jzahr

Currently using: + MusicBee (Windows playback and library management, excellent IMO. Sometimes use it with it's upnp plugin to stream to volumio in another room) + Spotify desktop app (Windows. Sometimes use it's connect feature to stream to Volumio in another room) + VLC + Itunes (rarely these days, but sometimes still use it) Considered: + HQ Player + Qobuz Stopped using: + Foobar + Windows MP + Monkeys Audio + Winamp (certainly miss it)

Great news for me as well, also living in Chile! Do someone know if there are differences in the catalog in different regions?

So sad. His two Brahms piano concertos with Arrau and Concertgebouw are also excellent.

Hi all, Thanks Chris for taking the time to do these tests. I tend to think that this lack of bit perfect playback is more a technical issue that eventually could be solved, and not a sort of "plot" by Apple to avoid giving away the crown jewels... Could it be that the flag is removed for some reason during the streaming without actually modifying the digital audio content? Perhaps this is a naive idea, and don't know if technically meaningful at all: I think there are apps that can capture system audio, so it would be nice if a "fair length" of audio from a supposedly lossless audio stream from Apple Music could be digitally captured and recorded as an audio file, and having that compared with a null-test against a file of the same music obtained from Qobuz or other source. The idea is try to see if the audio bits of the stream are modified, besides the mere removal of a flag. Does this makes sense? Regards, Jorge

"The cords are even subject to deep cryogenic processing down to minus 300 degrees C..." Unlikely

I don't know about your specific Asus motherboard, but most mic inputs in motherboards are mono. Also, a mic input, as opposed to a line input, expects a low voltage level. If your motherboard has a line-level input (which btw always are stereo), then your best chance is to connect a tape output from the Denon to this line-level input in your motherboard. If your motherboard doesn't have a line input, your best chance is something like the Nad device mentioned in a previous post, directly connected to the PC via USB. Note: some old mac computers had analog, line-level inputs. Also, even cheap USB soundblasters have line inputs. Finally, I think there is a cheap Behringer usb device with rca, phono-level inputs, very similar to the Nad. Regards, Jorge

I'm not an expert and have no experience with this particular Marantz, but I think that if there is some digital room correction or digital bass management active in the receiver, then it is for sure performing DSD to PCM conversion, as I doubt these operations can be done in the DSD domain in the Marantz. Justo an idea.

Mario, I would love to hear this recording. Please, send me a link. Thank you in advance, Jorge

Thanks. US$299 seems a lot to me for a device that doesn't seem to provide significantly better performance.

Thanks Mansr for the review. My question is: is this device an improvement over the typical integrated audio output of a laptop (regarding measurements)? Is there any objective reason to use the DF cobalt with a MacBook Pro or some decent android phone already equipped with analog outs? Thanks again, Jorge

So you are saying that with VLC it is possible to decode multichannel audio from AC3-encoded audio files, but not the AC3 audio from dvd's. If that's the case, perhaps PowerDVD from Cyberlink is an option. There is a 30 days trial version here, with some limitations in its capabilities however. Regards, Jorge

I'm not 100% sure, but probably VLC player can do the routing You need in it's config options for audio. If not, perhaps some paid player from Cyberlink is an option also. Jorge

Read again, the Roon quote describes two different things: first, as an introduction, the quote describes conversion from dsd to pcm and, subsequently, it describes the process they use to process dsd, making it clear that this differs from the first precisely in that downsampling is avoided.

I think you misunderstood the quote brought by @firedog in that the Roon person specifically said that they are not downsampling from the dsd rate when they are processing dsd. Quoting now, "it maintains the DSD sample rate".

Congratulations for this anniversary!! A great community you have built here. For me, especially great reads have been the many threads on dsd some years back (to DSD or not... and others), including the always interesting contributions from Miska, C.Hansen, mansr, Jud, PeterSt and many other contributors. Also the threads obout some interesting gear have been fun reads (the gigantic thread about the mytek 192 dsd da converter, comes to mind). Hope CA is here for many more years. Regards, Jorge