Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
So what is the alternative to achieve a good sound quality.I can extend my budget for the same for a streamer.
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Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
I have placed the speakers at 6 ft apart from each other and nearly 1.7ft from the rear wall and nearly 2.4ft from the side walls with a little toe in towards the listning position.To me it produces nice instrument separation, fantastic vocals and i could hear fine details in the music may be due to a good cd transport 6000cdt.Earlier the speakers show an overly strong treble but since they are biwirable i replaced the positive link of each speaker with a 1 ohm resistor and the treble got lowered becoming clear not overwhelming giving fantastic insightful into the music.I love these speakers after tweaking of 1 ohm resistor.
rikhav
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I am not really sure at what price are you getting the node 2i
But see it has to be a balance of convenience and sound quality for someone like you.
Else I would have suggested you allo usbridge signature with shanti Linear power supply.
But I am more then sure it won't be easy for you to set it up.
If you are able to accept not so good ease of use then allo products like digione or usbridge signature will be far better in sound quality that can send digital out for your dac/amp. For sound quality they will beat bluesound node provided that the dac inside your amp is better than dac inside bluesound node. Having said that i feel that sound quality will depend more on dac than source in your case thats imo.
Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
Do anyone uses in their system Allo digione signature player with shanti psu? Can this setup acess all streaming services including Tidal mqa ?At what price this set up is available online ? What app / software runs this setup ? Since most fms praises the SQ of this setup i am eager to kniw its sound capabilities in comparison to Cambridge cxn/ Node 2i.
Oh sorry too many questions.I appreciate your valuable time.
i have been a user of cambrdge audio streammagic, digione, usbridge and digione signature alongwith shanti psu. So i will try to answer.
Can this setup acess all streaming services including Tidal mqa ? No mqa is not supported on allo, but you can use tidal hifi, spotify. You can also stream local music from nas or a usb connected to allo.
At what price this set up is available online ? New shanti psu plus digione signature will cost you aroun 25k
What app / software runs this setup ? Allo devices are rpi based so can run software such as volumio moodeaudio or any custom rpi software if you want it to.
Since most fms praises the SQ of this setup i am eager to kniw its sound capabilities in comparison to Cambridge cxn/ Node 2i. I have used streammagic v1 and my original old digione without allo shanti psu simply blew it off. There was no comparision between coax out of cxn and coax out of digione. So you can imagine the quality of digione signature and shanti psu combined.
drawback of allo products is that they can be difficult to set up if you are not technically inclined or afraid of things such as linux, networking ip addresses. Also the user interface will not be too user friendly as that of commercial products. Thats my opinion.
Frankly speaking the quality you will observe will be highly dependent on the dac you use. If dac is good then only it can use the source upto the level of expectation. More better the dac more effect these things will produce.
M
mpw
Guest
Hi
Can you put up a pic or 2 of your system..
Viewing audio gear helps with isolation blues as well..
)Regards
Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
Thanks a lot for
Thanks a lot for your bit by bit replies of my quries.I was delighted to know that such a setup produces a great sound at a reasonable cost in comparison to the gear at a relatively higher cost.But since its setup, user interface and technical know how is such a tdifficult hing which i don't like and most importantly will not be handeld by me so i have to drop this choice.After your replies i have come to the conclusion that i shall go with Node 2i and use the excellent dac of my 6000A amp.
Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
Hi
Can you put up a pic or 2 of your system..
Viewing audio gear helps with isolation blues as well..
Regards
HiHi
Can you put up a pic or 2 of your system..
Viewing audio gear helps with isolation blues as well..
Regards
Sorry i was a little bit busy and forgot to send the pics.I am enclosing three pics.Two pertain to my earlier system & one is of my present system.Any suggestion regarding my present system is appreciated.
Regards
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Hi Imtiaz
Welcome back. Lovely to see you here again
Since you already have a competent dac in the amp, I would suggest to get a Google chrome cast if you can still find one somewhere. Every streamer in discussion so far has a inbuilt dac which you don't necessarily need.
And the CCA is not poor in anyway in sound quality. I run a roon chain for tidal, with 5 LPSU and a dedicated roon end point with its own femto clocks and power regulators. This is mainly for tidal and local library play back. But I also majorly use the CCA ( with a 5V LPSU ) with a paid gaana subscription most of the time for desi tracks. And since both my chains feed the same dac. I can compare both. The CCA once fed by a LPSU is awesome sound quality wise. And you get tidal, gaana and Spotify too . All the best
Welcome back. Lovely to see you here again
Since you already have a competent dac in the amp, I would suggest to get a Google chrome cast if you can still find one somewhere. Every streamer in discussion so far has a inbuilt dac which you don't necessarily need.
And the CCA is not poor in anyway in sound quality. I run a roon chain for tidal, with 5 LPSU and a dedicated roon end point with its own femto clocks and power regulators. This is mainly for tidal and local library play back. But I also majorly use the CCA ( with a 5V LPSU ) with a paid gaana subscription most of the time for desi tracks. And since both my chains feed the same dac. I can compare both. The CCA once fed by a LPSU is awesome sound quality wise. And you get tidal, gaana and Spotify too . All the best
M
mpw
Guest
D
Deleted member 15865
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Imtiyaz, any particular reason why you have set the bookshelves that low in height? Is your seating very low? Nice carpet by the way - a local product?
Hi Imtiyaz,
It's so wonderful to hear that your tinnitus is better. Welcome back!
In my opinion, a good streaming solution would be to use a PC. As suggested by some others, a PC loaded with an MQA decoding music player like Audirvana Plus, connected to your DAC with a good USB cable, will not just sound great but give you flexibility to stream any music, be it Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, Youtube... just about anything in High Res. In future, if you decide to get a really high end streamer, the PC can still be useful for your routine data needs.
Considering that you stream Tidal, USBridge and Digione may not be ideally suited. Most budget streamers will not decode MQA. And I promise you that MQA sounds far superior to normal hires. Node 2i does MQA, hence that would be option 2. To me, the PC is far more versatile and flexible.
Best wishes!
It's so wonderful to hear that your tinnitus is better. Welcome back!
In my opinion, a good streaming solution would be to use a PC. As suggested by some others, a PC loaded with an MQA decoding music player like Audirvana Plus, connected to your DAC with a good USB cable, will not just sound great but give you flexibility to stream any music, be it Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, Youtube... just about anything in High Res. In future, if you decide to get a really high end streamer, the PC can still be useful for your routine data needs.
Considering that you stream Tidal, USBridge and Digione may not be ideally suited. Most budget streamers will not decode MQA. And I promise you that MQA sounds far superior to normal hires. Node 2i does MQA, hence that would be option 2. To me, the PC is far more versatile and flexible.
Best wishes!
Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
Hi
In our region the height of the rooms is normally kept at 9ft due to cold weather so i place the speakers at a relatively small height to avoid the sound reflections from the cieling and my seating position is also low nearly 10ft as i listen the music mostly on my bed.Secondly when i purchased the speakers i was in a fix to choose a good stand for them In the mean time i have 2 wooden tools in my house and i use them as stands for the time being with a granite slab placed on them to make the stands heavy till i purchase good stands.The carpets are from Iran.
Hello everybody.
@firearm12
Need info regarding audio output from pi or divione.
I am out of my depth here as I have no knowledge of raspberry pi or digione so please bear with me.
I have read that l2s connection to a DAC is better than co ax due to jitter transport issues.
If a DAC accepts input of l2s using ethernet cable, is the pi or digione capable of l2s outpit via ethernet.
Apologies to OP for piggybacking on this thread.
Regards
@firearm12
Need info regarding audio output from pi or divione.
I am out of my depth here as I have no knowledge of raspberry pi or digione so please bear with me.
I have read that l2s connection to a DAC is better than co ax due to jitter transport issues.
If a DAC accepts input of l2s using ethernet cable, is the pi or digione capable of l2s outpit via ethernet.
Apologies to OP for piggybacking on this thread.
Regards
Last edited:
Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
Hi
Thanks for your good wishes.I have a very good laptop with nice specs. Is MQA decoding music player possible for the download ? Can we connect any usb socket of the laptop to the dac? Is the sound quality of this setup great than Node 2i plus external dac ? Your comments please.
Regards
It depends on source equipment but generally i2s is considered as better for same source if it has both i2s and coax out options. If source is different we cannot say and it’s not necessary that i2s wil be better. Digione cannot output i2s signals to an external dac It only has coax out.
being said that i2s is a little problematic interface as it was not designed for transmission with long cables, it was only made to transfer signals internally from transport to dac, but these days many companies give this option.
Hello Imtiyaz,
To answer your questions:
- Audirvana Plus is one of the music players available for download on PC/Mac. It decodes MQA and converts it to a regular digital signal. It's a paid product and costs $75 after the free trial period.
- Audirvana + and also other players will allow you to bypass the computer's internal dac and output a digital signal from the PC's USB port. Any of the ports can be used. The USB connects via USB cable to your Audiolab DAC. It is important to use a short and good USB cable.
- Is the sound better than Node 2i? Difficult to say... it depends on the PC. In particular, the PC fan and power supply can adversely affect the sound. If you have a quiet PC and use a good USB cable, it may be a perfect solution. I used to use a Mac Mini and never faced an issue of fan noise or excessive jitter. Having said that, I haven't heard the Node 2i side by side with the PC, hence unable to comment. No doubt that the Node 2i too is an excellent option.
- From the pictures you posted, it looks like you already have a Node 2i. In that case, need not consider other options for now. You can easily compare it with your PC. On your PC, you can download trial versions of either Audirvana Plus or JRiver or VOX (the latter two don't support MQA). All these will send hires digital output to your external DAC
Since there is no tv or video involved in your setup, a dedicated player like bluesound is more suitable for you i think. It should also give better sound than laptop. Laptop is perfect for someone who likes to play videos, movies and also listen to music. A system with a laptop happens to look more digital to me
Imtiyaz Ahmad
Active Member
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