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hatfield101

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  1. If you are ok with factory refurbs - lots of people talk about Accesories4less as a great place to pick up discounted gear The 7009 is 1400 bucks right now over there MARANTZ SR7009 9.2 Network Home Theater Receiver Wi-Fi/Bluetooth | Accessories4less
  2. I have been trying for some time too see what DAC the x009 series from Marantz uses and have not been able too. There are some on here that have claimed that modern AVR DACs have come along ways.
  3. I am learning (from the forum and trial and error) and working my way from the ground up. Music i listen to is a mixed basket of everything from crappy 128 mp3 to 24/44 FLAC from soundboards, audience, and a matrix of the 2 recordings of live music (bt.etree.org and the live music archive are my crackrock dealer!) I have alot of redbook CDs that I will eventually rip once i settle on a current direction but i am having too much fun making everything work right now. My current set up: Music files on an internal Hard Drive in a PC in my office (Windows Vista 64 bit) --> wifi --> Lenovo Yoga 11s with fidelizer and foobar in my living room --> 3.5mm headphone jack --> RCA splitter --> sony AVR (from the early 1990s) --> JBL L7s. I am tickled pink that i can control (most of the time) all of this with my phone (Samsung Galaxy 4). I am doing EVERYTHING wrong at the moment according to what i read....but i am currently as happy as a fat man in a doughnut shop! It sounds good enough to put a grin on my head. I can most definitely tell a difference between the lower bit rate mp3s and the 16/44 FLACs ... not sure that i can tell a difference between a 16/44 and a 24/44 though....i spend less time comparing and more time figuring out foobar right now......and enjoying music via shuffle playback. My current idea about my next move is to get Raspberry Pi2 running Rune Audio with the Pi DAC+ (I2S - and Burr-Brown TI PCM5122) to feed the AVR. Question 1 - if i make that change do you think that I would hear a noticeable increase in sound quality over my current set up? I am also thinking about powering the DAC with a USB Hub, and putting music on large external hard drive (2-4TB to start and possibly a second at some point in the not too distant future) connected to the same hub. Question 2 - Would that affect sound quality? My music collection (and addiction) will likely warrant a NAS (or several) in the future. I am thinking that I would send the files via WiFi from a NAS to the Pi2. At such time the External HDs could be used for backup purposes only. I think i should be ok for transfer speeds over WiFi as i don't have anything over 24/96 and only a few 24 bit files at all. Question 3 - am i naive with this mindset? Question 4 - any thoughts as to how the Pi-DAC+ might compare to the DACs in todays current model AVRs from NAD/Anthem/Marantz? https://www.tindie.com/products/IQaudIO/iqaudiocom-pi-dac-audio-card-with-headphone-support-for-the-raspberry-pi-b/ Thank you all for 1) taking the time to read this and 2) helping an addict out. I have a feeling there are years of tinkering ahead of me and i am cool with that!! (My wallet may not be though lol) By the way, I REALLY think a newbie sub forum may help lessen the 'damage' we noobs do regarding the signal:noise ratio on the current forums....I also think it would be pretty active. Just an idear. Thanks a boatload. This site has become one of my favorite places on the web!
  4. esldude, I don't think you are a troll and even if you are and fooled me i don't care. Thank you again for your kind words and advice regarding my L7s on the the speakers subforum. I find many here to be very helpful and you are one such poster. Cheers, Beers, and kynd tunes haws. (I still think a neophyte forum would be very helpful ... some of yall know so much it can be intimidating for us newbies to post.)
  5. Hi mayhem13 and thanks for the warm words. Would it make a difference if i told you that I was the sole owner of these speakers, they have not been abused, when several years without playing in a climate controlled environment? I got them new as a gift around 1994 if i remember correctly. Good to know that they dont need massive amounts of power. Melody Gardot's voice on these things has absolutely stole my ears and heart..... yet Jerry Garcia's rosebud + Phil bombs make my insides happy.
  6. Esldude - you were plenty of help - thank you! Gary, currently i have a sony STR-D1011 pushing the JBL L7s. (Link: https://docs.sony.com/release/STRD1011.PDF) They sound great but I may lack perspective. I myself use the analogy that hotdogs are great .... until steak enters the picture. The AVR is so old there is neither optical nor HDMI inputs - everything is via RCA jack. A friend let me borrow a B&K 307 which should be a cleaner stronger AVR than my own. However, he gave me the wrong power cable so it is currently a room decoration only. I have read placement and power really help the L7s sing and have started experimenting. i have multiple directions that I may go, but i wanted some verification / confidence that my speakers are not "junk" before I start spending money on other components. Things i value: SiriusXM - I know it has poor sound quality, but the DJs on the channels to which i listen to feed me much new music. It is how i discovered Tab Benoit and Eliza Neals among many others. Flac - i have months of live music from taper friendly bands in the form of audience, soundboard and matrix recordings. The ability to use as a home theater system - mostly sports (football). I have contemplated a modern AVR (Marantz) with internal DAC and pre-outs as a starting point so i can add more juice to the L7s later. I am also looking at either buying or building a NAS, as well as a render/control point. The JRiver ID and Pi-ID look like possible solutions. I currently have a lenovo yoga connected to my AVR from the headphone jack to analog inputs via a split RCA cable. For Sirius its ok. It makes me smile and dance (sometimes) in my living room and I can walk right up to the laptop, see whats on multiple stations, and quickly pick something else to listen too if i want. For more critical listening, i know that i am losing quality all over the place. Like i indicated earlier - i have many directions that i can go and i will work on those directions but only after deciding if my L7s are a keeper....and i am leaning towards yes. Again thank you both for taking the time to help a newbie out. I kinda wish this place had a newbie forum as I feel too ignorant to post in most of the others. Cheers, Beers, And good tunes!
  7. Fourth, work way harder at actively welcoming the newcomers. Okay, reviewers and community leaders, this one’s for you. "Why are there no “Getting Started” sections? Why are there no subforums dedicated specifically to entry-level gear. Why are there no dedicated “Hey, I’m new and I want to learn” sections with people who like talking to newcomers? Yes, I know, once you’ve grown into the great throbbing Donovan’s Brain of audio, talking to the proles may be tiring…but you know what? There are plenty of people who wouldn’t mind helping. We can do a much better job at welcoming people in to the party, giving them enough info to get started, and letting them decide if audiophilia is for them. If it isn’t, hey, no harm no foul. But if we’re passively discouraging them by being so inward-focused, our growth will be stalled." THIS. this This THIS!
  8. To me it it makes sense that the most important part in the sonic chain is the quality of the speakers. I have an old pair of JBL L7s sitting around that have not had much use and that I have been the sole owner of. I do not really know how to evaluate the specs (if you will) of speakers. I know that sound quality may vary from one individual from the next. I also understand that it may be hard to evaluate speakers just on published values alone. With all that in mind, I would still be interested in the communities thoughts on these (link to PDF file): http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=49385&d=1295024092 Before I start putting a system together, I wanted to know if i was falsely assuming that these monsters were acceptable to build a decent system around, or if I should rethink my plans. I listen to rock (Widespread panic, The Dead, Zevon), Jazz (Pat Metheny, Melody Gardot), and Blues (from old Delta blues like Blind Willie McTell to Joe Bonamassa and Tab Benoit). I was also thinking about double dipping (which may be a sin to the forum) and also using these speakers as the front left and front right in a surround sound for watching sports and an occasional movie. For either music or video, I had assumed due to the internal crossovers that the speakers have coupled with the 12 inch Woofers they house, that i would forgo a separate sub. Based on specs alone, what do you think about my current choice of building my system around these L7s? Could I get better speakers for less than say a grand or 2? The town that I reside does not really have any High end audio equipment and i am about 2 hours away from a major city to demo equipment. I listen to most of my music right now on headphones but want to move away from that at home. Thank you all for taking the time to post in these forums. I have had an enormous amount of pleasure while becoming educated on integrating the digital world with sound, and feel (perhaps falsely) that I know just enough to start asking better questions. Cheers!
  9. Thank you everyone for your insights. I was thinking about the Pi to partially satisfy my inner nerd by putting it together and getting it in the network. If i went the way of the Pi, I would have my computer with JRiver in the home office that has some music on it, an eventual NAS to hold all my music, and use JRiver on the computer in my office to point to itself and the NAS to send tunes to the Pi. How "bad" is this idea in terms of sonic quality? I have toyed with the idea of getting the JRiver Id, instead of the Pi in which case the Id would be the box with JRiver installed on it instead of the computer in my home office. I assume this would be a better set up than the previously mentioned JRiver on office PC > NAS > Pi? I guess a third option would be to get an AVR and point it to my music, removing the need for JRiver and the Pi/Id from the chain completely. I would be a slave to the AVRs interface for play back and that concerns me a little. As a former itunes user, I have been spoiled with the graphical interface of album art to find my music, and gapless playback. Would JRiver have the capabilities of using the AVR as a DNLP renderer? I.e. use JRiver (and therefore Gizmo or JRemote) to point to my music and send it to an AVR (something like the Marants SR6009). I plan on re-ripping all my CDs to FLAC format, and have several hundred live shows from taper-friendly bands in FLAC (and shn) format. Plying music as FLACs and gapless playback are important to me regardless of the setup that I use. So is sonic quality. My budget constraints are due somewhat to some uncertainty of the quality of my speakers. My JBL L7s are old (1993 ish) and I am am trying to decide whether or not to upgrade them - but i will post that question in the appropriate forum on CA. Thank you all again for your comments so far. I have become a CA forum addict over the last few months! I consider all of you as my educators!
  10. Greetings! I am contemplating getting the new Raspberry Pi2 and an IQaudIO DAC and running Volumio to 'pull' music from either a NAS and/or from a separate pc. I have read that some folks use JRiver MC in conjunction with Volumio. My fist question is: Why? It seems (to my ignorant but wanting to learn more self) that Volumio can pull the files off a server? (NAS or PC) on its own and send the 0s and 1s to a DAC without the aid of additional software. Question 2. If there is any advantage to running JRiver and volumio together, would installing JRiver on my main PC to organize my files on the NAS and to pick the correct file to send to volumio be a good use of all components involved? Would i use the Gizmo App to control all of this if not at my computer or would i use the Volumio ap? I feel like i have information paralyzation - i am either to scared of screwing up to get started and feel like i need to keep reading OR i keep reading and learning different ways of proceeding and struggle to decide on a path to take so i keep reading - and the cycle is perpetuated. My nerdy side is really geeking out over all of this .... but the thirst for information is now in the way of music calming the inner beast! Thanks for reading and for any insights that are offered.
  11. Like this? Wolfson Audio Card ID: 1761 - $34.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits Or is it something different? It supports 24/192 as well according to the manual.
  12. Thanks! I kind of wanted to get dual usage out of the receiver and listen to some video as well. There were a couple of reasons for choosing the marantz model that i did. Audyssey was one of them. Denon also has Audyssey BUT most Denons do not have preouts. I had found the NR1403 on sale for 299 (no longer in stock though) and it was i thought perfect. My concerns about sound for listening to my music collection could be solved ba the addition of nice Amplifiers later due to the NR1403s inclusion of 2.1 preouts. I have not heard Marantz though and am basing the purchase by what i have read online. I live in a small city in Ga and there are no dealers with Marantz on the floor anywhere nearby. Many thanks for the SPDIF and FLAC info - that was confusing the crap out of me. I am checking my old early 90s POS sony AVR to see if it has optical in and if it does then i will just sit tight on pulling the trigger on an AVR until a solid sounding unit falls within my price point (really looking under 600 bucks BUT i only need / want 5.1). All of you in this thread have been extremely nice and helpful. Very refreshing and I am very much grateful to you all.
  13. Thank you so much for having the patients answer these questions for me!! 2 more questions: If i use the SPDiF, will the laptop be processing the sound or the AVR? Does the AVR need to support FLAC playback if i am using the Laptop and Foobar or Jriver to send the files to the AVR? I am trying to do this the "cleanest" way possible. Many Many thanks. If you lived in Georgia i would buy you several rounds of Beer!!
  14. I thought I had the original post organized into paragraphs with special attention to formatting around the questions - I do not know what happened. I have decided to by a new laptop with an HDMI out that will serve as a work laptop (MS office). It has an SSD HD and 4 GB RAM (Lenovo Yoga 11s). Will the HDMI out of this sound laptop to an AVR sound as clean as sound from USB -> DAC (like a Modi DAC from schitt or a Dragonfly from audioquest). I am a little confused after all i have read about how clean and jitter levels from HDMI or is it will even matter with an AVR like the Marantz NR1403. I also really hope the formatting doesn't screw up again this time too. Thanks for the responses and the welcomes. I look forward to lots more reading!
  15. Not 100% sure this is the right place but i am going to take a chance. I have what i think are very nice JBL L7 tower speakers. I also have an extensive FLAC collection on my computer. Its way past time that the 2 talk to each other! I am thinking of purchasing a Marnatz AVR - 1500, 1600, or 5000 series with pre-outs so that I can supply clean power via a separate Amp later. I have 2 main questions that I am struggling and need to wrap my head around before i start this project. 1. Does wireless in any way affect audio performance if there is no interference? I will either have the AVR wired to a wifi network with a NAS on it, or use a laptop conected to the AVR. Question #2. If i go the laptop route - i have an old alienware m5700i that is not being used. No HDMI connections but a pleathora of USB connections. Is this suitable for getting the music to the AVR or is it too old of technology to worry with? If I used the alienware i would likely have a USB HD connected to it to store the FLACs and another USB connection to a DAC (likely the Schitt Modi at least at first) and the DAC to the Marantz AVR. Questions #3 and #4 I am contemplating getting a Lenovo Yoga to help some with work. It has an SSD HD and 4 GB ram. It has 2 USB drives and an HDMI port. What would be the cons of using t his to deliver my music to the system? Which set up would be 'better' : Laptop to AVR via HDMI or Laptop to Modi DAC via usb and DAC to AVR?
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