What’s your Hi-Fi set up? spec and pictures please

[gizlaroc]

I do often think people try to hard to hear a difference.

Of course they sound similar, they are the same track.
The differences are usually a smoother sound and a better soundstage, both in depth and in width.

Having said that, it is often some of the early 80s stuff that is most obvious, recordings that can already sound a little harsh anyway can be pushed into the realms of "ooh, got to turn that down a bit." when it is MP3.

The difference can be small, but it can make all the difference.

I'm not sure about the hi res stuff or MQA, sure they have been a few times where it has been really impressive, but is that because it is HiRes or MQA or because it has been mastered really well?

When I ran the Harbeths the difference was very obvious between playing the MP3 stream and Lossless stream. Problem was, they really did show up a poor recording, to the point where I was not listening to some stuff because they showed it up, which is a bit silly.

Give me a Spendor or Meridian speaker or something smooth that I can listen to anything all day to any time.

[loughran]

I'm interested in the idea that bluetooth compresses the higher bit rate that some services offer.

I have an Apple Airport express connected to a pair of Arcam amps that drive a pair of World Audio KLS3 speakers. I use Spotify on my phone (or laptop) which links to the Apple Airport Express by Bluetooth.

Is this Bluetooth link throttling a higher bit rate ? Would a cable connection from my laptop offer a better quality sound ? I've been using an Airport Express since they came out, it's very convenient and works well so I've never investigated any other way of supplying my amps with digital music.

Is there a better way ?

[Crackie]

Tony1963 said:

Crikey.

I can very easily tell the difference between Tidal masters and standard. It’s easy. Flat and lifeless compared to a full sound, dynamics, separation. If you can’t tell the difference between those two, there’s something wrong with your system. At the very least. Spotify is just horrible.

That’s using a cheap streaming set up that cost nearly nothing into an olive Naim system.

That's not the point being made Tony. The listeners I was referring to were professional recording engineers, students studying to be recording engineers and various audiophiles; under reasonably well controlled conditions which were verified and published by the AES ( Audio Engineering Society ), this group of experienced and professional listeners could identify when a 16/44.1 loop is inserted into a hi res playback chain..........and this was despite the additional conversion processes involved in conducting the tests. The tests were carried over the period of a year, using multiple different systems ranging from competent to high end.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=57406.0

MQA is a different case altogether.

Edited by Crackie on Tuesday 21st January 07:50

[Tony1963]

Crackie said:

That's not the point being made Tony. The listeners I was referring to were professional recording engineers, students studying to be recording engineers and various audiophiles; under reasonably well controlled conditions which were verified and published by the AES ( Audio Engineering Society ), the group experienced and professional listeners cannot identify when a 16/44.1 buffer / loop is inserted into a his res playback chain.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=57406.0

And, almost always, I’d probably agree. A well recorded CD is something very special indeed. To improve on it must be quite a challenge. And then without realising it, on another day you listen to a hi-res version of a lower-than-CD quality recording. Or a ‘Re-Mastered’ recording (are ANY of them any good at all?).

It’s not an easy world to navigate. I usually buy used CDs that score well here:

http://dr.loudness-war.info/

It’s a good start.

[gizlaroc]

loughran said:

I'm interested in the idea that bluetooth compresses the higher bit rate that some services offer.

I have an Apple Airport express connected to a pair of Arcam amps that drive a pair of World Audio KLS3 speakers. I use Spotify on my phone (or laptop) which links to the Apple Airport Express by Bluetooth.

Is this Bluetooth link throttling a higher bit rate ? Would a cable connection from my laptop offer a better quality sound ? I've been using an Airport Express since they came out, it's very convenient and works well so I've never investigated any other way of supplying my amps with digital music.

Is there a better way ?

Is it bluetooth?

Airport express is Airplay, wifi.

[legzr1]

The more I listen to ‘hi-res’ from Tidal, Qobuz and the odd download in 24/192 or DSD I have on my NAS the more I realise, to me at least, it really isn’t worth the bother.

MQA especially smacks of a gimmick, a money maker where equipment needs to be licenced and the slightly strange notion of compressing hi-res files when Qobuz can supply 24/192 FLAC files reliably without compression.

Almost without exception, I’m finding albums that sound great in MQA or Qobuz hi-res also sound great at 16/44.1. Mastering/production values > ever increasing ‘resolution’ is my experience.

It’s a funny old world though - I recently read a posting on a hifi forum from someone who agrees there is no need for anything over RedBook CDa.......then goes on to say he call tell the difference between rips made from CD in FLAC and WAV, preferring the latter!

[justin220]

Some interesting opinions chaps, thanks.

I'll get a few CDs, compare to Spotify to see if my ears hear a difference, and then try a trial of Tidal to see if I can justify the cost.

[dvshannow]

I’ve long thought money in hifi is best spent on amplification and in particular the transducers - speakers or headphones in the digital age.

Even different CD players do not sound that different compared with how different different loudspeakers can be

This is more true than ever now when you can stream high res tidal - the source becomes less of a factor.

In the days of cassette and vinyl things were very different I agree with the source being a large bottleneck.

Right now I have a chord mojo and a dac v1 and happy enough with them both when fed with the right streaming service.

Like others I struggle to hear the benefits beyond 44.1 - many of the recordings available in MQA were well produced to begin with and if you do listen to them in 44.1 they still sound good.

However if I switch my earbuds from the e846 to the 315s the difference is night and day.

[loughran]

gizlaroc said:

loughran said:

I'm interested in the idea that bluetooth compresses the higher bit rate that some services offer.

I have an Apple Airport express connected to a pair of Arcam amps that drive a pair of World Audio KLS3 speakers. I use Spotify on my phone (or laptop) which links to the Apple Airport Express by Bluetooth.

Is this Bluetooth link throttling a higher bit rate ? Would a cable connection from my laptop offer a better quality sound ? I've been using an Airport Express since they came out, it's very convenient and works well so I've never investigated any other way of supplying my amps with digital music.

Is there a better way ?

Is it bluetooth?

Airport express is Airplay, wifi.

Yes it is ! I was having a senior moment.

Thankyou.

[Crackie]

Tony1963 said:

Crackie said:

That's not the point being made Tony. The listeners I was referring to were professional recording engineers, students studying to be recording engineers and various audiophiles; under reasonably well controlled conditions which were verified and published by the AES ( Audio Engineering Society ), the group experienced and professional listeners cannot identify when a 16/44.1 buffer / loop is inserted into a his res playback chain.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=57406.0

And, almost always, I’d probably agree. A well recorded CD is something very special indeed. To improve on it must be quite a challenge. And then without realising it, on another day you listen to a hi-res version of a lower-than-CD quality recording. Or a ‘Re-Mastered’ recording (are ANY of them any good at all?).

It’s not an easy world to navigate. I usually buy used CDs that score well here:

http://dr.loudness-war.info/

It’s a good start.

I've used loudness war a few times but out of curiosity rather than to choose what to buy. If something sounds good on the system it usually scores well on loudness wars. A few spring to mind David Chesky's recordings are incredible and Michael Hedges stuff is special too. Watch your bass drivers if listening to Chesky recordings loud though he doesn't appear to roll off or filter the LF at all.

[karma mechanic]

I've often seen comments about Spotify sounding poor, but I've never actually found that myself. 320kbps Ogg-Vorbis sounds pretty good to me, I can sit and listen to stuff without thinking there's anything missing or odd. Tidal is often noted as being louder, and that can make a huge difference to the perceived quality.

Both Spotify Connect and FLAC material from the NAS go through the same lengthily-named ESS SABRE PRO ES9026PRO Ultra DAC into the speakers, which are configured with a lot of attention to driver delays and phase to get the best spatial imaging. The DAC is set to Ultra Low Jitter and a short latency type of filter.

Are there differences? Bound to be, but I haven't noticed them.

[ben5575]

Is your DAC Spotify enabled then?

As opposed to beaming Spotify from your phone. Just trying to figure out how it works (genuine numpty question).

[karma mechanic]

ben5575 said:

Is your DAC Spotify enabled then?

As opposed to beaming Spotify from your phone. Just trying to figure out how it works (genuine numpty question).

No, that's the DAC that's in the amp, so it handles the digital inputs, the amp {Yamaha A3080} has Spotify Connect. I mention the DAC only to pre-empt those who might say that with a decent DAC the differences would be obvious.

There's always a compromise between quality, cost and convenience, for me Spotify Connect through a decent AV amp into the system I've got is that compromise.

[TameRacingDriver]

Tony1963 said:

Crikey.

I can very easily tell the difference between Tidal masters and standard. It’s easy. Flat and lifeless compared to a full sound, dynamics, separation. If you can’t tell the difference between those two, there’s something wrong with your system. At the very least. Spotify is just horrible.

That’s using a cheap streaming set up that cost nearly nothing into an olive Naim system.

Try some online tests. There's really not as much difference as you think. Barely any in fact. And there's nothing wrong with my system either, or my ears.

Tidal masters are probably already mastered higher quality. If you then downsample that into a high quality lossy codec, it'll sound virtually the same. Deliberately using a lower quality recording to do their MP3s is a great way to trick people into believing the hype. I've tried it on other people and on myself. Audiophiles are too arrogant to admit they're wrong.

loughran said:

I'm interested in the idea that bluetooth compresses the higher bit rate that some services offer.

I have an Apple Airport express connected to a pair of Arcam amps that drive a pair of World Audio KLS3 speakers. I use Spotify on my phone (or laptop) which links to the Apple Airport Express by Bluetooth.

Is this Bluetooth link throttling a higher bit rate ? Would a cable connection from my laptop offer a better quality sound ? I've been using an Airport Express since they came out, it's very convenient and works well so I've never investigated any other way of supplying my amps with digital music.

Is there a better way ?

1. Yes
2. It depends on the quality of the output of the laptop, but in all honesty, it probably wouldn't improve the sound. If you used an outboard DAC then yes it will improve it.

Edited by TameRacingDriver on Tuesday 21st January 18:35

[Oilchange]

I have a modest setup, an old Technics amp SU800 with a bluetooth thingy connected so I can stream music from my ipad or phone. Now I had some old Tannoys but they clearly sounded exhausted and hopeless so decided to upgrade to some nice new Cambridge Audio Minx XL bookends plus a X201 Subwoofer. All have super ratings and while I have connected the mini bookends and the sound is ---incredible!--- I am at a loss with the Sub.
Here's the pic


Well, I bought some --not cheap-- Cambridge Audio banana plugs, connected them to the cables only to find that the Cambridge Audio Sub plug holes were too small, or the bananas were too big. WTF?
Crimped them down after much frustration only to fine there's an enormous HUMMMMMMM... unplugged with worry again.

I am connecting via a 2 channel AMP, no Sub outlet.
What am I doing wrong?

[gizlaroc]

That sub only has line level input on it, you can't hook up from the speaker outputs.

Has you amp get 'pre outs' on it?

[Tony1963]

Sounds like you’ve tried to feed the speaker signal into the line level RCA ‘signal in’ connectors on the sub. Oops.

Edited by Tony1963 on Tuesday 21st January 22:24

[gizlaroc]

Looking at your amp it has no pre out.

You need a sub that will take a line level input if you want to keep that amp.

Richer sounds have the Rel T-Zero sub which has speaker level.
This will be in another class sound wise too.

https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/subwoofers/rel-...


Black...

https://www.richersounds.com/hi-fi/subwoofers/rel-...

[gizlaroc]

I wouldn't mention that you have ramned banana plugs into RCA sockets if I were you, just say your amp has no pre outs, so you need to swap for the Rel.

You might have fried it btw.

[Oilchange]

Zoiks!
May have been an expensive mistake.
I blame jetlag. And a bit of daftness.