photonman

The Movie "Minority Report "(2002) directed by Steven Spielberg with Tom Cruise, is still considered science fiction but we are on the verge of it becoming our reality.

Oh that title got me excited that this was going to be a double edge safety razor discussion and vintage Gillettes and the like!

Wow, that was an extreme makeover. There is a certain satisfaction to implementing DIY improvements. From an engineering perspective, I would not worry about any perceived increased RFI vulnerability as these cases have so many holes and avenues of ingress anyways. Heat retention is damaging and you have addressed that issue well. Either way, enjoy your work and sense of adventure with equipment modifications. Surely this will not be the last DAC you ever buy.

Welcome to AS. Your journey now begins. There is a certain romantic nostalgia stirred up with the memories of our old systems. I wish I had some of my old equipment that I cherished growing up, like my all-in-one Panasonic table top player, to which I graduated into the hifi world when Santa Claus brought me a Harmon Kardon receiver with AR bookshelf speakers and a first gen Sony CDP one Christmas. Back then we used Radio Shack speaker wire that came on a spool and the el cheapo interconnect cables that came with the equipment, and absolutely no worries or audiophilia-nervosa problems. I almost think my mindset is reverting back to those childhood days of simply enjoying just the music after expending so much energy , money, and time chasing ghost bits and stereophile eureka. Thanks for sharing your story. Enjoy the journey!

Every time you turn your computer on, and navigate to the internet, your "streams" and traffic are being monitored. No way around other than to stay off the public internet. Some social media channels monitor your behavior, even when you are not actively logged onto their digital assets. Think FB, Amazon, Google, Apple, Spotify and all the big ones. And don't forget about your ISP. What happened to net neutrality? Sonos is not unique in this so if you want to single out and boycott Sonos, your activist target list needs to include many more. It is just the new way of this brave new world. When you agree to use free services, there is a price you pay, and it is a sacrifice of privacy, but everyone loves to get something for "free". Just my glass-half-empty $0.02

Sounds like a grounding issue with the streamer. When you lightly drag your finger across the top plate/chassis of the streamer, do you feel a light vibration, like a low dose electric shock?

I cannot recall one audio acquisition that boded well for the acquired brand. I think back to when Snell was acquired by Boston Acoustics or whomever it was or Aragon, and many others. In order to make these acquisitions ROI work, the parent company tries to utilize scale and supply chain efficiencies, which means cost cutting. If they don't get ROI they fire sale the brand lines again. Seems like a destructive cycle. Let's hope mighty Mac does not suffer as as result as they are one of the rare breeds of apples at this point.

It is very interesting that the Stack and the Zen give you the same issues, whereas the Allo does not. What does the Allo have or does not have, compared to the the others? I know I had weird issues with the Zen, like tracks sputtering. But once I started to leave it on 7/24, it has been rock solid and sounds really good.

And his avatar flag too!

This article really conjured up the memories. Thank you. The 80's and 90's was a great era for music. I never thought Sweet Child O'Mine would be considered an oldie. I remember blasting GnR while driving through town in my '91 Pontiac Trans Am with the T-tops off and my lifeguard muscle tee on. So many groups that will survive the test of time with iconic voices that stand on their own. Van Halen, Aerosmith, Journey, Patty Smyth, Heart, Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Tom Petty, Starship, Bryan Adams, Pretenders and the list goes on. In 1990, my system was an Adcom 535 amp with a Carver Z-band coupler connected to a Harmon Kardon receiver and AR 58 speakers fed with a first gen Sony CDP. "Where do we go now, where do we go noooooooow..."

There is a known bug with the latest firmware that breaks Spotify Connect over the USB connection. It works fine with the Coax. The 2.30 firmware is in beta and apparently fixes the issue. Go figure but the nature and state of software affairs these days. There is a big thread over at headfi that discusses the Zen Stream issues.

I enjoyed reading your home improvement DIY project as that was pretty cool. I also like seeing pictures of other parts of the USA which made me a little sick for the neighborhoods I grew up in on the East coast. My only constructive criticism is a smaller pipe to hold the speakers were have been less noticeable, unless you were accounting for high winds or the speakers are really heavy? It is killer when mother nature weathers the equipment. My back was hurting just reading about the trenching task. I would have never even considered trenching myself LOL.

Use two Benchmarks, still under the cost of one Bryston, and see if mono-blocking makes a difference. I mean comparing a 3K amp to a 7K amp is not really fair as what is the basis of the comparison? Its like comparing a Tesla Model S Plaid to a Bugatti Chiron :) and we know which one is faster! I enjoyed reading the review, well done!

The real product differentiator would be to give lossless type SQ but with bandwidth efficiency. With todays computing power, why has not anyone brought codec/algorithm like this market yet, or is that what MQA was trying to be? Six months later...[#popcorn]

I just got an iFi Zen Stream which is based on a customized version of Volumio. I only use it for Spotify. It is a lightweight audio OS/player. The web UI is basic and intuitive and responsive. No bells and whistles, just basic playback and system settings (i.e. playback mode, buffer settings, streaming services, NAA, system updates, volume settings, etc.) iFi is creating an IOS control app, but honestly, the web portal suffices just fine and performs good (no lag). For $400 you get nice hardware and an iFi power supply. I had been holding out for something to replace my Macbook and this device so far is a great alternative.