The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

Dirac Live now available for N130 & N131.
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BluOS 4.8.22. Released April 15, 2025
• Dirac Live Ready support for the Bluesound NODE (Gen 3) & NODE X
• This release applies to the Bluesound NODE (Gen 3) & NODE X only
 
Jbraswell said:
I decided to drop in the 4580D tonight since I had some spare time.
Seems these are a tad bit less cold sounding and more to the natural, musical tone.
Definitely a plus which is probably why they included them in the early bird special buy-in.

Decided to test against some LPs.
Recent Eastern Sounds OJC cut at KGs place by Matt L.
Craft puts their remastered files out on Qobuz after each recut, which is really awesome of them.


I gotta say this DAC is crazy good stacked up to a Technics G and a very expensive AT $$$$ cart.
The vinyl still leads but the same mastering A/B listening at 65dB, the FOSI is really strong.
I'm impressed. This little DAC for $100 is blowing me away.
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I’ve said it before but have been very impressed with Fosi’s stuff I’ve heard especially for the price point. I love my little monoblocks
 
Jbraswell said:
My third trial on Roon (running out of emails and credit cards to load to game the system) and I discovered this display trick.
It displays each track on my Google TV with really cool artists/album photos, the dynamics of the music and track play status.

I may be bought in finally.

I also think the sound is slightly better going through Roon vs the Bluesound interface. Roon must be applying their own sound signature. It seems a little more rich and the tonality is better plus the bit up sampling stuff is nice.

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I found the sound improvement to be noteworthy when using Roon vs the delivered Qobuz app on my EverSolo DMP-A8.
 
Jbraswell said:
My third trial on Roon (running out of emails and credit cards to load to game the system) and I discovered this display trick.
It displays each track on my Google TV with really cool artists/album photos, the dynamics of the music and track play status.

I may be bought in finally.

I also think the sound is slightly better going through Roon vs the Bluesound interface. Roon must be applying their own sound signature. It seems a little more rich and the tonality is better plus the bit up sampling stuff is nice.

View attachment 232048
Click to expand...
I love Roon. Use it every day. I got the lifetime sub a few years ago before the price hike.
 
mindhead1 said:
I found the sound improvement to be noteworthy when using Roon vs the delivered Qobuz app on my EverSolo DMP-A8.
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MikeH said:
I love Roon. Use it every day. I got the lifetime sub a few years ago before the price hike.
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Ok interesting. I have the up sampling on 2x. What settings do you find to work best?

What was the lifetime sub price previously?
 

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Jbraswell said:
Ok interesting. I have the up sampling on 2x. What settings do you find to work best?

What was the lifetime sub price previously?
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I think the lifetime price was in the $500 USD range before, but don’t quote me.

As far as settings, I leave it stock. No upsampling. I let Roon handle any needed adjustments depending on the device I’m streaming to.

I do use the Crossfade and EQ settings when listening to headphones.
 
mindhead1 said:
I think the lifetime price was in the $500 USD range before, but don’t quote me.

As far as settings, I leave it stock. No upsampling. I let Roon handle any needed adjustments depending on the device I’m streaming to.

I do use the Crossfade and EQ settings when listening to headphones.
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Same here. No upsampling. And yes I think I paid $500 lifetime
 
Jbraswell said:
Ok interesting. I have the up sampling on 2x. What settings do you find to work best?

What was the lifetime sub price previously?
Click to expand...
Yeah, roon sounds better than Qobuz through BluOS on my Nad and I am using stock settings (I have played with the headphone eq a few times but haven’t found anything I thought made the senns sound better and the B&W sound just fine no matter what I send at them, I think the dac in them may be the best I have?). If you look at the signal path it will tell you if there is an enhanced signal because of proprietary whatever and that is when the magic happens.
 
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Nee Lewman said:
Yeah, roon sounds better than Qobuz through BluOS on my Nad and I am using stock settings (I have played with the headphone eq a few times but haven’t found anything I thought made the senns sound better and the B&W sound just fine no matter what I send at them, I think the dac in them may be the best I have?). If you look at the signal path it will tell you if there is an enhanced signal because of proprietary whatever and that is when the magic happens.
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There are so many settings in Roon it gets overwhelming at times.
I like to max out the up sampling but haven't ventured into the EQ rabbit hole yet.
Those are deep holes with room correction and a list of other settings/filters...
 
Jbraswell said:
There are so many settings in Roon it gets overwhelming at times.
I like to max out the up sampling but haven't ventured into the EQ rabbit hole yet.
Those are deep holes with room correction and a list of other settings/filters...
Click to expand...
I’ve been happy with the NAD curve of DIRAC and have never bothered to play with settings in DIRAC or Roon.
 
Jbraswell said:
Well it's only credited KG with 2 albums, in comparison.

Blame Mike.
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well BG mastered many original releases of stuff which is probably what Roon is picking up on. KG wasn’t the original mastering engineer on nearly as much as BG is. You’d probably have a similar result with someone like Bob Ludwig.
 
MikeH said:
well BG mastered many original releases of stuff which is probably what Roon is picking up on. KG wasn’t the original mastering engineer on nearly as much as BG is. You’d probably have a similar result with someone like Bob Ludwig.
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I haven't tried that. But no BG is just credited more. 1995 titles...
But the BG (2021) Buena Vista is the bomb. Everyone should get some of that one.

I'll see what kind of sort I can work with RL.
 
Jbraswell said:
I haven't tried that. But no BG is just credited more. 1995 titles...
But the BG (2021) Buena Vista is the bomb. Everyone should get some of that one.

I'll see what kind of sort I can work with RL.
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I mean BVS was originally mastered by Bernie. It just lists him as mastering, but to your point Bernie is not on the credits of the 50th anniversary Dark Side on Qobuz but is credited for Matering and the remaster on Roon.
 
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It’s spotty at best. Waltz for Debbie says it is the 2010 version but shows mastering details for the 1999 master.

It is still a cool thing to be able to drill down to those credits though.
 
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