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Post by MartinT on Jun 24, 2018 14:03:20 GMT
LOL!
I did say I'll only rip CDs that are not on Spotify. This is experimental only, but I did rip one of my Telarcs (Durufle Requiem, Shaw, Atlanta SO), which is a prized recording, and it does sound good in just the USB port. NAS should arrive tomorrow.
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Post by MartinT on Jun 25, 2018 16:59:16 GMT
I bought a 1TB WD MyCloud NAS expecting it to be running the old series 2 firmware. It's actually a 2TB drive running series 4 firmware. Silly Duncan (at least, that was the share name, now deleted)! It gives me cloud access from anywhere which I don't need but may become handy in the future. Firmware updated, share created, some music copied over, Volumio configured and scanning and I'm playing music from it even while I'm copying some more files over.
Nice.
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Post by MartinT on Jun 25, 2018 17:10:44 GMT
Ooh, 1-bit 2.8MHz DSD file plays natively through the Pi and SEG. Sounds superb.
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Post by Slinger on Jun 25, 2018 19:41:58 GMT
I bought a 1TB WD MyCloud NAS expecting it to be running the old series 2 firmware. It's actually a 2TB drive running series 4 firmware. Silly Duncan... Nice result, Martin.  |
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Post by MartinT on Aug 19, 2018 17:06:30 GMT
Looking back over the last couple of years, very little hardware in my system has changed, yet I have completely changed the way I listen to music and have switched my primary source. My philosophy in recent times has been to accept that none of my primary equipment is going to change in the foreseeable future. My preamp, power amp, speakers and regenerator are here to stay. The next upgrade in each case would be cripplingly expensive and I simply cannot allocate such funds when we have a new house demanding most of our resources. That doesn't mean there isn't room to get even more performance from them, so I set about doing just that. With attention to supports, footers, cables, mains power and noise, fuses, everything is working at a higher level of performance now and I'm into diminishing returns for further performance enhancements. I bought a Pi and started tinkering with it because I'd had a lot of fun with a Logitech Touch and wanted to play with Spotify, internet radio and files. Little did I know where that would lead to at the time. This is where you have the ability to massively divert from commercial designs and can achieve a level of performance that nobody believes until they hear it for themselves. It sure as hell surprised me. I'm also well aware that the cost distribution of my system looks laughable at first glance, with a Pi as source running into £20k+ speakers. However, it works for me. The proof? I haven't fired up my superb Ayre C-5xe MP SACD player in more than a month. The turntable in several months. So what does my source look like now? - Raspberry Pi 3 - Allo DigiOne S/PDIF board modified for separate 5V supply - Allo metal case - iFi USB iSilencer3 - Volumio system software - Spotify Family subscription and Spotify Connect plug-in for high quality streaming - Black Cat Silverstar 75 S/PDIF cable (BNC to phono) - Beresford Caiman SEG modified by Coherent (set to Mode 3) - Custom made Coherent supercap PSU feeding 5V for the Pi (dual USB) and 15V for the SEG - Coherent DC cable - MeiCord Opal ethernet cable - TP-Link TL-MR6400 4G router - Western Digital My Cloud NAS drive - Snap chokes on all cables What does it sound like? On Spotify, it sounds generally (in most cases) better than the CD played on my Ayre player. On red book files, it sounds a step better again. On hi-res files, it sounds quite outstanding. You want musical references? Cat Stevens in Where Do The Children Play has a moment when his voice moves up in level half way through the song. This is thrilling and brings out the full rasp when he is almost shouting. Damien Rice in Delicate displays extreme dynamic range, from the gentle noodlings on guitar in a big empty acoustic space to a full-on bellow that startles no matter where you set the volume. Juliette Commagere in The Big Middle sounds wonderfully breathy with what I thought when I first bought it to be harsh strings now revealed in all their glory while the bass rumbles along. Tangerine Dream's Pilots of Purple Light reveals a keyboard sequence I had never noticed before. Bach's Passacaglia transcribed for organ by Respighi reveals the organ's power with amazing subterranean pressure waves. The stunning Wagner Gotterdamerung conducted by Solti shows the Decca recording to be quite outstanding, with unnerving brass crescendi that can take your head clean off but without being fatiguing. Ozric Tentacles' Magick Valley sounds potent with a bass line that keeps you guessing with its offbeat rhythm and sound effects galore creating a panorama of things going on in the mix. Nils Lofgren in Keith Don't Go on the Acoustic Live album banging his guitar in places to remarkable effect, not to mention his incredible playing. That should do it. I hope it's given you a taste of what can be done. The total cost of the above listed kit is considerably less than £2k.  |
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Post by speedysteve on Aug 20, 2018 8:32:23 GMT
Brill Martin. Looking forward to hearing it  |
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Post by MartinT on Aug 20, 2018 9:33:49 GMT
I've just seen the good news from Volumio that Qobuz and Tidal are now supported by the paid-for version of Volumio. I feel a new image of MyVolumio and a free Qobuz trial coming on!
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 20, 2018 11:11:36 GMT
That kind of echoes my own recent hifi history, Martin. I'm now at ... Cheap digital source, middle cost amps, high cost speakers. Yay.  Oh, and I think you'll like Qobuz.  |
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Post by MartinT on Aug 20, 2018 12:21:29 GMT
Thanks, Jerry. Kudos to you for getting there first, my path has gone a similar way and it's been fun getting the most out of streaming. I'm looking forward to trying Qobuz. I'll get the MyVolumio image up and running tonight ready for a trial.
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Post by speedysteve on Aug 22, 2018 18:38:54 GMT
That kind of echoes my own recent hifi history, Martin. I'm now at ... Cheap digital source, middle cost amps, high cost speakers. Yay. Oh, and I think you'll like Qobuz. Transducers is where it's all at |
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 22, 2018 19:35:02 GMT
Yup, I've always been a speakers-first kind of audio-nerd. |
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Post by MartinT on Aug 22, 2018 20:40:53 GMT
First Listening Results: Qobuz versus Spotify
Tonight I compared Spotify Premium High Quality (320k Ogg) with Qobuz HiFi (16/44 FLAC) playing the same song on each. I know some of you will want me to listen to hi-res immediately but I want to establish a baseline and, anyway, HiFi is on free trial whereas I'll need to subscribe to Sublime.
All listening via MyVolumio on a Pi 3 using native drivers into the SEG and the rest of the system.
Observations
- The Spotify catalogue is richer (for me) than Qobuz. Disappointed to find some favourite songs missing.
- The Qobuz interface is horrible but presents better band/track information than Spotify.
I started each time with a song or piece on Qobuz and then repeated it on Spotify. Where I wanted to compare a section, it was easy to cue both and play sections of each.
There is little point in listing the songs I listened to because damned nearly everything sounds identical or so close that I could not easily select a preferred version. I should have been very surprised, but my previous experience of playing CDs versus Spotify High Quality had already told me that there was very little in it and what I was hearing were the differences between DACs.
I found one song, Ry Cooder's Look at Granny Run Run, where I felt the dynamic impact was greater from Qobuz. A marginal finding.
So this tells me that my hearing was not deceiving me, Spotify is damned near identical to 16/44 (Red Book) as far as very high quality reproduction is concerned, where the data clocking has the tiniest jitter through the replay chain.
Conclusion: Qobuz HiFi is not going to do it for me as it's more expensive and offers a lower range of music than Spotify.
I'm going to have to trial Qobuz Sublime if I want to hear better than the already great quality of Spotify HQ.
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Post by MartinT on Aug 22, 2018 20:53:19 GMT
PostScript
Looking at the FLAC bitrates, I see a range of 280-650kbps. I know that it's lossless compression, but I surmise that lossy Ogg at 320k is mainly throwing away information that isn't heard. The bitrates between the two are far closer than I had first imagined.
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Post by brian2957 on Aug 23, 2018 0:04:30 GMT
That's interesting Martin . I use Spotify Premium and see no reason to change because I'm very happy with it . Your findings reinforce my hunch that I don't need to search any further at this time .
Thanks for posting your findings |
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 23, 2018 6:33:48 GMT
Personally I am astonished that you hear no improvement going from Spotify Premium to Qobuz 16/44, Martin.
- Reading your post I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop - and it never did!
It must be a difference in system configuration.
Whilst I enjoy Spot Prem and happily used it as my main source for a couple of years, the extra rez, transparency and dynamic expression of Qobuz is not massive but is nonetheless very obvious to my ears. Spot Prem sounds a little smoothed over and rolled off in comparison, in my system. In comparison, I'd call it comfortable rather than revealing.
I'd certainly be pleased if I got that sort of improvement from, say, an amp upgrade!
Curiously, I started my streaming life with Tidal hirez, and eventually tired of what I heard as its insistent and somewhat forward sound. Moving to the smoother sound of Spotify at that time was done with a sense of relief - and of course the wider scope of the Spotify music catalogue was an added inducement.
I found Tidal sound quality to be different to Qobuz which to my ears retains the extra rez but seems more tonally neutral.
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Post by John on Aug 23, 2018 6:45:23 GMT
I think the front end has a lot to do with this. In the past when using windows I found Spotify to sound quite poor. Now not much difference with my files with the pi. So I suspect the server plays an important role here
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Post by MartinT on Aug 23, 2018 7:22:38 GMT
Both Spotify and Qobuz have an easy, non-harsh but very tight and detailed delivery in my system. Neither are fatiguing in the slightest yet they do not sound 'rolled off' to me. I am very pleased to have validated how good Spotify can be (as I've said on several occasions).
I still have hopes for Qobuz Sublime but the catalogue does worry me a little. How do you find they compare in classical music, Jerry?
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 23, 2018 7:42:46 GMT
I still have hopes for Qobuz Sublime but the catalogue does worry me a little. How do you find they compare in classical music, Jerry? Spotify has by far the broadest classical music catalogue of any streaming service I have tried, and I have tried quite a few, subbed and on a trial basis. Qobuz and Tidal are I think pretty much identical. They may even be identical. Spotify has quite a lot that the others don't have. Qobuz has some that Spotify doesn't have. To get the broadest range of music you would need Spotify and Qobuz/Tidal. ___ One nice thing (unique?) about Qobuz is that it has digital CD booklets available for many recent recordings. Just click on the icon and a separate tab opens with an image of the booklet you would get with the CD. |
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 23, 2018 7:47:12 GMT
.... and with Qobuz you can search by recording label as a part or whole of a search string - e.g. Decca, ECM etc. I find that very useful. You can't do that with Spotify.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2018 8:21:58 GMT
Both Spotify and Qobuz have an easy, non-harsh but very tight and detailed delivery in my system. Neither are fatiguing in the slightest yet they do not sound 'rolled off' to me. I am very pleased to have validated how good Spotify can be (as I've said on several occasions). I still have hopes for Qobuz Sublime but the catalogue does worry me a little. How do you find they compare in classical music, Jerry? As far as the so called red book quality services based on my experiences so far is simply; Spotify delivers the most all round sound closet to the CD, QoBoz and Tidal are more polished and lack the inner dynamics that Spotify seems to deliver, however so may prefer the overall sound of the latter. Yet even the £300 Qoboz high resolution stream does not stack up to the equivalent file or in most cases the CD (Yes really) The caveat here is the ability of the system to demonstrate the true differences between the services (if any) All three of the above mentioned services have a different sound (nneo of them bad in any way) but there are different Tidal I find way to polished (the high rez service) like listening the Ian Gillan scream through a BBC 1960's announcer's filter, zero grain in fairness and a enveloping sound. Spotify remains the most real to the source at its claimed PCM rate Tidal has an association with MQA and its delightful encoding which is a solution to a problem that does not exist marketing spin for "Lets try and squeeze more money form music lovers by inventing a codec that is amazing lol" Think about this, your service is streamed to you via some other part of the world it has to go through a data transmission and data checking systems, more electrical interfaces dedicated algorithms for coding and packing before it reaches your device. Martin has discovered quite recently that improving your receiving end of the line can make good improvements but you are still at the mercy of the source lossless or not. The same way we all have bad sounding CD's and records as well as good ones. It is in the interest of the subscription server provider to deliver to the most *desirable* product to appeal to a broad spectrum of potential users, so it will do its research and find the best overall solution. Now if you have been listening to ripped files on phone, I-pod or similar or have sonos then all of a sudden a quality stream will sound like a god send agreed no quibble, however I have yet to see a truly quality so called high resolution streaming service that I would actually pay for personally. I have explored many ways of trying to exact the best possible streaming feeds, even going down Martin's route of 4G wireless route, (Upgraded and dedicated super psu) the best RJ45 available etc and we have here 320M stream on fiber also. On certain days the 4G stream pips the fiber but mostly the fiber is better buit it is closer than you think. They all make a difference, but again can every one exploit those differences and that is not dig at cost of equipment, I have heard recently a few uber dac's struggle to really define the true quality of these streaming services and yet some of the more modest units easily perform the task go figure? For the me the acid test is the direct CD comparison, only on a couple of occasions have the service obtained a close match. As with everything in audio your experience will differ according to your circumstances these are observations I have amassed this year. |
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