expensive than buying a new amp that has Bluetooth built in (plenty do these days).

Chromecast Audio would be a better choice as it won’t run your phone battery down, plus better audio quality than BT.

Thanks all, Will get to work to find out what these things are that you speak of, ta

Or a bluetooth transmitter. I have an Aventree Oasis which both a transmitter and receiver. It plugs into the cassette input/output ports on an analog amp and converts analog to digital, sending the signal via bluetooth to your phone, DAB radio, Etc. You can switch it to receiver and stream from your phone out through you hifi. It costs around £50 and has enough power to stream from one corner of the house to the other.

You can get fully integrated streaming amplifiers which connect to your WiFi and you control either through a proprietary app or natively within Spotify / Tidal etc. Just add speakers.

This is one, there are lots.
https://petertyson.co.uk/denon-ceol-rcd-n10-hi-fi-network-cd-receiver

Holy shit. Lockdown spring-clean and office tidy unearthed a bunch of external hard drives, one of which has 50,000 lossless files of awesome music on. Importing to iTunes now.

Don't want them on my laptop hard drive. Is there a way of bypassing that having them upload directly to my iCloud?

Finally managed to get a nice picture of my kit now we’ve done some DIY to that bit of the room.

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