Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Cheap carts I like ortofon 2m and Shure m97xe if you can still find it. Audio technica make great stuff too. I've not liked the grado carts I've tried.

With you all the way on this. I've a bit of a stuck record (arf) when it comes to pointing people away from studio monitors for hifi. Mixcubes are a perfect example as to why.

Then again, I lent my Adam A7x's to a mate and am currently mixing (mainly acoustic instruments) on a squishy set of old Celestion hifi speakers wtf do I know.

I'm trying to figure out where the dac goes in this set up - at the PC / headphone end or over with the amp / tuntables etc, I feel like I must be missing a trick from a wiring / routing perspective. Any ideas?

Generally speaking it's easier to use a digital method to travel the 4m because you don't have to worry about interference etc. but 4m isn't that far so you could easily go analog.

My problem is I need audio at both ends - I suppose I just need to figure out if 1 x 4m digital and 1 x 4m audio is cheaper than 2 x 2m of both or something. Incoming ridiculous cable / cost optimising spreadsheet.

I think we agree. I meant avantone was a good example of a terrible example. I think. Whatever.

I think my diagram is over simplified

At the moment it goes like this, but I'm planning to move the amp and speakers a further ~1.5m away:

PC > DAC > Heaphone Amp > 'bypass' > Amp > speakers

So, my heaphone amp does a bypass when it's off that redirects the signal to the amp. This is pretty much ideal - I think I just need a longer audio cable from the the headphone amp to the main system amp, but I got bogged down in the idea that somehow running a longer digital to the DAC and figuring something else for the audio routing would be more 'optimal'.

Partly because I'm considering an amp upgrade which would include a DAC, so not entirely moot I guess.

I guess if I were to get something like the naim uniti atom I'd just run audio back to the headphones and get a simple switch for when I wanted pc audio, or dump the pc as the main source at the digital end so go

Turntables >phono stage > Naim > speakers + long cable from headphone out

Then a switch that I'd plug headphones in to to choose naim output or pc > dragonfly

Sorry, thought this through a bit more in the post above ^

So, I do, I currently have a Topping A50 that runs out of a Chord Mojo, that when off goes mojo > amp.

I'm minded to get rid of the mojo as part of the move to the uniti. Turntablewise I have 2 sl1200 that run in to either an xone mixer (for 'djing') or I have a single set up that goes to a rega phono stage. I'm planning to replace an ageing musical fidelity amp as part of this and as mentioned up thread, something like the Dali Menuet SE as speakers (it's a small room).

I got the Dragonfly basically for free buying my headphones and really like it when travelling and might as well continue using it as a better pc output.

I made some stands for the Chevs this morning. Get me.

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Sweet, monsters those.

There’s bigger!

Oh sure, just not in most people's living room these days.

Stop tempting me! (looks at spaces in corners of room thinking they'll be fine without speaking to wife)

Nice proportions but wood colour should match I think.

I have a pair of perfect oak cabs. These ones are the sacrificial pair that will take the fading and the toddler abuse

Darko's review suggests that the headphone output on the Uniti is pretty good. I would hope that the DAC in the Uniti is better than the one in your Dragonfly. I think you're overthinking this!

https://darko.audio/2018/07/wheel-love-with-the-naim-uniti-atom/

Landed up biting the bullet, Atom arrived this morning with a pair of Aria 906 as there's a deal kicking around for the pairing so thought I'd see how I get on with them and can always move them on if I think I'd be better off with something else given the discount on the bundle.

First impressions, the Atom is a really lovely thing from a hardware point of view. The Arias seem good, going to need to spend some time this evening trying to get them placed right I think.

I have a Cambridge CD4 going if anyone is interested. Works great, but the display backlight bulbs have all (3) gone and the soldering is too fiddly a job for me.

Freecycle - but happily pedal it anywhere in town for a tenner.

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Very happy with the new kit. There are textural elemtents in the Kids See Ghosts record I haven't noticed before with the LS50Ws, the new Nick Cave live record sounds really nice. As much as the Focal Aria 906 are larger than I was planning for originally, they seem to be pretty happy close to the wall; soundstage is great, they need a bit of oomph to sound really good but I find that's pretty true for the maojrity of speakers.

I read the reviews when you first mentioned it. Seems like a very competent bit of kit. Certainly should do the job for the price tag but does it need to be that pretty too :)

Does anyone know if I can use plexamp and a raspberry pi as an headless media streamer that I can control from my phone?

what phone? i do plexamp->airplay on pi4->usb amp

from my understanding plexamp supports cast and iphones obviously support airplay, i couldnt figure out any other way to ‘send’ music but can you run your own chromecast receiver on pi?

Is it specifically the PlexAmp interface you want or just access to your Plex library?

There are various bodges but I don't think there's anything that allows a Raspberry Pi to appear as a chromecast.