Currawong

There's a bit of nuance being missed here. Eric got upset over a bit of a cabinet resonance. That's nucking futs. A sensible response would simply be to improve the product, including fixing the mid-range issues. It reminds me of the time I was with a few people given a private demo at the factory of a company that makes speakers (among other products). They demoed the previous and new versions of a speaker which has an improved mid-range driver. The difference was impressive, enough that I seriously considered asking how much they'd sell me the new model for. If a product has such serious issues that the review is going to be overly negative, then discussing these with the manufacturer and postponing the review until they can be fixed is quite reasonable. I've waited until a product has had firmware updates before posting a review in a couple of cases, as they planned to fix a couple of problems. The issue comes when a manufacturer expects a positive review regardless of the reality. I've only had that happen once, and it was with a product that I really hoped that the manufacturer wouldn't let me keep because it was big, bulky, and I really don't have the spare space for it, especially as it had serious issues.

Sorry, my typo: iRiver is the actual company in South Korea. Astell&Kern was originally a product brand.

Have you tried contacting JRiver and asking them?

That suggests to me that it's actual detail, and not just a "brighter" sound. I planning to upgrade my A2 at some point. Hopefully I can sell the OG and A2 boards I have for a reasonable amount to recoup some of the cost.

I do wonder... do you actually read what people reply to you? I should probably thank you for coming back here to post, as it resulted in both my putting down thoughts about social behaviour that I've had in my head for some time, and other good posts which I'll bookmark for the next time an audio press member in denial stops by. But really, at some point, when a person keeps repeating the same deeply flawed, and even disproven argument over and over again, at some point frustration will get to the point that they'll be called an idiot, or worse. Funny you mention Steve Hoffman's forums. A person there tried to argue that a product could no longer be described as "discrete" because it used sets of matched transistor pairs on the same die (even though the transistors aren't electrically connected). I replied that, if you go by that logic, then any product using a 1-piece rectifier bridge couldn't either, and they deleted my post and warned me. 😆

In any society, or hobby, there are groups, or sides, with opposing ideas. In any civilised society, people may disagree, but they all know that there are lines not to be crossed -- lines beyond which peoples' integrity* is threatened, to put it in the most basic terms. I've observed that in both society in general, as well as in hobbies and sports, once the lines are crossed, people start to get abusive or violent. They feel that if the other side starts or permits the violation of peoples' integrity, then the gloves are off and a similar response is fair game. Critically, however, it often begins when one side ignores, or even champions an attempt by a group (or sub group, on their side) to sell an idea as being beneficial, and rally people around it, but is founded upon dishonesty, or even actually harmful. The group wants power and control, and uses a litany of tactics to get its goals. When people are harmed, and often dragged into dependency on the idea to continue their lives or participation, the people on that side ignore the harm, and try and talk it away, or suppress knowledge of it, instead, attacking people on the other side who pointed it out. Then, the other side, seeing harm done, pointing out the threat to their freedom*, and responds in kind (ignoring their own attitude where "freedom" is only for people who agree with them). As the gloves are off, anything goes, as long as they can rally an equal number of people to their goal, and they begin ignoring harms being done by people on their side, and even beginning to justify it, since they see the people on the other side essentially doing the same. When the first side continues to ignore their responsibility for the growth and perpetuation of the problem, instead blaming the others for what is a reaction to their own actions (wilful ignorance is itself an action) then the cycle continues until someone or something gives way or dies. *Personal, ie: safety, or in the case of a hobby, ability to participate or practice in their own way. It's about choice, or not having choice.

I probably should have specifically said the digital original in my definition, but it was assumed. Indeed though, analog-to-digital conversion is a major issue. For example, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue was transferred poorly (the timing was wrong, for a start!) and this plagued all the digital masters until HDTracks managed to get hold of the original tapes and do a new transfer.

Lossless has a hard definition: That the music hasn't been altered irreversibly from the master recordings (of which there may be multiple)* at the bit-level. That's as succinctly as I can put it, so it bears a bit of expansion. Irreversible alteration would mean that either lossy compression has been applied (for MP3, AAC and MQA), watermarking, or that some kind of post-processing or EQ is applied, such as volume levelling. This can equally be applied to the original digital file, or done on the fly by software or hardware. So, the question really is: Are music services using the same digital music files as you'd get on, say, a CD, or buy from HDTracks, Linn, NativeDSD or elsewhere? Then, given peoples' experiences with the sound seeming to be different from a CD than from a streamed track, is that really the result of the files being different, or is something going on with the software or hardware in their system (eg: volume levelling, re-sampling, or hardware noise levels) to make an audible difference? If we consider the former, that a streamed track is not a bit-perfect match to a CD, is it because it's at a different sample rate? If it is 16/44.1, then is it from a newer or older master of the same album? Are both the CD and streamed versions exactly the same length? If not, that would cause a checksum comparison to fail, but still result in a flat output from an audio diff comparison if the samples are aligned correctly. I don't think that there will be a straight-forward answer to all these questions, and it has to be considered for each individual album. Some famous albums have numerous versions now. Albums on streaming services seem to be constantly deleted and replaced, without any explanation as to why. *Ie: There may be multiple masters at different sample rates, and also masters for particular formats, eg: radio, though I'm not sure how common this is now.

The major labels used to, and it was audible. I don't know what caused them to change it, but probably that TIDAL and Qobuz couldn't advertise their music as lossless if the originals had been altered.

I never noticed it in the R26 to be honest! Honestly, I'd go to a show that you know they will be at, and introduce yourself in person. I doubt it. They are reviewing for whomever reads, and whatever they are interested in. If MQA disappears, then so will the interest. It'll quietly be forgotten about.

Are you sure you're only doing DNS with them, and not using their full WARP product which sends even the data through their systems (like a VPN does)?

I might have to look into this. The binaural recordings were mind-blowing on headphones. I did email him some years ago to ask what he was up to, and got the Audiophile Society link in reply, but this is the first time I've looked at it in a while.

Encrypted DNS shouldn't slow down your internet, as it only encrypts the DNS queries. I've been using NextDNS, as it's highly configurable. I also put it on my inlaws' computers and phones after they kept getting those "You have a virus, call Microsoft" pop-ups. It's much more efficient than using any kind of ad block. For Facebook, I recommend Firefox with Containers, which separate out groups of sites. There is a specific Facebook container, that can anonymise outbound links from FB as well, to remove the tracking. Unfortunately, I can't completely let go of Google, for various reasons, but it's easy enough with browsers to isolate or block the tracking.

DSD is going to always be an incredibly niche format. It's essentially non-existent in terms of actual use. High-res doesn't really have that much more traction. MQA was the first actual effort to legitimise high-res and make it mainstream, even if it wasn't a good-faith effort. Given it got essentially zero traction, I don't see anything changing in the future, except that Apple has a lossless Bluetooth streaming solution for the Vision Pro, and Qualcomm has finally come out with APTx Lossless, and we aren't even talking about high-res yet!

I wouldn't mind saving the space on those files then, except Roon doesn't support WavPack as far as I can tell.