[kesselrun]

I think a balance control makes more sense in the Loki since it’s purpose is to give us back the controls that went missing from hi-if products many years ago. Balance is one of them just like tone controls.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

Im wondering/assuming that's one way they are considering packaging the Gadget...snip... Im wondering/assuming that's one way they are considering packaging the Gadget.

Whatever Schiit does, it should be as disruptive as hell. BTW - Their LOKI stock has been on backorder all week. I blew my beer-fund on the most recent HD6xx drop (that closed yesterday). Ah well... perhaps no analog tone control for me (until 2019).

 

[RCBinTN]

Is light[e]ning like Whisk[e]y? or typo|autocorrect?

Naw. I just spelled it wrong.

 

[audio philestine]

Look into a Raspberry Pi with a digital out board (Digi+ I think it's called?) I have one and love it. It's cheap and sounds great. A little work to set up but you can find info on the webz. It wont do Tidal but there are people using it with Spotify. I havent gotten that far with it yet. Rune Audio is the distro I use.

On a side note, I recently dropped Tidal and went back to Spotify Premium. The watermarking many labels use on lossless recordings is audible, and negated the benefits for me of paying extra for lossless.

[Long time lurker/first time poster. I hope it's OK to post links here. I still need moderator approval, so go ahead and delete the links if you must, but please leave the names so thy could still be searched on the web. I have no affiliation with hifiberry other than being a satisfied repeat customer.]

Hifiberry Digi+ Pro (https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/boards/hifiberry-digi-pro/) provides isolated coaxial S/PDIF out and is perfect for feeding a modi multibit.

There's also the Hifiberry DAC+ Pro (https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/boards/hifiberry-dac-pro/) which is RCA line out, perfect for feeding a magni

I highly recommend their steel cases for the Raspberry Pi + audio boards. They're a little tricky to assemble, but are nearly indestructible, and make a nice mechanical and electromagnetic shield for the Pi.

I also second the recommendation for Rune Audio, Easy to set up, easy to use, good online support/forums, actively developed, and I think it looks pretty too. It can be controlled by anything with a web browser (phone, tablet), or even a touch screen.

Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with Tidal/Spotify so I can't comment on those, but Rune can also function as a uPnP/DLNA endpoint renderer, which opens up the option of running the streaming services from a phone or PC and then render on the PI feeding your audio stack.

 

[AudioBear]

[Long time lurker/first time poster. I hope it's OK to post links here. I still need moderator approval, so go ahead and delete the links if you must, but please leave the names so thy could still be searched on the web. I have no affiliation with hifiberry other than being a satisfied repeat customer.]

Hifiberry Digi+ Pro (https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/boards/hifiberry-digi-pro/) provides isolated coaxial S/PDIF out and is perfect for feeding a modi multibit.

There's also the Hifiberry DAC+ Pro (https://www.hifiberry.com/shop/boards/hifiberry-dac-pro/) which is RCA line out, perfect for feeding a magni

I highly recommend their steel cases for the Raspberry Pi + audio boards. They're a little tricky to assemble, but are nearly indestructible, and make a nice mechanical and electromagnetic shield for the Pi.

I also second the recommendation for Rune Audio, Easy to set up, easy to use, good online support/forums, actively developed, and I think it looks pretty too. It can be controlled by anything with a web browser (phone, tablet), or even a touch screen.

Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with Tidal/Spotify so I can't comment on those, but Rune can also function as a uPnP/DLNA endpoint renderer, which opens up the option of running the streaming services from a phone or PC and then render on the PI feeding your audio stack.

I’ll second your recommendation. I found the RP3 plus Digi pro easy to set up and the sound is amazing using the spdif coax out (transformer isolated). Lot’s of great software options like Rune and Volumio. I also use one as a Roon endpoint. And they are fun to play with.

 

[AudioBear]

I think a balance control makes more sense in the Loki since it’s purpose is to give us back the controls that went missing from hi-if products many years ago. Balance is one of them just like tone controls.

Of course we could always use balanced outputs to two integrated amps or amps with volume controls. Isn’t that the purist approach to balance?

 

[wink]

Is light[e]ning like Whisk[e]y? or typo|autocorrect?

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

 

[RCBinTN]

Dee Light Full.

 

[loki993]

I dislike Jack Daniels...I swear I can taste the charcoal...

 

[ScubaMan2017]

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.

FYI to the Forum = I stumbled across this NPR article that gave me some insights into codecs. As long as I assume the author wasn't trolling me (and using the exact file for all the samples), I just couldn't tell the differences (on my ModiMultibit + Magni3 + HD518). It's an amusing distraction (while I try avoiding doing some marking):
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
Edit = oversized font.

 

[Rensek]

FYI to the Forum = I stumbled across this NPR article that gave me some insights into codecs. As long as I assume the author wasn't trolling me (and using the exact file for all the samples), I just couldn't tell the differences (on my ModiMultibit + Magni3 + HD518). It's an amusing distraction (while I try avoiding doing some marking):
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

I did that test in Nov 17, with some AKG m240's, and an iPad air 2. I selected the highest level stream everytime except one, and the one I got wrong was a toss up between the mid level one. The lowest quality one was real easy to spot. The 2 better quality streams weren't so easy, and required a few listen throughs to make my guess. I had never heard any of the songs before. Will be interesting to repeat that test with a magni 3 and HD6XX's.

 

[438555]

FYI to the Forum = I stumbled across this NPR article that gave me some insights into codecs. As long as I assume the author wasn't trolling me (and using the exact file for all the samples), I just couldn't tell the differences (on my ModiMultibit + Magni3 + HD518). It's an amusing distraction (while I try avoiding doing some marking):
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

doing a quick listen with a modi 2 and magni 2 uber and some beyerdynamic amiron home, I can hear a slight difference in one track compared to the other two in a couple of songs. I didn't mark anything, so I will try it again tonight on my "best" systems with less background noise in the room than my office. I'm guessing that I am finding the 128k song as I've been able to spot those in the past pretty easily, but have never been able to tell high bitrate mp3 from lossless.

 

[Timster]

Loki really needs to control the balance if it is to be a true solution for listeners who want to tweak their sound based on room conditions or just their own ears. Please give me a balance knob.

I agree with the need for a balance control, but for many (most?) of us that should already be available in DSP options in Jriver, Roon, Foobar etc. I use Foobar and have a small delay on my right speaker (it is closer to me where I sit at my desk) and also a slightly higher volume on the left. As these players are performing the processing in at least 32 bit, there is no theoretical loss of quality, and I can't hear any loss. For me it's set and forget. YMMV of course.

 

[Scott Kramer]

FYI to the Forum = I stumbled across this NPR article that gave me some insights into codecs. As long as I assume the author wasn't trolling me (and using the exact file for all the samples), I just couldn't tell the differences (on my ModiMultibit + Magni3 + HD518). It's an amusing distraction (while I try avoiding doing some marking):
https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

Here's the kind of information tossed out, you can listen to the diffs alone:

https://romaco.ca/blog/2015/03/23/experimental-differences-in-audio-compression-formats/