Equipment Recommendations - The Home For New System and Upgrade Advice

Rowan said:
Is the only way to go. Then dive headfirst down the Roon rabbit hole and never have to deal with a cd case snapping in your hands as you open it ever again.

Free 21 day trial of dB poweramp, rip all to an external hard drive, build a nuc, add a roon sub and get a bluesound node. Job done for probably what you'd pay for a decent cd.
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OK started digging into YouTube videos (thank you John Darko for the three-part NAS/DAC/Streaming dummies guide) - and this makes a lot of sense if I can also access streaming services too.

So I should look at:
- Build an Intel Nuc - aside from storage what build specs do I need here? Looking like $A1000
- Bluesound node - $A949 down here
- Roon subscription - approx $A13 a month

I mean I can buy a Cambridge CXN for that... and I will still need a storage unit and a CD player LOL

displayname said:
ou don't NEED any of those things. You WANT those things.
You might feel less anxious if you remember all of this is just for fun and none of it is necessary.
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Oh no anxiety here - I don't NEED a thing! I enjoy the research. At the end of the day I could go out and buy a shitty CD player tomorrow and have my music playing...
 
AngryVal said:
OK started digging into YouTube videos (thank you John Darko for the three-part NAS/DAC/Streaming dummies guide) - and this makes a lot of sense if I can also access streaming services too.

So I should look at:
- Build an Intel Nuc - aside from storage what build specs do I need here? Looking like $A1000
- Bluesound node - $A949 down here
- Roon subscription - approx $A13 a month

I mean I can buy a Cambridge CXN for that... and I will still need a storage unit and a CD player LOL



Oh no anxiety here - I don't NEED a thing! I enjoy the research. At the end of the day I could go out and buy a shitty CD player tomorrow and have my music playing...
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I only have about 700 cds so just went for the i3 nuc. Its great. UK prices but cost me £350 for the nuc as and hdd I've got my music on a western digital 1gb passport and am getting qobuz and tidal through roon.

The boring part is ripping cds. I needed to do the lot in 21 days so I didn't have to pay for dB power amp.

I'm not using a bluesound myself. I've got the teac 505 but the node is supposed to be a fab dac/ streamer combo.
 
Rowan said:
I only have about 700 cds so just went for the i3 nuc. Its great. UK prices but cost me £350 for the nuc as and hdd I've got my music on a western digital 1gb passport and am getting qobuz and tidal through roon.

The boring part is ripping cds. I needed to do the lot in 21 days so I didn't have to pay for dB power amp.

I'm not using a bluesound myself. I've got the teac 505 but the node is supposed to be a fab dac/ streamer combo.
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I also highly recommend the streaming route. And I believe dbPoweramp is only $40 or less so you don’t have to do it all in 21 days haha.

I have a streamer (auralic aries mini) and use my computer as the Roon core for now as my computer is always on for work+ Dropbox sync. I’ll eventually switch over to a NUC. Then I bought an external CD drive for my computer and rip CDs with XLD. I have Qobuz as my main streaming Subscription service as well. It’s such a flexible and nice setup. I don’t own a ton of CDs so buying a CD player didn’t make sense for me, plus figuring out storage for when I inevitably bought tons of CDs was giving me the sweats haha. Between Qobuz, my ripped CDs and downloading music/vinyl CD codes/bandcamp high res downloads from vinyl purchases, I have access to just about everything I can imagine.
 
MikeH said:
I also highly recommend the streaming route. And I believe dbPoweramp is only $40 or less so you don’t have to do it all in 21 days haha.

I have a streamer (auralic aries mini) and use my computer as the Roon core for now as my computer is always on for work+ Dropbox sync. I’ll eventually switch over to a NUC. Then I bought an external CD drive for my computer and rip CDs with XLD. I have Qobuz as my main streaming Subscription service as well. It’s such a flexible and nice setup. I don’t own a ton of CDs so buying a CD player didn’t make sense for me, plus figuring out storage for when I inevitably bought tons of CDs was giving me the sweats haha. Between Qobuz, my ripped CDs and downloading music/vinyl CD codes/bandcamp high res downloads from vinyl purchases, I have access to just about everything I can imagine.
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Haha. Good point. But I reckon the 21 days focused the mind. If I'd had infinite time I'd probably still be working through them now.

The whole process made me realise that id spent some serious money on some seriously shit music in the 90s though. A grim walk down memory lane at times
 
Kris said:
This is a real fear haha. I half heartedly maintain a FLAC server but haven’t committed lol.
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My records have already overtaken the space I had allotted for them hah. I do buy some CDs here and there now but I end up ripping them and then selling/donating them to my local record store. The FLAC solution works so well for me especially since sometimes I’m lazy and want to just sit on my couch and choose what I want to listen to on my system via my phone
 
Rowan said:
Haha. Good point. But I reckon the 21 days focused the mind. If I'd had infinite time I'd probably still be working through them now.

The whole process made me realise that id spent some serious money on some seriously shit music in the 90s though. A grim walk down memory lane at times
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I got all my Columbia House CDs last time I was home and realized the same as you haha
 
Folks! I need some help for a friend's system. You were so very helpful in putting together what I feel is the N & G signature starter system, Elac B2s with the Onkyo amp and a Fluance. Now... he wants a sub. But he's on a budget, I'd say keep it under $500. And this is $500 CAD. I'm thinking that might be SLIGHTLY too low a price to make it worthwhile for a musical sounding sub. The Elac or Klipsch or SVS are all about $700 here... Any thoughts? Tell him to wait and spend at least $700 CAD to get something of that caliber? Any gems at a lower price?
 
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Mather said:
Folks! I need some help for a friend's system. You were so very helpful in putting together what I feel is the N & G signature starter system, Elac B2s with the Onkyo amp and a Fluance. Now... he wants a sub. But he's on a budget, I'd say keep it under $500. And this is $500 CAD. I'm thinking that might be SLIGHTLY too low a price to make it worthwhile for a musical sounding sub. The Elac or Klipsch or SVS are all about $700 here... Any thoughts? Tell him to wait and spend at least $700 CAD to get something of that caliber? Any gems at a lower price?
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Klipsch has a couple subs on sale for 50% off right now: Christmas in July | Klipsch

Dunno if this is in effect for Canada as well.

Amazon also reflected these prices.
 
Does anyone have any experience with Neat Iota Alpha speakers? I fancy smaller floor standers, and they seem to be the only ones out there.
 
debianlinux said:
Elac does 50% off for Black Friday. Maybe that doesn’t work up there but it is worth the wait down here.
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I'm not actually sure if they do that here, but generally I find those discounts don't cross the border unfortunately. But I'll keep my eyes open.
 
Thackeraye said:
Does anyone have any experience with Neat Iota Alpha speakers? I fancy smaller floor standers, and they seem to be the only ones out there.
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They are meant to be very good.

Is it vertical or width footprint that matters? There are lots of small floorstanders around, and if you have standmounts then the footprint is much the same anyway.
 
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