morphsci

Happy Birthday, Dom HiWire!

Since I could not visit Chicago this year I went on a Chicago music journey. 1.) 2.) 3.)

Earlier Now

I loved Watchmen, but is it that good or does everything else just suck?

So I decided to explore the Topping and SMSL offerings. First of all they are not exactly comparable to the Project as neither has a built-in headphone output. To get that you need their separate matching Headphone unit. For the Topping that will set you back $170 (Total $420) and for the SMSL that will cost $190 (Total $440). I actually decided to try the two matching SMSL units as the DAC (SU-8) has balanced outputs and the headphone amp (SH-8) has balanced inputs and a 4-pin balanced headphone output, which to me is worth more than the additional $20. So here they are: Initial impressions are very good. At least as good as the Project, plus I can slip my GSX in when it returns from the manufacturer (Ahem ...). I'll probably stop here for a while since I now have a Dinny level of DACs and I need to decide on what I want to compare next.

I wish now that I had not sold all of mine

Todd has a very good description of the system. I run Roon on a MacMini that was already serving music server duty and it is always on running the Roon core and indexing my library on a directly connected disk. I became interested in Roon when I bought the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge and was getting pissed off having to use three separate apps to listen to my local library, Tidal and Qobuz. Roon integrates all three under a common interface. It does not do Spotify, which can be a problem for some. The other thing it does is make the recording format (bit depth, frequency, PCM vs DSD) a non consideration as every endpoint will receive a stream it can use at its maximum resolution (assuming the endpoint is set-up correctly*). How powerful a server you need really depends on how much DSP you want Roon to do. In my case the only DSP I have it do is any necessary format conversion for the endpoints, so my server is pretty much overkill. In most cases the server is less likely to be a bottleneck compared to your network configuration anyway. So if you have any reasonable computer available (Windows, Mac or Linux) it should work fine. There is tons of information available on line for what is required for Roon in terms of both computing power and network infrastructure. As Todd said if you are only interested in streaming services to one or two endpoints then Roon is likely overkill. For me the longterm configuration simplification alone is worth the price of admission. *If the device is Roon Ready or Roon Tested then it generally works fine with the Roon defaults. If not either of those then you may have to play with the device configuration. I have had to do that a couple of times, but it is not too hard even for me.

Happy Birthday, Antonio!

I would focus on the software you want to use. The hardware is secondary. I was very antiRoon before the time of Covid. Once I actually learned how to use Roon I do not see myself going back to anything else. That makes my hardware choices simpler as it just has to work with Roon. It is not super expensive, about $120 year (or $699.99 lifetime), but not insignificant either. There are less expensive choices like J. River Media Center which I use at work and is fine for a one room system but it does offer more video support. I only wish I had listened to my own advice sooner so I did not waste as much of my time trying to get Windows to be useful.

The Pootie Pie is a streamer, but I am not sure how that would really differ from a wireless sound card. If you use Roopiee XL You are not restricted to Roon. You can use it any way you use an Airplay, DLNA or Spotify endpoint. So you basically hook it up to a DAC and push music to it using any DLNA or Airplay compliant app.

I fixed my post above.

Below is Marc's post about building a Roon endpoint. If you install Roopiee XL you will be able to stream using Airplay, DLNA and Spotify, in addition to Roon. It is really easy, even I was able to build two of them. Also known as a Pootie Pie.

^^Nice. Actually owned an AU-717 and a TU-717 back in the day. The cassette deck I had was a Rotel, but I cannot remember the model number.

I really liked Grant on Mythbusters RIP

The first two look interesting and they both use ESS Sabre chips so I know I like that sound (if properly utilized). The Schiit does not do DSD (as far as I can tell) which makes it non comparable since I am looking at affordable DACs that do native DSD. Here is the Mytek on the iFi rack

Just because a manufacturer labels something a flagship does not make it better than a previous flagship. But you wouldn’t know that since you are simply a troll.

Well the Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital may just be the bargain DAC of the day. I certainly think it may be the least expensive DAC that uses two ESS9038Q2M Sabre DACs. This gives you a good idea how small it is. That is a 7inch touchscreen.

Happy Birthday, Jose!

Happy Birthday, Mike!

Happy Birthday, Birgir!

Was able to sneak in the REL subwoofer with nobody noticing. Not that hard as it is remarkably compact.

Very nice Steve. You should definitely send pictures of the finished unit to Parasound.

Happy Birthday, Greg!