[artur9]

Baldr: I really wish I didn’t have to struggle with how to store and find my over 10,000 CDs.



That is what they invented interns for!

Are you suggesting you're available?

 

[darkarn]

I am available! It will be an honour to work with Mike!

 

[KoshNaranek]

On streamers vs. Physical media:

As I write I listen to the Handsome Family In the Air album HD (96K) streamed through an experimental DAC. It is not bad, after all. It defies all logic that a CD should sound better; all of the mechanical motion with resultant motion flutter/jitter as well as the bonus electronic circuitry through which the eventual music must pass. Not to mention the inherent 44.1K non HD mastering of a CD in glorious non-HD.

One of the advantages of an Urd is that it enables instant a/b comparison of a stream to a CD in play by switching back and forth between its native transport mode and its separate USB input.

OK, OK – I really wish I didn’t have to struggle with how to store and find my over 10,000 CDs. (I also have a huck ton of LPs which are even bigger and heavier.) Streaming is just so convenient, after all. Kinda like fast food.

Maybe one day I will figure this out and get rich.

Meanwhile I will keep streaming while I work and listen to CDs when I want to get really immersed in the music.

I must respectfully disagree with you Mike. I trust your ear and still have examples of your DACs dating back to 1995 but a Pi2AES player running Squeezeplayer sounds better than any CD player that I have ever heard.

Perhaps Ubiquiti Networks equipment has something to do with it. I don't know. I would only use a CD player for backup, not my primary player.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

I like listening to my library on my server. Yes, mainly for convenience, as well as for "shuffle play" which is something you just can't do across multiple CDs. But before the NorthStar transport croaked, it did seem to sound better than the same track on the server - or maybe it was just me, no idea. Streaming from the Internet, however, blows goats in my opinion. It does not hold a candle to locally stored media of any sort that I've discovered. It's a fine thing for background noise, or for discovering new music, or for filling in library holes while CDs are tracked down, but Internet streaming is not for primary listening.

Agreed. It makes me mad.
Now luckily I have a 56 year old standing "no background music or tv in my house".
I gave away my TV when the love of my life passed away to someone here and my alarm clock does "beep-beep-beep-etc."
I do miss the second love of my life, Constanza, because we had so many fun dialogues.
So time for another kitten and an Urd.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

I must respectfully disagree with you Mike. I trust your ear and still have examples of your DACs dating back to 1995 but a Pi2AES player running Squeezeplayer sounds better than any CD player that I have ever heard.

Perhaps Ubiquiti Networks equipment has something to do with it. I don't know. I would only use a CD player for backup, not my primary player.

May I suggest that you first update Squeezeplayer to something better (Roon?) and then compare some really good CD players?
You are making the point here yourself. "any CD player that I have ever heard", makes it very subjective.
So do us a favor and test an Urd. Solely on the basis that you would be one of it's most ardent critics.
Which is good I think.

 

[KoshNaranek]

May I suggest that you first update Squeezeplayer to something better (Roon?) and then compare some really good CD players?
You are making the point here yourself. "any CD player that I have ever heard", makes it very subjective.
So do us a favor and test an Urd. Solely on the basis that you would be one of it's most ardent critics.
Which is good I think.

The CD player reference was an Esoteric K-01xd

I have tried Roon and no difference with LMS was noted. Picoreplayer was the front end with both.

If you are asking me to try Urd to be the devil's advocate reviewer, I can email Denise later in the week.

My original response to Mike was not to badmouth Urd but to have Mike try Pi2AES

 

[KoshNaranek]

PS. We all miss Constanza. Still sorry about all your loss

 

[Ableza]

My original response to Mike was not to badmouth Urd but to have Mike try Pi2AES

You mean in case he is Pi-curious?

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

If you are asking me to try Urd to be the devil's advocate reviewer, I can email Denise later in the week.

Yes. I do.
Or maybe borrow one if it's out.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

PS. We all miss Constanza. Still sorry about all your loss

I comfort myself by thinking she almost (shy of 1 month) made 22 years old.
"She wasn't suffocated in the cradle". As we doctors in Europe say.

 

[AndreYew]

Can you elaborate on what supporting a data CD would adversely impact?

What's the difference between a data CD, and burning a Redbook CD with a bunch of tracks? I guess you can put higher sample rate tracks on a data CD, but you can't really fit that many on a CD (and you'd need to run the transport faster to read it off, which could cause other issues), and you could also put lossy compressed files on a data CD, but that seems to be wasting the capabilities of an audiophile setup. If you really wanted to support this kind of use, it's probably better to support reading stuff off a USB flash disk, but that has other problems.

Also the navigation user interface of a data CD (or a USB flash disk) is messy, and that could adversely affect Urd if adding that makes Urd harder to use, later, and/or buggier.

 

[Balthazar B]

On streamers vs. Physical media:

As I write I listen to the Handsome Family In the Air album HD (96K) streamed through an experimental DAC. It is not bad, after all. It defies all logic that a CD should sound better; all of the mechanical motion with resultant motion flutter/jitter as well as the bonus electronic circuitry through which the eventual music must pass. Not to mention the inherent 44.1K non HD mastering of a CD in glorious non-HD.

One of the advantages of an Urd is that it enables instant a/b comparison of a stream to a CD in play by switching back and forth between its native transport mode and its separate USB input.

OK, OK – I really wish I didn’t have to struggle with how to store and find my over 10,000 CDs. (I also have a huck ton of LPs which are even bigger and heavier.) Streaming is just so convenient, after all. Kinda like fast food.

Maybe one day I will figure this out and get rich.

Meanwhile I will keep streaming while I work and listen to CDs when I want to get really immersed in the music.

Mike, ya just rooned my day.

The problem you describe probably can be figured out. At the end of the day it's just physics. Maybe you will get rich!

Wonder if you've tried streaming direct CD output (as opposed to ripped tracks) over your network to your DAC, amplification, and transducers. Does that sound crappy? Maybe there's a principle that the shorter and less complex the route from bits to ears will always sound better? Or at least less filtered/mangled?

The Handsome Family - sublime!

 

[hearditontheX]

Bummed that the Sol may not survive supply chain issues. It was going to be my next (second) and final turntable.

 

[yonson]

I'm still bummed I missed out on the first run, but glad I got in on the 2nd...

 

[Yethal]

Anybody else wondering what'd happen if someone were to plug the Urd's usb output into its input?