[bcowen]

Neil Young is passionate about how his recordings sound, and for many years he refused to allow any of his music to be released on CD, as he simply didn’t like the ‘digital’ sound.

In my opinion, he was absolutely right.

Keep on Rockin’ In the Free World, Neil.

Beyond his older stuff like Old Man and Alabama, Sleeps With Angels is one of my favorites of his, both musically and sonically. Then I see the below on Ebay and good grief. I bought the LP set when it first came out for like $20, which I thought was pretty expensive then....

(but at least they are now "sealing" used records. LOL!)

 

[shultzee]

Besides Amazon Music HD, AFAIK there are one or two classical music streaming services available. If you want radio-style content, there are several content sources across different genres that stream 16/44 FLAC. The four faces of Radio Paradise may be the most well-known.

I love Radio Paradise. Sound quality in Flac is outstanding.

 

[bcowen]

Supposedly, a 6N1P can be used in the Vali 2. I have a leftover set from when I owned a Valhalla 2 (sold it because it gave off way too much heat for Florida), but I've never felt like trying it out.

A 6N1P draws 600 milliamps of heater current versus 300 milliamps for a 6BZ7, 6922, 6DJ8, etc. The Vali 2 (at least the original, can't speak to the 2+) could handle the 600 milliamps as people were adapter-ing in 6SN7's and similar tubes with 600 milliamps of current draw with no problems. Not that *I* would ever do that of course, just "other people." But the Mjolnir 2 has two tubes versus the single tube in the Vali 2, so with 6N1P's in the MJ you'd have 1200 milliamps of total current draw (600ma X 2) versus 600ma total with two 6BZ7's (or 6922's, 6DJ8's, etc). Pretty sizable jump.

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Agreed, but what was said on the last few pages of this thread implied that MQA-mastered albums would actually be 14/44 when played back as lossless files with no MQA decoding.

14/44 for music content. The other two bits are are heard as noise, and not easily-dismissed white noise either.

JC

 

[Les Strat]

Beyond his older stuff like Old Man and Alabama, Sleeps With Angels is one of my favorites of his, both musically and sonically. Then I see the below on Ebay and good grief. I bought the LP set when it first came out for like $20, which I thought was pretty expensive then....

(but at least they are now "sealing" used records. LOL!)

@bcowen Wow! With prices like that, you have just given me another good reason why I'm unlikely to go back down the vinyl rabbit hole!
I buy many of my CDs from Music Magpie in the UK and they have the album on CD for £2.73
Neil Young and Crazy Horse : Sleeps With Angels CD (1994) FREE Shipping, Save £s 93624574927 | eBay

 

[bcowen]

@bcowen Wow! With prices like that, you have just given me another good reason why I'm unlikely to go back down the vinyl rabbit hole!
I buy many of my CDs from Music Magpie in the UK and they have the album on CD for £2.73
Neil Young and Crazy Horse : Sleeps With Angels CD (1994) FREE Shipping, Save £s 93624574927 | eBay

LOL! With prices like that, I need to get busy on Ebay selling my LP's. Gotta buy a sealing machine first , but then pay off the house, buy a couple new cars, even get a plane ticket to Australia so I can drive @UntilThen 's golf cart into the lake.

 

[Varejao17]

Not really. MQA takes out the bottom 2 bits from the 16 in 44.1/16 for their jiggery-pokery. If you want real CD quality, you need real CDs (or real CD downloads). The bottom 2 bits may not matter for horribly dynamic-range compressed popular music, but I follow Neil Young in wanting to listen what they actually wanted to release when they recorded an album.

I make no claims about the superiority or inferiority of MQA.

But your description is not quite correct - the MQA file (at least as presented in their original pitch) is 24 bits in depth, not 16. The encoded data is in the lower 8 bits.

See for example:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/ive-heard-future-streaming-meridians-mqa

I observe that your 14 bit example might be more applicable to the 1990's Pacific Microsonic's HDCD encoding.

I make no claims about the superiority or inferiority of MQA.

ed

 

[Ableza]

Just buy CDs.

 

[Derrick Swart]

or

Just buy CDs.

red book downloads

 

[Derrick Swart]

To me MQA is something I do not care for. But if they can convince the studios first and establish something as red book (concept, not quality) then I will have no issues at all with MQA. I believe, that their, Meridian, objective is not improvement of SQ.
Next step after red book has to be something better in all means, those things take time. Mono to stereo, vinyl to redbook, these things took decades and the higher the bar the longer it takes usually

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

I'll disagree - he mentioned a high EMI environment, where a balanced connection and it's CMR (common mode rejection) is a plus. The Yiggy is designed to easily drive professional 600 ohm loads (75 ohm output impedance); given the high input impedance on both the Freya (10k ohms) and MJolnir (50k ohms) - this should not be a problem - y-cable best solution

I don't care if you or somebody else disagrees.
It's a moot point.
I tested with my ears not with the numbers I only see on paper.
I wrote down MY experience and everyone can add or contract to it by listening for themselves.
You techies always forget what this is all about.
Listening to music, not to numbers.
Giving advice on what you read into the numbers is as valuable as the utterances of the oracle at Delphi.

Saillant detail: Three years ago I wrote the same words and got a like from Jason. Now he deleted the post because of the same language.
How can one rely on numbers or quotes only if even the manufacturer changes views and weighs the same thing in different ways?

 

[dieslemat]

Can someone remind me again, did Schiit ever indicate which would come first? the Transport or the Loki++ ??

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Question for the accumulated masses (& @Jason Stoddard if the accumulated masses don't know)...

Can I use a 6N1P in the Mjolnir 2?

I use my Mjolnir as a pre-amp currently, as in:
Pi2AES -> Gungnir MB -> Mjolnir 2 -> HD-6XX/HE-5XX (via balanced headphone out)
MJ2 -> Emotiva A-100 -> Infinity Primus 360’s (via SE pre-amp out)
The fact that I’m using the Infinity’s (which were decidedly mid-FI when I bought them out of college for $400/pair) and that I’m using them near field in my office rig, is just plain hilarious to me. But the tube warmth comes through plenty fine. And though the tweeters aren’t anywhere near pointed at me and the geometry is all wrong, and the room is tiny, I just love the solidity. It’s a bit like being in the seats behind the orchestra - wild and amazing but not exactly how it’s meant to sound.
(Gratuitous Stereophil$ review: https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/605infinity/index.html)

That's indeed one of the options I used myself.
I'm not that charmed of the MJ2 as a pre for power amps.
It sounded just a little to sterile to me.

 

[Varejao17]

Can someone remind me again, did Schiit ever indicate which would come first? the Transport or the Loki++ ??

I don't believe they said either way, but given the last update, I'm guessing it will come down to which one will have all the parts needed to assemble and ship.

ed

 

[Les Strat]

LOL! With prices like that, I need to get busy on Ebay selling my LP's. Gotta buy a sealing machine first , but then pay off the house, buy a couple new cars, even get a plane ticket to Australia so I can drive @UntilThen 's golf cart into the lake.

ROFL @bcowen