Hi Steve, welcome to TAS

Hi Steve!

Hi Steve, nice to see you here.

Welcome old chap !! 

Hi guys and thanks!

My main audio interests lie these days in DACs and streaming solutions that equal or better CD. I think the rest of my system is pretty well sorted tbh, certainly for it to meet my requirements anyway. Ok, a pair of Tannoy Kensingtons to replace the Turnberrys would be very nice if I had the funds.

Cables, mains, supports etc. are pretty sorted although I'm always up for the odd tweak ;-).

Room treatment? A diffuser behind the sofa might be beneficial but not as much as a front end upgrade in this room.

I'm not really interested in getting a turntable because I haven't got any records. In any case, digital done well and with a decent uncompressed both in terms of file and dynamic range is unbeatable imho. That could change of course if streaming continues not to satisfy and CDs disappear in the next few years because I think vinyl is going to be around for a very long time.

Back on the subject of digital I am hosting a DAC/transport bake-off late September/early October. It will be a shoot-out hopefully between a cheapo DAC at, say 30 quid, a bog-standard Audiolab MDAC, the Lakewest MDAC L3 Toy that I use, an MDAC L3 Fusion and a DAC at the 5 grand price point that Mark from Item Audio has kindly offered to lend to us.

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate to a regular fellow contributor on the forum I frequent the most by the name of Ian that different DACs can indeed have a significant effect on your listening enjoyment.

Great to see you moved to PC based Audio
Plenty of cheap streamers out their I would recommend reading the thread about Raspberry Pi
The DAC bake off looks good I be interested to hear the write up

It depends how well you want it done Steve
Raspberry Pi sounds like a great way to get good sounds without to much outlay. But taking it further requires a lot of consideration
Stay away from Jplay Its doing something strange to the sound
A lot of your options will depend on what you want
Its a exciting area and still developing I am hoping to hear a very special PC transport next weekend that is supposed to be very special

John Westlake seems as sceptical regarding PC-based solutions as I am but I've heard good reports about this

www.cocktailaudio.co.uk/x30.shtml

Or this beast

www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/aurender-s10-pound;4995/9889

Mark from Item Audio brought these round in January this year


Wyred4Sound DAC £2200
Aurender streamer £5000.

The Wyred4Sound had more bass heft than the Lakewest MDAC but slightly lacked its midrange texture and subtlety.

The Aurender was slightly better than the CD trandsport but at 5K it bloody should be!

I think the computer for music is very sensitive to power and also needs to be as lean as you can make it around other protocols and would shy away from all in one solutions because of this
I am sure Mark from Item Audio would have some interesting thoughts on computer audio design