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Who uses which media for primary listening and why?


halfbaked

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On 6/6/2018 at 6:56 PM, halfbaked said:

Iamjohngalt. My asking about sound cards was an effort about sound cards vs usb. Also hoping to see any comments about  power supply noise or other negative factors.

 

I could not hear a difference between an external USB DAC box and the ASUS Xonar card in the same pc at the time but I have better speakers now.  Since that you mention it, I will have to do a listening test of that old ASUS Xonar card vs the RPi DAC just for fun.

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Vinyl when I want to relax. TT system is the CF15 speakers a sub and a C1 and a M-500t MKII, Technics SL-1600 Orfton Bronze. As was said it's a Zen thing and the sound quality is very good with some of the new 180 gr  pressings from Quality Records and others. For general, steam,-just ask Alexa to play and it is streamed to my receiver in 5-1. For specific artist jam or party (the CD collection is by recording engineer first then group) the Sony CD Juke Box. With the Sdhitt DAC going to analog to my receiver I am hoping on a real good sound from the dedicated B&W 801's  when a just finished M.10t MK II opt 2 amp that Greg was so kind to repair gets here, (in transit), it's place is reserved for 2 channel only whith a pair of Sunfire True Subs, pre is a Denon  AVT X3300W. I have not tested this configuration yet so am looking forward to it as the Schitt definitely improved the sound from the Marantz Super Audio DV 6500 in the other system. I can only imagine what it will do with that old Sony Juke Box through the B&W's !!

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I primarily use cd’s. I do use DAT, analog cassette, and minidisc as well. Cassette will be recorded from cd or from premanufactured cassette. DAT is recorded from cd as well. Occasional FM stereo too. No streaming on the 2-channel system yet......grin

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I decided to order a few CD's different formats. Not to judge what's best as that would be a fail test as nothing compares. I was able to round up a few classic rock titles to at least appreciate what they offer.

 

It's been something I'm overdue for myself and as listening pleasure for oneself is a unsaid mantra I believe we do that here. I can't remember all but old mofi, new mofi, HDCD's,XRCD,bluray,DVD's those last 2 from box sets as the old you to say and video is partially involved within the set of discs.

 

A few others should arrive tomorrow like SACD's before anyone ask why aren't they representing? One title today was one of my early mofi vinyl fav's from long ago. I don't have any vinyl anymore but still appreciate the Zen of Vinyl as oldtexasdog mentioned.

 

So definitely the cone of silence will be used and journey back in music but digitalized. Speaking of digital, digital download is also involved. As I said I went for format variety. With all the talk of this thread sparking a listen down weekend. The thought of a well made 180 gr lp still leaves a lil twang of wanting. But that won't be happening now so not to spread resources too thin.

Daddyvw I hear you, my "streaming" would be different than what is meant anyways. Interesting back up you're using. More old school technique.

 

Iamjohngalt I am very interested with what your sound off has to say. I've been wanting to do similar so hearing about it will be followed.

 

Replies have been great and interesting what people are doing nowadays. Though asking Alexa to stream is ahead. Of the curve. I can't decide if that's lazy or smart. Probably both I don't know right now maybe oldtexasdog will offer a bit of feedback with that?

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Alexa is lazy and not the best audio but the selection is vast and you can just ask for a single song or album or artist or even type of music. She will marry effortless via blue tooth if your receiver-pre is so equipped.

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With our hard drive talk. Using the Newegg promo number you can get a WD 4tb external drive USB3 $80. Their email was yesterday I got sidetracked, sorry.

 

With our discussion talking about storage for our libraries I thought some would consider.

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35 minutes ago, halfbaked said:

With our hard drive talk. Using the Newegg promo number you can get a WD 4tb external drive USB3 $80.

The price of digital storage keeps dropping. I paid about $120 for a 1TB GoFlex USB HD in 2010, roughly the same price of the 4TB WD Elements drives I bought in 2014 and 2015. A few months ago I picked up two 8TB MyBook drives for less than $160 each.

 

FYI: A 4TB solid state drive (SSD) will still set you back $1,000, but the smaller units have become very affordable. Zack paid about $80 for the 512MB unit he installed in my PC over Christmas break, and it made a huge difference in speed vs the original disc-type hard drive.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/3/2018 at 1:26 AM, Daddyjt said:

The only down side is ripping your CDs into a database - but after that, it’s the cat’s meow.  My library has gotten so large now, I have filed some titles into an “archive” folder - titles I will likely never listen to, but I want to keep none the less.  I have also created a “reference” file, to keep my favorites close. The flexibility is truly astounding. 

 

This.

 

I rip all my CDs using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and even some vinyl (and in one case a cassette tape) never re-issued on CD which I clean up and de-click, but no longer have time for that these days. I have all this in a 3 TB disk drive about 80% full and backed up regularly. I calculated at one point if I listened to my collection 8-hours a day it would take something like 20 years to listen to everything once. I play this music through the now discontinued Squeezebox one of which I recently got on Ebay - works great for me. I love to just put it on "random song" and see what comes up and discover something new.

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  • 3 years later...

I mostly listen to Spotify and just use an 1/8” stereo plug to rca adapter. This is when I just want background music and it sounds just fine to me (C1 preamp billd mod, M200t refurbished, Polk LSI15’s, Denon DP-300f, Panasonic DVD RP56) 

kind of don’t care about the CD/dvd player may upgrade at some point…maybe not

 

I use an iPhone 7 to steam the Spotify…

 

I have Steely Dan Aja on LP, CD, and Spotify.  I played all 3 formats at the same time and switched between formats to hear the differences.  Not surprisingly to me I liked in descending order LP-CD-Spotify. Mostly I was shocked in being able to hear the compression of the data between the digital and analog signal paths.   LP was warm and detailed, CD was fine but I could hear the compression difference easily.  Spotify was worse.

 

with that being said, for the most part, I listen to Spotify because of the almost limitless amount of music available. I have a couple hundred CD’s, and 30 or so albums. That significantly plays into my listening habits .  If I want to really listen, I grab a beer and put on Steely Dan Aja LP that album is amazingly recorded. My second favorite is Rush Moving Pictures so dynamic to me.  Another favorite is Alan Parsons, once again just really well recorded

 

 

I forgot what the original question was 🤔

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I'm a CD guy for the most part.  Will probably be moving over to FLAC too, soon - a good friend of mine turned me onto it.  Haven't had a record player in decades. 

Gary

 

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Yeah i have thousands of flac files so I want to get that Sony HAP Z1ES Player. I also will be grabbing the next Carver SDA 490t I see for sale in great condition to go with my C1 and 1.0t 002

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