I have one brother who does not like the sound of my stereo at all. He says he doesn’t care for that hifi sound. He much prefers his Sony boombox. He’s not kidding. How loud his boombox gets impresses him. I was expecting praise and honor for how my system sounds. Leave it to brothers to smack us back into reality. :)
Sooo, which device or app is providing the operating system that processes the digital music file in the absence of a high dollar streamer?
The Apps that you are thinking about remotely control the high dollar streamer. No processing takes place in the phone or tablet. But in the case of a low cost wifi receiver- like the Sony boombox, your phone is the bridge and the boombox the endpoint. Or, the phone is the server and the boombox the player. Is that what you meant?
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Dear jji666, if only the world and streaming music were so simplistic as you would like. Have you ever tried to catch a chicken? In theory it is very simple. Reach down and grab the chicken. In practice it is much more difficult.
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Yeah well, I already traded in the NUC. But I would not be able to do that with my old music server anyway. The old NUC based server had just one ethernet port and then USB out. So to use it as a server with the Antipodes, I would need two ethernet ports- one port in and one port out to the player. The K21 or the K22 both have just an ethernet port for an input. The K41 server has two ethernet ports- one purposed for input and one purposed for output to the player.
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Agreed. When you get to a certain level it’s a matter of preference and will largely depend on what type of music you like best.
Probably why some prefer to have two or more systems.
I would have either a pair of Quads or Volti horns for a second system. All it takes is time and money. Hearing a pair of Quad ESL speakers in the 1980s got me into hi end hifi. Funny I never got a pair.
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Fiber optic is a good way to reduce noise and improve the sound of streaming. I found however that an audio grade network switch worked better and then I removed the fiber link in the chain because it limited dynamics. These changes are quite audible.
Silver plated ethernet cables improve the sound too. That employs scientific principles= skin effect.
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I’m just reporting my experience. If it didn’t work, I would say so. I’m not here to sell something. I don’t know about etherregen. I use LHY and English Electric network switches. Those I know make a difference.
Like I’ve said before, the increased detail and resolution is both good and bad. The detail streaming on my TV rivals 4K blu-ray. I also use a power conditioner on the TV. The bad is that during one show an actor had a wild hair sticking out of his eyebrow. The camera wasn’t close up to him at all but I could see plainly that wild hair. I missed what the actors were saying. All my attention was on that hair and wishing someone would pull it out.
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Let us know what you find out.
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I agree. My first rule of audio: Your system sounds great, until you hear a better system.
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Well, it’s clear he has never caught a chicken.
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Dear mdalton, I looked at your big rig. Very nice indeed. Let me ask you- which do you prefer most when listening, your vinyl source or your digital source?
I going to guess your vinyl source. I bet you hear a difference in not just the sound but in the rhythm and pace of the music. That's where that Garrard TT excels. You might stream or play digital in the background but I bet when you sit down to listen you favor records. No?
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Dear jji666, you miss the point about catching chickens. Here is the point: You can talk about how best to catch a chicken but until you have experience catching chickens, what you have to say is mostly meaningless.
The First Rule of Audio: Your system sounds great, until you hear a better system.
If you truly love audio, stop postulating, get out there and hear some good hifi systems and some hifi streamers/servers for yourself. You might or might not hear a difference. That’s ok. It’s a personal matter. Music, like all art is personal.
The issue that one person can hear something that another doesn’t is much much deeper than confirmational bias. That’s merely a cop out for the ASR crowd. Many factors come into play beyond the listener variable. A good example was what happened last week to me. I found a song on Qobuz that had some bad microphone clipping. Sounds like crackling noise. I have a very high resolution system. The noise was like a slap in the face. I texted my cousin to try that track on his stereo. The track sounded fine to him. I played the track on my iPhone with headphones and I played it in the car. I could not detect the mic clipping at all in either case. I bought the CD. The CD plays cleaner than the Qobuz version but the clipping is still there- just not as bad. I ripped the CD to FLAC and the same thing. But on the Roon app I can see that the recording levels are maxed out. That’s one of the downsides to a high resolution system.
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The answer is that of course it can, but the DAC is also a significant part of that result. Bad DAC= bad sound. Average DAC + Avg server= avg sound. Good DAC + avg server= good sound. Good DAC+Good Server= great sound.
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I had the good server and got a great DAC. Tried the great server with the 30 day trial safety net. Great server is not going back.
Previous server was a NUC based RS9 (an improved version of the Nucleus+) with a Keces P8 LPS. I thought it sounded great. Refer to the first rule of audio.
As with any expensive purchase I had to make the decision what am I willing to give up? Audio came first but I had to agree to new floors for my wife. So even more so what am I willing to give up...
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I plan to write a review of my new music server after I've had it a month or so. But I will list a few things that persuaded me to keep it.
1) The music sounds better. All digital grain, glare- that cringing that happens with peaks in the music is gone. The thing that I have noticed is that with my new DAC, I could play the music louder. Now with this new music server I can play the music even more louder. I'm not talking about run everyone out of the room loud. I mean just good levels for jamming to the music without cringing now and then.
2) Rhythm and Pace are excellent now and as good as my vinyl. If I played records for a while and then switched to digital, that's when I could really tell the difference. The new DAC was a great improvement when playing CDs with my transport but not so with my old server. That's one of the things that prompted me to try a better music server. The new server delivers on rhythm and Pace.
3) Noise. No noise. The background is black like I have not experienced before. When I hit play the music explodes out of nothing. I jumped every time I hit play for the first few days. With my old server I could hear the noise floor raise up when I hit play. Not a lot but audible like a prelude to the music.
4) More detail and resolution. This is not necessarily always a good thing but it is addictive to the point that I find it hard to give up once I have it. The added detail can be distracting and take away from the music at first. It takes some getting used to. While it brings out more of the "being there" it also reveals flaws and errors in recordings.
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Well jji666, you have a contra point to every point. That is called being pedantic.
I wish you happiness enjoying this hobby in your own way.
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Antipodes also sell the server and player as separate boxes. The K22/K41 is equivalent to the K50 in outputs and performance. I considered that option but it ends up costing more after buying an extra power cord and extra ethernet cable. I looked for some information about differences in performance between the combo and separates but couldn’t find anything. Their top of the line Server/Player comes as a single box only option.
I agree with keeping all those noisy digital boxes away from my analog gear. The K50 is 3ft from my preamp. I could probably move it a few inches more. I’m not really sure how much noise radiates from the server/player or the network switches. I added ferrite cores to my ethernet cables as a wild guess at reducing radiated noise but no idea how effective that is.
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I got the idea using the ferrite cores from reading that IT professionals add them to the ethernet cables going into their large banks of switches in network rooms.
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I couldn't tell you what to measure. I thought these audio grade switches reduce jitter. I'm a mechanical engineer. I know enough to read a voltmeter, bias tubes and solder in a few replacement parts.
I'm working on the applications side here- try it, evaluate it and report. My frame of reference is my vinyl rig and CD Transport/DAC.
With my new DAC/Streamer combo and the network switches the sound, rhythm and pace is on par with vinyl and the CD Transport. I can't A/B rhythm and pace. I have to just listen to one medium for a while and then switch to another.
Right now, I'm enjoying the music and I can't stop streaming. A universe of music out there and I'm finding songs that I haven't heard in decades. That can be as emotional as finding a long lost friend.
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Yes I do. They work. They make a remarkable difference and even more it made a startling improvement to the streaming picture on my TV. If people refuse to hear then seeing is believing.
The ASR crowd is not measuring the right thing.
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One other thing- I remember how good the original Star Trek TV series looked on our new Philco Color TV in 1968- analog over the air broadcast. The picture, the colors were breathtaking. Lucky for us those episodes were filmed. The 4k remaster of Star Trek streamed on my OLED TV finally looks better than it did in 1969. Wish my mom could see it. Between 1969 and now? Grainy over-driven cable TV picture looked terrible.
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Two ways to look at value. 1) Can I get a component that will make reasonably good music at a price point that I am comfortable with? ie, money is fixed, now find the best solution for the money. 2) This is the sound that I have been looking for. Performance over cost. (Of course we always have limits.)
Glad I never worked for NASA. Imagine the decisions they have to make. "Should we buy this $150 billon rocket to get to the moon or will this $110 billon rocket do the job?" "What do you mean Space X just did it for $500 million? :)
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When did this become a budget hifi forum? You want value? Buy mass market gear and it will get you about 50% there. Seeking quantity over quality go for the $300 turntables and hit the used record stores. Your raspberry NUC streamer and an $800 DAC with Amazon music should get you the same sound quality. Enjoy. Those seeking something more in sound understand that it will cost more. Each step up in sound costs quite a bit more. It's like any hobby- climbing to the top requires perseverance, stamina and a strong bank account.
Many of the detractors here have little to no digital audio experience. They talk about network switches as if they have tried them all in a top tier stereo system but in reality they have no first hand experience and have only read the opinions of others, then they pick and choose the opinions they like. That is neither good science nor good engineering. The IT crowd are the worse for opinions about audio. Engineers can and do have strong opinions about their products but more often than not test results leave them baffled and they are forced to rethink their theories. That leads to growth.
I've seen a majority of people here on these forums experience positive results with audio grade network switches. That's why I finally gave it a try myself and also had positive experiences. Sure, a few didn't experience positive results but to dismiss the experience of the majority is well, denying reality.
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Totally agree that you can spend a lot less on the digital side and have a state of the art digital front end.
Not in my experience.
Question: Which do you spend more time sitting down and critically listening to- your digital or your analog playback?
Because, until I really went in deep with the digital side, I would play 1/2-1 CD to warm the system up before putting on a record. As the digital side got better I could spend more time listening to it. If you have a decent analog front end I would think that you could tell a difference in the rhythm and pace between the digital side and analog side. I think that is one of the differences that gets me sitting spellbound now listening to digital playback.
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I can't think about what I have spent on my system. My midwestern, pragmatic upbringing screams at me for being so extravagant. I just ordered a second SSD for the K50 music server. My left brain and right brain were duking it out until I finally managed to hit the enter key. But I love music and this hobby. It made the hard times bearable over the years.
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I know you are not part of the IT crowd. Just keep an open mind about digital. It is a much different animal than analog. In Analog, less is more but that is not always the case on the digital side. And “noise” in the digital realm is not the same as hiss in the analog realm. While noise in both realms reduces resolution, it does much more damage to the music on the digital side.
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Getting back on topic, I have had the Antipodes music server for almost 3 weeks- I'm 3/4 of the way through the trial period. It is for sure not going back. Compared to my previous NUC based Rock/Roon music server it is much better sounding. What makes it sound better I'm sure includes the power supply, the double isolated ethernet port, the custom designed motherboards and the dual processors for the server side and the player side. But I find the software makes a difference too. I can see now why so many here like the sound of their Aurrender music servers with its proprietary software.
The Antipodes, with its dual processors allows for flexibility with respect to operating software. For example, I can run Roon on the Server which allows me to control the music with the Roon App on my iPad. But I don't have to necessarily run Roon on the Player. I have several options such as not just Roon but also Squeezebox, MPD, HD Player, Shairport. HD Player, like Roon requires a subscription. The first day that I got the Antipodes I switched the Player from Roon to Squeeze. It sounded better so I listened that way for over two weeks. I decided to switch back to Roon for a day. At first, I didn't think it was much different but as time went on I felt like I was missing something in the music. The next day I switched back to Squeeze and it felt like I had removed ear plugs. It was that big a difference.
It took years to learn analog. Tube bias, cables, tonearms, cartridges and then it was dialing in VTA, VTF, Antiskate, azimuth, and cartridge loading. It was art and science and then there was the air bearing ETII Linear Tracking tonearm that could reduce men to quivering jello. Now we have a whole new set of variables in the digital world. What fun...
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