Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Yeah, tbh I feel like any in shop listening won’t be on the cards for a while.

I’ve slept on it; and my brother has the same speakers and really likes them so I’ll probably just go with that with the aim to upgrade/find a good paired amp when I’ve got more dollars. The Denon will essentially just tide me over. I used to run it with a pair of B and W speakers, dm601s and I liked how it sounded.

@BRM I feel like I don’t know enough to buy second hand. I’ve been burned when buying tools second hand so I’m a bit reluctant putting £330 into something that might be a dud. 6 year guarantee looks nice too.

I’d maybe consider second hand for the turntable, but again, I know so little, I figure it’s worth just getting going with something.

It’s like when people buy their first nice adult bike and they realise that £1000 is now the baseline for something that stands any chance of lasting, I was wondering if it was similar with speakers or whatever.

Simultaneously I just want something to listen to and I’ve been indecisive for months! And some unexpected cash came in as a belated wedding present so I want to strike before it gets put off indefinitely again.

/csb

If you're planning on upgrading the amp soon it may be worth looking into packages. As I mentioned above, I got a Marantz PM6007 amp and Dali Oberon 1 speakers for just over £500 whereas you'd pay £850 separately and neither really seem to be heavily discounted.

I'd guess that's kind of the level of stuff you're looking at and there were quite a few packages with different speakers. I got them from https://homeavdirect.co.uk/ who seemed fine.

I'm looking for a bluetooth receiver that outputs to optical/coax. It strikes me that this should be pretty cheap for decent quality as it doesn't need a DAC and is just converting the digital signal but I may be entirely misunderstanding that. Is Bluetooth of such a quality that it won't benefit going through a better DAC than an onboard one?

Something like this without the DAC and RCA I guess https://homeavdirect.co.uk/ifi-audio-zen-blue-high-resolution-wireless-bluetooth-streamer but I'm not really seeing anything out there. Any suggestions?

Aye, but in the same way, the b and w speakers were £700 originally.

Small world, I ended up getting the same deal from them as I was looking for a Marantz PM6006 & their deals were unbeatable really. Been quite impressed with them so far.

If it was me and I knew I'd be upgrading later on, I'd concentrate on one bit now. Id keep the amp, buy some decent 100-150 quid speakers (royds, tannoy 609, ruark sceptre, etc - are you limited to standmounts?) And then look for a nice TT and cart with the rest.

A rega p3 or so and 2m red woulbr new enough and simple enough to not be a problem

The next update I'd go big on the amp or speakers, depending on how I felt.

To be honest, spending the £330 on the speakers was my "investing in one item", lol. I can't imagine spending more than that on the individual parts in the next few years.

And I really liked how my old B&Ws sounded so it seemed like a safe bet.

Sold my Planar 1 when I left the UK a couple of years ago.

In the market again for a TT and holyyyyy shit Rega is expensive in the U.S. Pretty sure I paid 250GBP but here they're close to $510 after tax.

Pro-Ject stuff is slightly more affordable but still much more than the UK.

Fluance stuff seems to be the best value over here, but I've never really come across their TTs. At the same price as the Planar 1, the Fluance RT85 has an Ortofon 2M Blue, an acrylic platter, speed control motor, isolation feet and a solid wood plinth.

Any other recommendations in the slightly better than entry level category? Hesitant to name a price due to differences between the UK and US.

And CAD pricing is another tier up, I paid over $700 for my Planar 1 a few years ago.

RIP

At least we have a functioning government.

Priceless that.

Quite. I can't even hide behind my UK origins on that front 😅

FWIW, I've been super happy with my 607's. I'm in a bigger space when I was when I got them, but they're still great and fill a large room really well, especially considering their small cabinet size. They were a good deal at RRP IMO, but a really good deal at those RS prices.

I pulled the trigger on the 606s today, but I was very close to just getting the 607s in the end. Seeing your post might've swayed me if I'd seen it in time.

Outside of cars/house/tools for work, it's the biggest expenditure in the last few years (speakers and turntable) - find it all quite stressful tbh!

Treated myself to Heaven or Las Vegas by the Cocteau Twins on vinyl too. Well excited to get it set up when it arrives.

Na, you'll have done the right thing by going with 606s. I only got the 607s as I was in NYC at the time and my whole apartment was only 295sq ft (lol) so I wanted the smallest cabinets possible.

I got an ex demo pair for $450 instead of $600. I'd happily have paid retail tbh. I've really enjoyed them.

Shameless plug but I'm selling some Van Damme speaker cables for not too many pennies here

Ah wicked. 295 sq ft is proper tiny - that's about the size of our living room!

If only they were a bit longer! Although I imagine you're saying the same thing.

$11.18 per sq ft per month in rent. Manhattan :')

Holy fuck. 3k rent. Fuck.

Bet it was fun tho.

Not audiophile, as I'm not overly fussed about quality* but what's a fairly cheap and easy solution to get a UI for the following in one place?

Internet radio streams
podcasts
local music library
Streaming services (probably spotify)

*local music is ripped to flac so I'd like to get the most out of that, I don't have a NAS, but could quite easily get one. Does something like a QNAP have a decent interface to handle the above?

Edit, if this could all go in to my reciever/amp via one HDMI, that'd be ideal as it would mean I'd only have to switch inputs for records or TV

I'd also be interested in the answer to this. When I was looking I couldn't find anything great.

Main two options I've ended up with is a chromecast audio or bubbleupnp (mainly playing to a Pi Zero with Volumio and a DAC but bubbleupnp can push to loads of different players).

Bubbleupnp is more versatile in playback devices but isn't great for podcasts and is a little clunky. Both also rely on your phone as an interface as well.

Does Plex do that? I only use it to listen to music on the go and for movie content at home but it handles it well and has streaming with Tidal. Was £99 for life last year which seemed good value for what it does. Running Plexamp on a phone it picks music from your home network wherever you are, you can save the cost of entry on iphone storage.

Plex doesn't really do internet radio and Tidal is the only streaming service.

This is mainly why I ended up with the Chromecast as the favoured option (although I'm not a big fan), lots of stuff does some well but nothing does it all.