[AndrewOld]

I used iPeng and Squeezebox extensively for about 10 years, but ever since I signed on to a lifetime membership with Roon, I view LMS and iPeng as quaint relics from yesteryear. My various Squeezebox Touch devices are in my garage waiting to be junked.

I agree about Roon having essentially *zero* effect on sound quality, unless you start fooling around with various lossy types of DSP. You can of course go silly with upsampling, and upsample everything to DSD 512, but all you're doing is increasing global warming by burning up CPU cycles. There's no evidence I know of that shows high bit rate DSD upsampling does anything to "improve" the sound. Mathematically, DSD conversion incurs a huge amount of ultrasonic noise, so there's in fact evidence to show you're making things worse by moving from PCM space to DSD space (noise wise, 24 bit 192Khz PCM has far lower noise than any DSD format).

Ignoring sonics, Roon transforms listening in ways I could have scarcely imagined 20 years ago. With a subscription to Qoubuz, I can now stream tens of thousands of high bit rate classical recordings, and every evening, I sample several new recordings, and can also read liner notes through the PDFs that Roon/Qoubuz make available. I can never imagine going back to iPeng or Squeezebox. It's like playing eight track tapes or digging out my old VCR or Betamax!

Yep, I’m coming from somewhere similar. LMS and a Touch got me going with streaming many, many years ago, and iPeng on an iPad put controlling it in my lap. Then I flipped to JRiver and JRemote because I could organise my own music the way I wanted more easily, and control the audio path. Then Qobuz came along, a source of almost infinite riches, but with no remote app, and no way of integrating with my own rips and downloads. I put up with it and JRiver. The got into Roon a couple of years ago, and while it is not perfect there’s nothing that comes close. My own stuff and Qobuz in one library, with a good remote app, and rich data, album reviews, cd booklets. Excellent. And Qobuz just dropped their price, so I am a happy boy. As you say, it was unimaginable level of experience 20 years ago - thousands and thousands of above cd quality albums for less than 50p a day. And whether I control Roon from my phone, my iPad or my dedicated laptop, it sounds the same.
I’ve still got my Squeezebox Touch though, not that I use it anymore. But I’d put it up against a fancy Innuos server any day. No noisy disc drives, so no need for expensive SSDs. Not running any heavy duty server software, so no processing noise to suppress. Sean Adams knew what he was doing.

 

[SuperBurrito]

Question for those of you who connect the Dave directly to an both a power amp (using the volume control) and a headphone amp.

When using the headphone amp, how do you have both volume controls set? Do you keep the headphone amp volume control at a fixed level (maybe 50%) and then adjust volume through the Dave? Thanks

 

[JTbbb]

Question for those of you who connect the Dave directly to an both a power amp (using the volume control) and a headphone amp.

When using the headphone amp, how do you have both volume controls set? Do you keep the headphone amp volume control at a fixed level (maybe 50%) and then adjust volume through the Dave? Thanks

That’s exactly what I do with my headphone amp, but I’m more around the 11 O’clock position.

 

[CRITICALSHOT]

Question for those of you who connect the Dave directly to an both a power amp (using the volume control) and a headphone amp.

When using the headphone amp, how do you have both volume controls set? Do you keep the headphone amp volume control at a fixed level (maybe 50%) and then adjust volume through the Dave? Thanks

I wouldn't do that; I would put Dave in Dac Mode and use the volume control on the Amp.

 

[JTbbb]

I wouldn't do that; I would put Dave in Dac Mode and use the volume control on the Amp.

DAC mode and preamp mode go through the exact same circuitry. So it’s horses for courses. I choose preamp mode because I can’t physically operate the headphone volume but can operate the Dave remote.

 

[SuperBurrito]

I wouldn't do that; I would put Dave in Dac Mode and use the volume control on the Amp.

Thanks. But it could be very bad if someone turned on the power amp the morning after a headphone session if they accidentally forgot that the Dave is still in DAC mode!

 

[CRITICALSHOT]

DAC mode and preamp mode go through the exact same circuitry. So it’s horses for courses. I choose preamp mode because I can’t physically operate the headphone volume but can operate the Dave remote.

I did the same thing when running my Dave to my Audio Note Integrated; as I didn't want to have to get up to adjust the volume. True it uses the same circuitry, but I in my particular application, DAC Mode sounded better.

 

[Lgn3]

I agree with all of the above but was just trying to isolate any software changes that could impact SQ because clearly changes to the control software only would not. Your analogy to the TV remote in a previous post nicely illustrated the point that using different control points with the same player software could not possibly effect SQ.

Why would lower latency necessarily be a good thing? The best filters on the M Scaler have the highest latency. High latency gives you the possibility of larger buffers filled more smoothly. The music on a hard drive has been there for quite possibly years. Low latency is only really important in some studio contexts, eg live playing - musicians want to hear what they are playing as soon as they play it.

But even if Innuos have changed the latency of playback, it is still hard verging on impossible to understand how playback imitated by iPeng could sound different from playback initiated by Squeezepad.

Yep, I’m coming from somewhere similar. LMS and a Touch got me going with streaming many, many years ago, and iPeng on an iPad put controlling it in my lap. Then I flipped to JRiver and JRemote because I could organise my own music the way I wanted more easily, and control the audio path. Then Qobuz came along, a source of almost infinite riches, but with no remote app, and no way of integrating with my own rips and downloads. I put up with it and JRiver. The got into Roon a couple of years ago, and while it is not perfect there’s nothing that comes close. My own stuff and Qobuz in one library, with a good remote app, and rich data, album reviews, cd booklets. Excellent. And Qobuz just dropped their price, so I am a happy boy. As you say, it was unimaginable level of experience 20 years ago - thousands and thousands of above cd quality albums for less than 50p a day. And whether I control Roon from my phone, my iPad or my dedicated laptop, it sounds the same.
I’ve still got my Squeezebox Touch though, not that I use it anymore. But I’d put it up against a fancy Innuos server any day. No noisy disc drives, so no need for expensive SSDs. Not running any heavy duty server software, so no processing noise to suppress. Sean Adams knew what he was doing.

I also still have an SBT. Don't use it very often, there as a backup as much as anything but when I compared it to a home demo Aries G1 into Dave SQ was equally good. I love the fact that plugins are constantly developed and updated e.g. Qobuz integration with local library.

 

[Kelee123]

Has anyone run a Chord Dave directly into a powered speaker system?

 

[AndrewOld]

Has anyone run a Chord Dave directly into a powered speaker system?

Yep, I run mine into active loudspeakers. ATC SCM50ASLTs.

 

[Triode User]

Yep, I run mine into active loudspeakers. ATC SCM50ASLTs.

@Kelee123 Snap, I also run my Dave direct into ATC active speakers (SCM150ASL). I just use cheap Belden 8760 XLR cabling and that works very well and with fantastic sound quality.

 

[AndrewOld]

@Kelee123 Snap, I also run my Dave direct into ATC active speakers (SCM150ASL). I just use cheap Belden 8760 XLR cabling and that works very well and with fantastic sound quality.

I’m not sure if you are using them with the grilles off, or just happen to have them off for the photo. In case it’s the former, the grilles have a radiused edge and improve the diffraction behaviour of the cabinet edges. If you want to use them grilles off, ATC will make you some pro-surrounds - essentially a picture frame with no grill cloth which just presses into place and gives the best diffraction performance. Like you, I use mine with nothing special cables - in my case Van Damme. I wonder how active speakers and XLR cables affect the ground loop/RF behaviour of the DAVE?

 

[Triode User]

I’m not sure if you are using them with the grilles off, or just happen to have them off for the photo. In case it’s the former, the grilles have a radiused edge and improve the diffraction behaviour of the cabinet edges. If you want to use them grilles off, ATC will make you some pro-surrounds - essentially a picture frame with no grill cloth which just presses into place and gives the best diffraction performance. Like you, I use mine with nothing special cables - in my case Van Damme. I wonder how active speakers and XLR cables affect the ground loop/RF behaviour of the DAVE?

Grilles were off just for photo. I always run with grilles in place.

I guess the actives are no different to the XLR connection from Dave to any other power amplifier?

 

[AndrewOld]

Grilles were off just for photo. I always run with grilles in place.

I guess the actives are no different to the XLR connection from Dave to any other power amplifier?

Dunno, active speakers have an earth and mains connection (typically) at two places rather than the one of a power amp, and the cable runs are longer and the mains connections are likely further away so maybe there are more/different paths to earth and more potential loops. Don’t know enough about it really.

 

[iamoneagain]

Still don't know how come you prefer crossfeed 0.

I finally got around to testing this some more. I’m still find crossfeed 0 (off) sounds best with the Utopia’s. Everything is more solid with it off. It’s almost like there is a Hall effect with the other settings that gets stronger as you move to 3. And I don’t feel they add more depth. What they seem to do is push some of the sounds that would be close to me further away but the final depth is the same. So with off I get more sense of depth since I have some sounds right by my head and others further away vs everything pushed back a little. I feel immersed in music.

So remember this is with the Utopia’s with angled drivers and open design. Maybe something like Grado headphones, even though still open, would need crossfeed since drivers are not angled. Or most close headphoness suffer from closed in feeing and crossfeed helps that. Curious what others with Utopia’s prefer.