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Sam Spade

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  1. Thanks. I looked at the B5s, but I want to keep things modest in terms of cash outlay. But I am glad you are enjoying your BS22s.
  2. thank you. what do you make of the 85dB rating of the BS22s with such a little amp?
  3. hello, thanks for your input david. i think i will give them a try. the guy said i can go down to the shop and bring my amp, but i wanted to see if i might just be wasting my time.
  4. Hi, Thank you for your replies. Yes, I would like to get a better amp and all that, however, space is at a premium in my little office. Also, I am saving my "shekels" for a new amp to go with my home system. Originally, I was going to get a Merantz PM6005, but the measuring tape had a few things to say. I looked around at the smaller NAIM units, and while they sounded nice, they were just too expensive. A close friend gave me a Totem sub, when he got a new one and that has really added something to the sound. Sadly, the sub has got me craving the higher notes. That is why I was looking at the BS22s. The little Denon sounds better than you might think, and really surprised some of my musician friends. It has a surprisingly wide sound stage, good detail, and is very musical. But to be sure it is of the cheap and cheerful variety. I can get the volume to about 75 percent before I get any unpleasantness. When What HiFi reviewed the unit, they tried it out with Q acoustics 2020i and found it worked well. I agree about my source being better than the output. My audiophile friend has a Rouge Sphinx with a NAIM CD player (don’t know the model number), which sits near the top of the range – about $ 4,000. He got it for some stupid low price as it was the last one. It feeds to a pair of B&W 685 S2 with Nordost wires (silver), interconnects and power cable. At any rate, I challenged him to a shoot out – My MBP + Dragonfly 1.2 + Jitterbug + Audioquest Golden Gate RCA interconnect + Audirvana Plus vs. his NAIM CD player using his rig. While we both thought the NAIM won, it was not by a huge margin. The sound stage was slightly bigger, the highs were sweeter, and there was a little more detail. Given the price difference we both sat around scratching our heads – a lot. It got even scarier when I played some hi-res material as opposed to the red book stuff for our shoot out. One thing that worries me about the BS22s is that the sensitivity is only 85dB. I can not find any info on the sensitivity of the Denon speakers. Sam Spade
  5. Hello, No need to apologize. Curious to know how you are getting along with your computer audiophile explorations? Have you got a DAC yet? If you have not you should checkout the new renditions of the Dragonfly. There is a Black and a Red. The Black is less expensive ($ 100 vs $ 250) and both can be used with mobile devices like the iPhone. Here is the review of the Black from What HiFi if you are interested. Here is the review of the Red. Hope your musical adventures are going well. Regards, Sam Spade
  6. I would keep them. I am really not all that enamored by streaming music services – the sound is not all that great and occasionally you get little hick-ups. I dumped all my LPs and regret it. Sadly, I was moving and could not take it all with me. I had some original pressings of Cream, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin – I could not even give them away (this was when CDs were really taking off). So keep your stuff and burn it to your computer. It really is not that hard. And besides, why pay twice for music you already own? You could use the money you are spending on “renting” your music to buy the odd Hi-Res track or SACD. Or, you could buy some other mastering of a CD you already have and compare. I would suggest ripping in AIFF though as it handles art work better than WAV. P.S. I still occasionally bang my head against the wall about ditching my LPs.
  7. Hi gang, Hope you are all having a great summer. As you may know I have a micro system Denon DM39s + DragonFly 1.2 + JitterBug + Audirvana Plus. At any rate, I have enjoyed the Denon speakers but want to do a bit of an upgrade.I am considering the Pioneer BS22 and wanted to know if this might be a viable alternative. The Denon DM39s (amp) specs are: Power Output (6 ohm, 1kHz) 30 W Number of channels 2Freq. Response (Analog In) 20 Hz X 20 kHz Denon speaker specs are: Type 2-way, bass reflex Drivers 4 ¾” bass-mid 1” dome high Impedance (ohms) 6 Frequency range 45 Hz X 40 kHz The Pioneer BS22s: Description: Two-way bass-reflex bookshelf speaker (not magnetically shielded). Drive-units: 1" soft-dome tweeter, 4" structured-surface cone woofer. Frequency range: 55Hz–20kHz. Nominal impedance: 6 ohms. Sensitivity: 85dB/2.83V/m. Maximum input power: 80W. Crossover frequency: 3kHz. Do you guys think it would be worth it to upgrade to the BS22s ? Do they pair well with any amp or are they slightly fussy? Thank you for your insights.
  8. Hey, I have not heard these speakers or the amp that you speak of, but what I would suggest is trying them out together before buying. They may sound brilliant or they may sound like crap. Here is a review of the speakers you asked about: KEF Q300 review | What Hi-Fi? Hope that helps a little.
  9. Hello again, Forgot to add that I am not aware of DACs using RAM. As far as I know they are like a printer – they are just there and the computer can talk to it. However, more RAM does effect how they work, but not in the way you are intimating. Hope that helps!
  10. Hello dapla, Generally speaking if you are running a modern operating system that is 64 bit (Windows 7, OSX Lion etc.), 4 Gigs of RAM is really the bare minimum these days. Here is a link to help you determine if your version of Windows is 64 bit or not: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/32-bit-and-64-bit-windows#1TC=windows-7 I am by no means a computer expert, but as I understand it having more RAM allows the computer to access the hard drive less. This not only speeds up the operation of the computer, but allows it to run more programs at once. Doubling the RAM from 4 Gigs to 8 Gigs increases computer speed by about 10 percent. With respect to the audio software, having more RAM not only lets it run more efficiently, but allows you to increase the use of memory play with in the software. Overall, what this means is that your computer can send info to the DAC faster as the computer does not have to access the hard drive as often. This helps improve sound quality. If you have ever streamed a movie over a wifi network, and had it stall out, producing lines and glitches, this is kinda what it is like if a computer is RAM starved. When I first started out with my humble little computer audio system, I noticed a big change just by upgrading the RAM from 4 Gigs to 8. So ya, I would budget for RAM. I am not saying your 128k music files will sound like you are at a live concert if you upgrade, but you get the idea. Anyway that is my two cents on the issue.
  11. yes, i am a stones fan, so thank you for the input. i will give it a go.
  12. I have been using MAX for a while and know it well. XLD is new to me, so I am unsure of all the ins and outs. But yes, MAX it is old. Also, I was wondering if the music file was bad in some way, or if the file had been f'd with, or worse - there is an issue with my iTunes library.
  13. Thank you for this. Question. What do you mean by this: Note that there is content up to 48kHz (1/2 of the 96kHz sampling rate) ? Do you mean that the program does not do anything over 48kHz?
  14. Hello, As someone who is very new to the whole Hi-Res music thing, one of the issues that comes up for me is how can one tell what one is actually getting when purchasing Hi-Res downloads? What I mean is, how does one know if it is an actual 24/96 recording or if it has just been up sampled from 16/44? I do not have a dBA meter, but I sometimes see people posting info about albums from Audacity. So, is there an easy way to tell?
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