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Post by Slinger on Aug 29, 2020 16:08:10 GMT
It's amazing the kind of gadgets the youth of today play with! I know, Jules. Bloody kids running around with their boob-boxes and their walkpersons. When I were a lad I had to make do with a tranny under the blankets of a night.
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 29, 2020 16:59:08 GMT
You had a transvestite under the blankets at night? It's amazing what parents let kids get up to back then.
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Post by MartinT on Aug 29, 2020 16:59:34 GMT
You sure it wasn't a crystal radio, Paul?
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Post by Slinger on Aug 29, 2020 17:01:38 GMT
You sure it wasn't a crystal radio, Paul? I had one of those too. My grandfather gave it to me.
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Post by MikeMusic on Aug 29, 2020 18:26:42 GMT
A transistor radio ! You were lucky In my day we dreamed of having a transistor radio, sleeping in a hole in the ground with poisoned water
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Post by Firebottle on Aug 30, 2020 7:16:24 GMT
I bought a previous non Bluetooth version of the cheap Dac for £16 and used it for quite a while on TV duties until it failed. Now use the remote control (modified) for my Mshow preamp, so not all lost.
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Post by user211 on Aug 30, 2020 10:49:08 GMT
Why pay for a CD quality or better streaming service and compromise it by using Bluetooth Jerry? Seems pretty bats to me. Just sayin' A lot of my music sounds exceptionally good with the Bluetooth streamer gizmo. It's not a subtle improvement, either. Next level stuff. Who knows why? Not me. Maybe it's just the ability to bypass a conventional preamp. Although it sounded very good even before I did that. I just listen to things. If I like them I smile. Nah don't believe a word of it... A while back you said Spotify sounded better than TIDAL/Qobuz. It doesn't. Pistols at dawn I reckon:)
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 30, 2020 12:33:52 GMT
Teehee. I still like Spotify, a few days back I restarted my sub for it! As is quite well known in these parts, Spotify can sound quite different depending on your setup. MartinT used it as his main source for quite a while before adopting Qobuz HiRez. My Bluetooth-ed system sounding jaw drop good on a lot of music, compared to how we both know my system can sound, is one of those things that are true whether you believe it or not! Shame you can't pop round, you'd believe it then. I'll just sit back and enjoy it.
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Post by user211 on Aug 30, 2020 13:52:14 GMT
Well as long as you're smiling Jerry who cares:)
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Post by julesd68 on Aug 30, 2020 14:36:04 GMT
I'm still very happy with Spotify in my system but will give Qobuz a try in the near future.
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Post by MartinT on Aug 30, 2020 15:54:26 GMT
The preference for streaming service is complicated by their overall balance: Spotify is the 'warmest' sounding and sent at a slightly higher level. Qobuz sits in the middle, slightly cooler than Spotify and with obviously higher resolution. Tidal, to my ears, has a sheen like edge enhancement which I do not particularly like but seems to impress many.
Spotify sounds good and only sometimes, as with massed choir, runs out of resolution with its Ogg encoding, turning detail into mush.
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Post by jandl100 on Aug 30, 2020 18:19:54 GMT
Yes, I'd agree with that summary of the 3 streaming services.
I still enjoy Spotify when I'm in laid back mood, and Tidal tends to give me a headache after a while. Qobuz is the happy median for me for long term listening.
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Post by user211 on Aug 30, 2020 21:30:28 GMT
My impression through considerable usage is Spotify sounds like a bucket of low res shit.
TIDAL and Qobuz both sound better but at the time I used it the Qobuz software was a total insult to the art of computer programming and sounded worse than TIDAL did. Quite frankly fuck off for writing software that poor. Going back a few years now, though.
Amazon is the best current monetary long term non-promo deal going. In a few months time when I have fully absorbed the SQ available from it I will tell people what I think.
However, I don't expect anyone to care what I think and I personally don't think they should do. Best that people make up their own minds based on their own perceptions.
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Post by jandl100 on Sept 1, 2020 8:35:02 GMT
The £20 Bluetooth SuperDACStreamer Saga - Part 2
This gets weirder. Ridiculously, the Bluetooth connection remains superb for small to mediumn scale music. Best my system has ever sounded. Just amazing holographic and in-the-room presence. Definitely worth using a CD quality source rather than Spotify for larger scale / more complex works, that's pretty decent now. Maybe the little widget has run in some more?
Anyhoo, as well as Bluetooth the £20 widget also has coax and TOSLINK digital inputs, which also use its DAC. The coax from my usual Arcam silver disc spinner sounds kerapp. A bit thin and 2D with a very wispy splashy treble. I wouldn't want to use this.
But it's the same DAC that continues to drop my jaw via Bluetooth.
I have no idea what's going on here.
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Post by jandl100 on Sept 1, 2020 16:39:52 GMT
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Post by julesd68 on Sept 1, 2020 16:48:37 GMT
This sounds like witchcraft Jerry - apparently Bluetooth has been massively improving but still doesn't explain what's going on here!
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Post by MartinT on Sept 1, 2020 19:04:46 GMT
You may just be hitting the sweet spot for Bluetooth, which I believe is 16/48 (but the latest standard may support higher res). I don't really understand how it's beating a direct connection, though.
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Post by jandl100 on Sept 1, 2020 20:22:49 GMT
Well, the Bluetooth gizmo will be having a wee rest tomorrow as my new/old DAC comes out of its 5 day quarantine. It doesn't have volume control so I'll have to fire up one of my preamps for it.
Arrived today, the Bluetooth receiver with digital outputs. Out of Q in 5 days.
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Post by user211 on Sept 2, 2020 8:05:22 GMT
I have found that 5-10% of recordings can sound better than CD res. For instance, I have a QOTSA album that sounds better in MP3 than red book. Madness, but true. Losing information can sometimes work for the better. Certainly not true for all material, though. Maybe it is bad coax hardware and for the price it isn't surprising. It'll be the lowest of the low, with a bit more low. I found BubbleUpnp phone casting of TIDAL to a Samsung telly and then optical out to my DAC worked quite well back at the last pad. I currently use the coax output of the projector into my DAC and it's great quality. HDMI from the laptop to the projector. A USBless chain that's very good. I feed an nVidia Shield into the projector. I can cast Amazon Music on the phone over the air to an Amazon app resident on the Shield. It won't tell me what the bit rate is, and I generally don't use it. The TIDAL app was better as it worked on the Shield without the need to cast. I miss that a bit. BTW: an nVidia Shield is a great way to upgrade a 5+ year old television. It has excellent up to date video processing technology and it is well worth doing. It destroys the hardware in a 5 year old LG OLED I own. Really - it is really easy to see how much better it is. Company propaganda: www.nvidia.com/en-gb/shield/Amazon tax evaders: www.amazon.co.uk/NVIDIA-Shield-Streaming-Player-MicroSD/dp/B07Z6QQZPF/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=nvidia+shield&qid=1599033867&sr=8-1
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Post by user211 on Sept 2, 2020 9:02:59 GMT
I just broke and bought one of these for the projector. Saves needing a laptop in the music room. I already have a non-4K version in another telly. Runs Amazon Music. No need to stream from any device it just works via Wi-Fi. The resident nVidia Amazon app doesn't have a GUI, you have to stream from a device at sub-standard bit rates I believe. www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079QB9BD7?ref=MarsFS_SMP_mn
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