lgoler

Can someone recommend a USB 2 to SPDIF audio interface to replace my very old Halide Bridge which was on the CASH list some time ago, but I believe is very obsolete. Thanks, Lance

@mitchco Thank you for this most detailed review! As someone considering active floorstanding speakers for a quite large room, and the new version of these (Focus X60) being high on the list, I have 2 questions:. 1. You seemed to really like the 600's so why only 3 stars? 2. Did you ever get a pair of Kii's to review?

@dalethorn You seem to have very strong opinions about why planar magnetic headphones suck at this point in time. It also seems that you have a serious amp headphone in the Oppo HA2 DAC, but yet you list only mediocre rated phones as your listening vehicles. What gives?

Thanks. Given your setups, do you know of any advantage or disadvantage going straight from the turntable via amp output directly to this? http://tascam.com/product/cd-rw900mkii/ I'm told there is no difference in sound quality when comparing the vinyl playback to what can be captured with the Tascam.

Curious what rig (hardware and software) CA folks use to do high -quality needle drops? Less interested in the turntable and needle, more in how they are actually doing the recording/conversion piece.

@Samuel T Cogley Appreciate the spirited debate and sorry if I came off as a dick. What you say is so very true about vinyl.

I wonder what kind of music most of you listen to who are judging the demise of the CD based on its inability to capture great sound. It seems you are focused more on the audio quality as opposed to the music when judging a medium's worthiness. The fact is, CD's were a boon to accessing music that was long out of print and impossible to find. Are you telling me that I can "stream" every recorded solo by Fats Navarro, effortlessly? Or listen to all of Hank Mobley's 50's output? Or the rare recording of Sviataslov Richter playing Chopin etudes? In looking at the prices of cd's on Discogs, it would seem that those of you who negate the value of the CD are actually in the minority. CD's are already moving up in price on music that has stood the test of time. I would take a poorly recorded Charlie Parker over the best sounding "Insert Name Here" any day. No amount of MQA, high bitness is going to make up for the fact that the music sucks. Now maybe I'm wrong and all of the great music I have in my collection is available as a download, but if that's true, I'll save my money except for the rare case when I think it would actually make a real difference in the listening experience. Done!

I've been reading about configurations from many here and Chris' effusive reviews of the Sonore products. Since I'm starting from scratch, I'd like opinions from readers. I have a home with a router that is a room away from where I'll be doing the bulk of my listening. I will have some wireless speaker setup in other rooms too. But main question is the optimal way to configure the chain. I primarily listen to my own collection stored on external drives but could easily see moving to a NAS for this purpose. If I do, what would you recommend as an optimal setup? Is the Roon/Rendu combo the way to go? I could really use some advice for configuring a new setup, while not breaking the bank. I'll save that for the amp and speakers:). And let me finish by saying that I absolutely do want streaming as an option, just that it's not my dominant listening mode. Thanks in advance for your valuable input!

Thanks for the feedback to my question, even though it seems to have gone a bit off topic:)

@bozrdang Great topic for discussion! I've been thinking quite a lot about this too, mostly because my library is all over the map - 1,000 CD's ripped by me into AIFF, FLAC file downloads and tons of mp3's with janky metadata. My player is iTunes and I have one library on an external HD that is pure lossless paired with PureMusic for playback with iTunes and another that is mp3 only. I use Hazel (software for Mac only) to move files once they are converted from my lossless external to my mp3 external for use on portable devices. I use TuneSweeper and TuneUP for cleaning up bad metadata but I know neither of these applications are anywhere near perfect. Anyone have a better suggestion for this on Mac - please fire away! My files are organized into folders Artist>Album>Track Number_Name. Fairly standard. I will say I trialed Roon and found it far superior to iTunes but it's bloody expensive for what it is. As many have already said on here, it would be nice if they had a more a la carte option. For the files that you have that are singles - if I were using iTunes I would use some kind of tag to identify them as a single that could then be used for sorting and playback. Anyway, I'm sure what I've said isn't much help to you, but nonetheless, thought I'd contribute.

Audioquest published a whitepaper in 2011 stating that it is not preferred to use a USB external for playback while using a USB DAC as it causes what they call synchronous conflict. Have any of you proven this out? If so, given that Thunderbolt drives are significantly more expensive and Firewire seems to be outdated, what is my best option for connecting my music to a MacMini that has (1) Thunderbolt port (1) Firewire port and (4) USB 2.0 ports?

Orgel, Appreciate the thorough response. I completely agree that PM, while sounding good is a very clunky UI. In my personal situation, I'm doubtful that I will ever be a Tidal user. I, like I'm sure many others on here, have a massive collection of music that isn't going to be well represented by a streaming service like theirs any time soon. So I will take your advice and check out Audirvana Plus and will also trial Roon just for the fun of it. Pricing is pretty steep at this point but sure it will come down over time. Thank you, Lance

You folks are all very serious about this hobby which is why this website is invaluable to someone like me who is casual about it. I use iTunes and Pure Music and find the combo to be sometimes great and sometimes quite frustrating. PM isn't as stable as I would like (something as simple as switching between tracks can be painful) and iTunes on its own has major flaws - the big ones for me: all the missing metadata, especially on FLAC files, the need to switch between multiple libraries to separate those that have mp3 vs. high-res and many other issues I won't care to name. That said, I'd be interested in the opinions of whomever will offer them as to the benefits of what seems like an entirely new configuration, Roon for control+ HQPlayer for upsampling vs. the one I'm using now, PM + iTunes. Thanks!

I recently purchased Mahler's 4th, Ivan Fischer conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra which is DSD. I have Pure Music 1.89 installed on my Mac Mini. I'd like to be able to play these files without first converting them, which I understand PM is designed to do. I tried dragging the files directly into the Command-F window but doesn't work. Anyone know if there is a way to do this or is this only achievable with PM v2? Also, I noticed that the disc says "multi-channel" and Pure Music on its website FAQs says it only supports 2 channel. Is that it right there - won't work?