The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

[AnthonyI]

I'll leave the actual setup to the Pi folks, but I did want to possibly help clarify some of the digital stuff (maybe I'll just make it worse, who knows).

So you know in the vinyl chain, in order, you have...
1 - the record
2 - the turntable
3 - the phonostage
4 - the amp

To make the digital chain a little less confusing, I'll compare it to the vinyl chain.
1 - the file (it can come from a computer, server, streaming service, USB, CD, SACD etc)
2 - The transport (this isn't like the turntable in any sense from an engineering standpoint, but it works for this analogy. This is how you get your files to a place where you can get them ready for actual audio. This can be a computer plugged into a DAC, a streamer, a CD player, etc. Many many many "transports" also have DACs built in, and just like turntables, those DACs are of varying quality.)
3 - the DAC (again, terrible engineering analogy, but run with me. The DAC is kind of like the phonostage because even if you have the best files and the best transport - aka best turntable and cart - they do nothing without a DAC -aka phono- to "process" the sound. You also have to consider your DAC for your file types. You certainly aren't there yet, but it's good to know.)
4 - the amp - this is where everything else is the same.

So back to your original statement about digital files on a PC vs Spotify. It all depends.
Spotify at it's best is 320k. Consider this a pressing from United. It gets the job done, usually it doesn't sound too bad, but you know that 9.9 times out of 10 that a MoFi pressing is going to be better.

Now files on your computer are going to be all over the place depending on where they come from. CD rips will be higher than 320k. But do you remember the Napster/LimeWire days? Most of that stuff was 320 AT BEST. A lot of those might have been 160k or lower. 160k is also the audio used by most video streaming services - FYI. But there's the thing, if you're downloading lossless or high res, they should be way better.
Lossless "starts" at 1411K, which is CD quality. Consider this a regular MoFi release. (again, terrible analogies if you're looking at it from engineering). But there are even higher res options, like PCM and DSD. Those are like MoFi Onestep, or actually more often considered equal to a reel to reel. (People will argue about that forever, stick with my analogies here as a concept).

So again, back to your original statement. If your computer has MP3s which are also 320, then Spotify will be basically the same, and a CD or lossless file will be better.
But if you start streaming Tidal which is 1411 and comparing it to MP3 on your computer, Tidal should be better.

So it all comes back to the source. You have to know what file types you're working with. But also, don't get too hung up on file type in my opinion. DSD kind of becomes it's own hobby like vinyl. And I've heard some tracks on Spotify sound great. That comes from having a good DAC with a good analog stage. To an extent, the DAC is like the cartridge and the phonostage. If you have a United Pressing on a nice turntable with a nice cart and nice phonostage, it will certainly sound better than an LP60 with a stock cart and built in phono. (this is what the Google home internal DAC could be compared to). And a MoFi one-step can be played via an LP60, and that would be like running a lossless file through the Google home using it's internal DAC. It might sound better than an MP3, but it won't ever sound as good as it could.

Was that helpful, or did I make it worse?

 

[AnthonyI]

I'll leave the actual setup to the Pi folks, but I did want to possibly help clarify some of the digital stuff (maybe I'll just make it worse, who knows).

So you know in the vinyl chain, in order, you have...
1 - the record
2 - the turntable
3 - the phonostage
4 - the amp

To make the digital chain a little less confusing, I'll compare it to the vinyl chain.
1 - the file (it can come from a computer, server, streaming service, USB, CD, SACD etc)
2 - The transport (this isn't like the turntable in any sense from an engineering standpoint, but it works for this analogy. This is how you get your files to a place where you can get them ready for actual audio. This can be a computer plugged into a DAC, a streamer, a CD player, etc. Many many many "transports" also have DACs built in, and just like turntables, those DACs are of varying quality.)
3 - the DAC (again, terrible engineering analogy, but run with me. The DAC is kind of like the phonostage because even if you have the best files and the best transport - aka best turntable and cart - they do nothing without a DAC -aka phono- to "process" the sound. You also have to consider your DAC for your file types. You certainly aren't there yet, but it's good to know.)
4 - the amp - this is where everything else is the same.

So back to your original statement about digital files on a PC vs Spotify. It all depends.
Spotify at it's best is 320k. Consider this a pressing from United. It gets the job done, usually it doesn't sound too bad, but you know that 9.9 times out of 10 that a MoFi pressing is going to be better.

Now files on your computer are going to be all over the place depending on where they come from. CD rips will be higher than 320k. But do you remember the Napster/LimeWire days? Most of that stuff was 320 AT BEST. A lot of those might have been 160k or lower. 160k is also the audio used by most video streaming services - FYI. But there's the thing, if you're downloading lossless or high res, they should be way better.
Lossless "starts" at 1411K, which is CD quality. Consider this a regular MoFi release. (again, terrible analogies if you're looking at it from engineering). But there are even higher res options, like PCM and DSD. Those are like MoFi Onestep, or actually more often considered equal to a reel to reel. (People will argue about that forever, stick with my analogies here as a concept).

So again, back to your original statement. If your computer has MP3s which are also 320, then Spotify will be basically the same, and a CD or lossless file will be better.
But if you start streaming Tidal which is 1411 and comparing it to MP3 on your computer, Tidal should be better.

So it all comes back to the source. You have to know what file types you're working with. But also, don't get too hung up on file type in my opinion. DSD kind of becomes it's own hobby like vinyl. And I've heard some tracks on Spotify sound great. That comes from having a good DAC with a good analog stage. To an extent, the DAC is like the cartridge and the phonostage. If you have a United Pressing on a nice turntable with a nice cart and nice phonostage, it will certainly sound better than an LP60 with a stock cart and built in phono. (this is what the Google home internal DAC could be compared to). And a MoFi one-step can be played via an LP60, and that would be like running a lossless file through the Google home using it's internal DAC. It might sound better than an MP3, but it won't ever sound as good as it could.

Was that helpful, or did I make it worse?

LOL, all kidding aside, here's what this boils down to source-wise. All the digital files I have are either CD rips or DL Codes (Grabbing FLAC Files if offered, so MP3's and FLAC), that's pretty much it. I have an extra external USB drive I can move all the files to if it makes life easier. I would prefer to get the best from the files, and for Spotify, it's not as critical because again, I'm using it 99% of time to just sample music I'm not familiar with or new albums I might want to purchase.

Sooooo, if I go with @Joe Mac 's recommendation of the HiFiBerry DAC+ bundle, would this be the gist of it for my files.........

• Connect the external USB to the HiFiBerry DAC+ via one of the USB ports
• Connect an Ethernet cable from home network to HiFi Berry DAC+ ethernet port
• Download Volumio as "Control Software/Player"
• Output via RCA's from HiFiBerry DAC+ to the amp

Spotify -

• Would like to use the Google mini as a voice control device (My thought here is to just be able to say "Hey Google, play XYZ", again since I'm just using this as a "Do I like the music" and not about the quality.
• How to connect a Chromecast to the HiFiBerry DAC+ (What input) to be able to add the Chromcast as a device to the mini.
• Output would be the RCA's as well.

I do appreciate the help and discussion, and for the life of me I don't know why this seems more than it is, I mean I understand what everything is and what it does, I think it's just the connection path from A to Z that's throwing me off a bit.

 

[Joe Mac]

You’re asking far too much of the poor little €45 hifiberry! You are effectively talking of two ecosystems, it’s one or the other, not both.

basically the hifiberry is a dac board that is designed just for the raspberry pi. It doesn’t have multiple inputs like a bit expensive standalone dac would have. It’s probably easier to think of it as the pi equivalent of what a pcie dac Card would be to a pc. It physically connects to the pi using its onboard i2s pins and the signal is passed through that to the hifiberry which does the conversion to analogue to allow the signal to pass through RCA to your amp.

it’s isn’t the computer the pi is so any hard drives/Ethernet etc connects to it, it does the processing, the hifiberry just reclocks the digital audio signal and then converts it to analogue.

Volumio is the software. You flash it onto a micro sd Card and put it into the pi and it works as your music player interface. Through it you can enable Spotify connect (which lets you play Spotify through it controlling it with your Spotify app on phone. It also supports airplay for sending music to it and native playing of files off mounted usb HD’s/NAS drives/network folders/usb keys.you can’t connect either google device to it.

If you want to use your mini/chromecast they are instead of the pi/hifiberry. You use the mini as a controller (to give your voice commands to) and the chromecast as your output connected to your hifi. With your set up you can either connect it direct using 3.5mm to rca or through a dac using toslink. So you have it figure in the cost of a DAC for your system too if you want to use optical.

if it was me I’d forgo the voice control and go for the better quality of the hifiberry (I’ve had both the chromecast and the hifiberry) but I can see why the convenience of the voice control appeals.

 

[MikeH]

For those of you with Qobuz....I have a very bizarre question. Has anybody ever had issues with songs playing back at the incorrect speed? For the past day on my desktop, Qobuz has been playing songs at a faster speed than they are meant to play at. I can't possibly figure out what is going on...I played the same tracks side by side in iTunes and Qobuz and Qobuz is playing them faster and at a higher pitch (almost sounds like 1.5x faster...). Is there some hidden keyboard command I pressed by accident to make the speed play differently? It's driving me crazy! Has happened on two different computers in the past week.

 

[Joe Mac]

For those of you with Qobuz....I have a very bizarre question. Has anybody ever had issues with songs playing back at the incorrect speed? For the past day on my desktop, Qobuz has been playing songs at a faster speed than they are meant to play at. I can't possibly figure out what is going on...I played the same tracks side by side in iTunes and Qobuz and Qobuz is playing them faster and at a higher pitch (almost sounds like 1.5x faster...). Is there some hidden keyboard command I pressed by accident to make the speed play differently? It's driving me crazy! Has happened on two different computers in the past week.

I only use it on iOS and through Roon so I just don’t know sorry!

 

[MikeH]

I only use it on iOS and through Roon so I just don’t know sorry!

It's super weird hah. I thought wait this song sounds a bit different...and then was second-guessing myself. I have no idea how it would even do that on a mac desktop because there are no controls to speed it up. Restarted and it was fine but weird! I mostly use iOS as well but use Qobuz at work too now.

 

[Joe Mac]

It's super weird hah. I thought wait this song sounds a bit different...and then was second-guessing myself. I have no idea how it would even do that on a mac desktop because there are no controls to speed it up. Restarted and it was fine but weird! I mostly use iOS as well but use Qobuz at work too now.

its something I do all the time with podcasts by accident because that command is randomly just there on the play screen! I never thought anyone would want or need that for music playback!

 

[MikeH]

its something I do all the time with podcasts by accident because that command is randomly just there on the play screen! I never thought anyone would want or need that for music playback!

My gf uses the 1.5x for audiobooks sometimes. But there is no button for it for music on Qobuz which is why I'm so confused haha. I did see Netflix might add a 1.5x speed option too for people who apparently can't binge content fast enough. That's where I draw the line haha

 

[AnthonyI]

You’re asking far too much of the poor little €45 hifiberry! You are effectively talking of two ecosystems, it’s one or the other, not both.

basically the hifiberry is a dac board that is designed just for the raspberry pi. It doesn’t have multiple inputs like a bit expensive standalone dac would have. It’s probably easier to think of it as the pi equivalent of what a pcie dac Card would be to a pc. It physically connects to the pi using its onboard i2s pins and the signal is passed through that to the hifiberry which does the conversion to analogue to allow the signal to pass through RCA to your amp.

it’s isn’t the computer the pi is so any hard drives/Ethernet etc connects to it, it does the processing, the hifiberry just reclocks the digital audio signal and then converts it to analogue.

Volumio is the software. You flash it onto a micro sd Card and put it into the pi and it works as your music player interface. Through it you can enable Spotify connect (which lets you play Spotify through it controlling it with your Spotify app on phone. It also supports airplay for sending music to it and native playing of files off mounted usb HD’s/NAS drives/network folders/usb keys.you can’t connect either google device to it.

If you want to use your mini/chromecast they are instead of the pi/hifiberry. You use the mini as a controller (to give your voice commands to) and the chromecast as your output connected to your hifi. With your set up you can either connect it direct using 3.5mm to rca or through a dac using toslink. So you have it figure in the cost of a DAC for your system too if you want to use optical.

if it was me I’d forgo the voice control and go for the better quality of the hifiberry (I’ve had both the chromecast and the hifiberry) but I can see why the convenience of the voice control appeals.

I think we should keep saving for speakers, lol. Seriously though, this makes it much clearer. I just need to pick my poison and go from there.

 

[Kris]

You can use the google for voice control if you get the Hifiberry DAC + ADC. I see they have a Pro version now too. I might try it this weekend. Volumio now supports it with their Superstar level subscription and I won’t have to mess with it myself.

 

[Joe Mac]

You can use the google for voice control if you get the Hifiberry DAC + ADC. I see they have a Pro version now too. I might try it this weekend. Volumio now supports it with their Superstar level subscription and I won’t have to mess with it myself.

If I’m right though with the ADC your plugging the audio out of the google home mini into the audio in on the ADC and it’s all analogue and not processing the sound so you’re stuck with the crappy DAC on the smart speaker device?

the voice control with the superstar subscription is very cool, that pay for level is making it an ever slicker device!

 

[duke86fan]

i'll probably get another AQ dragonfly (the real question is what headphones i should get.. i feel like i have played my M50s too much to the point of it being not as bright and fun as i want.. maybe im just not into studio monitors)

(maybe i just have shitty taste because i liked skullcandy earbuds and the M50s feel boring unless i put my laptops audio at 30 which is aparently bad)

 

[displayname]

i'll probably get another AQ dragonfly (the real question is what headphones i should get.. i feel like i have played my M50s too much to the point of it being not as bright and fun as i want.. maybe im just not into studio monitors)

(maybe i just have shitty taste because i liked skullcandy earbuds and the M50s feel boring unless i put my laptops audio at 30 which is aparently bad)

It’s not bad taste, it’s just YOUR taste! If you like it bright I’d look for headphones described as analytical. Those two words normally go hand in hand.

 

[duke86fan]

It’s not bad taste, it’s just YOUR taste! If you like it bright I’d look for headphones described as analytical. Those two words normally go hand in hand.

I like clear, full of texture and makes music feel lush

Like maybe I do need a DAC because I noticed it did sound better to an extent (though I hear if your hearing is not godly it doesn't matter) and I like bass but am more into it complimenting the mids (where the guitars usually are) than overpowering (though that could be cool for alive 2007)

 

[brownsugah]

Added the HiFiBerry DAC to my Raspberry Pi and connected it to my amplifier and tested it out with headphones. The sound quality is awesome. I have the Dragonfly Red and Black and didn’t feel like spending another $300 on the Cobalt (even though the reviews are good).

 

[duke86fan]

It’s not bad taste, it’s just YOUR taste! If you like it bright I’d look for headphones described as analytical. Those two words normally go hand in hand.

I like clear, full of texture and makes music feel lush

Like maybe I do need a DAC because I noticed it did sound better to an extent (though I hear if your hearing is not godly it doesn't matter) and I like bass but am more into it complimenting the mids (where the guitars usually are) than overpowering (though that could be cool for alive 2007)

Tbh I dunno if I want this either

Because the m50s sound so much better than these super cheap skullcandys I found under my drawer (dunno how long they've been there). I was used to super cheap headphones that were barely monoprice but sounded decent, and also trying a bunch of equalizer settings it seems like I don't want the bass or treble too in control because either one sounds horrible with important frequencies being removed and sounding tinny or muddy

Brain confused

EDIT: figured out what i'd like my dream heaphones to sound like... bright ENOUGH but not enough to be harsh, definitely very lush and warm, analytical and clean, but still fun

 

[HuddieLedbetter]

I'll leave the actual setup to the Pi folks, but I did want to possibly help clarify some of the digital stuff (maybe I'll just make it worse, who knows).

So you know in the vinyl chain, in order, you have...
1 - the record
2 - the turntable
3 - the phonostage
4 - the amp

To make the digital chain a little less confusing, I'll compare it to the vinyl chain.
1 - the file (it can come from a computer, server, streaming service, USB, CD, SACD etc)
2 - The transport (this isn't like the turntable in any sense from an engineering standpoint, but it works for this analogy. This is how you get your files to a place where you can get them ready for actual audio. This can be a computer plugged into a DAC, a streamer, a CD player, etc. Many many many "transports" also have DACs built in, and just like turntables, those DACs are of varying quality.)
3 - the DAC (again, terrible engineering analogy, but run with me. The DAC is kind of like the phonostage because even if you have the best files and the best transport - aka best turntable and cart - they do nothing without a DAC -aka phono- to "process" the sound. You also have to consider your DAC for your file types. You certainly aren't there yet, but it's good to know.)
4 - the amp - this is where everything else is the same.

So back to your original statement about digital files on a PC vs Spotify. It all depends.
Spotify at it's best is 320k. Consider this a pressing from United. It gets the job done, usually it doesn't sound too bad, but you know that 9.9 times out of 10 that a MoFi pressing is going to be better.

Now files on your computer are going to be all over the place depending on where they come from. CD rips will be higher than 320k. But do you remember the Napster/LimeWire days? Most of that stuff was 320 AT BEST. A lot of those might have been 160k or lower. 160k is also the audio used by most video streaming services - FYI. But there's the thing, if you're downloading lossless or high res, they should be way better.
Lossless "starts" at 1411K, which is CD quality. Consider this a regular MoFi release. (again, terrible analogies if you're looking at it from engineering). But there are even higher res options, like PCM and DSD. Those are like MoFi Onestep, or actually more often considered equal to a reel to reel. (People will argue about that forever, stick with my analogies here as a concept).

So again, back to your original statement. If your computer has MP3s which are also 320, then Spotify will be basically the same, and a CD or lossless file will be better.
But if you start streaming Tidal which is 1411 and comparing it to MP3 on your computer, Tidal should be better.

So it all comes back to the source. You have to know what file types you're working with. But also, don't get too hung up on file type in my opinion. DSD kind of becomes it's own hobby like vinyl. And I've heard some tracks on Spotify sound great. That comes from having a good DAC with a good analog stage. To an extent, the DAC is like the cartridge and the phonostage. If you have a United Pressing on a nice turntable with a nice cart and nice phonostage, it will certainly sound better than an LP60 with a stock cart and built in phono. (this is what the Google home internal DAC could be compared to). And a MoFi one-step can be played via an LP60, and that would be like running a lossless file through the Google home using it's internal DAC. It might sound better than an MP3, but it won't ever sound as good as it could.

Was that helpful, or did I make it worse?

This was awesome

 

[LeeVing]

This was awesome

Yeah...

I'm sure I got some CD's filled with some 128k mp3's around here somewhere.


It feels like I'm missing out on something when I have my PC hooked straight into my amp via an optical cable

 

[LeBlade]

Has anyone had the opportunity to compare how the Bluesound Node2 and the Innuos Zen Mini mk3 sound via their analog outputs. I'm working on the upgrade path for the digital side of my system.

I currently have a node2 and am wondering if I should move to the Zen Mini and then eventually upgrade with an external dac or the opposite, upgrade the node2 with an external dac and then move to a zen for functionality later.

If the internal dac of the zen mini is better than the node that answers my questions but haven't been able to hear them side by side.

 

[LeeVing]

What about Amazon Music HD from my PC via optical to my Marantz PM6006?

What would make it "better", if anything? It sounds perfectly fine to me.

I honestly have no clue when it comes to digital.

I know Amazon has "HD" and "Ultra HD"

HD is 16 bit / 44.1 kHz - CD Quality

Ultra HD tracks have a bit depth of 24 bits, with sample rates ranging from 44.1 kHz up to 192 kHz, and an average bitrate of 3730 kbps.

It seems my PC only goes to 48 kHz - at least that's what the Amazon Music program is telling me.