The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.
- Thread starter Ed Selley
- Start date
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Yea. It doesn't make me not spin or appreciate my records. But I have music on probably 70% of the day and having the high res setup is nice for a lot of things.
And with older stuff, it can be kinda fun to track down certain CDs/rips with certain mastering, etc if you ever get into the download library aspect of it. And as @Joe Mac said--it's great to sample stuff or listen to albums that you might not need/want to buy the vinyl of.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Yeah it’s also nice if you’ve to work from home in an office or room away from the vinyl for just background to working listening.
As it is I’ve no office so have been on the dining table and have been spinning vinyl like a maniac and burning though the tubes in my amp
jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
There is as much discussion out there on different mastering versions of cds as with vinyl. Welcome to your new obsession!!
Mather
Unknown Member
Yeah I was stoked to see they have a "high quality" MQA Soul Station on there. But it's not nearly as good as the recent vinyl pressing, just can't find a good copy of it on vinyl. But nice to have a pretty good version on digital.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Now that we're in a proper house, I have an actual office set up with a turntable + high res Roon set up so it's awesome to use it during the day. With my work, I'm hardly ever on calls or anything so I have music on all the time! Definitely getting my money's worth with Roon + Qobuz.Yeah it’s also nice if you’ve to work from home in an office or room away from the vinyl for just background to working listening.
As it is I’ve no office so have been on the dining table and have been spinning vinyl like a maniac and burning though the tubes in my amp
jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
A lot of the Blue Note titles are from the RVG remasters, which I find uniformly to bright for my taste.
displayname
Well-Known Member
"Qobuz, Tidal... less than 10% of their library is encoded in HiRes Audio."
To me, this is the biggest thing that is regularly overlooked in the HiRes world. A streaming company can up sample recording to DSD, FLAC, MQA, any bit rate you want. But if the recording wasn't created in those higher resolution formats, it doesn't mean much. And the fact of the matter is that most music wasn't recorded above CD.
Now that music that's out there that truly is above CD - well worth it. But this is just a good reminder to look beyond the marketing materials and into your use cases. It makes things a LOT less stress full and overwhelming.
On the digital side I'm also much more concerned about the actual implementation of the chip and output stage than any of the specs. As long as the specs can receive my file types that I actually use (CD or streaming), that's the end of the feature list that I personally need to see.
Tidal/Spotify Connect apps are the gold standard of playback in my opinion. And I still think Spotify's is better in that regard.
As soon as Spotify finally releases their hifi version
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Yeah im not because I’ve the turntable on the whole time and it’s only if I want to trial something. I actually used to get so much more use out of it when I was commuting and using Qobuz on top of that. Honestly next year I might end up dipping from Roon and Qobuz and going with just Tidal for connect and on the go unless I start using it much more again.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Maybe two different versions (like say Beatles stereo and 50ths)? Or maybe they’ve different sample rates? Or probably just to mess with your head
jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
Check to see if one is an expanded version. I don't remember seeing that but sometimes it was a bugger to wade through a sea of different versions of the same album.
edit: and what @Joe Mac said, different masters to mess with you
Mather
Unknown Member
Yeah it appears there are "blue dot" MQAs and Green Dot MQAs. The MQA 'Studio' (blue light) gives confirmation directly from mastering engineers, producers or artists to their listeners. ... A second level, 'MQA' (green light) is available to indicate that although the stream is genuine, provenance may be uncertain or that it is not yet the final release.
WTF I'm returning this.
jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
Mather
Unknown Member
JUST TELL ME WHICH ONE SOUNDS THE BEST YOU STUPID TECHNOLOGY I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO THINK WHY DO YOU THINK I BOUGHT YOU
NIGHTMather is going to be very displeased with this. No chance I don't wake up tomorrow to a lot of angry messages scrawled in toothpaste on my mirrors.
NIGHTMather is going to be very displeased with this. No chance I don't wake up tomorrow to a lot of angry messages scrawled in toothpaste on my mirrors.
JohnnyCashFan
Well-Known Member
Most of my RVG Cd's (just about all of them) ripped to flac sound fine (as do any McMasters). Maybe it's the streaming algorithm or your streamer/dac ?
jamieanderson1968
ninniest jackaninny
No its Rudy's remastering. I have a few of the cds and find them bright. Not terrible by any stretch but I find it gets fatiguing with headphones.
JohnnyCashFan
Well-Known Member
Just when I feel I escape this shit from other boards lol. I been listening to Rudy since the 60's, the remastering was all approved by Japan. I still have petty good hearing as compared to other things. lol But different strokes for different folks. I guess.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
I seem to remember the McMaster CDs sounding good! Don't know that I have any of the RVG CD remaster rips.
displayname
Well-Known Member
This one thing Tidal, and really most streaming services, are really bad about. When there is only one version of something, but that album has had like 20 remasters over the years, it's hard to tell which version they are streaming if it's not an expanded or anniversary edition.
Hopefully Spotify just makes everything max file format and calls it a day. I don't need all these questions haunting my mind during music time.