Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Asymmetric or long speaker cables are nothing to worry about.

Provided it's decent but not overpriced cable and it's cleanly connected at both ends you can't go wrong.

I have a TV, amp, turntable and speakers. I want to add spotify and tidal to my setup.

I can buy a streamer (e.g. node 2i) to run spotify and tidal through the amp to speakers. the node 2i can handle tidal's CD quality and MQA streams.

could I also just connect my TV (which has spotify and tidal) via optical out to a half-decent DAC and get equivalent sound quality? I'm thinking I could maybe save about £350 on the node 2i (£500) by buying a ~£150 DAC. would this work?

I find TV output is a bit disappointing compared to my (cheap but good) Allo Vana output - not sure if they do tidal, but I'd look at Allo stuff for cheap but good quality output.

would this work?

It would work, but depending on the hardware spec of your TV you might not be able to squirt full resolution MQA down the optical fibre. The mandatory spec is 48kHz/20bit, the fibre itself can easily handle 96kHz/24bit but only if your TV manufacturer has bothered to install a transmitter with that much bandwidth.

it's a samsung TV. from a cursory google, it seems like the tidal app on the samsung TV os only draws down the hifi/CD-quality stream (no MQA). I can probably learn to live with that to be honest - this setup was originally meant to be vinyl only but just thought I'd try add in streaming because why not (plus I bagged a 6 month free tidal trial via)

I do this, it works great. No drop-out issues like I get with both Chromecast and Allo USBridge.

Edit: you’ll only get MQA if you use an MQA dac even if your source can output it. The only one I have is a dragonfly red which can’t take optical. I’ve used it wired from my phone to my headphone amp and it still sounds less agreeable than my Topping from the TV to my ears.

see my comment above - don't think the samsung TV outputs the MQA stream from tidal (unless anyone knows different?) I was thinking of running it through a schiit modi 3, if I can get a hold of one. I'm in two minds about continuing the tidal sub after the free six months is up tbf - annoying that spotify still hasn't brought out a hi res plan.

don't need anymore subs in my life : / will be a big cull post-lockdown/covid...

Just go from the TV headphone out into your amp if you’re not going to use a hi-res stream then.

I have a node 2i and yeah it does great, slightly over priced maybe, defo don't pay over £500. Theres a powered version too, it's defo overpriced, at £300 more your better off with a separate amp if similar value. I think they originally intended to be £400 and £600 was their target pricing.
Briefly had my new streamer taking its tv/ps4 sounds from the tv optical out (Samsung and quite old) as ps4 don't have an optical out of thee own and new streamer doesn't have a hdmi in out. Now have a hdmi to optical box. Difference in sound quality wasn't audiophile "mmm i detected that the xxxxxxxx", it was huge. Whatever the TV was doing to that sound stream waw bad.

What’s the rest of the system? I think the resolution of the downstream components is worth consideration when making a value judgment about sources.

I'm going to use the old chromecast I have lying around - paired with a cheap HDMI audio splitter. that way I can still watch the TV on silent, while I stream music to the stereo

apparently the normal (i.e. non-audio) chromecast is limited to 24/48 but assume that won't be an issue if only streaming CD-quality tidal

edit: splitter's now turned up and this works great. £490 saved.

Same between both setups!
New Marantz PM7000N, it seems pretty good about not being fussy.
Tv wasn't a fancy one at time, a cheap TV that size was maybe £400, it was £700 for same size, 'fancy' tv's with better all the things were obviously a lot more, Samsung brand.

Are there any decent USB soundbars for under a monitor? This kind of thing https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Umitive-Computer-Speakers-Compatibility-Anti-slip/dp/B08JTRML6R/

Needs to be USB power and sound input. It all just looks to be cheap, generic stuff that I can find online.

decent USB soundbars...Needs to be USB power

There's your trouble. The power deliverable from a computer's USB port is so little that it's pointless wasting money on building the rest of the product to a decent quality.

One of those beer can looking things might be best, I heard a JBL one that was impressive for what it was.

Ah gotcha. I think it’s not that uncommon for TVs to have dodgy optical signals but if they’re ok they’re as good as any digital source. I just wondered whether you heard night and day differences because you had £10k of amp and speakers hooked up to it.

I've two cassettes that, purely for nostalgia, I'd like to play through my stereo. I appreciate there's no sensible value-for-money approach for this - but:

1. Do I just get a vintage separate tape deck? (If so, any recommendations?)
   
2. Is there a modern, reasonable priced alternative?
   
3. Would a Walkman and 3.5mm to phono make sense?
   
4. Should I just forget the 80s and move on with my life?
   
   

Budget no more than £50 (closer to £25 ideally).

. 5. Nakamichi - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124437127585 a little over budget though, but you might as well do it properly.

Absolute bargain. I'll add to the "maybe" pile.

(Absolutely love the peak 80s styling)

They have shot up. Is there a correlation between Bitcoin investors and tape collectors?

Can some huge organisation please just buy Roon as a loss leader? Amazon... I've gone back to it recently and it is really good as a front end to a digital music collection, but still can't see myself renewing at the end of the year sub.

Are you running os 1.8? After much fanfare it's been pretty contentious. I'm not a huge fan of some aspects of the new design but I'm using an NUC Rock and it's been a pleasure. Went down the life membership route early doors so I need it to keep working :)}.

Akai made some great cassette decks that go for very little these days. Usually if its a 3 head deck it will be decent quality.

Excellent stuff, thanks - having a trawl through ebay right now

Sony's Walkman Professional WMD6C is very highly regarded, and consequently rather spendy