[cobrabucket]

Why not use a sine wave output until you get the 50ohm cable? It'll work fine with the 75ohm cable and you'd be able to make comparisons once you get the 50 using square wave.

75 ohm cable is ok for sine wave? I am waiting on my 50 ohm cables

 

[BShaw]

75 ohm cable is ok for sine wave? I am waiting on my 50 ohm cables

Sine wave is supposedly more forgiving of reflections if I recall. Also the guy at DH Labs told me their 75 ohm BNC would work fine with the clock, as did Danny at Requisite Audio. Both are selling their own goods for sure, but they also are using super high quality conductors so I don't know where the truth lies at this point! I wish I could find a good 50 ohm hunk of cable like the DH stuff, I'd add AECO terminations and call it a win. Most cable is pretty cheap by the meter, and the connectors are $80 but gorgeous and AECO stuff is really sweet: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R3H8VT...colid=VLXJVQTZNIDI&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

[fullbass]

the question is whether it is worth investing a lot of money in HiFi components and then streaming music from Tidal or a similar service.

I don't understand why this question came up.

perhaps the sound quality from streaming is worse than from a local disk. but worse doesn't mean unacceptable, very bad, or anything like that. most probably won't even be able to hear the difference. using local files or streaming is not a holy war, but a choice.

if it was possible to get such pleasure on a cheap setup (sound system), then I certainly would do it. I do not see such a setup for myself

 

[Highfive99]

75 ohm cable is ok for sine wave? I am waiting on my 50 ohm cables

Here's some good reading for understanding of sine vs square for clocks, cables, resistance etc. Well worth the read
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...Swenson_Clock_Considerations.pdf?v=1616799482

 

[JackJohnson316]

Sine wave is supposedly more forgiving of reflections if I recall. Also the guy at DH Labs told me their 75 ohm BNC would work fine with the clock, as did Danny at Requisite Audio. Both are selling their own goods for sure, but they also are using super high quality conductors so I don't know where the truth lies at this point! I wish I could find a good 50 ohm hunk of cable like the DH stuff, I'd add AECO terminations and call it a win. Most cable is pretty cheap by the meter, and the connectors are $80 but gorgeous and AECO stuff is really sweet: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R3H8VT...colid=VLXJVQTZNIDI&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

A few months back I made my own BNC cables with VHAudio Pulsar Ag bulk wire and Aeco BNC connectors. I’ve been using Aeco for a couple of years and they use the highest purity copper (even more than Furutech). I’ve got to say the Aeco BNC connectors were a pain to work with. It’s a crimp design as opposed to solder. It was impossible to find a crimper that fits the little pin. If you solder the conductor to the pin it will make life a lot easier. Otherwise the Aeco was great once i finally got it to fit. In retrospect I would have just bought some Oyaide authentic bnc silver cables from the cable company and been happy. I asked Mark at Sablon and he can also make custom bnc cables. Tubulus also makes silver bnc cables that aren’t listed on their website. The Gustard bnc cables are stranded and not solid core, so I personally would stick with solid core. Audiosensibility might also make custom bnc cables, though not sure.

 

[staffz93]

No problems here playing with foobar.
I play up to DSD256 and PCM384 over without issues over LAN using the UPnP MediaRenderer Output plugin.
Still trying to get some DSD512 sample files just to check if these play ok or not.

The only nuisance with Foobar is that playback will stop when the playlist (buffer) has played the maximum for a WAV stream which is I think 1 GB
Simply stop and play and it continuous again for another xxx minutes.

There is a "fix" for this, UPnP WAV Playback Workaround DSP
However it is annoying as it disconnects and reconnects the UPNP connection after every track in your playlist now instead of sending a continuous stream to the Gustard, resulting in small delay and relay clicking in between tracks on the Gustard R26

I have used roon to upsame to DSD512 for a few days and had no issues with the R26. Not sure if that helps

 

[staffz93]

No problems here playing with foobar.
I play up to DSD256 and PCM384 over without issues over LAN using the UPnP MediaRenderer Output plugin.
Still trying to get some DSD512 sample files just to check if these play ok or not.

The only nuisance with Foobar is that playback will stop when the playlist (buffer) has played the maximum for a WAV stream which is I think 1 GB
Simply stop and play and it continuous again for another xxx minutes.

There is a "fix" for this, UPnP WAV Playback Workaround DSP
However it is annoying as it disconnects and reconnects the UPNP connection after every track in your playlist now instead of sending a continuous stream to the Gustard, resulting in small delay and relay clicking in between tracks on the Gustard R26

I have used roon to upsample to DSD512 for a few days and had no issues with the R26. Not sure if that helps

 

[Odezra]

Yep - I have also maxed the sample rates for both pcm and DSD on the Gustard using HQ player.

 

[comzee]

With some of the talk of streaming services, I decided to give Tidal vs Qobuz another ABX.
I hadn't done it for about 1.5yr and have swapped and upgraded quite a bit of gear since then.

I'd always thought Qobuz sounded better, but Tidal had a decent 5-10% better library selection, so I stuck with Tidal.... mistake, BIG mistake.

I did the ABX through Roon (both serviced connected to Roon at the same time) (all tracks 44.1khz redbook, [well, lol, you can't really do that with Tidal, it forces MQA, but all tracks 44.1khz at least]).

I'm literally BLOWN away by the difference. Tidal sounds splashy and lo-fi in comparison. Treble is hashed out.
I'll happily live with a slightly smaller library with this SQ improvement Qobuz brings.

Also a cool plus is Qobuz brings up to native 192khz (I never paid for Tidal's higher plan)
Not that I really care about anything above 44.1khz, but it's a nice add for the same price as Tidal basic plan (that doesn't support over 44.1khz).

This is not a advertisement for Qobuz
Just an IME as always.

 

[cobrabucket]

With some of the talk of streaming services, I decided to give Tidal vs Qobuz another ABX.
I hadn't done it for about 1.5yr and have swapped and upgraded quite a bit of gear since then.

I'd always thought Qobuz sounded better, but Tidal had a decent 5-10% better library selection, so I stuck with Tidal.... mistake, BIG mistake.

I did the ABX through Roon (both serviced connected to Roon at the same time) (all tracks 44.1khz redbook, [well, lol, you can't really do that with Tidal, it forces MQA, but all tracks 44.1khz at least]).

I'm literally BLOWN away by the difference. Tidal sounds splashy and lo-fi in comparison. Treble is hashed out.
I'll happily live with a slightly smaller library with this SQ improvement Qobuz brings.

Also a cool plus is Qobuz brings up to native 192khz (I never paid for Tidal's higher plan)
Not that I really care about anything above 44.1khz, but it's a nice add for the same price as Tidal basic plan (that doesn't support over 44.1khz).

This is not a advertisement for Qobuz
Just an IME as always.

100% agree. I had Tidal and canceled when I heard Qobuz in comparison

 

[BShaw]

Same here. I like the Tidal UI a bit more except they're too biased toward the hip-hop scene. If I could have Qobuz curation and class with Tidal's front page, it would be sweet. Hell, maybe even Spotify's front page - when I'm on the homepage of Qobuz, I keep trying to scroll down for the rest of it, but there is no rest of it.

 

[cobrabucket]

I can't seem to get Roon to play Native DSD through the LAN port on the R26. It sees the input and can play PCM files fine, but DSD is showing up as 44.1 PCM. Roon had zero issues playing DSD through the U18 though.
Also, I think my version of foobar might be what's causing the issue of not being able to play DSD higher that DSD64. I will update to a later version and test later.
JRiver can play up to DSD512 through LAN w/o issues.
Lastly, I know that folks say that some of these music apps sound better than others. I am evaluating this now but am a bit skeptical of how marge these differences might be.

 

[Odezra]

I can't seem to get Roon to play Native DSD through the LAN port on the R26. It sees the input and can play PCM files fine, but DSD is showing up as 44.1 PCM. Roon had zero issues playing DSD through the U18 though.
Also, I think my version of foobar might be what's causing the issue of not being able to play DSD higher that DSD64. I will update to a later version and test later.
JRiver can play up to DSD512 through LAN w/o issues.
Lastly, I know that folks say that some of these music apps sound better than others. I am evaluating this now but am a bit skeptical of how marge these differences might be.

That's strange - It's working fine for me. i have NOS on for DSD direct on the Gustard, and the Roon settings set to DSD, DSD512, with the multi core / enable dsd native processing switches both set to yes, using 7th order (CLANS).

Have you tried a machine restart (both of Gustard, and of the Roon core)?

 

[Odezra]

LAN isolation question for the folks in the know here. Any thoughts on this as an alternative to the fiber optic boxes?

From what I can tell you want a .25m LAN cable going into Gustard meaning the two fiber optic boxes and linear psu will all be visible / in reach which is an issue for me as my dac is v visibly located and can’t move.

Am wondering whether this isolator will achieve the same outcome technically? I like the surge protection feature which the fiber optic solution offers and the relative discreetness of this to the fiber optic solution

https://emosystems.de/en/shop/emosafe-network-isolators/self-enclosed/en-1005/

 

[fullbass]

I'm literally BLOWN away by the difference. Tidal sounds splashy and lo-fi in comparison. Treble is hashed out.

I think you are too emotional in this conclusion. there is no such dramatic difference between the two services. yes, qobuz has more high-res albums than tidal, but tidal has a more extensive library. and yes, the qobuz sounds a bit better, but the difference is not as pejorative as you describe.