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Post by jandl100 on Jul 31, 2019 5:47:50 GMT
Tidal Hifi is £20 a month against £10 for Spot, but to my ear and on my system as currently constituted it suits me better and is worth it. Interesting, Jerry. I thought you had found Tidal too tilted towards brightness compared with Qobuz? Yes, Tidal was too bright. But system changes, mainly new DACs but also interconnects, have brought about a new balance in the Force. I think my old Benchmark DAC1 was a bit on the forward side. All 3 new DACs (2 Yulongs and a Metrum Octave) give a less excitable top end, and Tidal works well with all of them.
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Post by Clive on Jul 31, 2019 7:58:29 GMT
Interesting, Jerry. I thought you had found Tidal too tilted towards brightness compared with Qobuz? Yes, Tidal was too bright. But system changes, mainly new DACs but also interconnects, have brought about a new balance in the Force. I think my old Benchmark DAC1 was a bit on the forward side. All 3 new DACs (2 Yulongs and a Metrum Octave) give a less excitable top end, and Tidal works well with all of them. Jerry, have you tried the Octave with upsampling of say 88.2k? This brings back the top-end IME as it shifts the NOS treble droop higher up the spectrum. That said, it's a still a slightly relaxed DAC - as you suggest a bright Tidal is the other way to get a balance.
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Post by Pinch on Jul 31, 2019 8:10:58 GMT
Just files for me - mostly flac, a little bit of hi-res. I have experimented a little with Spotify, but there's quite a bit that's not on there, and when it comes to sound there's no contest. Maintaining a large digital library - currently around 75,000 files - is a bit tiresome though. But JRiver is a powerful library management tool, and - with the smartphone app - very convenient for playback management. So while playback itself is handled by Volumio, I very rarely interact with Volumio's web GUI, which I find a bit clunky. It takes a little admin, but it's great to have everything organised exactly to my preference, and I can customise the app to suit this organisational structure, making browsing easy and efficient. So while it's certainly a little fiddly and takes some setting up, I find this partnering of JRiver and Volumio suits me perfectly, since it gives me so much control over the experience. But I do keep an eye on developments in streaming - I assume the sound will catch up at some point (and perhaps it already has with the more expensive services).
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Post by jandl100 on Jul 31, 2019 12:34:27 GMT
Yes, Tidal was too bright. But system changes, mainly new DACs but also interconnects, have brought about a new balance in the Force. I think my old Benchmark DAC1 was a bit on the forward side. All 3 new DACs (2 Yulongs and a Metrum Octave) give a less excitable top end, and Tidal works well with all of them. Jerry, have you tried the Octave with upsampling of say 88.2k? This brings back the top-end IME as it shifts the NOS treble droop higher up the spectrum. That said, it's a still a slightly relaxed DAC - as you suggest a bright Tidal is the other way to get a balance. I feed the Metrum Octave with a 96khz signal, so I guess that works out well. A 'slightly relaxed' DAC plus a rather forward Tidal does seem to work OK. It's all about synergy, really, isn't it
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Post by jandl100 on Jul 31, 2019 15:11:24 GMT
.... and, tbh, I find I enjoy a 'politer' presentation these days. I guess it's an age thing!
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Post by The Brookmeister on Aug 1, 2019 19:11:02 GMT
I mostly listen to flac stored on the CAD CAT with the matching DAC, that's for serious listening in the main room, in the shop area its far easier to connect my S10 5G to the streamer and stream spotfire (sorry bigman lol)
Personally no one can convince me spotify and tidal can ever sound as god as a flac or wav stored on a SSD via a music server. Maybe that's a theme for the next yorkshire hifi club.
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Post by MartinT on Aug 1, 2019 19:24:08 GMT
Reclocking in the streamer (Allo Kali) and a femto superclock in the DAC (Coherent) bring streaming, files and CDs via the laptop drive connected to Volumio much closer together than I expected.
Qobuz pulls ahead, especially with hi-res but even on 16/44 material.
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Post by John on Aug 2, 2019 5:43:19 GMT
I have never said my streaming is as good or better as my file playback. In my system, it close enough that I do not care. Having access to millions of songs, discovering new music and being able to navigate easily to a different album all play a part in why I enjoy streaming. I am going, to be honest for a while when I went down the bughead route I was not discovering a lot of new music as I was just using my files. Moving into streaming reconnected me with that joy of discovering new music again. I also really could not give an x6^% what is the better format I am happy with what I got.
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Post by Pinch on Aug 2, 2019 7:06:41 GMT
I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that, having come of age in file-sharing era, piracy is so easy and natural for me that files provide the same experience in terms of accessibility and discovery - otherwise I'd probably be streaming too.
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Post by zippy on Aug 2, 2019 9:34:53 GMT
I'm a little confused (or maybe others are) at the distinction between 'files' and 'streaming' that some people are making. Files are my means of storage (ripped CD), as per the OP question. To play them I have to stream them, albeit locally. Am I being pedantic, or just plain dumb? streaming(note the 'in addition.... )
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Post by Stratmangler on Aug 2, 2019 9:51:56 GMT
I'm a little confused (or maybe others are) at the distinction between 'files' and 'streaming' that some people are making. Files are my means of storage (ripped CD), as per the OP question. To play them I have to stream them, albeit locally. Am I being pedantic, or just plain dumb? streaming(note the 'in addition.... ) No, you're not being dumb. There is no distinction between local streaming and streaming from a content provider. I class the two things as one and the same. In fact I control them both from same location, whether it be from a connected Smartphone, or from a web browser. I don't use the IR remote control or use the touch screen except on the really rare occasion.
That said, I do not have any storage device hanging out of a player. Some folk do, and possibly that's why they make such distinctions.
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Post by Pinch on Aug 2, 2019 10:39:37 GMT
I think the distinction is made here because the term 'streaming' is typically used as short-hand for 'using a streaming service' - seems to be a widely accepted usage; obviously there's stricter use of the term under which both count as streaming. So yes, you're being pedantic
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Post by MartinT on Aug 2, 2019 10:42:56 GMT
My distinction is simple: files are local, streams come over the internet.
Of course, they are the same thing once they reach the DAC.
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