jocar37

I've owned a pair of Grado SR225s for about 20 years. They still sound great. But while the original earpads lasted quite a while, I've had to replace pads with increasing frequency over the last few years. They just seem to disintegrate fairly quickly. Is anyone else experiencing the same issue? I got tired of paying $20 a crack for replacements, so I just ordered Geekria's replacements on Amazon. They've got a 4+ rating and cost half what Grado charges. I don't have them yet, so I don't know how good they are. But I was wondering if anyone could recommend something you could use to treat earpads so they don't disintegrate without impairing their sonic qualities or comfort level.

My Geek Out 450 has been operating just fine since I bought it a few years back. But the only open usb port was on the front of my compute, where it stuck out a bit far. So I finally decided to try running it through a usb dock instead. But when I did, I no longer got any sound. So I stuck it back directly into the front port. Still no sound. Trouble shooting diagnostics and Device Manager both say everything is fine. I've tried contacting Light Harmonic repeatedly, but they don't bother to respond. Could switching to the usb dock have damaged the Geek Out? If it did, why does the PC think it's working okay? Alternatively, could switching the port somehow have blown my Klipsch speakers? I couldn't find any diagnostics/troubleshooting for the speakers themselves. The PC is an HP e9210t running Windows 10 Home. Thanks for any suggestions.

anyone have a suggestion?

I'm very new to JRiver. I'm trying to follow the instructions in the JRiver Media Center 17 in Detail article to set up bitperfect playback, but one of the early steps described does match what I'm seeing. I'm running Windows 7 Pro and I'm outputting to a Marantz HD DAC1. In Device Properties, the article shows the following tabs: General, Levels, Enhancements and Advanced. When I go into my Device Properties, I get 3 of these 4 tabs, but in place of Enhancements, I have Supported Formats. This seems at least somewhat significant, because the article says to select "Disable All Enhancements" in the Enhancements tab. I can't find that option anywhere in any of my Properties tabs. In my Supported Formats tab, however, there are 2 sections. In the top half, entitled Encoded formats, it asks "Which of the following formats is your Digital Receiver able to decode?" with boxes for DTS Audio, Dolby Digital and Microsoft WMA Pro Audio, all of which are checked. Next to the window with these check boxes is a Test button, which is grayed out. I'm guessing that, in lieu of disabling all enhancements, I should uncheck each of the three formats listed. Is that right? Are there other enhancements that I'm going to have to find out how to disable to run bitperfect mode? Also, in the bottom half of my Supported Formats tab, entitled, "Sample Rates" there is a question "Which of the following sample rates are supported by your Digital Receiver?" The box below this question is EMPTY, and the test button to the right is again grayed out. Is this significant? Or should I just assume that any format the device is supposed to be able to support will in fact be supported? I contacted Marantz and they were NO help - absolutely freaking clueless!!! AFter a week duirng which I placed daily calls to their "Customer Support," and being told my inquiry had been "elevated" but no answer had come back from their "advanced" tier, I got an email telling me to go to JRiver for any answers. Can you believe this? They completely punted. Not a single recommendation! In all their marketing and documentation they talk about the formats they can support, and they specifically and frequently mention JRiver. So you'd think they were at least a step or two above morons, but... oh, well! Thanks for any help or suggestions.

I meant to ask you about this before. I apologize if this is a dumb question. This looks like a very interesting (abeit not inexpensive) device. But I understand that most if not all DACs support higher level DSD thru asynchronous USB, but usually not thru SPDIF. So if I used the Audiophilleo to switch to SPDIF, then I'd effectively be losing that capability, no?

I was surprised by their answer too. But I came across this for only a few bucks more: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BFRKYSU?tag=price190-20. For a few bucks more than the Monoprice, this comes with double shielding - directly addressing Monoprice's caution - plus a repeater in the middle. I saw some others, mostly without shielding and also usually no repeater or a repeater at the downstream end. I don't get an endpoint repeater. If the signal degrades over the length of the cable, wouldn't it make sense to boost it before it's already weakened?

Thanks Elsdude. I contacted Monoprice about their extenders, and this is what they told me: "Thank you for contacting Monoprice Techincal Support today! Unfortunately that cable would not have any sort of shielding which may cause interference when trying to transfer audio ove the cable. As well, the cable is meant more for basic data connections, instead of higher bandwidth connections that you are trying to accomplish." Obviously, Monoprice has no interest in dissuading me from buying their products, so I have to take their cautions seriously. Have you experienced any issues as suggested by their comments?

I meant, have you used them with DSD or DXD to connect to a DAC? obviously you used them with a DAC to do 24/192.

Thanks esldude. Have you used them to connect a computer to a DAC? Or could you direct me to a thread discussing how well they work in such an environment? If they do work, it certainly would be a cheaper solve than the Corning.

Thanks!!!

I want to store all my music on a computer in my practice room. My CDs are ripped to WAV or FLAC. I also want to explore DSD and DXD and to be able to stream my music to my main stereo rig in the living room. That rig includes an Oppo BDP103 and a Squeezebox Touch which are connected to my home network via ethernet.n Oppo has told me that there products do not support DSD128 or DSD256. I don't believe the SBT supports them either. (Am I wrong about the SBT?) So I figured I'd just get a DAC that does support those formats, and connect the computer to the DAC instead of to the Oppo or SBT. Pretty much every DAC that will handle them does so thru a USB port. And therein lies the problem. I thought I'd just get a long USB cable, but I was told by Blue Jeans Cable that any USB cable over 15' will not work. Through online searches I've confirmed that limitation. Since I need something on the order of 30 feet, give or take, I'm kind of stuck on how to get this to work. I've already read how streaming large audio files can cause playback problems, and up until now I thought my system would insure against any such problems. But, you know, "the weakest link..." I've read about USB boosters, but those seem like they're for stuff like printers. Has anyone tried one to stream large audio files? If so, with what degree of success? Or does anyone have any other ideas about how to allow these files to stream over this distance?

That's a wrinkle I hadn't considered. I need to look into what the Oppo can output and thru what ports. My hope was to keep things simple by having my entire music library, regardless of format, resident in one location, the basement computer's 2TB drive, and feed it all the way thru my stereo system to my speakers through the same single channel.

Thanks for the link. I'll definitely look into it. The reason I'm funneling it thru the Oppo is that I'm going to rip all my CDs on a computer in my basement music practice room. That computer will also house all my music files, including HDTracks and DSD downloads, which will be streamed to a media bridge in my main stereo rig in the living room connnected via Ethernet cable. The Oppo is connected to the media bridge and in turn to my stereo. I'm going to install the DAC between the Oppo and the stereo. The Oppo seems to be limited in its handling of DSD. At least, I don't understand it. So I figured a DSD capable DAC would make life easier. Am I wrong?

I want to buy a dac that can do WAV, FLAC and DSD. But the dac will attach to my stereo rig, not my computer. Input will be thru my Oppo BDP-103. It may be information overload but it occurs to me that every DSD capable DAC I've looked at that supports DSD does so thru a USB input and the Oppo does not have a USB out. So I guess I'm looking for a DAC that can take a DSD signal via a coax or optical connection. I also will need a headphone jack on the DAC. Any suggestions?

Sonos' website says: "Support for compressed MP3, iTunes Plus, WMA (including purchased Windows Media downloads), AAC (MPEG4), AAC+, Ogg Vorbis, Audible (format 4), Apple Lossless, Flac (lossless) music files, as well as uncompressed WAV and AIFF files. Native support for 44.1kHz sample rates. Additional support for 48kHz, 32kHz, 24kHz, 22kHz, 16kHz, 11kHz, and 8kHz sample rates." I understood this to mean that there must be some firmware upgrades or other tweaks that allow the Play5 to run sample rates above 44.1. I just don't know if it fares an better at streaming wireless than the Bluesound.