Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Cheers, I didn't know that something like that existed or that there were other digital options that spdif could be converted to.

Looks like I have some options, thanks.

It might be an option. I guess you would really want a passive solution that didn't need power supplies. If you have coax spdif at both ends a 6m run would be easily possible in my experience. Balanced AES for bigger distances.

ha! Yes, the 5-month-old baby is NOT SLEEPING AT ALL

Can’t fibre optic runs be as long as you like without picking up external interference, with it being light and that?

Each end is a cupboard with plugs so I don't really mind if it requires power.

@StevePeel that's what I originally assumed but it seems that the signal degrades pretty quickly.

They don't get electromagnetic interference, but they do suffer from attenuation and pulse broadening. Toslink is designed to be cheap, robust and easy to connect, so it is limited to a maximum length of 10 metres for polymer fibres.

Sweet, gotcha.

Last lockdown I managed to channel a minor breakdown through unwise hifi experimentation. You might have noticed. I’ll try not to do that again, it seems that since I stopped fretting and just started enjoying listening to it my system just gets better and better.

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Why would we have noticed, we're all doing the same thing in this thread :)

I'm in a similar position of having stopped messing about with my main system and yesterday it was sounding so good I was completely blissed out.

Nice isn’t it. I keep staying late to listen to this in peace. Nothing stopping me turning it up loud either. An added bonus of finding peace is that my home system is now Spotify from my smart TV playing through a mini amp and a tiny pair of bookshelves and I’m perfectly happy with how it sounds. It being such a piece of piss to use is the highlight.

https://petertyson.co.uk/yamaha-wxad-10-wireless-streaming-adaptor

Does anyome know if this will let me listen to the high bit tidal over WiFi?

It does support high resolution bit rates but not DSD. Alac is only 96/24, wav, Flac & Aiff 192/24.

People often run into problems with their wifi once you get up to 96/24. If you have a decent router it should be able to handle multiple streams otherwise as soon as you have phones and stuff around they can cause dropouts.

I could probably plug it in to my network to alleviate network issues. It just isn't clear to me if it supports the high def tidal. There are way too many specs/standards.

I am only subscribed to the basic Tidal. According to the specs it should do higher than the basic quality but not MQA or DSD which I think Tidal can provide although I'm not sure of that. If you are going down the network cable route there would probably be a raspberry pi solution then go to a usb dac that handles mqa/dsd. That would be my preferred route for that quality but the dac could end up being a lot of money.

Yes, that was kind of my point about it carrying up to 192/24. Generally I'm avoiding any conclusions about the higher bitrate stuff. Dan Lavrys' white paper convinced me to stick with 96/24 but I have an SACD player that has DSD and Roon unfolds MQA so I've heard some of that stuff.

We should probably let @root know that we think he'll be fine with that resolution. :)

I don't think I can tell the difference between the hifi and master/mqa based on listening at a mates house. I'm just looking for something with the convenience of chromecast really.

I've ordered a dac hat for the rpi. I'll give that a go and maybe upgrade if I feel the need.

Is this the paper you are referring to? http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf

Can anyone recommend someone who can service a pair of 1210's in London?

Yes, that's the paper. From memory he makes the point that the processing speeds required for higher bitrates can lead to lower accuracy. Whether that still holds today I don't know.

I have a few Lavry convertors, they are quite old now I should probably look at what's available in the higher bit rates but I am very happy with my setup at the moment.

What do they need - set up
Or repair?

There must be a Tidal connect compatible version of this not far away, I would wait given how much the lack of Tidal connect in the LS50w has annoyed me so far...

I'm convinced that the original recording and any digital remastering has more impact on the perceived sound rather than the bit rate.

Yes, but despite that technology has raced to bring us DSD rates packaged in MQA wrappers. In practice the SACD format can sound very good. Digital media requires proper gain staging to enjoy, 44/16 red book on CD's can still raise the hairs on your arms if it's well mastered. Just make sure your digital equipment is not shouting at your analogue inputs.

My issue with streaming is reliability but I can see that being a non problem in the near future. I do like to have the physical media though, sometimes it's easier and just works.

Without doubt I've come to the same conclusion. There are aspects of the HiFi game that don't make any sense at all. Listen to an album like Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall and you have to wonder what we've forgotten about recording techniques in the past 60 years.

you have to wonder what we've forgotten about recording techniques in the past 60 years.

Proper recording has not been forgotten, it has just been abandoned in popular music as recording gimmicks are necessary to sell bad music.

There is a tendancy at the moment to applaud artists for making a whole album on a laptop. I'm sure the classical genre has some amazing recordings. Also strange that in the late 50's people were less likely to have music systems that could reproduce the recordings in full range or even media in good enough condition to appreciate it.

Now that we have all that advantage we use it to play Old Town Road at full volume on a Friday night.

Just in case you ever get into a fight about Blue Note recording techniques, here is an explanation of the development Rudy Van Gelder went through.

https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/guest-post-how-they-heard-it-blue-note-records-and-the-transition-from-mono-to-stereo/