[eskamobob1]

What IEM are you talking about? But no it is not. Esoteric N05XD is good for IEM I also enjoy listening with IEMs with Chord Dave and Audiovalve Solaris.

Agreed. I do listen at lower levels, but I need a ie match or to drop my source output a decent bit for IEMs to have any real volume play

 

[eskamobob1]

Indeed. A WA22 was at the forefront of my mind then i though i might be able to reduce to one box with an AIC, but IEM's use is a deal breaker for me. Appreciate the insight into AIC/IEM, thanks.

Do you mean wa23 instead of 22? Cause tbh that's a super wierd cross shop. I did enjoy the 23 thoroghly, but I haven't home demoed one so I'm not sure about stuff like iem usage, but I think it would be worth asking about.

What dac do you use currently/are you looking to change it up as well? Cause that will dictate a lot amp choice wise

 

[Doug2507]

Do you mean wa23 instead of 22? Cause tbh that's a super wierd cross shop. I did enjoy the 23 thoroghly, but I haven't home demoed one so I'm not sure about stuff like iem usage, but I think it would be worth asking about.

What dac do you use currently/are you looking to change it up as well? Cause that will dictate a lot amp choice wise

Tube pre into US5 is a no go tbh as it'll only really accommodate line in. I knew there was a reason i started looking into hybrids / AIC 10!

AIC would've been ideal as a one box solution to replace US5, providing it could handle IEM duty as well. I'd have at least heard them side by side before deciding which stays as US5 is superb, but tubes on the pre stage would be a nice to have. Current DAC is a Bricasti M3 with no intention to change it out (can screw output right down with it as well).

 

[eskamobob1]

Tube pre into US5 is a no go tbh as it'll only really accommodate line in. I knew there was a reason i started looking into hybrids / AIC 10!

AIC would've been ideal as a one box solution to replace US5, providing it could handle IEM duty as well. I'd have at least heard them side by side before deciding which stays as US5 is superb, but tubes on the pre stage would be a nice to have. Current DAC is a Bricasti M3 with no intention to change it out (can screw output right down with it as well).

Fwiw, aic handled mest mk2 well when I turned output down on the m1se I had at the time. If you don't mind dual volume pots that is a posability of use. It's not a noise floor issue, just a gain one IME

 

[Doug2507]

Fwiw, aic handled mest mk2 well when I turned output down on the m1se I had at the time. If you don't mind dual volume pots that is a posability of use. It's not a noise floor issue, just a gain one IME

Superb, cheers for the insight Bob.

 

[MayUseAny]

I feel a bit silly but I started using Qobuz last week and its… better than Tidal much better! Do you all listen to Qobuz?

I got into a rabbit hole trying to find NativeDSD albums of artist I like and when I couldn’t I finally got it.

 

[Ragnar-BY]

I use both Tidal and Qobuz. Qobuz sounds better, but some of my albums are available through Tidal only.

 

[hifixman]

Oh really? Without trying to derail the thread, what's your reasoning for that?

Because while wa22 could give you the tuby harmonics but it is under detailed and controlled. Yes tube rolling could help but only to a certain degree. But with stock tubes, it sounds magic with the Mojo Mystique X SE which has crazy amount of details, resolution, weight and harmonics as well that could be fatiguing with amps already with high resolution but perfectly deluded and smoothed out by WA22 with stock tubes.

However I departed from the path of finding matching amp for a colored source, which is less organic especially for relaxation and enjoyment.

 

[MayUseAny]

I use both Tidal and Qobuz. Qobuz sounds better, but some of my albums are available through Tidal only.

Do you find that some CDs sound better than Qobuz? What about Flac files?

 

[alxw0w]

Qobuz > Tidal always.
Whats even more interesting is try not to use Roon and see what jump in SQ you can get.
Don't get me wrong Roon is a masterpiece when it comes to managing your library discovering music and just general usability.
But from SQ point of view old good LMS is better than Roon, LMS sounds closer to CDT, Roon is kinda blurry/smoother but in a bad way.

 

[MayUseAny]

Qobuz > Tidal always.
Whats even more interesting is try not to use Roon and see what jump in SQ you can get.
Don't get me wrong Roon is a masterpiece when it comes to managing your library discovering music and just general usability.
But from SQ point of view old good LMS is better than Roon, LMS sounds closer to CDT, Roon is kinda blurry/smoother but in a bad way.

Wow interesting! I use MU1 that is a Roon player. Did anyone else find this Roon degradation?

 

[alxw0w]

Wow interesting! I use MU1 that is a Roon player. Did anyone else find this Roon degradation?

Not sure about MU1 - never heard it (but I assume that also the case, as it's not hardware problem but software). I assume that Roon is not really bit perfect - they do something with stream in order to ensure gapless playback DSP functions etc.
But that's my assumption as I cannot see any other reason why the same hardware sounds different using different software. (the only way is to decompile Roon source and check what its happening there but I have no desire to do so)

You can ask @Triode User about his thoughts with Roon vs LMs as he's more expierenced than me in that matter and has much much better streamer.

 

[MayUseAny]

Not sure about MU1 - never heard it (but I assume that also the case, as it's not hardware problem but software). I assume that Roon is not really bit perfect - they do something with stream in order to ensure gapless playback DSP functions etc.
But that's my assumption as I cannot see any other reason why the same hardware sounds different using different software. (the only way is to decompile Roon source and check what its happening there but I have no desire to do so)

You can ask @Triode User about his thoughts with Roon vs LMs as he's more expierenced than me in that matter and has much much better streamer.

What I did with roon is removed all DSD settings and fixed volume control which helped a lot, but that is true for all software players!

 

[alxw0w]

What I did with roon is removed all DSD settings and fixed volume control which helped a lot, but that is true for all software players!

Yup I did the same. Still the difference is quite obvious (lms/cdt and roon)
To ensure the thing that I mentioned earlier all data is "gathered" and put into new stream where new "internal" bit depth is higher than 16 or 24 bits.
Changing bits up is easy as you just add zeros.
"Problem" occurs when you want to get bit depth back to the original. You have to dither/noise shape data in order to get rid of quantization noise.
But as I said that's just one of my assumptions* why Roon is sounding different.

*(using some internal stream/buffer/data buss or whatever you want to call it and than bringing it down so it stays "bit perfect")

 

[Axel]

1266TC in the house.
Any guidance how to place them on my head? Any specific points to take into account/recommendations?