The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

Thackeraye said:
I also have a lot of Mogwai boots!
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Are there say discogs tags for some of these Bootlegs, you can try to get some tags for those through mp3tag directly from discogs, that is if it's available, I found that super easy when I was managing my library
 
Also, the bootlegs that are on Discogs are typically physical releases, so it is rare to find a listing for a digital only live recording. I found that once I set up my Roon metadata structure for bootlegs it worked really well and was simple to input info since you can edit several releases at one time.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Also, the bootlegs that are on Discogs are typically physical releases, so it is rare to find a listing for a digital only live recording. I found that once I set up my Roon metadata structure for bootlegs it worked really well and was simple to input info since you can edit several releases at one time.
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Yeah, I’m all downloaded ones, so there aren’t likely to be any listings. Good thing most
Of them come with text files!

Actually, your earlier posts reminded me that Mogwai stuff was on Archive.org. Saw a few gigs I had been to were on there, so I’ll have to do a bit of downloading...
 
the only reasons i am thinking of audirvana's 96 dollar price tag is that i am horrible at customizing foobar (so its just the boring white columns since i dunno how to make a pretty interface a la audirvana's tiles or something else) and one less app to use to search through many things instead of being nervous about working with both native tidal and foobar
 
Thackeraye said:


Now tempted to buy a big touchscreen TV!
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LOL - I watched that video the other day as well - great idea eh?

MikeH said:
I believe you can use a NAS but to use Roon, you need to set up something as a Roon core that’s always powered on and running Roon software. So if your Mac laptop is always on you could theoretically use that.

Roon is all about the software, organization and presentation. It connects your streaming account on tidal or Qobuz with your downloaded library to make one seamless library. I have the Aries Mini which has its own software and didn’t use Roon for awhile but the software is shit. Not sure about the CXN
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Thanks for this - was chatting with the guys who sold me the CXN and they recommended I get a NAS for my ripped CDs as it will show up on the Stream Connect app. We don't have Qobuz in Australia and I agree that Roon is probably overkill - we have a single hi-fi system and a Sonos 5 at the other end of the house.

displayname said:
So right now Spotify has Spotify Connect on basically all devices. It allows you to bypass the CXNs Stream Magic software and just use the Spotify app. You just select which device you want to play on. Tidal has made the exact same function, and it actually currently works to the CXN via Chromecast. But they have already announced that Cambridge is one of the early companies getting Tidal Connect, so in theory, we should have the CXN showing up on the Tidal app. No need for Roon or Stream Magic apps. I've heard rumors of a Jan release for Tidal, but no hard dates yet.


CXN has it's own software too, and it's fine. Not terrible, not great.
From what I've heard, Roon is still hard to beat if you have a large volume of files. But I think if you're just streaming via services like Tidal and Qobuz, it's a pretty hard price to justify.
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Agree on the CXN software. To use one of my favourite sayings from @whatwhatsaywhat - "It's ... fine."

Is there any audio benefit in accessing Tidal via the Cambridge app vs using Chromecast until Tidal connect is activated?
 
AngryVal said:
Is there any audio benefit in accessing Tidal via the Cambridge app vs using Chromecast until Tidal connect is activated?
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Chromecast playback is not gapless.
For playlist, using Tidal Connect has been flawless functionally, but the gapless playback is critical for a lot of albums.
 
displayname said:
Chromecast playback is not gapless.
For playlist, using Tidal Connect has been flawless functionally, but the gapless playback is critical for a lot of albums.
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Yeah no gapless is a deal breaker for me... but seems Cambridge Audio know their customers and are trying to do the right thing. Respect!
 
AngryVal said:
LOL - I watched that video the other day as well - great idea eh?


Thanks for this - was chatting with the guys who sold me the CXN and they recommended I get a NAS for my ripped CDs as it will show up on the Stream Connect app. We don't have Qobuz in Australia and I agree that Roon is probably overkill - we have a single hi-fi system and a Sonos 5 at the other end of the house.



Agree on the CXN software. To use one of my favourite sayings from @whatwhatsaywhat - "It's ... fine."

Is there any audio benefit in accessing Tidal via the Cambridge app vs using Chromecast until Tidal connect is activated?
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No Qobuz in Oz? That makes my future Tidal vs Qobuz decision a whole lot easier...
 
thinking about whether to go with the ifi hipdac or the dragonfly red (the cobalt is too expensive at 300 even though i wouldn't have to buy the jitterbug i was already planning on buying). the ifi hipdac has more features (that filter that upscaled everything, DSD support, a battery so it might be able to power slightly more demanding headphones, bass boost), but i dont need all of them (i dont use DSD, the headphones i have are unbalanced only). the dragonfly seems to fit my needs in the fact that its a very very VERY portable device i can just plug into my laptop and forget about afterwards and get a pretty good sound from, the most i really need is 96Khz because i dont have any 192khz albums and MQA seems essential for me due to not only hearing it and sounding pretty good with UAPP, but also the fact that i would get more from my tidal subscription. but the slightly higher price for the dragonfly makes me a little more unsure (i'd be paying like 45 more dollars if i wanted the cobalt so i dont buy a jitterbug or a new USB C cable because i think my ifi one is breaking)


i've listened to both and they kinda both sound the same
 
So - based on all the excellent advice above I think I'm just going to get a NAS to plug into my router, which will be picked up by my Cambridge StreamMagic app (I we can also use it as backups for all our laptops etc).

As we are a 100% Mac household want something that plays nicely with Apple - can you guys recommend a value-for-money NAS, maybe a 2-bay one? I will use one drive for media and one for backups I'm guessing.

There are SO many NAS options on the market I want to make sure I invest int he right one...
 
AngryVal said:
So - based on all the excellent advice above I think I'm just going to get a NAS to plug into my router, which will be picked up by my Cambridge StreamMagic app (I we can also use it as backups for all our laptops etc).

As we are a 100% Mac household want something that plays nicely with Apple - can you guys recommend a value-for-money NAS, maybe a 2-bay one? I will use one drive for media and one for backups I'm guessing.

There are SO many NAS options on the market I want to make sure I invest int he right one...
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Not super familiar with specific NAS options but I’d strongly consider something with a RAID option (or storing everything on both a computer internal drive as well as the NAS). I’ve had too many external drives crash and lose a lot of music in the past.
 
MikeH said:
Not super familiar with specific NAS options but I’d strongly consider something with a RAID option (or storing everything on both a computer internal drive as well as the NAS). I’ve had too many external drives crash and lose a lot of music in the past.
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Excellent point - I definitely need this to be a strong backup for our laptops. We were recently burgled (idiot was still in the house, police called, we caught the guy) - thankfully he ignored my wife's laptop, which contains basically her entire work life. So we need some comfort!
 
AngryVal said:
Excellent point - I definitely need this to be a strong backup for our laptops. We were recently burgled (idiot was still in the house, police called, we caught the guy) - thankfully he ignored my wife's laptop, which contains basically her entire work life. So we need some comfort!
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Damn. Glad to hear you’re okay and the guy got caught.
 
MikeH said:
Damn. Glad to hear you’re okay and the guy got caught.
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Yeah - I was in Sydney (550 miles away) - scary part was it was the same dude that swiped my wallet from my (stupidly) unlocked car a few days earlier and came back for another bite of the cherry.

Wife, child & dog all came home after an hour out for school pickup/park play and my little dog went psycho at the front door. Wife sat in the car, called the cops and watched as he rolled around back onto our street with two bags full of (random, not that valuable) stuff. She guided the cops in. Turns out he had all our spare car keys (not to mention our passports) so he may have been trying to steal a car too.

Anyways - cops picked him up. And not a laptop/phone/stereo unit/LP etc was touched. Pretty good outcome all round to be honest...
 
AngryVal said:
scary part was it was the same dude that swiped my wallet from my (stupidly) unlocked car a few days earlier and came back for another bite of the cherry.
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looks like this person has a vendetta against you
AngryVal said:
Wife sat in the car, called the cops and watched as he rolled around back onto our street with two bags full of (random, not that valuable) stuff
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looks like this person is incompetent at stealing valuable stuff

AngryVal said:
Turns out he had all our spare car keys (not to mention our passports) so he may have been trying to steal a car too.
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looks like he could have been dangerous

this is weirdly confusing
 
That was a HIGHLY amusing response @duke86fan :ROFLMAO:

He was highly incompetent - Cops were handing stuff to my wife saying 'is this yours?' and most of the time the response was 'yeah, I guess so...'. Overlooked expensive DSLR equipment for an old cheap camera, took knock-off watches from my bedside table etc, but honestly not a lot of any real value. I am driving a brand new company car (BMW) where he stole my wallet from so clearly had an inflated sense of what he thought we owned!

However had I not taken my passport to Sydney he would have had ALL my ID which was pretty disconcerting...

Sorry - hijacking this thread!
 
AngryVal said:
Sorry - hijacking this thread!
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eh we didn't have much to talk about besides me trying to figure out whether to use the 200-300 dollar max budget to buy a dragonfly red+jitterbug/cobalt or an ifi hip-dac+jitterbug... the battery is the only thing making me unsure about the hip-dac and the cobalt being the cost of all the headphones i owned COMBINED makes it a no no for me so either i accept charging another battery or go with dragonfly red
 
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