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Post by julesd68 on May 16, 2018 16:08:31 GMT
Keep us posted Paul!
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Post by MartinT on May 16, 2018 16:55:11 GMT
I would say it's going to need some time to burn-in. It has a snap-choke on the DC end, you could put another on the AC cable near the plug.
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Post by Slinger on May 17, 2018 13:52:23 GMT
Pumping Mahler through the little bugger for 20-odd hours seems to have knocked most of the rough edges off. The skinny strings on Rostropovich's cello sound a lot more like cello strings than fingernails on a blackboard this afternoon, and the Pet Shop Boys sound a lot happier to be in Suburbia than they did yesterday. I've also made it all the way through the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th today, and that's something I couldn't do yesterday...and it was the Simon Rattle/Berlin Phil version.  Although the M8 (now the M8a) is not quite 'bargain-basement' fare at two-hundred quid plus (although mine only cost me £110.00 + £10.00 'used') I'd have to believe that it can certainly hold its head up high amongst the similarly priced competition, and most probably among DACs costing a lot more. I'm not an inveterate box-swapper [waves to Jerry] though, so I can 't directly compare it to a myriad of other DACs, all I can do is give a personal opinion and that personal opinion is that it's sounding rather good. My verdict has to be that SMSL has scored again, and I haven't even started messing around with sampling rates on the Pi or the filters on the M8 yet. For a system that's cost me less than a grand (including cabling but excluding speakers) to throw together, I'm a very happy music-loving bunny. |
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Post by julesd68 on May 17, 2018 14:34:38 GMT
Well of course it wasn't sounding right yesterday - you were feeding Rattle to the M8!!  |
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Post by MartinT on May 17, 2018 16:11:54 GMT
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Post by jandl100 on May 17, 2018 17:30:20 GMT
It's that review that encouraged me buy my SMSL M8.
I've no idea what the Ayre sounds like, but the M8 is still playing my choons.
Does SMSL stand for So Much for So Little?
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Post by Slinger on May 17, 2018 17:35:17 GMT
...Does SMSL stand for So Much for So Little? I know what it actually stands for, but I much prefer your version, Jerry. Maurice André is currently hitting some very nice high notes, and they're not making me want to claw my own ears off like they would have done yesterday...so that's good. |
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Post by MartinT on May 17, 2018 21:31:34 GMT
I've no idea what the Ayre sounds like I do, since my SACD player has an Ayre DSD DAC inside  I can equally praise the SEG as it comes so near in performance as to just become a difference in presentation. |
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Post by jandl100 on May 18, 2018 6:55:46 GMT
Yes, I'd like to try a SEG again.
Had one and compared it to the Cambridge 851D DAC/pre I had at the time (£1k+) which is an excellent machine and it was very close, as you say just a difference in presentation. The remote-pre function swung the decision then, but I don't need that now as I have a separate remote-pre.
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Post by Slinger on May 18, 2018 10:49:29 GMT
The M8 was the last thing in my eBay "Watch List," and if I hadn't won it my next move would have been to message Stan about a SEG. I still can't quite believe that nobody else bid on it; perhaps people really don't know how good SMSL kit genuinely is...not that I'm complaining of course. |
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Post by Slinger on May 18, 2018 23:01:10 GMT
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Post by jandl100 on May 19, 2018 5:58:28 GMT
What a good idea, I'd been thinking about that.
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Post by MikeMusic on May 19, 2018 10:45:54 GMT
You overlooked he obvious problem in sound quality Your M8 isn't black !  |
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Post by Slinger on May 19, 2018 11:34:12 GMT
I hate to break it to you, Mike, but neither is my Primare amp.  The CD player is though, as is the Pi case, and the Epos speakers. |
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Post by MikeMusic on May 19, 2018 11:37:54 GMT
Time to upgrade Paul You must be missing out on The Blackness you need |
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Post by Slinger on May 20, 2018 16:39:43 GMT
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Post by MartinT on May 20, 2018 17:00:48 GMT
Shot in the dark, hope it works out for you.
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Post by Slinger on May 21, 2018 14:12:49 GMT
I get bored too easily. I've kicked Rune to the curb and I've loaded Volumio. It is currently indexing (very slowly) the 1.28TB of files on my NAS.
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Post by MartinT on May 21, 2018 14:26:56 GMT
Good luck with that, Paul. I do find Volumio nice and the support forum excellent. Not because I'm using it, rather that I chose it because of the support and good reputation. Most importantly, it works very well.
You will need to go to the GitHub repository (URL published somewhere) to pick up the Spotify Connect plug-in, if you want to do that. There is a basic one selectable in the Volumio build to start with. The YouTube plug-in works quite nicely, too.
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Post by Slinger on May 21, 2018 17:27:42 GMT
I've settled on leaving the bit depth at whatever the native value happens to be, and resampling to 176.4/Very High, and that seems to be giving me the best results so far. Honestly, my reasons for swapping over were quite shallow. I wanted to mess around with bit depths and sample rates, and as you know that means coding in Rune. I can do it with my eyes closed (and if you saw some of my coding you'd probably believe that) but it's both boring and time-consuming. I think restarts take longer in Volumio than they do in Rune, but at least I can be getting on with something else while they're happening. It's a shame really, Rune has a lot going for it, and if they ever make it easier to play about 'under the hood' I might even be tempted to swap back. For now, though, Volumio is doing the business and hopefully, when the LPSU arrives from China, it'll sound better still. I'm currently listening to Mick Abrahams' "working In The Blues Kitchen" which is in FLAC 44.1/16 native and it sounds great.
I haven't got, nor do I intend to get, Spotify Premium, so I'll be ignoring that particular plugin. In fact, about the only one I can see any immediate use for is Radio Paradise.
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