The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

MikeH said:
this. i used to have wired headphones but wearing them on the NYC subways? fuggedaboudit.

even just walking down the NYC streets, they would somehow get caught on some passerby and yank out of my phone. if i was sitting at home with headphones on, i'd want wired. but bluetooth were more than fine for a commute. now that i'm WFH probably permanently, i only use my bluetooth headphones for phone calls or travelling.
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Yeah the tram here is like the tube in London or your subway at rush hour. Faces mashed against window and every single pocket of air filled. I absolutely do not miss it! But it made wireless headphones an absolute necessity!
 
Bsdmr2 said:
I'm enjoying the new hip dac2 at the moment - had it a day or so now and it provides a decent improvement. I'm yet to test it on the move, so it'll be interesting to see how I get on with it when on the train or tube etc and having to travel. This seems like a decent option to prevent loss or snagging.
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I have been eyeing up the hip dac. If someone made a leather pouch for it that was magsafe compatible, i would grab both so damn fast.

I am still a wired IEM person (though have a pair of bluetooth ones as well for telephone calls etc) for out and about. In the winter I have the cables tucked inside my coat so no real issues there. I find in the summer my ears can get a bit sweaty so every so often the IEM will feel like it is falling out, so the cable makes it feel a bit more secure.
 
Joe Mac said:
It won’t work with tidal connect but if tidal or Qobuz supports casting then you should be fine. One thing is that it is limited to 24/96. That will support almost all hi res steams but the few that are done at the top 24/192 will be compressed by it. Because it’s so small the DAC in it isn’t stellar so you’re not going to get the full benefit of the hi res but you could down the line connect it to a DAC, or an inbuilt DAC in an amp. The output is a hybrid digital/analogue port and if you connected a mini toslink to toslink optical cable between it and the optical in on a DAC or amp you’d be passing out the digital signal for them to process.
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Thanks, Joe. Thought that would be the issue. Might as well stick with Spotify and local streaming until I can afford my big boy streamer. No point spending money on something that gives little extra benefit.
 
I've got a question about CD players and Digital Analog Converters. I have a NAD c538 CD player that has a Wolfson 24-bit DAC. I connect this to my Yamaha a-S501 amplifier via RCA cables (decent ones), so the DAC on the cd player is used, not the Yamaha, which has a Texas Instruments PCM5101.

If I switch this interconnect to either optical TOSLINK or coaxial S/PDIF, would the DAC on the cd player be bypassed and the digital signal would be routed right to the TI PCM5101? Is this preferred? What would be the benefit of switching to a digital interconnect medium?
 
MacDonals said:
I've got a question about CD players and Digital Analog Converters. I have a NAD c538 CD player that has a Wolfson 24-bit DAC. I connect this to my Yamaha a-S501 amplifier via RCA cables (decent ones), so the DAC on the cd player is used, not the Yamaha, which has a Texas Instruments PCM5101.

If I switch this interconnect to either optical TOSLINK or coaxial S/PDIF, would the DAC on the cd player be bypassed and the digital signal would be routed right to the TI PCM5101? Is this preferred? What would be the benefit of switching to a digital interconnect medium?
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You’re right. And I’d depends. The best DAC will sound best and that could potentially be in either. It’s a case of testing both and settling on what you sound better.
 
just connected my Modi and Magni to my laptop , i havent really played any music on my laptop besides in spotify etc forever. is there any mediaplayer for windows that you recommend for my bandcamp downloads ( .flac i guess. )

cheers
 
BazookaTooth said:
just connected my Modi and Magni to my laptop , i havent really played any music on my laptop besides in spotify etc forever. is there any mediaplayer for windows that you recommend for my bandcamp downloads ( .flac i guess. )

cheers
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Media monkey is what I use. There is a free version, but the Gold version is worth it.
 
Joe Mac said:
Honestly unless you’re planning on running a big ole 2TB music library and wanting to mix it with hi res streaming why on earth would anyone want to pay lol!
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yep. i only use Roon since I have Qobuz and about 400GB of ripped music/high-res downloads. It's very nice for that. If I only had streaming or a small handful of files, it would be massive overkill.
 
I set my technology challenged neighbor up on Music Bee, he likes it. If you have files mind you there is always post setup work to do on any of these platforms, like artwork, metadeta, playlists etc.
 
BazookaTooth said:
just connected my Modi and Magni to my laptop , i havent really played any music on my laptop besides in spotify etc forever. is there any mediaplayer for windows that you recommend for my bandcamp downloads ( .flac i guess. )

cheers
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I have not been on a PC in over 5 years but I used to use JRiver and liked it. Wasn't too pricy.

Edit: Just checked and it is now $59USD to purchase, a bit pricier that when I bought it in 2014 or so
 
Alright folks...thinking of ditching Spotify in favor of Tidal but before I proceed, I need to know a few things.

Do they offer a family 👪 plan, and if so how much is it?

What's the difference between HiFi and HiFi Plus?

Can you create playlists and share them?

Can you transfer music, playlists over from Spotify?

TIA 🍻
 
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