Mac and a couple of transformers

[autobayer]

Wow.
And I mean: WOW.
Uncompressed files of course running through these little trannies into my Yamaha (these days) and again - wow.
Crazy mother 
What a sound.
Maybe you all listen mostly to music like this, come on guys, reveal the secrets 
But for me it´s the first time and I am truly impressed.
Now, down with your pants 

[hatehifi]

You mean streaming and/or Internet Radio?

I've never enjoyed cooling fans in my listening room whether from PC, amp, ect., whatever as I tend to listen at low volumes (but nevertheless). For those with servers outside the room, differnt story. But there, there is the question of access. I've read of iPhone and RCs and I'm sure it's great.

Friend Peter has the SooLoos setup and it is excellent as far as 'Comfort' is concerned, except I find it bites off the end of tracks on occasion, more often than not. Or maybe my mind-clock has the blanks recorded in my memory differently.

Many and aye, most people swear by it, Chris. Matter of fact I may get that Resolution Tech (sp?) streamer DAC for Internet radio for the heck of it. But hey, my micromega Dup.Pro DAC has several inputs free so...

I've played with CDPs so long, actually was a latecomer as the first did not push my hot buttons compared to vinyl and now there are set ups that do, that I think I'll stick with the 'analog' "get up and unpack it, wipe it clean and load it, push the 'start' button," routine.

It all has to get loaded too. I mean, it takes time to do all that. Like, if I won the Lottery, I'd likely buy a SooLoos and ask Peter to copy his HDs for me then I'd be good to go, well sort of. What the heck, I guess I'm just too old-fashioned. Maybe I get a change of heart but kind of doubt it.

I think I'm getting tired of tweaking and A/B-ing and just want to listen to some music, but I guess I need the ritual to 'enjoy' it. Or something like that.

Cheers!

[autobayer]

Hi John.
Talking bout fans and coolers we should include our linear trackers here 
My Mac has a solid state disc so silencio tutto.
Sometimes a fan, but that´s as loud as my power amps.
It is so damn easy and the setup cost 15.- altogether - plug and play.
And I know exactly what you mean about the tweeeeeaking.
That´s why I use my L70 / M3d / Yamaha / JBL L16 rig these days.
And listen to the music.
C

[worcestermark]

Loving those beyer step ups on a board like that. BBC radio 2,3&6 here in the Uk out of a laptop and in to my Yaquin MS12B is very musical sounding. For me the music has always come first, so not accessing all that internet music would be absurd. I listen to quite a lot of music I could not obtain any other way (recordings of independent origin, not on lp or cd, hard to find because out of print, worldwide radio stations etc). I am now interested though in getting a fatface & a dac for the bigger bitrate flac/wav files that exceed cd compatibility, as mentioned in a hifi show report on here recently. They look like they are heading towards playing more dynamic width than most cartridges could retrieve, often on material that does not make it to lp anyway. Whenever a new playback technology came out like the lp and the cd, there were always those pictures of stacks of the old media next to the smaller stack of the new media. Now we can get thousands of albums on a hard drive, and the dynamic width for bigger files is the widest yet.

[hatehifi]

Okay guys, lead the way! Any helpful links? I must have overlooked the hifi show review you mention Mark...

[worcestermark]

Hi John, look in Colins pics about a third of the way down..

http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=4648.30

sorry its a hiface, not fatface, I must have been thinking about what I saw in the shaving mirror earlier. Looks like a white whistle, sits in the usb slot, costs about $150. Reviewed very well everywhere!

[hatehifi]

Okay, see it, reviewed where, i.e., Google 'what'?

[ropie]

There were lots of people using computer audio with those 'whistle' thingies at the Wigwam show - although they sometimes sounded good, they didn't always, and were easily outshone by any of the tts there IMO.

[worcestermark]

Hi john, I put in "6 moons m2tech hiface" for starters, then after that extensive view, drop the 6 moons and go back.
Ropie, I take your point and respect your opinion. as with all audio, the rule of garbage in garbage out always rings true (knowing of the recording was well made in the first place), and I am finding that these things mate beautifully with tubes, mine planned to pair with the ms12b and a 9watt 300b single ended triode system. That combination is much nicer than the hard drive m2tech into high powered solid state, which can sound harsher.

[hatehifi]

Hi Mark, will do. Thanks. Just on the phone with Hermann Hoffmann of Audion Int'l (e.g., Decca importer) and he says that in the Frankfurt area, the hifi shops are not tooling up for the streaming revolution. Yes, he says Classic Records (defunct, used to be their distributor) kept digi as well as 38ips 'files' of their recordings and they are impressive (the digi, that is). What goes in, comes out... Well we didn't finish the conversation other than, "looks like iPod wins." But again, all the shop owners (who are still in business selling hifi) say their customers want something in hand, i.e., the silver disc...

[autobayer]

Mark.
Thanks!
I am a practical guy and whatever suits the music, voila and welcome.
If not  out the door.
This "app" cost me some 15.- altogether, that is next to nothing.
To me the best and most revolutionary music making machine of all time is my dated supermini ipod shuffle with 1 or mb.
Only wav files on it, when I´m tired, put in another round, much better headphone and this little 45g thing sounds so good, I mean it has an amp in it and you don´t even feel it. Unbelievable. And I grew up with a Walkman.
There is no contest in my eyes between the formats, I even play 78s now.
Music.
Aloha.
C

[ropie]

as with all audio, the rule of garbage in garbage out always rings true (knowing of the recording was well made in the first place), and I am finding that these things mate beautifully with tubes, mine planned to pair with the ms12b and a 9watt 300b single ended triode system. That combination is much nicer than the hard drive m2tech into high powered solid state, which can sound harsher.

I sounded a bit negative in my comment, sorry about that and comparing different source formats is always a bit pointless.  In any case, I really enjoy listening to my computer audio files (none of which are uncompressed or super audio quality) through headphones with my tubed x-can when I'm working.

[d to the g]

In this line, it has been widely reported (mike lavigne v. john ellison) and my personal experience that hi resolution digital recordings made from vinyl playback are indistinguishable from the original playback.

For John Ellison, the recording set-up cost more than my system, but in my case I used a 24/96 Emu 404.  You can get the EMU for around $150 as well.

GIGO baby!

[daiwok]

Chris,

So you have connected headphone socket to a pair of Beyer SUT into the amp right ? 

I have been streaming music from my Mac > Airport express > optical out into a DAC > Preamp and sounds pretty good to me .....

[Mario_b]

... my personal experience that hi resolution digital recordings made from vinyl playback are indistinguishable from the original playback.

... in my case I used a 24/96 Emu 404.  You can get the EMU for around $150 as well.

GIGO baby!

Hi Douglas,
That's my hardware/resolution preference, as well... unless I know that I'm going to eventually downsample export for CD burns - then I record at 24/88.2 for the easier and less error prone: 2/3 & 1/2 conversion to 16/44.1.

AND, Chris....

Chris,

So you have connected headphone socket to a pair of Beyer SUT into the amp right ? 

I'll 2nd David, and call to question...