Quote:
Originally Posted by bruno2009
... has brought me a little further into the streaming business. Still not totally convinced this will be an alternative for me though. I do love my music as a physical collection and till now streaming has only been interesting for mobile use and to listen into and find new music - as soon as it`s considered "worthy" I buy it on physical media - when possible on vinyl.
Streaming and "renting" my music from a streaming client is just not what I consider worthy of a hobby "music" that has such a strong center in my life. I have always (partially) defined myself through music and music scenes and found a physical music collection to be a huge part of this (I actually even have my problems accepting someone without a good physical music collection to be a true "fan" or music lover).
But that`s a question of attitude (maybe) and further I do want to dive deeper into streaming as an alternative.
So - whilst making some progress using the MacBook with the Audirvana Software and a Tidal subscription it is still nowhere close to my physical media playback.
I have compared several times and still find Vinyl to be superior (by far) and CD a little more enjoyable.
So the question is - what can be done to better the streaming playback? Use a better transport for streaming? How much benefit will this bring over a MacBook with audirvana?
As a DAC I use my McIntosh C 52 - just so you have a comparison on the other sources - I use a Moon Neo 260D Transport for CD and a full Brinkmann (incl. Arm and Cartridge) Lagrange via Pass XP 15 for Vinyl into the McIntosh C 52 and MC 452... Streaming Tidal via the above is far from reaching that quality in reproduction.
Enjoy the music folks !!!
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Some minor recommendations:
1. try Squeezelite/Logitech Media Server instead of Audirvana (huge difference although complicated to install being some kind of an emulation software - having no Logitech hardware) or better still - Daphile (Squeezelite and Daphile are both Linux based).
2. try an UpTone ISORegen with LPS1.2 (huge difference as well)
3. use a reference/hi-end USB cables (as short as possible)
4. SSD instead of HDD
5. try to convert (or decompress) flac into wav.
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Pre-amp/Digital: exaSound e32 w UpTone JS-2 Power Supply; SOtM tX-USBultra w UpTone LPS1.2; Apple Mac Mini w UpTone DC Conversion Kit & UpTone JS-2 Power Supply; Squeezelite w Logitech Media Server 7.9.0
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