[mbyrnes]

Yeah on the PCM.

Here are a couple suggestions to look at that could use you attached USB drive (if it is self powered).
Sonore Sonicorbiter SE. ~ $350
BlueSound Node - ~$500
Cambridge Audio CXN ~$1,000
Rapsberry PI with Volumio~ ~$200

All but the Cambridge would need a phone or tablet for control. The Cambridge has a screen and remote.

Please note I have not used any of these personally. But I know they have the functionality that would work.

Excellent, thank you! That's the pricing I was hoping to be in. I'll check them out and see what works for me! All my HDDs are self powered.

 

[madwolfa]

Please, please, please do not just buy a PC for audio purposes.

While I somewhat agree it doesn't make sense to buy a dedicated audio PC, there's nothing wrong in using an existing one (or laptop) as a source.

I just don't believe in claims of "night and day" and "huge" difference. There is nothing in those dedicated boxes that makes them far superior to your average PC built from quality components.

 

[Letmebefrank]

Excellent, thank you! That's the pricing I was hoping to be in. I'll check them out and see what works for me! All my HDDs are self powered.

In my living room setup I have a Raspberry Pi 3 with Kodi installed for Movies and Music with a Digi+ hat for optical/coax out to my receiver to bypass HDMI audio. Highly recommend this setup. You could easily plug the optical/coax into a dedicated dac instead of the receiver.

However, I did compare it to my desktop PC for my office rig and I couldn't hear any difference between RPi3 and my PC sending S/PDIF coaxial to my Mimby.

 

[Brubacca]

While I somewhat agree it doesn't make sense to buy a dedicated audio PC, there's nothing wrong in using an existing one (or laptop) as a source.

I just don't believe in claims of "night and day" and "huge" difference. There is nothing in those dedicated boxes that makes them far superior to your average PC built from quality components.

tomato and tomAto. My experience was a huge difference going from a Atom Based Silent PC to taking the PC away and using the mR. I'm not saying a PC can't do the Job, but a system with Gumby can be better.

 

[Ableza]

I am trying to figure out the best way to setup a music server that doesn't cost a fortune. I would love to avoid using a PC, but also don't want to spend $3,000. I may look into using either my Xbox or PS4 with an external HDD with all of my music on it. No idea what it would sound like though. It should remain digital until it hits the Mimby. Then I could use my TV as the display. Probably not an ideal situation either. Any suggestions would really help that don't cost a fortune. I have a few HDD already with music, so really just need a device that can read the HDD and output a good quality signal.

Edit: My Vizio will output stereo PCM through the optical output!

http://wiki.vortexbox.org/what_is_vortexbox

 

[mbusby]

I always use balanced with the 2100. When I turn the volume up to 2 o'clock with nothing playing, I can hear a slight hiss with single ended. I hear nothing but silence doing the same with balanced. That tells me that noise floor in balanced is lower.
When you compared the Gumby and Bimby, was the Gumby burnt-in? When I first got the Gumby, I was the same way. Now, I can hear a difference plain as day.

You are hearing the increase in gain between balanced and single-ended. To get the same volume you must turn the single-ended path up, which raises the noise floor.

 

[Aaron Shi]

Now here's some follow up review after approx. 30 hours burn-in:
Boy aren't these Vidars beasts! The bass is so full and punchy, in a well controlled way, without overshadowing everything else. What I experienced before with the Marantz wasn't pleasing in this front.
All of the harshness (just a tiny little bit) at the beginning is gone. The treble's still bright but not tiring at all. Monoblock Vidars never loose control of the notes.
I love listening to vocals through this Vidar + Tannoy combo. They sound warm and touching.
The details are revealing themselves without muddling into each other. Everything is clear and precise.
I could just sit there listening for another 10 hours but unfortunately my fiance will be back from work soon and I have a guitar class to attend to...

 

[UntilThen]

Perhaps my money would be better spent on a Yggy which I have promised myself for the last 2 years.

Buy Yggy. I was in the same position when I started. I wanted to buy Gumby but when I went to Addicted to Audio, it's out of stock. However right in front of my eyes was a lovely looking pair of 'machines' that looked outer worldly. I sat down and listen with HD800 and walk out of the store with Yggy and HD800, making a mental note to myself that I will be back for the Ragnarok.

So the time has come now. This Sunday I will return to the store to buy Ragnarok. I took this picture of the combo with my cell phone. It looks lovely.

 

[majormajor]

In my living room setup I have a Raspberry Pi 3 with Kodi installed for Movies and Music with a Digi+ hat for optical/coax out to my receiver to bypass HDMI audio. Highly recommend this setup. You could easily plug the optical/coax into a dedicated dac instead of the receiver.

However, I did compare it to my desktop PC for my office rig and I couldn't hear any difference between RPi3 and my PC sending S/PDIF coaxial to my Mimby.

I have the Digi+ hat on my Raspberry Pi coax into my Bimby. HifiBerry has an image to make it into a Roon Ready endpoint automagically. Was startlingly easy to set up. I can't even remember what I did before Roon allowed me to manage my streaming library alongside my other music without thinking or caring about files, let alone physical media.

 

[Thouston]

You are hearing the increase in gain between balanced and single-ended. To get the same volume you must turn the single-ended path up, which raises the noise floor.

NO, it is not the gain. The balanced circuit noise floor is lower at the same gain. It does the same thing with the balanced attenuation set to minus 6 db.

 

[Blue Warper]

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm afraid I was talking ****e in my last post because I DID actually demo the Gumby on my A-S3000 both single-ended and balanced. To be honest I was hard pushed to hear a difference, which was a little surprising since I heard a significant difference when I switched from SE to Balanced when I had the Gumby/Mjolnir2 pairing on demo a few months before. Therefore I suspect the performance delta between SE and Balanced in the Yamaha amps is much smaller than in the Schiit amps.
[...]

If I may ask, how long had that Gumby been powered up when you heard it and compared it to your Bifrost 4490? There's some (well, actually I'd say a lot of, AFAIK) people, myself included, who think multibit DACs performances will stabilize after a certain (variable, but usually 2 or 3 days) period of time. This is for example - as I said in some earlier posts - my experience with Yggdrasil. Never heard Gungnir multibit, but I read similar reports about it, with that initial period being somewhat shorter than for Yggdrasil (24-48 hours). So maybe you heard a 'cold' Gumby at the time? If so, you may want to redo that comparison again and see if results change for you this time. I'm not saying they will, but you may want to give it a try.

 

[Blue Warper]

Sorry, I jumped in my reply as soon as I read your post, and I failed to see both that Thouston had already had similar thoughts and you had already replied to him...

 

[GearMe]

Excellent, thank you! That's the pricing I was hoping to be in. I'll check them out and see what works for me! All my HDDs are self powered.

I ended buying a new Pioneer Elite N50 for $339 and I can hear a difference...could be nothing more than it's using coax to the Bimby and my laptop uses USB to it but, whatever the reason, the N50 sounds better than my laptop/jriver. YMMV

 

[DigitalFrontEnd]

Has any body been using, or planning to use. Vidar with Magnepan speakers? If so PLEASE provide feedback.

 

[slefty]

Has any body been using, or planning to use. Vidar with Magnepan speakers? If so PLEASE provide feedback.

Which model Maggies? I used one (the pre-production unit they showed at Axpona) with the .7 for a few days at the LA Audio Show and it was an excellent pairing. For many people, the best combo we had in our room. Even the folks from Magnepan that checked our our setup were impressed by it. Plenty of power for the 12.5X19.5 foot room we were in.