Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

That is a fair point, I guess I need to consider tidiness against sound quality. I'd have thought there would be a step up from cheap Chinese crap though given that USB powered bluetooth speakers have a much bigger quality range.

@StevePeel I wouldn't be averse to them but not much seems to have a USB sound input.

lads... are DACs snake oil

No.

But if your digital source material is crap its not going to make it suddenly un-crap.

While on the subject of cassettes & Walkmans, anyone know of a good place for fixing an old Walkman? I've got one of these lying around, the original rechargeable battery is dead but I have the clip-on AA attachment for it however there's still no sign of life using that either... worked perfectly when I last used it about 15 years ago!

are DACs snake oil

Some sort of DAC is necessary if your signal is in the digital domain at any stage. DACs can be implemented well or badly. Like any sound reproduction device, snake oil can get inserted into the system but the basic claims of accuracy and precision of the analogue output relative to the digital input are measurable physical quantities. Since the output stage is an analogue audio amplifier, all the basic principles and cost/benefit compromises which apply to any analogue electronics apply to a DAC.

Christ. A battered used one is north of £300! I might have to resign myself to the fact that my Samson Sounds USA (a lovely tobacco company funded compilation cassette given out at a primary school event) and 2010's math rock single are probably only going to be heard with some hiss and crackle.

I'm at the point of picking the best looking (& working) "vintage" cassette deck I can find for £50 and less. Maximum dials and lights please.

IME a £100 dac sounds a little bit, noticeably, better than the inbuilt dac in the source device. It doesn’t matter much which £100 dac you pick. A £200 dac is unlikely to sound noticeably different to a £100 dac but it might have features you’ll find useful. A £500 dac will be better than a £100 dac by less than the increment from built in dac to £100 dac, and that won’t have been massive in the first place.

Dug my own collection of walkman and discman out the other day, forgot all the Sony used those little rectangular chargeable batteries, and guess which idiot left them all inside the devices for 15 + years.
Have a Panasonic SX73 that I got as a replacement to whatever the 2nd to top walkman was of the early 00's (something failed, I think the charging circuit) and was happy with it as a kid, dug it out other day and with a single AA powering it, worked fine, drive belt seems to have survived. Reminds me more of a solid mechanical watch than a media player, friends had the early generations of Ipod (huge, slow, battery consumption of a small town), always preferred the walkman or discman.
So yeah, if you find a solution for the dead sony specific cell, please shout up! I think the panasonic uses same one, will have to examine the corpses more closely.

2 Attachments

http://walkman-archive.com

some good youtubers covering it too like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev8ZBykCAgQ

and again general info on retro walkmans here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9wT2Y4W-T0

A couple of random rectangular cells pop up when searching for "vintage walkman battery" but i'll need to measure the original & check the specs - sure I still have it too!

@spotter that's a handy reference, cheers!

I vaguely remember doing a bit of digging around for info a few years back but getting nowhere, i'll keep on it & maybe start asking if any of these YT electronics types fancy a project!

The trouble is each manual says something different ...

There are a variety of other power cables, I'll have to work out how best to coil them up away from those.

I've got a decent condition GF 777, bought it at a boot fair for £5. I need to put new belts on it but I managed to find replacement parts before the market went crazy.

I've still got tons of tapes in various states of decay. Many happy hours spent making compilations.

I wish I could say that I don't have favourite speaker cables, these days it's mostly digital to the speakers for me though so I'm saved some of the cable matching drama. My main sets are strung together with ethernet and have AES cables going in.

Sony got really good at making Walkmen look cool towards the end of their lifecycle, loads better than these boring phone things we have now - I am old apparently.

Cue https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php

Yeah, that's partly why I started it up again - waiting for Tidal Connect to make it to my Uniti Atom and still a little aggrieved KEF don't seem to be planning to bring it to the LS50W. I can't say I have a strong opionion about the changes they've made, from my point of view it's still a really nice UI and simplifies the whole online / digital music / multi room problem.

I think I'll probably go the NUC route whether I stick with Roon or not. I have enough music that only exists as bandcamp downloads at this point and a few different 'end points' that something other than my desktop PC in the middle seems sensible.

Yeah, it takes all sorts.

snake oil can get inserted into the system but the basic claims of accuracy and precision

Monster cables

thanks. I bought a cheap DAC (SMSL M100 mkii) to trial and - to my ears - the audio seems noticeably better (source: chromecast 3)

now... just need to figure how loud I can rip it before the neighbours start grousing

Chromecast 3 outputs HDMI, that DAC doesn't have HDMI input.. what else is in the equation?

I'm always looking for a replacement to the Chromecast Audio, not because mine has issues but because it will eventually suffer bitrot from no longer being supported.

There's this: https://www.essenceelectrostatic.com/product/hdacc-ii-4k/ but it seems a bit excessive.

And this: https://www.kanexpro.com/item/?id=HAECOAX but who knows whether this is good or not.

And this: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=590187330024 which looks great, but would prefer spdif. But apparently this is the only way to get a coax output from a SACD.

cheap HDMI audio extractor

CC3 -> HDMI -> cheap HDMI audio extractor -> toslink -> SMSL DAC -> RCA -> rega io amplifier

I'm assuming that because the signal is being passed along the chain digitally (via HDMI then toslink) that there is no conversion at all until it comes out of the DAC as analogue. it does sound less thin to me (with fuller mids, less forward vocals) with this setup but could just be confirmation bias. only fooled around with it for 30 mins since it arrived this am. will give it a further test later on. who knows with this stuff

CC3 doesn't serve as high a bitrate as the CCA, as far as I'm aware. it's limited to 16/44 (whereas I think the CCA does 24/96?)

I'll probably end up getting a bluesound node 2i at this rate

I keep thinking that but loads of high end stuff, especially just-add-speakers solutions is coming out with chromecast, it’s popularity seems to have soared since they discontinued the hardware. Maybe it’s better business for Google to license it ragher than manufacture and distribute it themselves.

I normally assume HDMI audio is wrapped up in HDCP and cannot be fully converted accurately. But perhaps the Chromecast isn't actually wrapping the signal it has in HDCP.

Not that I've investigated this much.

What I do know is that the SACD player I used to have with an HDMI output could only be paired with a A/V amplifier, and if I tried to jump to a coax or tape output it would prevent that... basically enforcing copy protection somewhere, presumably because the HDMI signal had HDCP.

I kinda avoid HDMI for audio now as it feels a bit opaque, I'm not quite sure what it will let me do.

Have a play around with bit-rates before you splash for the Node, see if you can try different sources like a smart TV or phone / tablet via usb if you can do so without too much hassle or expense.

The only reason I say that is I rigged up my dragonfly via usb to take advantage of full MQA unfolding for an album I’d previously enjoyed on IEMs at normal lo-res cellular streaming. It was underwhelming on MQA 24/196, whatever it is, through my living room system, then I swapped to a 16/44 album which was recorded more carefully and it sounded so much more alive and detailed. It seems hard to believe that you’re not missing anything with all the bitrate hype but I’ve driven myself mad with it and found that 16/44 is all you need.

For me the drawback with Chromecast is that it loses synch with my phone, resulting in me swearing which is why I prefer other streamers but it’s nothing to do with SQ any more, in fact I’ve just bought my 3rd CCA to complete my multi-room setup which works brilliantly.

thanks, yeah, I've been trying to do that today with various levels of success. tried old MBP into the DAC over USB but that didn't give me any sound and the MBP was so decrepit it was fucking me off so ditched that. currently listening via tidal app on smart TV, connected via toslink to the DAC. doesn't seem any different to the CC3-HDMI extractor-DAC setup so far... which makes me think the CC3 sound quality is not compromised.

a cursory google on the HDCP point velocio was talking above wasn't helpful - conflicting views on whether (i) even cheapo HDMI extractors can resolve/remove HDCP envelopes these days; against, (ii) people saying the CC3 only sends data out wrapped in HDCP when it gets a signal from its receiver that it's required.

who knows. I think I'll just trust my ears - to the extent that's possible... always find myself second guessing with some of this stuff