Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

There are a lot of reports like this on the forum. Bear in mind they don't have a huge number of customers but they can be quite useful if you need to make a high end system with a lot of rooms.

If you have a big personal library it mitigates the network issues. It will make you look at your networking infrastructure if you start sending 96/24k to lots of endpoints you need throughput, especially when lots of other devices are accessing the same wifi. I only rarely see the tidal problem but I only have Tidal because of Roon.

Like a lot of walled gardens it feels nice for a long time then you realise things outside the walls have moved on and you can get better things. At the moment Roon feels good enough but Spotify must be in the lead in the streaming market and they have no interest in partnering with Roon.

The Sooloos background to Roon programming means these guys had a massive headstart on most of the high end market players. I think it's a great basis for running a multi room house, the interface is pretty dependable and although it will test your network, once that's stable it's been really stable. At least in my experience.

The extra metadata and ratings/recommendations have helped me discover a lot of new music.

tldr - It's really personal collection album based listening that it seems suited to.

Yeah, exactly. I don't really feel like I am their target customer with a single HiFi set up and no desire to use multiroom right now.

When Spotify HiFi comes out I may just go back to using Spotify Connect anyway. I'm a ten year+ Spotify user so it knows me pretty well.

I actually don't have a personal library at all any more, which is why Roon made even less sense for me.

I was worried that my Onkyo A-9150 wouldn't do these LS50's justice (and was worried I'd have to buy something 'better') but they sound fantastic, so I am currently looking at HiFiBerry Digi+'s. My current Chromecast>TV>TOSLINK to Amp/DAC does sound good but I'd prefer to not have to have the TV on to play music...

I got my latest one from the PiHut but now I've discovered the HiFiberry store and there are a lot of possibilities. I might build a little amp version with the dsp option. Maybe even a screen for a complete diy streamer. I'd like to make the case out of wood. Only just started thinking about the possibilities though.

I worry more about the preamp side of most amps than the amp itself. It's the part that always seems to change the sound the most when I've been trying out different systems.

As a follow up on Roon. They must see the market moving away from personal collections and the advantages of giving a great user experience with streaming. That's certainly the direction they have been pushing in, but as they are not a streaming service it's only a a question of time before a streaming service does the interface as well or better and then Roon is done.

Bit of a paradox for Roon because their users are already older and the younger people they attract generally don't get it based on comments I've seen.

I'm getting to the point where actually owning all this music seems less worthwhile but I can still stop paying a subscription and have enough music to keep me busy for a very very long time so that has to be worth something right? right??!

One thing I notice streaming a lot of music is everything gets less attention and my interest in individual artists output is hugely diminished while it's also easier to just focus on the best output in any genre regardless of artist.

This is good to hear!

that's one of the reasons I've enjoyed getting back into playing albums via vinyl - it's nice to put something on and not have the risk of distractedly moving onto the next thing because it's so convenient.

im not quite 30 but grew up fairly regularly having to upgrade iPods because I kept filling them and then using an iPod classic until extremely recently I thought Roon was for me but the lack of 'on-the-go' streaming for my own library is a huge failure to me.

If you want me to pay more than the cost of streaming, to listen to my own library, you better make it so that I can listen to it on the go.

They definitely got some things right though.

I use plex for on the go at the moment but I've heard rumours there are people making Roon work with a vpn tunnel or something like that!

It is a lot more appealing to people with big houses and lots of physical media. i.e. older people!

It's great up to the point where you have so many that the whole process of dealing with the collection and handling it becomes a job in itself.

yeah i tried it but couldn’t get it to work and im a software engineer who isn’t too bad at home networking.

plexamp is great, i think if spotify go hifi i’ll also get that too top up my own library

I'm not sure I have time for Spotify on top of everything else. Probably would if I wasn't handling a pretty large amount of physical media.

I use Roon in several different ways but Plexamp adds the convenience of not having to transfer music to my phone for running or driving which is bliss after years of that bs.

Obviously Roon would love to bring a mobile option to the table but it's way outside of where they began.

It always seem to get harder to move onto the next newest thing ad partly because it doesn't seem worth it. I had no idea how much digital equipment I would end up with. My first computer was a BBC B and I was generating tones writing code in Basic.

Well, being the most fickle person on Earth, the LS50s are going back. They just didn't make my feet tap like the Totem's did and to me weren't as enjoyable to listen to. I now have the Totem Sky Towers in my living room. They just go places and do things that the Metas couldn't do without a sub and I don't want a subwoofer. By the time I'd factored in a REL or two, I'd be at the same price, or more, as the Totem's and it'd look ugly.

They're very diminutive for a floor stander and my wife preferred the way they looked to the Metas and so did I.

I don't wanna say they're in another league or anything - the LS50s were good - but I can see why the Totems retail for $1000 more than the LS50s (I didn't pay that much more as they were ex-demo, nor did I need to buy better stands than the ones I already had!). They are really very, very good indeed. Huge, expansive sound stage, the most natural timbre I've ever heard from a set of speakers and vocal delivery that sounds way more lifelike than anything I've heard before.

What sort of volumes do you listen at? Interested to hear how the ls50 compare to the totems at quiet to mid volume.

Not very loud. Using an Android sound meter I just got an average of 69dB over the span of a minute or so and that is slightly louder than I would normally listen if I am honest.

The Totems are definitely easier to drive than the KEFs (and the bookshelf equivalent from Totem themselves). They sound more alive at lower volumes, too. Unsure if that's due to their sensitivity or just because they're better engineered for low level listening.

Interesting, thanks. This my argument against standmounts... A) you still need stands and b) floorstanders can generate those nice full range dynamics at quieter volumes. Maybe properly driven, and louder the ls50 would be cleaner... But does it get your foot tapping?

The Totems are definitely easier to drive than the KEFs

that's right. The Totems have a sensitivity of 88dB, the Kefs are 85dB. Kefs should be less fussy about positioning though with the uni-Q driver and concentric design. I agree about the bass though. Sounds like the Totems just liked your room better, or more specifically your ears liked the Totems better :)

My LS50 (Mk 1s) do like a pounding :)

Ironically I've found the opposite. Perhaps I'm buying into their marketing but Totem say they design the sky towers to be easy to place and to have a bigger sweet spot than most speakers. I agree with that statement. The Totem's also need less breathing room out back than the KEFs which suits me nicely. I also agree that my ears just like the Totem's more.

These are particularly tall stands (our sofa sits pretty high so needed tall stands to get B&W tweeters at ear level), but yeah, goes to show how dinky the Sky Tower's are. I genuinely found the LS50s very distracting, visually, when watching a film. Ha.

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Thought some of you audiophiles might enjoy this cool project I just completed for a frjend. Birch ply record shelving with oak veneered birch ply doors. Storage for about 1200 12" and about 1200 7"

The custom routed half-round handles make a circle the same diameter as a label on a 12"

Was a lot of fun this one!

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Lovely stuff.

Just about to build a new plywood storage solution. Only need space for a couple of hundred so won't be anywhere near as sophisticated.

How did you join it? Dowel / biscuit / rabbit etc?

Mostly dados cut with a router, but also some biscuits in certain places, like where the verticals hit the countertop

i want blue metas so bad, keep keep keep

Is there any real 'killer' reason to use Tidal?

Got a free six month subscription but still use YouTube (after Google killed Play Music).

Apart from the Plex thing, which I don't use with Plex, I'm not sure why it's a better streaming service than the old Play service I pay for at the moment.

Already boxed up and ready to go back to Crutchfield 😌 Honestly, these Totem's though. They just can't compete.

I read that as hidden 12" sub and a pair of 7" mids 😂