calvinandhobbes
Responses from calvinandhobbes
| Power Cables - Stock vs. Budget I've listened to a range of power cords on a Denafrips Pontus II DAC. Of these, the $95 Supra LoRad power cord was the best sounding of all of the cords that I list below. Surprisingly, power cords seem to make a bigger difference to my ear on my ... | |
| Beats By Dre and Graff Diamond $1 million Headphones The need to encrust a headphone with diamonds says something about the target customer for that headphone and what's important to them. | |
| My take on subjective vs. objective Objectively speaking, if you don't subjectively like the sound of your system, you are wasting your time. | |
| Turntables In my experience, the lightweight design of the P10 conveys music with pace and reproduces rhythms well. Compared to high-mass turntables, the P10 perhaps has a tone quality that is not quite as full or as warm. I've heard a P10 with a Hana ML ca... | |
| Advice for Streaming Newbies - Best Bang for Our Bucks @kraftwerkturbo-tt225 Before listening, I would have agreed with you on the relative theoretical opportunity to improve digital vs analog signal paths. My ear, however, tells me that things like interconnects and power cords can yield quite sign... | |
| Advice for Streaming Newbies - Best Bang for Our Bucks One option for not having a long run of Ethernet cable is to create an Ethernet access point with a WiFi extender. I think this sounds better to me than using the WiFi receiver built into my streamer since the source of RFI/EMI is removed from the... | |
| Advice for Streaming Newbies - Best Bang for Our Bucks @larry5729 Check out soundiiz.com for transferring playlists between streaming services. | |
| How good does my system have to be to realize an improvement with cables? +1 to what @ghdprentice said about trying before buying. My experience with audio equipment is that it's not so easy to equate price to sound quality improvement. On my $1700 Denafrips Pontus II DAC, I've tried 7 different power cords ranging in p... | |
| Advice for Streaming Newbies - Best Bang for Our Bucks I turned off the WiFi on my Pro-ject Stream Box S2 Ultra streamer. That was a BIG improvement in sound quality. Not too big of a surprise. Switching from an AmazonBasics Cat 6 Ethernet cable to a $64 Supra Cat 8 Ethernet cable yielded an addition... | |
| The State of Streaming Audio +1 on Qobuz. In fact, my perception of the relative sound quality of streaming services.has Tidal sounding worst of all of the streaming services as of Nov 2020. 1. Qobuz 2. Primephonic 3. Spotify Premium (320 kbps Ogg Vorbis which is not lossl... | |
| What was the most impactful addition to your system? Like @ghdprentice, my buying a house that had an unexpectedly good listening room was by far the most impactful addition to my system. And it took me about 8 years of living in our current house to figure that out. Right before COVID, I convinced ... | |
| Denafrips Pontus II vs Venus II The review that you linked has an interesting comment about how the nature of the sound from the Venus is different than that from the Pontus. The review describes the sound from the Venus as being more analytical while the sound from the Pontus ... | |
| Pro-Ject Stream Box s2 Ultra - Network Change HELP! +1 on connecting a monitor via the HDMI output and a mouse via the USB input. Here's instructions on doing so: https://www.audioadvice.com/pro-ject-stream-box-s2-ultra-getting-started-guide/ The cool thing is that the advanced Raspberry Pi ... | |
| Billie or Ella? Maria or Renata? Technique or feeling? With respect to Billie Holiday vs Ella Fitzgerald, I find that the emotion that Ella conveys is more subtle, but it's there. Billie Holiday can be a bit over the top for me. | |
| What cable companies make the best cables and sell them directly? +1 on DH Labs. Just got a pair of DH Labs BL-1 Series 2 interconnects used. Two pairs for $85 shipped! I originally had DH Labs White Lightning interconnects based on the recommendation of a local dealer whose ears I trust. The White Lightnings s... |