[technobear]

Hello,

Last week I went to my audio dealer to do some listening to audio speakers for the ifi retro. After some research I found the brand Audiovector and I read very positive things about them on the web. They also have a very good reputation.

My first audition were the SR3 Avantgarde Arrete. This is the top model of the SR3 series.
It has a sensitivity of 91.5 dB at 8 ohm so I thought it has to work with the amp.
But that wasn't happening. Yes there was sound but it didn't came to life. The sound didn't came loose from the speakers. And there was no stage.
So I was very surprised! What did i miss? Maybe any of you could check their website about the specs? I guess I'm missing some knowledge.

My first guess would be that the SR3 Avantgarde Arrete were very new and in need of some considerable break-in. Perhaps the X3 had seen more use.

If not that, then I guess it is part of the speaker design. Not all speakers are designed to sound lively and musical. In fact many speakers seem to be designed for people who want to analyse music rather than listen to it. A flat frequency response is not the most important attribute of a loudspeaker but many makers seem to believe that it is. In their slavish toil to get that flat frequency response, they often throw out the baby with the bathwater (an old English expression from a time when everyone in the house shared ONE tub of hot water and the baby was usually the last one to go in) by totally screwing up the time response across critical parts of the music spectrum..

The most live and real sounding speakers I have ever heard or owned are those by Zu Audio. They make most others sound broken.

 

[Elwood86]

Sorry my post wasn't ready yet. Maybe you could check again? I don't think that's the issue? With the exposure set it sounded good but not really good!

Greetings Tom

 

[XjunkieNL]

As an aside, we have been 'testing' with the Chromecast Audio ($50) to feed a digital signal into the Retro and remote control it from the Smart Device (also possible to use computer running LMS too). We use the iPower (with USB>micro cable) to feed a clean 5v to it. Now this is nice. The hours just fly by.

Now this is certainly nice! Just got it up and running.
Of course used the optical connection (had to give up the optical to the CD-player).

The possibilities are almost endless now.
The Stereo50 has become a little music monster.
Is there anything it can't do?!?

 

[iFi audio]

Now this is certainly nice! Just got it up and running.
Of course used the optical connection (had to give up the optical to the CD-player).

The possibilities are almost endless now.
The Stereo50 has become a little music monster.
Is there anything it can't do?!?

 
Hi,
 
To confirm to those who asked, if you use optical then you are using the dac section of the Retro is a nicer than the Chromecast Audio dac.
 
So sound quality will be better using the optical than the analogue. And nicer when the iPower is used.
 
Cheers.

 

[john57]

Thanks for the Firmware v5.1 ‘Gelato’ my Retro never sounded better!

 

[aerosuffly]

Another alternative to stream hi-res music to the Stereo 50 is to build a headless music streamer with a raspberry pi 2 ($35) and moode (or volumio, or archphile), and feed it to the Stereo 50 via USB (or optical if you pay $35 more for a hifiberry digit+). It is essentially a DIY AURALiC Aries. You can control the player from you phone browser or a free app on your phone.
 
I followed an instruction from this blog post to build mine, and it has been working great. I did not add a toroidal transformer like the guy in the blog, just a plain raspberry pi with a cheap iPhone USB power adapter, but I have iPurifier 2 plugged into the Stereo 50 USB, and it still sounds great. The best combo for an iFi fan is probably using the iUSB3.0 as both a power source the raspberry pi and a USB filter for the Stereo 50.

 

[iFi audio]

  Another alternative to stream hi-res music to the Stereo 50 is to build a headless music streamer with a raspberry pi 2 ($35) and moode (or volumio, or archphile), and feed it to the Stereo 50 via USB (or optical if you pay $35 more for a hifiberry digit+). It is essentially a DIY AURALiC Aries. You can control the player from you phone browser or a free app on your phone.
 
I followed an instruction from this blog post to build mine, and it has been working great. I did not add a toroidal transformer like the guy in the blog, just a plain raspberry pi with a cheap iPhone USB power adapter, but I have iPurifier 2 plugged into the Stereo 50 USB, and it still sounds great. The best combo for an iFi fan is probably using the iUSB3.0 as both a power source the raspberry pi and a USB filter for the Stereo 50.

 
Skin plays with the Raspberry Pi+ and the Cubox 4x4 Pro (because it has Quad Core+4GB Ram). Both powered by the iPower (5v) makes torroidal seem average.
 

Both sound very good but the Cubox 4x4 Pro is something else. Its processing equivalent of 'BHP/ton' ratio is pretty amazing.

  (We have no ties to Solid-Run, we are just on the hunt for the ultimate computer audio source.)

 

[aterville]

Hello there,
 
Can you run foobar on the cuBox i4 Pro ?
That would save my life and make my Retro 50 very happy
Thanks

 

[iFi audio]

  Hello there,
 
Can you run foobar on the cuBox i4 Pro ?
That would save my life and make my Retro 50 very happy
Thanks

 
Hi,
 
Nope. But why Foobar when you can run Kodi, Volumio and Daphile (and others).
 
All the fun of the Linux fair.

 

[aterville]

Thanks will have a look but I need DSD and DXD support what are you guys using ?
 
Arnaud

 

[iFi audio]

  Thanks will have a look but I need DSD and DXD support what are you guys using ?
 
Arnaud

 
Hi,
 
We are at the moment playing with Daphile and Volumio. For obvious reasons, we dont provide Linux support.  Have fun trying the different ones out - it is a personal preference.
 
Thanks

 

[aerosuffly]

Does your Retro 50 occasionally and randomly click after you turn it on? Mine does that for about an hour. My guess is that it is some kind of mechanical switch inside that adjust the gain or something in the warming period, but I just want to make sure that it is normal.

 

[cjs001]

  Does your Retro 50 occasionally and randomly click after you turn it on? Mine does that for about an hour. My guess is that it is some kind of mechanical switch inside that adjust the gain or something in the warming period, but I just want to make sure that it is normal.

Not sure if it's the same problem but I have noticed that the iFi micro DSD does that sometimes when turned on. A random loud popping can be heard if the volume knob is further turned up after being switched on and sometimes twice in quick succession but seems to go away immediately after.

 

[Elwood86]

Thanks will have a look but I need DSD and DXD support what are you guys using ?

Arnaud

Hi Arnaud,

I use audirvana and it works very nice. But it's only for Mac users. If you have an iPad or iPhone u can it as remote. The core program runs only on Mac. Qobus is integrated so if you have an subscription at them you can use that in remote either.

Greetings

 

[iFi audio]

The Gadget Show - iFi giving out free tickets - first come first served.

iFI audio is exhibiting at the Gadget Show from Thursday 31st March through to Sunday 3rd April. This is the UK’s largest electronics show held at the Birmingham NEC. There are some 75,000 visitors.
 

We have a limited number of FREE tickets for any customers planning to attend.
 
http://www.gadgetshowlive.net/visiting
 
Just message us on FaceBook with your contact telephone and we’ll contact you.
 
https://www.facebook.com/iFiAudio/
 
Able to play with drones, test drive Teslas and listen to DSD512 on the Retro Stereo 50. What more could one wish for?