Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

An iPad.

• Spotify for music and podcasts
  
• Apps for internet radio, i.e. KEXP app, or TuneIn
  
• Plex for local media
  
  

Get a cast device or equivalent... and from all of the above cast to the device.

If not Ipad is it worth considering an android device with SPDIF out which would let you use your choice of DAC?

Money no object.. I think Roon does all this but has got increasingly spendy.

I use a ChromeCast Audio with the optical out to my DAC and amp... but an iPad to control everything.

Roon only covers Tidal and Quobuz (Waiting on 1.8 to drop though, that may change). It does internet radio, not sure about podcasts but I'm guessing it does.

Roon is great but maybe not great value. It's no surprise most of the users seem to be retired!

I guess Android and USB DAC would be the way to go. Unless you mount it somewhere though it's much more awkward to use.

Or just use your phone.

just use your phone

I was waiting for somebody else to realise that this was the answer, since the OP explicitly rejected audiophile quality. If you want a standalone device, a no-name Android tablet with all the local files on a SD card plus Bluetooth connection to the amp would be sufficient for any but the golden-eared.

+1 for iPad or similar tablet is probably the best option in terms of function and ease of use.

I have a Mac Mini connected via usb to my dac going into the hifi. I use a Macbook Air essentially as a remote control via screen sharing for Spotify and FLAC etc or I can control spotify via the app on my phone.

Out of interest why do people bother streaming from local discs? I understand if you have vast amounts of live bootlegs or rave tapes, but pretty much everything standard seems to be on Spotify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRMYoqU3ys

Thanks, interesting!

"Those three tracks are so different!" = I can't hear any differences.

I did not inherit audiophile hearing from my dad. Certainly makes it cheaper in terms of hifi.

(There is the obvious point that the audience were listening live but anyone watching the youtube video is listening to audio compressed to youtube's specifications....)

I couldn’t tell on the phone for sure, will try again at home with headphones. 320kbps is where I have set my iTunes at, certainly can’t hear any difference beyond that level.

Yeah to be honest it's only really hifi nuts that would rather listen to a full bit rate flac rip than the lower bit rate on Spotify.

I confess to being one of said hifi nuts having a huge library of music ripped to flac that I still opt to play over the same thing on Spotify.
But as I say, it's questionable whether the difference in sound is is going to be very apparent to the average Joe.
Admittedly I'm using Spotify more and more these days.

Yeah, my wife absolutely loves to remind about the time I was sitting at the computer and noticed that Spotify was set at the medium bit rate rather than the highest. No idea how long it had been like that and hadn't noticed...

She thinks I'm an idiot with all the kit but apparently unable to hear the difference. She's probably not wrong.

For me it's like bikes. I'm unlikely to win the TfF, but it's fun riding a bike that could. Tinkering with that bike and making it exactly how I want it is a large part of the appeal of the thing, after riding of course.

That said, speakers and room will have a vastly greater affect than 320kbps or FLAC.

Yeah, very much this. A huge part of the appeal for me is building and tinkering with my bikes, the never ending upgrade loop.
I was a mountain biker in my teens long before I ever started doing serious road miles.
I'm not going to be winning any world Cup rounds (yet) but having a bike that potentially could makes me smile. A massive part is also the fact I couldn't afford a really nice bike when I was younger and now I can so why not?

I don't actually read much hifi media to be honest as a lot of it really is just bollox. Reading some hifi reviews is agonising.
But that didn't stop me buying a groove tracer sub platter for my rp6 deck. I got it second hand so didn't feel like too much of a numpty paying full whack.
To my ears it made no difference that I couldn't be sure that I had imagined.
But the appeal was more the build quality, replacing the plastic rega sub platter with something well made machined from a block of aluminium was very satisfying. Again, wife says I'm an idiot.

Lots of snow here today so no speaker/turntable delivery. Hopefully it'll come tomorrow!

everything standard

Boring! I can tell you now there's none of the best Eddie Bo records and only about half of Crippled Lucifer by Burning Witch. Oh so convenient though.

Thanks guys, sounds like bluetooth receiver and possibly a NAS if I ever get my act together will be best/easiest.

Lots of snow here today so no speaker/turntable delivery.

Ha, I just ordered some speakers for somebody in the familiy and Hermes delivered them yesterday, meaning they just dropped the box outside the fucking house at 9pm in snowy -7°C weather and left without even ringing.

💁

Someone near me is selling a nice pair of Wharfedale 9.1.
Are they likely to be an "upgrade" over my B&W DM601 S2 ?
If anything the 601s are fine but could do with more bass. Although could be down to current positioning.

I'm also setting up something similar.
But I've got different requirements.
I've got some flac files lying around and Tidal HiFi I'd love to stream to my Atmos receiver which is relatively old and doesn't support it (only Spotify, but has local network support)
TV also supports Atmos and eARC, which meant that, so far, I've been able to play Tidal on a Firestick 4k which supports Atmos thru my TV and thus the receiver.
But doesn't solve local files and it's cumbersome (the Tidal Android app on the Fire is just plain horrible)

So my plan now is to build a Raspberry Pi4 as my media manager (which, incidentally, could work as a local gaming streaming device off my gaming PC onto my OLED TV, which is nice). Roon should work nicely on it, but bit on the expensive side added to Tidal subscription, so now looking at alternatives.
Strawberry 🍓 on Linux does support Tidal with a hack, and should support local streaming to (off my gaming PC perhaps or off a USB stick stuck into my Fritz!Box).

I'd love to have a nice fullscreen media app, possibly with universal remote support off HDMI tho. So now looking for that into the open source world.

Update: just stumbled upon Kodi

Ha, if only you’d posted this a week ago - I’d have said buy the wharfdales and made you an offer for the B and Ws!