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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2015 15:42:19 GMT
Records for me. The only CDees i own have bonus tracks that are not available on Record hence i seldom switch the CDP on.
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Post by aurender on Jun 1, 2015 15:45:44 GMT
No, there is no analogue signal out on the Aurender. It is designed to feed a digital signal into a DAC.
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Post by aurender on Jun 1, 2015 19:49:13 GMT
Audition an Aurender. Doesn't have any of the complexities you object to. simple to operate (no more complex than a cd player) and gives great sound quality. No wiring of pc bit together in fact no pc involvement at all other than the need for a wireless connection for the iPad control interface to communicate. Im sur there are other simple to use equivalents. Hopefully some of them will be less expensive which is the biggest objection. Great feature is remote diagnostics, I had a fault early on and Aurender were able to diagnose remotely and sort out without any interference on my part. That was impressive if a tad scary. This post as me baffled , you say the arunder is good [ it should be it costs 5k ] and as far as i can see you can feed an analogue signal direct to a pre amp , yet you have 30k of clocks and dacs processing the digtial signal from the arunder . Is this correct ? Could you show me where the analogue leads to my preamp connect into the Aurender please Mr Quixote? I can't see them and I'd certainly like to try them as you suggest. Are they RCA or XLR?
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Post by MartinT on Jun 1, 2015 20:19:44 GMT
I want to see plug and play devices available from a range of makers that play CDs, copy them to internal hard drives, then either play them via hifi connection or stream them. I want the user interface to be as good as anything you'd find from Apple. How about a Cocktail Audio X40?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2015 20:46:23 GMT
I had seen Cocktail Audio but am unsure about the likely quality. Has anyone any experience of them? I'm still really surprised the main stalwarts haven't made such products. Naim seem to have come closest, but still seem intent on increasing the box count.
I will try and find more info about Cocktail Audio and might try a used EBay one.
Thanks for the suggestion.
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Post by pinkie on Jun 2, 2015 7:33:15 GMT
The perils of a week away with a Hudl not letting you post. Where to join in?
1) Digital or vinyl - curiously , without anything approaching thorough research - just impression - we still prefer vinyl when its good. The Mrs, like so many newly-converted, is even more evangelical than I am. This can only be a limitation of the domestic Dac's I use, as it appears to apply also to digitally recorded or mixed vinyl offerings - although is more "slam dunk" with the likes of my old Joan Armatrading LP. However, to a man guests at this house, including more than a few musicians, are stunned at how good the vinyl is.
2) Mr singularity - I would like to challenge you to the title of laziest, but I think you should force yourself out of bed and have a look at the Raspberry Pi experiment. It's quite fun playing lego, there is loads of help available if it goes wrong, and it is surprisingly good. If you want the shortcut to lazy man heaven use the Pi B, the berrydac, picoreplayer for squeezebox interface and easy "tweaking" and a £10 battery pack. You'll get change from £100. I'm sure the experts could take you to higher highs, but that is a pretty good "cooking" version without expending too much effort
3) My main criticism of vinyl is that it is hard to do well enough to rival digital cheaply - and it is easy to spend big bucks doing well (price fixation on the Grand Prix arm thread would be an example). Referencing that arm, I accept that others will have more money than I do to spend on their audio enjoyment, and that's fine. But £10000 all in seems to me "plenty" to be serious. Very very serious. So digital systems costing £10000 plus, before speakers take you into the rare esoteric (or rich mans toys) realm and I wonder if there is a law of diminishing returns. The Berry+Dac for buttons has persuaded me that my precious DaCapo - whilst still holding its own today, is not as uniquely special as it was - and must surely be bettered by some modern dacs. But I struggle to believe that a £30000+ system will be capable of being significantly better. I guess maybe that depends on your definition of "significant"
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Post by dvh on Jun 2, 2015 8:19:46 GMT
CD is currently winning over vinyl, mainly because there's a pile of CDs on top of the turntable lid and I can't be arsed to move them. Seriously, though, these days I listen almost exclusively to classical music, and 90% of my classical music collection is on CD.
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Post by Clive on Jun 2, 2015 9:55:36 GMT
In line with some of the comments I agree that vinyl is hard to do well cheaply or at least some skill is needed matching a 2nd hand deck (to save money) with a decent arm, cartridge, phono stage and support. This is a real turnaround from the 80s and 90s when a few hundred spent on a record deck would see off a CD player. Revisiting older CD players though shows them to be not that bad at all. I feel it was more that early CD mastering let down CD. Also CDPs used in 80s systems were often plugged into systems tweaked for a what was often a coloured sounding record deck. One thing CD brought was a reasonable reference flat frequency response for a source. I feel this in turn has led to record decks becoming more neutral in character, this has been a good thing though I'm not advocating totally neutral sounding systems. Many people want a "house" curve from their system with slightly tilted up bass and tilted down treble. Some pre-CD era record decks did this but often in too great a degree.
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Post by pinkie on Jun 2, 2015 10:09:26 GMT
I agree mostly with Clives comments. Just experienced poor mastering, and another "belt drive" phenomenon. I stuck on Sue's Xmas present - Babs Streisands "Partners" for the 2 French girlies staying with us this week (teachers accompanying an exchange visit to Sue's school). "The Way we Were" - which is also the song Sue and I are working on as a guitar accompaniement (shamelessly borrowed from Brian May's version). The mix is poor - vocals and guitar and piano are ok, but the Orchestra sounds like it is being played from a 70's phillips cassette deck - with its own speaker, and ordinary ferric tape - from the room next door.
However, I digress. Nominally the same recording - the vinyl version is warmer and better integrated - in spite of the shite mix , the "main subject" is real and integrated and "in the room". The CD version is perhaps superficially clearer but more sterile and flat. At the end - there is a sustained note sung by Babs, and the familiar "pitch instability". Belt drive? Nope - it's there on the CD too, so its Babs vibrato. Now the Mrs may say that is poor technique from an untrained diaphragm (actually even Sue wouldn't suggest that of Babs - although her voice does sound older on this album), but its artistic "wobble" not belt drive "wobble"
As you were...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 10:21:32 GMT
It's easy for people say records are a bit crap sounding if you have an habbit of choosing medicore LP pressings, some sound dreadful.. However i have quite a few new pressings that have been taken from the original master tapes, just shows how fantastic vinyl can sound this way & how shockingly good those original master tape recordings were regardless of them being over 40 years old.
Regarding new LP Re-issues they really need to remember how to make record sleeves lol
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Post by MartinT on Jun 2, 2015 13:13:52 GMT
I feel this in turn has led to record decks becoming more neutral in character, this has been a good thing though I'm not advocating totally neutral sounding systems. Many people want a "house" curve from their system with slightly tilted up bass and tilted down treble. Some pre-CD era record decks did this but often in too great a degree. This is key for me: I don't want a record deck that sounds different from my CD player. As it is, their tonal matching is nigh on perfect so I'm just left with the inherent differences in the formats, which are small.
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Post by MartinT on Jun 2, 2015 13:19:36 GMT
It's easy for people say records are a bit crap sounding if you have an habbit of choosing medicore LP pressings, some sound dreadful.. However i have quite a few new pressings that have been taken from the original master tapes, just shows how fantastic vinyl can sound this way & how shockingly good those original master tape recordings were regardless of them being over 40 years old. An example I play for friends is a perfectly standard pressing of David Bowie's Hunky Dory. What a simply outstanding recording and pressing for its age, it always amazes them as they've never heard vinyl sound like that.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 16:41:59 GMT
Its the same old chestnut with people. They have had more than likley had a poor turntable in the past, the impression sticks.Exactly the same scenario with an old mate of mine making out his CD player sounded better than his record player {LOL i thought}. He's since been over to ours. Now he's into vinyl big style, new deck & all..
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2015 17:03:18 GMT
Agreed. A lot of people who aren't into hifi may never have really heard a competent turntable. For me, cheap turntables and run of the mill CD players are both equally unacceptable.
If I'm honest, my only experience of file based audio also turned out to be unacceptable in the long term. I ran an iPod with Apple Lossless files through a Wadia 170i into a Theta DAC. At first I thought it was "all there" but extended listening revealed it to be far from acceptable. I can tolerate limits in amps and speakers far more easily than I can in sources. If the source isn't doing it for me, I really would rather not listen at all.
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Post by dvh on Jun 3, 2015 16:41:24 GMT
Personally I'd rather listen to music than not, even if the only available option is the kitchen radio. After all, I grew up listening to records on my parents' Dansette, and to Radio Caroline via my cheap transistor radio, so a less-than-perfect source is no big deal.
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Post by MikeMusic on Jun 3, 2015 16:42:43 GMT
Quite
Given the choice though I'll go for the best sound, whatever it is
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Post by pinkie on Jun 3, 2015 17:27:33 GMT
Just briefly - I'll post more on the Raspberry Pi thread - that simple streamer solution I advocated to Andrew had me frustrated today. Wonderful when it works - less so when it "plays computers"
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Post by MikeMusic on Jun 3, 2015 18:20:04 GMT
Ah computers
I could tell you a boring story spanning 2 or maybe 3 days about computers (ongoing) That's what will stop me going for streaming as an only source
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