[OldRoadToad]

Hallelujah!

Steely Dan is a great band and some of the other Music (George Benson Breezin) is good too

Agreed and HUZZAH! Aja is one of my all time favorite albums (and songs!) and even during the disco era when I was a bouncer the club would play the song for me because the DJs knew how much I enjoyed Steely Dan and that particular cut.

I have both CDs by "The Earl Klugh Trio". Why? Because I like the songs on those two albums and they way they play them. I am without any musical talent so I know what crap sounds like even if it ain't cRap.

ORT

 

[theeclone]

I went from MPD -> minimserver/UPNP -> minimserver/OpenHome -> Roon.

It meets my needs (love Roon Radio) and is easier to live with than the other choices. I'm not capable of hearing that last N% of fidelity and manual tagging and the pursuit of that last N% were too exhausting.

Yeah I'm on mpd now. I got excited about simplifying things by moving the music server into another room now that I have a DAC w endpoint capabilities, but all is not well in the free/open source world when it comes to getting server, control point and renderer to talk to each other correctly. I can't even get gapless playback to work correctly rn; something aparently Roon can do with this DAC.

I'm sometimes shocked at how bad certain free open source apps are these days. Heck, even some paid music apps are a UX nightmare (jriver anyone?). mpd was pretty great tho. Rock solid, tweakable, with a nice rich ecosystem. But, unfortunately, gone are the days when I want my server sitting next to my DAC. Despite the usability issues I'm currently experiencing, moving the server away from the DAC has already been a sonic upgrade, and has made more space for records .

Before I make the leap into a paid subscription to Roon, though, I may shell out a couple hundred for a small streamer with an i2s output. Might still sound better than my diy server with its (electronically) noisy components and usb.

 

[eliottj]

If you control volume in Audirvana you are manipulating the digital signal; no longer bit perfect.

With as good a DAC as MMB2 is I would not do any filtering or volume control in Audirvana.

Ok. What about the volume setting in the sound set up on the pc? I assume it's digital too and even in kernal mode in audirvana it does affect the volume. If I go all out on the volumes hitting the MM2, I'll be over on the dac and asgard 3, right?

 

[theeclone]

Ok. What about the volume setting in the sound set up on the pc? I assume it's digital too and even in kernal mode in audirvana it does affect the volume. If I go all out on the volumes hitting the MM2, I'll be over on the dac and asgard 3, right?

My understanding is that some DACs are designed in a way that you can get harshness with levels that approach full scale, but that Schiit DACs are not in that category. I think the Schiit crew are kind of savants when it comes to how their DACs are voiced and they're made to sound good at full volume.

But yes, changing the level at the PC would be a digital change, ie not bit perfect. Some DACs have analog hardware volume that can be controlled from the player or PC but I don't think Schiit DACs do.

 

[Daniel Johnston]

Yeah I'm on mpd now. I got excited about simplifying things by moving the music server into another room now that I have a DAC w endpoint capabilities, but all is not well in the free/open source world when it comes to getting server, control point and renderer to talk to each other correctly. I can't even get gapless playback to work correctly rn; something aparently Roon can do with this DAC.

I'm sometimes shocked at how bad certain free open source apps are these days. Heck, even some paid music apps are a UX nightmare (jriver anyone?). mpd was pretty great tho. Rock solid, tweakable, with a nice rich ecosystem. But, unfortunately, gone are the days when I want my server sitting next to my DAC. Despite the usability issues I'm currently experiencing, moving the server away from the DAC has already been a sonic upgrade, and has made more space for records .

Before I make the leap into a paid subscription to Roon, though, I may shell out a couple hundred for a small streamer with an i2s output. Might still sound better than my diy server with its (electronically) noisy components and usb.

I can confirm Roon is worth the money. It isn’t the screaming deal it was 6 years ago, but it’s worth it. The Roon ARC mobile app is awesome. Roon in general just works—I rarely have issues.

Yeah. you can piece together other solutions for cheaper. Plex media server and PlexAmp comes to mind. A lifetime license is $200 IIRC and you get 75% of Roon features. I use Plex for my movies and watched the music side of the software grow and mature. It’s pretty slick.

 

[Derrick Swart]

Splurge and use some Mackie CR-X series studio monitors.

Or new kid on the block. I heard them and was very very impressed. From Thomann, the house brand: Swissonic A306 or 308 (+ sub10) - for less than 900 bucks you get your self a 5.1 speaker/amp combination, curious how they sound with Syn and a SMART TV. Probably all we need for an small/mid size entertainment room.

edit: Ah and you need to buy some cables which might get you to a 1000 bucks.

 

[Timster]

Always looks like the long way around unless you project it on a globe

 

[Timster]

Ha!

When I read the original post I wondered to myself, "Ripper2860 bought a miniDSP -it would be interesting to read what he thinks".

When you live in the SineWave TM, it becomes part of your consciousness....

Speaking of the SineWave, "newcomers that demand the thread be more on point" or some such?

Oh, that's already covered with this .... Bottom of the first

 

[Timster]

Anyone else seeing errors if you try to get the shipping rate on schiit.com?

I filled all the fields but it doesn't like me.
Reported to info@schiit.com as well

 

[cricket]

Anyone else seeing errors if you try to get the shipping rate on schiit.com?



I filled all the fields but it doesn't like me.
Reported to info@schiit.com as well

Liked me just fine. You're now to blame for the Gjallarhorn in my cart.

 

[Balthazar B]

I must agree here...

I incorporated DSP room correction via a miniDSP DDRC-22D Dirac unit. That lasted for all of about 90 days before I realized that it sucked the life from my speakers. In my effort to achieve a neutral sound it removed the character and 'voicing' that the designer strived to incorporate and drew me to select the speakers in the first place. DSP room correction stripped it down to a rather sterile and bland neutrality.

I tried the DSP room correction with several speakers and the result is they all sounded very similar. The characteristic differences were no longer there resulting in a blended sound that while good, was no longer exciting and was definitely less engaging.

I decided to devote more time and effort with room acoustics and speaker placement and have been rewarded with the sound I was looking for without draining the speakers of their unique qualities and timbre.

(If anyone wants to buy a DDRC-22D and calibrated mic., ping me via DM. )

I think you're describing "yacht sound"...

 

[RCBinTN]

Not sure what you did during setup. But that makes no sense, if I'm honest with you.

Roon's single redeeming quality is that its audio pipeline is 100% transparent. You just need to know what you're doing. Switch off MQA support, don't enable any of that EQ or DSP nonsense, and set the DAC to hog mode — and Root will take the audio data that's in your file and send it out your USB port to the DAC completely unchanged.

My guess is that you either played around with the DSP stuff, didn't use hog mode for your DAC, or that you actually did get your raw files out the other end, but that you're so used to whatever your usual player does to your files that hearing them "in the nude" for a change startled you.

Point is, however:
There's no right or wrong. Use what you think sounds best. And I mean that without any snark or irony, but with all my heart.

Roon seems totally transparent to my ears. I used JRiver in the past, and Roon's SQ is better. The other day, I decided to fool around with the Roon DSP Crossfeed with my HD800 headphones. It's supposed to make headphones sound more like speakers. Well, it did - somewhat narrowed the width of the sound stage but also introduced a veil over the sound. No longer was it transparent. That killed the testing for me in about 45 seconds. YMMV, as always.

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

A happy Memorial Day to my fellow Americans.
Also, a peaceful Whit Monday to all you christians out there, and a decent, stress-free Monday to everybody else.

Put on some good music, y'all, and just consciously enjoy being alive for a bit. Because in the end, that's what it's all about.

 

[bcowen]

“Some artists commonly included in the yacht rock genre are: The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, Christopher Cross, Robbie Dupree, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Fleetwood Mac, Michael McDonald, Rupert Holmes, Toto, and Steely Dan.”

Most of the guys on this list are totally fine musicians who put out great music. Not all of it of course. I will say there is absolutely nothing by Michael McDonald I don’t like.

However, I am really happy someone finally found a great use for this song.

The link doesn't work.

I hesitated to post this 'cause you might fix the link, I'd click on it, then puke. But I like to live dangerously.

 

[RCBinTN]

“Some artists commonly included in the yacht rock genre are: The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, Christopher Cross, Robbie Dupree, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Fleetwood Mac, Michael McDonald, Rupert Holmes, Toto, and Steely Dan.”

There is just something wrong with using Steely Dan as background noise.