Great article on "Analogue Warmth"

[amirm]

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh! If this is winning, maybe losing isn't so bad.

I don't know why people have this reaction every time I post pictures of myself and friends....

 

[Blizzard]

I guess you are the guys Ron is yelling at as it seems the analog guys are being gentlemen and retain their equanimity under stress . A post such as the above could be construed as trolling

I think what's going on is the analog guys are afraid of getting good sound out of their digital rigs. Or else they would all be trying HQplayer. So far everyone who took the plunge on this forum has unanimously agreed that it gave them the best sound they heard from digital yet. We have Andrew on the NADAC thread raving about the vinyl like sound. Saying how the quad DSD is outshining the vinyl rig he has hands down. Then we just had Madfloyd's assessment of using it combined with my streamer unit. A couple weeks ago we had Chopchop say he was impressed. For a tweak that can be tried for free with a simple download, I'm very surprised more aren't trying it. Especially now that you can use Roon for the front end on the iPad app, and finally get amazing sound out of Tidal.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I guess you are the guys Ron is yelling at as it seems the analog guys are being gentlemen and retain their equanimity under stress . A post such as the above could be construed as trolling

Trolling? No. Showing that guy's navel? Horridly poor taste.

Tim

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I think what's going on is the analog guys are afraid of getting good sound out of their digital rigs. Or else they would all be trying HQplayer. So far everyone who took the plunge on this forum has unanimously agreed that it gave them the best sound they heard from digital yet. We have Andrew on the NADAC thread raving about the vinyl like sound. Saying how the quad DSD is outshining the vinyl rig he has hands down. Then we just had Madfloyd's assessment of using it combined with my streamer unit. A couple weeks ago we had Chopchop say he was impressed. For a tweak that can be tried for free with a simple download, I'm very surprised more aren't trying it. Especially now that you can use Roon for the front end on the iPad app, and finally get amazing sound out of Tidal.

Seriously Blizz, you do invent some rubbish. The *majority* of people with analogue rigs also embrace digital. Indeed invest a lot to get good digital. Take Mike for a start - having 2 high quality dacs and a dedicated server does not speak of a man who is afraid to get the best from his digital. Myself - I sit in both camps as I enjoy music foremost and that for me involves both formats. I am trying my hardest to make my digital as great as possible because the interactivity with the software via iPad is so great for perusing and controlling my collection. Using your own example, Madfloyd clearly wants great digital. Out of curiosity - is Madfloyd now saying that his digital beats his Kronos?

The reason that hqplayer has not caught on fully is that the standard interface is horrendous and the cpu power required to run dsd conversion causes issues. Finally integrating Roon has just happened so that might catch on when it has settled in somewhat. I have an A10 quad processor laptop with 16GB RAM and it can't manage dsd upsampling without stuttering (even double). The NAA route is yet another complexity to the system. In essence you have Roon > hqplayer > NAA > DAC. Many people won't want that complexity and instead want to use jriver with a decent interface straight off their laptop or buy an Auralic or Aurender.

 

[Blizzard]

Seriously Blizz, you do invent some rubbish. The *majority* of people with analogue rigs also embrace digital. Indeed invest a lot to get good digital. Take Mike for a start - having 2 high quality dacs and a dedicated server does not speak of a man who is afraid to get the best from his digital. Myself - I sit in both camps as I enjoy music foremost and that for me involves both formats. I am trying my hardest to make my digital as great as possible because the interactivity with the software via iPad is so great for perusing and controlling my collection. Using your own example, Madfloyd clearly wants great digital. Out of curiosity - is Madfloyd now saying that his digital beats his Kronos?

The reason that hqplayer has not caught on fully is that the standard interface is horrendous and the cpu power required to run dsd conversion causes issues. Finally integrating Roon has just happened so that might catch on when it has settled in somewhat. I have an A10 quad processor laptop with 16GB RAM and it can't manage dsd upsampling without stuttering (even double). The NAA route is yet another complexity to the system. In essence you have Roon > hqplayer > NAA > DAC. Many people won't want that complexity and instead want to use jriver with a decent interface straight off their laptop or buy an Auralic or Aurender.

If Madfloyd spent as much money as the Kronos and Pass phono stage, on his DAC, I'm sure he could get there easily.


So your saying spending $500 on a server for HQplayer is over the top for guys spending 100K + on their systems? Most people already have servers powerful enough already anyways. The standard UI is no longer an issue because the Roon integration is finished. And the NAA route is no more complicated than using any commercial streamer unit. Simply plug it into an Ethernet cable on the network, and plug in with USB to the DAC. Even if you went for the full blown optically isolated LPS powered setup with my streamer and HP or Dell server, we are talking less than $1500 total investment for the complete setup server and all. We have guys here spending 5000 euros on Lampi Komputers, and over 20K on grounding devices. I can assure you that this $1500 setup would be a far greater step up in performance than those 2 examples.

You are making up a whole pile of insignificant non-issues, just as an excuse to not achieve far better digital sound. You refuse to take these simple low cost steps to achieve the top digital sound, then you come on here saying that analog is better than digital.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

If Madfloyd spent as much money as the Kronos and Pass phono stage, on his DAC, I'm sure he could get there easily.

> you are missing the point.

So your saying spending $500 on a server for HQplayer is over the top for guys spending 100K + on their systems?

> please will you try for once this year to actually read what I wrote - at what point did I say that spending $500 was over the top - please stop Your nonsense.

Most people already have servers powerful enough already anyways.

> no they don't as I have already pointed out

The standard UI is no longer an issue because the Roon integration is finished. And the NAA route is no more complicated than using any commercial streamer unit. Simply plug it into an Ethernet cable on the network, and plug in with USB to the DAC. Even if you went for the full blown optically isolated LPS powered setup with my streamer and HP or Dell server, we are talking less than $1500 total investment for the complete setup server and all. We have guys here spending 5000 euros on Lampi Komputers, and over 20K on grounding devices. I can assure you that this $1500 setup would be a far greater step up in performance than those 2 examples.

> you can assure no one of anything

You are making up a whole pile of insignificant non-issues, just as an excuse to not achieve far better digital sound. You refuse to take these simple low cost steps to achieve the top digital sound, then you come on here saying that analog is better than digital.

> I am not making any issues - I am explaining reality for people.

> Please show me one thread where I have stated analogue is better than digital. You are misguided and quite an antagonistic individual tbh.


I will not contribute further to this thread since it is a total waste of time.

 

[audio-land]

If Madfloyd spent as much money as the Kronos and Pass phono stage, on his DAC, I'm sure he could get there easily.

Could you please be more specific? What is the digital brand and type you are referring (or assuming since you likely don't even heard of it in your system) to beat Madfloyd's Kronos?

 

[Blizzard]

If Madfloyd spent as much money as the Kronos and Pass phono stage, on his DAC, I'm sure he could get there easily.

> you are missing the point.

So your saying spending $500 on a server for HQplayer is over the top for guys spending 100K + on their systems?

> please will you try for once this year to actually read what I wrote - at what point did I say that spending $500 was over the top - please stop Your nonsense.

Most people already have servers powerful enough already anyways.

> no they don't as I have already pointed out

The standard UI is no longer an issue because the Roon integration is finished. And the NAA route is no more complicated than using any commercial streamer unit. Simply plug it into an Ethernet cable on the network, and plug in with USB to the DAC. Even if you went for the full blown optically isolated LPS powered setup with my streamer and HP or Dell server, we are talking less than $1500 total investment for the complete setup server and all. We have guys here spending 5000 euros on Lampi Komputers, and over 20K on grounding devices. I can assure you that this $1500 setup would be a far greater step up in performance than those 2 examples.

> you can assure no one of anything

You are making up a whole pile of insignificant non-issues, just as an excuse to not achieve far better digital sound. You refuse to take these simple low cost steps to achieve the top digital sound, then you come on here saying that analog is better than digital.

> I am not making any issues - I am explaining reality for people.

> Please show me one thread where I have stated analogue is better than digital. You are misguided and quite an antagonistic individual tbh.


I will not contribute further to this thread since it is a total waste of time.

You know you can just say "yeah that is a pretty cost effective system, and probably worth trying" instead of searching for every reason under the sun not to try it.

You are not explaining any reality, you are simply misleading.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

You know you can just say "yeah that is a pretty cost effective system, and probably worth trying" instead of searching for every reason under the sun not to try it.

What the hell are you talking about, Blizz? Are you talking about the system that you are selling?

 

[Audiophile Bill]

You know you can just say "yeah that is a pretty cost effective system, and probably worth trying" instead of searching for every reason under the sun not to try it.

You are not explaining any reality, you are simply misleading.

In what way has anything that I have written been misleading? Btw - don't get me to do the same of your twaddle.

 

[Blizzard]

What the hell are you talking about, Blizz? Are you talking about the system that you are selling?

I'm not selling this system, you can buy all the hardware on Amazon. I'm just selling the OS and software to run the streamer for $75. Tricked out to the max including server, high end linear power supplies, fiber optic isolation, cables etc, is still an investment under $1500.

You need a computer or some kinda source to connect to your DAC anyways. I'd say this is probably well under the average price most guys have into their current digital sources whether computer, streamer, CD transport or whatever.

 

[Blizzard]

In what way has anything that I have written been misleading? Btw - don't get me to do the same of your twaddle.

You are trying to make it sound like setting up an HQplayer server/NAA streamer system is very difficult and cumbersome. Which couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I'm not selling this system, you can buy all the hardware on Amazon. I'm just selling the OS and software to run the streamer for $75. Tricked out to the max including server, high end linear power supplies, fiber optic isolation, cables etc, is still an investment under $1500.

You need a computer or some kinda source to connect to your DAC anyways. I'd say this is probably well under the average price most guys have into their current digital sources whether computer, streamer, CD transport or whatever.

Ok - so you were talking about your product.

When have I said that I am trying to avoid not trying this solution?

I am stuck in that I don't have enough horsepower on my laptop to feed any NAA anyway.

I can't confirm whether it is a cost effective solution or not until I tried it - I think that is pretty unfair of you to accuse me of not "selling" your solution for you unheard.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

You are trying to make it sound like setting up an HQplayer server/NAA streamer system is very difficult and cumbersome. Which couldn't be further from the truth.

I am not - you have severe paranoia.

I pointed out that many audiophiles will find even this a stretch too far. This is why the Aurender and Melco exists.

 

[bonzo75]

Bill there are tons of people on computer audiophile using HQP via NAA, have been doing so for the last couple of years. There is a guy with a Lampi DSD dac (level 4 equivalent) in NJ who was using it with NAA for a while now. The general consensus on NAA was that the laptop streaming to the NAA still needed to be powerful, and people did various experiments with should the NAA be powerful as well.

 

[Blizzard]

Could you please be more specific? What is the digital brand and type you are referring (or assuming since you likely don't even heard of it in your system) to beat Madfloyd's Kronos?

I suppose it would depend on subjective tastes. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to spend a fortune to get SOTA digital. Most of the systems out there are a waste of money. Better results can be achieved much more cost effectively. The biggest bottlenecks over the last couple years has been USB interfaces. Unfortunately you must use USB interfaces for quad DSD. The only other choice is Ravenna, which is a far better solution. So far we only have 1 DAC on the high end market that uses Ravenna, and that's the Merging NADAC. We have many people claiming that DSD 256 R2R copies played back via the NADAC are indistinguishable from the tapes themselves. That's a $11500 DAC. If you go over to the NADAC thread on here, read what guys are saying about HQplayer and optical isolation when used in conjunction with the NADAC.

 

[Blizzard]

Ok - so you were talking about your product.

When have I said that I am trying to avoid not trying this solution?

I am stuck in that I don't have enough horsepower on my laptop to feed any NAA anyway.

I can't confirm whether it is a cost effective solution or not until I tried it - I think that is pretty unfair of you to accuse me of not "selling" your solution for you unheard.

It's not "my solution", I just put together a system people can buy to make it super simple to setup. Like I said all you need is a $500 server to have more than enough power to run HQplayer.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Bill there are tons of people on computer audiophile using HQP via NAA, have been doing so for the last couple of years. There is a guy with a Lampi DSD dac (level 4 equivalent) in NJ who was using it with NAA for a while now. The general consensus on NAA was that the laptop streaming to the NAA still needed to be powerful, and people did various experiments with should the NAA be powerful as well.

Cheers, Ked. Since my existing laptop can't deliver enough power for reliable dsd upsampling in hqplayer, I can't explore this route unless I bought a new computer then.

 

[Blizzard]

I am not - you have severe paranoia.

I pointed out that many audiophiles will find even this a stretch too far. This is why the Aurender and Melco exists.

Read the statements in bold, then tell me your not trying to make it look cumbersome and difficult:

"The reason that hqplayer has not caught on fully is that the standard interface is horrendous and the cpu power required to run dsd conversion causes issues. Finally integrating Roon has just happened so that might catch on when it has settled in somewhat. I have an A10 quad processor laptop with 16GB RAM and it can't manage dsd upsampling without stuttering (even double). The NAA route is yet another complexity to the system. In essence you have Roon > hqplayer > NAA > DAC. Many people won't want that complexity and instead want to use jriver with a decent interface straight off their laptop or buy an Auralic or Surender."


You are trying to make a $1500 investment that takes 10 minutes to setup seem like it's so difficult that it's not worth trying.

All the issues you mention, are non issues if you buy the items I recommended which come to a total of under $1500.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

It's not "my solution", I just put together a system people can buy to make it super simple to setup. Like I said all you need is a $500 server to have more than enough power to run HQplayer.

I know it is not "your solution" in general terms. I am calling it "your solution" here because it is synonymous with you on this forum and you shill it on virtually every thread.