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JJinPDX

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  1. Nice review Chris! One of your best in terms of describing and translating your feelings. However, I was so taken aback by what I finally figured out was, in essence, a networked DAC/Pre. When I was reading your article you mentioned hooking it up to your Constellations and that puzzled me. I just assumed you wanted to understand its performance through a system with which you are intimately familiar. I went to the Linn website and was looking for the amp specs. Ha! In the future I definitely need to read more carefully and not pay so much attention to the suggested retail price!! Ow! I just assumed it was everything all wrapped in one beautiful box. Silly me. Keep up the good work!
  2. ...and then there's sticking with what you know, specs or no specs. I'm about to start over. I do love the "house sound" of McIntosh, but have decided to stick my ears in front of other brands, both amplification and speakers. I tend to lean into established brands, at least ones that I can afford. I trust that they have jumped through the years of technical hoops and R&D expenses to arrive at what they feel is the sound for them. I'm looking forward to the rest of the articles, mostly because the first one doesn't really say that much. Getting sound that isn't live, via analog or digital, to our ears is always a technical compromise. The amount of tweaking that can be done I assume is almost infinite, or else why continue to tinker? Remember in the good old days of tape? "Is it live or is it Memorex?" (I think I have that right) Live is always best; the rest is more or less satisfying to the prospective customer; and a challenge to the marketer. I just find it all fun and engaging!
  3. Thanks for the great review, bobfa. I've always been hesitant to invest in active speakers. I'm starting to rethink though. I've always been convinced you get the pair of speakers that give you the sound you want with the amp/pre that you want and/or can afford, then you start playing with various combos from there. In other words, you can change your amp within a brand or beyond. Guess that's now old school? With DSP, room correction, etc? You can shape the sounds as you like? No more worry about A A/B, D, tube, solid state....? I have a lot to learn. Thank you!
  4. I'm out of the loop on what lay behind many of the last several posts, and I certainly find the distraction somewhat annoying, given that it takes away from Bluesman's find work. All I want to say is that because of Bluesman's fine work I got myself a RPi 4 Model B with 4G on board, set it up in a basic way using Raspian Lite, got a Flirc case, and it is now happily a Roon end point using its Wifi 5g connection, grabbing music from my Synology NAS, and routing it to my Bryston BDA-2 DAC using a USB 2 port. Damn good SQ, in my opinion, although I have never owned a microRendu, which I am sure is a fine piece of kit. I was so impressed with this implementation that I retired my "Zuma" which cost me about $900 to build back when that was a thing. The RPi 4 implementation cost $85 and performs as well, and I think better than the stock x86 creation running Win10. I love it. Thanks Bluesman for sharing your enthusiasm and knowledge. JJ Edit: Also, I was so impressed that I built another for a fellow audiophile in my area. He is also extremely happy with it.
  5. Thanks, Josh, well done. I have a Bryston BDA-2. I've compared it to a McIntosh D100 and a Schitt BiFrost. The BDA-2 seemed to be the best to my ears, so I stuck with it. The funny thing is that even though I have continual upgrade-itus, the BDA-2 just keeps truckin' on. I know there are "better" out there that can handle much higher resolution, DSD, etc., but I continue to enjoy the sound. Someone ought to do an article about when the good you have is good enough. Again, well done! John J
  6. Just a follow up... With the Flirc case running Bridge on Raspian Lite for many, many hours, highest temps, both CPU and GPU, 38C. Ambient temp 68F. No hiccups at all. - JJ
  7. Excellent write-up. Love the McIntosh house sound. Will be very interested in the upcoming C7200 review.
  8. Ropieee is having trouble with USB 2.0 out to a Music Streamer II DAC I had laying around. Pops and clicks, although it did start out okay. Not sure why it suddenly started misbehaving. It recognizes the DAC through Roon just fine. Will re-flash the 4-gig SD that I put it on and try again. I will also report the issue to the Ropieee folks on Roon, but thought I'd let you know. Went back to the Raspian Lite and no problems at all.
  9. Ropieee. Ok. Will give it a try for the same grins and giggles. I have a flirc case on its way. The one thing I am now researching is how to automagically make sure the OS updates and protects itself without my having to do so myself, and how to make sure if there's a power outage that it can come back with no corruption. Since I'm going to install a few of these around the house to group using RAAT, I want it to be as much of an appliance as possible. This is great fun! John J
  10. I don't know if this is a problem or not, but I'm recording a temp of 68C using vcgencmd measure_temp. Seems high to me. Still no hiccups though. Might try DietPi for grins and giggles.
  11. I did not know about the memory limitation. I did try to expand the use of RAM to its max, and apparently it did. Using "free -h" I see that I'm at 3.8Gi, but only using 202Mi with 3.5Gi free. The unit has been playing now for over 6 hours with absolutely no hiccups at all. Bridge is the only thing it's doing; I haven't loaded Kodi yet. I've also unplugged its power supply and plugged it back in several times to see if it will boot back up and be usable. No problems there. For my simple needs, it appears to be the solution. I'm buying another and giving this one as a gift to an audiophile friend who has difficulty using a remote, so this will be perfect for him. The new one will have the flirc case. I'm also documenting every single step I used to get this up and to its current state, in case someone wants to avoid all the trial and error and just wants to have a printout handy that is specific for the RPi4 and Bridge.
  12. I ended up with Raspian Lite downloaded from the raspberrypi.org website. I'm using Roon, so the Pi is setup with Roon Bridge. RPi 4 Model B/4GB. Probably overkill just for Raspian Lite and the Roon Bridge, but I have it hooked up to the TV and will eventually load Kobi so I can play all my ripped DVD's that are stored on the NAS, along with my music. I must mention that where I have my system cannot be reached by ethernet or coax cabling, which irritates me no end. So everything is by wifi. I'm using the 5 GHz band and so far there have been no hiccups with this. The highest I can go with the Bryston is 24/192, but that plays with ease. I cannot do DSD, so have no experience over wifi with that. Again, thanks to you for your great substantive essays and all the others who make this amazing hobby so accessible and fun. John J
  13. Well, LOL! It took me a whole day to get my Pi4 to make music via usb to my W4S re-clocker and finally to my Bryston BDA-2 DAC. But, I am now happily playing Mahler's 2nd. It took me that long because I did all kinds of things wrong and did them wrong at least three times, then changed my mind about the OS a few times, and on and on. But I am very happy with the result. The only question I have is, is ALSA as good as WASPI or ASIO or what-have-you. But that discussion would be for another thread. Just know that I got it to work, and am looking forward to the next installment detailing SBCs. Thank you once again! John J
  14. Thank you for this amazing series of articles! Looking forward to the next one on SBCs. Just bought a RPi 4 to play with, mainly as a Roon bridge. I’ve been concerned that it might not provide what I’m hoping for, but they are so inexpensive why not give it a shot! Many, many thanks! John J
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