[433521]

You should only listen to FLAC

I should only shoot up China White, but sometimes Mexican Mud is all there is.

 

[RickB]

That escalated quickly.

 

[winders]

Do you think FLAC will become the de facto standard in future music sales? Or am I going to live my 40-50s with multiple codecs. I’m still messing around with Apple Lossless... which apparently is different from AAC... which is different from *.FLAC ... *.ack ... *.oog ... *.agg ... *.arf ... *.cat ... christ, I sound like I’m making these codecs up.

Apple Lossless (ALAC) and FLAC have the same data in a different package. FLAC is more universal except in Apple's universe. Now that I am using a sonicTransporter i5 and Roon, I rip anything new to FLAC. I still have a bunch of ALAC rips which work just fine with everything I care about.

 

[RCBinTN]

Me too. I only rip to ALAC because my iTunes library is also the library for my Sonos network.
FLAC and ALAC sound exactly the same to me - both are great...highly resolving.
@winders - what about Apple's AIFF format? I don't know anything about that one...thx.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Do you think FLAC will become the de facto standard in future music sales?

It already is the De Facto standard.

 

[sam6550a]

Can we please stop talking about coffee? It was light and refreshing banter like 7 pages ago. K thx.

Let's start a discussion on single malt Scots whiskey. [The scots is the original spelling].

 

[RCBinTN]

Hey all, quick update.

1. It looks like you'll see a new chapter next week (more on the coaster amp). Then the next chapter will be an intermission—new product time. I hope. Just waiting for one board.
2. You're gonna see major progress on out-of-stock situations here during the rest of this week. We're getting pretty much everything back in stock. Except Jotunheim, which might take another week. Also, thanks to some new systems and better planning, we'll have a shot at staying in stock for a while.
3. New production systems, new vendors, and better visibility of what we're short of and why is one of the things I've been working on (with Alex). We're still production-limited to the point where our products will be scarce on Amazon. But it's either feed Amazon or feed distributors, and the distributors have been more than patient. We're working on increasing overall production so we can have all channels open later this year.
4. New testing procedures, new review requirements, and new documentation is the other thing I've been working on. We've grown to the point where we need to review what we're doing and change where appropriate. This isn't surprising when systems grow organically. It was a bit of a shock to me that we had 31 different firmwares, with three different programming systems, to manage across our product line (and a hair-raising experience when we found that one of the systems didn't have the latest firmware...thankfully unused, but we dodged a bullet.) It was also a wake-up call to review what we were planning to do and consolidate some firmware. And some of the testing we were doing was highly inefficient (checking all products for iOS compatibility, when that can be a spot check, for example, or 100% listen-testing of Manis, rather than using an Avermetrics and inverse RIAA for the heavy lifting), and some needed to be increased (16-bit parallel-input DACs are now 100% checked on Avermetrics, since parallel-input DACs don't fail dead if they drop the input line, but might fail funny, because they just lost 1 input line out of 16.)
5. Getting ready for additional production streamlining like light pipes and push-on knobs on the larger products (don't panic, we're not talking shell knobs, we're talking heavy machined aluminum knobs, now with an injection-molded insert,) as well as some metal tweaks to address some long-standing pain points.

3-5 might sound kinda boring, but I'm actually kinda having fun doing it...and it's feeding back to new products (hence the one I mentioned that I wanted to do a redesign on to make it way, way better (more reliable, easier to assemble, better fit, more capable...and less expensive--win-win all the way around).

Thanks again for reading!

Hi Jason,
Thanks for being so transparent with us, and for your update on the new systems.
Those are interesting, to me, as are the new products.

Systemic improvements show the growth and maturing of a company.
One system that becomes more important as complexity increases is change control.

For example, your discovery of a firmware mistake caught internally.
I don't know of any other company to share such a discovery with customers.

Well done - keep it going - open a new Schiitr when you have time!
All the Best -
RCB

 

[saddleup]

Did a quick check on Wikipedia. Isn’t there a new version that’s slightly less “bad”? Something called MPEG-2 audio layer III ...?...

Do you think FLAC will become the de facto standard in future music sales? Or am I going to live my 40-50s with multiple codecs. I’m still messing around with Apple Lossless... which apparently is different from AAC... which is different from *.FLAC ... *.ack ... *.oog ... *.agg ... *.arf ... *.cat ... christ, I sound like I’m making these codecs up.

I have always ripped my audio to wave files and probably always will. The only exceptions are the handful of recordings I have from HD Tracks that are flac.

 

[KoshNaranek]

No, coffee made at 100 degrees Celcius burns.
Maximum and minimum is 98 degrees.

 

[Jones Bob]

Let's start a discussion on single malt Scots whiskey. [The scots is the original spelling].

Scots spell it Whisky, Lad.

 

[Ableza]

My favorite whisky quote: "No Scotsman would drink their whisky without water, nor would they drink water without whisky." A sentiment I can get behind.

 

[RCBinTN]

Let's start a discussion on single malt Scots whiskey. [The scots is the original spelling].

OK...my favorite is Oban 14-yr.

 

[Timster]

Let's start a discussion on single malt Scots whiskey. [The scots is the original spelling].

Another great topic! Of course that will also open the door for other such products - Gin, Cognac, Vodka etc.

These can all be closely linked perceived to sound quality too (the Scotch mod) so are very much "on topic" here

 

[Rensek]

No, coffee made at 100 degrees Celcius burns.
Maximum and minimum is 98 degrees.

Thanks for that tip. I had that problem once years ago, and I couldn't figure out what it was. Descaled and cleaned all my appliances, threw away about a half pound of beans and it never happened again.

On an audio note I'm having trouble streaming Spotify to my Chromecast audio. It cuts out intermittently. Does anyone have experience using Chromecast and tidal? Wondering if Tidal will stream lossless into my chromecast.

Also wondering if people have good suggestions for streamers that work well with either Spotify or Tidal? Any kind of digital output will do.

I have a Magni 3, my HD6XX's will arrive Friday. Looking to get my streaming taken care of and get settled into the sound of the HD6XX and Magni 3 before I buy a Mimby. I want to be able justify my purchases by hearing/appreciating each component.

Thanks for reading/replying.

 

[jimmers]

Let's start a discussion on single malt Scots whiskey. [The scots is the original spelling].

Your reference for this?