The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

Thackeraye said:
Got the Black Friday Plexamp deal. So far so good, apart from the fact my Chromecasts aren't showing up on the desktop apps. Works fine on my phone, but the plan was to use a spare laptop as a front end. Strangely, I can connect desktop>phone>Chromecast...
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Did a bit of research, and apparently it doesn't work on desktop mode. Frustrating. At least the phone option works.
 
This is the big reason I cannot leave Roon, it handles setups like this so well. I am all Apple so I can use any Mac device and connect to a streamer using Airplay (downsamples though).

But using PlexAmp on my phone or iPad is just as good as Roon
 
Joe Mac said:
This is likely to be the last piece into my system for a long long time!

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So circumstance makes liars of us all…

One more bit…

I’d forgotten how much the DAC hates USB streamers. Just won’t play ball. Works fine with MacBook and windows laptop just not a hifi streamer sigh.

So I got the matrix SPDIF and the streamer is connected, via it, to the DAC with I2S over HDMI. I’ve moved the CD transport to coax because being Redbook it’s limited to PCM regardless.

Now I’m done, hopefully for a very long time!

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jamieanderson1968 said:
Famous last words ;)
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Unfortunately the well is very dry, can’t go dipping back in anytime soon. Also this is the first time probably everything I have now is awesome, so that makes it easier too. Should only be consumables like tubes and cartridges that come in over the next while.
 
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so, i'm one of the few that purchased a pono hi-res player 6-7 years ago. my experience with the pono has been mostly great and as far as i'm concerned i got my money's worth from it. in that time the pono has been used and abused, and i still use it frequently now, but after the sd card flap broke off recently i realize it's probably nearing the end of its usable life sooner than later, especially with no support available any longer.

anyone here got any recent recommendations for a portable hi-res player that can do the same or similar as the pono? i'm willing to spend more than the $400 that was spent on the pono, but unless i can be extremely convinced of the quality, i'm not dropping $1-2k on one, either. i've looked around on the web a bit and have some ideas, but want to see what anyone here might think about what the best options are currently and what folks' experience with any of the various players has been.

thanks, yo.
 
Does it have to be a DAP? I have been a DAP person since the early iPod. Bought my most recent one (FiiO) in 2019 and have hardly used it. For the last 10yrs or so, the reason I like a DAP was because I traveled for work and pleasure quite a bit, several 2+ hr flights per year. I liked the DAP because it meant I didn't eat the charge on my phone while travelling. That is not happening for me any more and now I might do one long flight a year (one in 2021 and none in 2022).

The last few DAPs I have bought have been FiiO, but my most recent is 4 years old now (FiiO M7). I have liked FiiO products and they have a wide price range, from $150 and up it seems. Most now all run on a modified Android OS and will allow you to load streaming apps as well. Good build quality and nice reactive touchscreens.

But for the same price (or cheaper) you can set up a good version with your phone. What I use a lot now is PlexAmp (life licence for Plex is about $100) on my iPhone. I download within the app the albums I want to listen to on the go. I usually keep about 10-15 on my phone, and can easily switch them out so as not to eat up all my storage. PlexAmp downloads the full file in whatever resolution you on your computer

If I want to be wireless, I just use my wireless earbuds. If I want a better sound I connect my Helm Bolt DAC (about $125) and a pair of wired headphones (either IEM or over the ear) and I am good to go.

Edit: was looking around online and it seems like a lot of the sub $400 DAP market is drying up with a lot of players above that and only a few tiny hi-res players (which I drop too often) around $100.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Does it have to be a DAP? I have been a DAP person since the early iPod. Bought my most recent one (FiiO) in 2019 and have hardly used it. For the last 10yrs or so, the reason I like a DAP was because I traveled for work and pleasure quite a bit, several 2+ hr flights per year. I liked the DAP because it meant I didn't eat the charge on my phone while travelling. That is not happening for me any more and now I might do one long flight a year (one in 2021 and none in 2022).

The last few DAPs I have bought have been FiiO, but my most recent is 4 years old now (FiiO M7). I have liked FiiO products and they have a wide price range, from $150 and up it seems. Most now all run on a modified Android OS and will allow you to load streaming apps as well. Good build quality and nice reactive touchscreens.

But for the same price (or cheaper) you can set up a good version with your phone. What I use a lot now is PlexAmp (life licence for Plex is about $100) on my iPhone. I download within the app the albums I want to listen to on the go. I usually keep about 10-15 on my phone, and can easily switch them out so as not to eat up all my storage. PlexAmp downloads the full file in whatever resolution you on your computer

If I want to be wireless, I just use my wireless earbuds. If I want a better sound I connect my Helm Bolt DAC (about $125) and a pair of wired headphones (either IEM or over the ear) and I am good to go.

Edit: was looking around online and it seems like a lot of the sub $400 DAP market is drying up with a lot of players above that and only a few tiny hi-res players (which I drop too often) around $100.
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I have a really old Fiio too and my only complaint was the UI. But that seems largely fixed
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Does it have to be a DAP?
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yes, i would prefer a standalone player for my use. all the networking stuff is cool, but not for me- i just want a piece of hardware that is not my phone that i can easily load/unload my files on (ideally via windows file explorer drag-n-drop and not some proprietary app- this was a plus of the pono) and bring with me wherever i want to go. i don't even stream music really. call me a luddite, i guess. i still use an iphone 6 for my cell, so that should give you some idea of how behind the times i remain.

the fiio is the name i'm coming across the most and seems to have reasonable pricing, though there appear to be numerous models across a wider range of prices that i'd guess i'd hope to find a sweet spot somewhere within. seems like the m11 series is the one getting the most mentions when i google around, and the m11 plus is $650 on amazon which probably fits my preferred cost. but it's the user experience for any of these i'm most curious about and like i described above i'm looking for the process of adding/removing files and other user features to be as simple and painless as possible. this is the part i'm having the most difficulties finding reliable info on.

thanks for the replies so far.
 
AndySlash said:
yes, i would prefer a standalone player for my use. all the networking stuff is cool, but not for me- i just want a piece of hardware that is not my phone that i can easily load/unload my files on (ideally via windows file explorer drag-n-drop and not some proprietary app- this was a plus of the pono) and bring with me wherever i want to go. i don't even stream music really. call me a luddite, i guess. i still use an iphone 6 for my cell, so that should give you some idea of how behind the times i remain.

the fiio is the name i'm coming across the most and seems to have reasonable pricing, though there appear to be numerous models across a wider range of prices that i'd guess i'd hope to find a sweet spot somewhere within. seems like the m11 series is the one getting the most mentions when i google around, and the m11 plus is $650 on amazon which probably fits my preferred cost. but it's the user experience for any of these i'm most curious about and like i described above i'm looking for the process of adding/removing files and other user features to be as simple and painless as possible. this is the part i'm having the most difficulties finding reliable info on.

thanks for the replies so far.
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Totally get it.

The FiiO uses a micro-sd card. I think mine can take a 500g card but have been using a 250. I can just plug it in to my iMac and drag and drop files onto the card. Slap it back in the FiiO and it reads it right away. But if it is being stubborn you can tell it to fully index the card again. I found that adding stuff to the card showed up right away but taking albums off took longer to disappear from the file list on the M7.

From reading reviews it sounds like they have upgraded the UI and it is easier to navigate around.

On mine, you can use the player app to locate music, either by artist or album title. But I found sometimes it had trouble with the tagging. I have a copy of Ziggy Stardust on there and each track shows up as an individual copy of the album, so there is like 10 copies of the album, each being 1 song long.

Thankfully you can navigate via the file browser and then play from there. This is what I do on the M7 usually. I use a standard file structure of Artist/Album title and it is super fast to find the album I want to play and away you go.
 
Trying out the PS Audio Stellar Gain DAC preamp today. Wife is home so I have to have headphones on while she works. I like it. It's interesting that it shows you when the DAC is receiving PCM and at which level (44, 96, 192) but it just goes blank with DSD. I figured I'd get a little DSD logo but nothing. It definitely sounds good.

@Joe Mac have you had issues with popping noises when you switch on the USB? I get some loud pops when it switches over. I noticed the sound was up too loud on the Mac player so I switched it down to low before turning on the system and it's lessened greatly. Looked online and it seems to be a known issue. Since I bought it preowned, not a lot of recourse to send it to PS Audio to see about it. Doesn't happen on analog sources as far as I can tell. Only using my record player and an AM/FM tuner for listening to NPR.
 
mdmost said:
Trying out the PS Audio Stellar Gain DAC preamp today. Wife is home so I have to have headphones on while she works. I like it. It's interesting that it shows you when the DAC is receiving PCM and at which level (44, 96, 192) but it just goes blank with DSD. I figured I'd get a little DSD logo but nothing. It definitely sounds good.

@Joe Mac have you had issues with popping noises when you switch on the USB? I get some loud pops when it switches over. I noticed the sound was up too loud on the Mac player so I switched it down to low before turning on the system and it's lessened greatly. Looked online and it seems to be a known issue. Since I bought it preowned, not a lot of recourse to send it to PS Audio to see about it. Doesn't happen on analog sources as far as I can tell. Only using my record player and an AM/FM tuner for listening to NPR.
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I think with the USB DAC that’s because it’s using DOP maybe? I think it is supposed to show it using the I2S connection which accepts a native DSD stream.

Never with my MacBook or my work windows laptop. It always worked perfect with them. Now the USB with a standalone Linux based streamer was a whole bag of hate that I ended up bypassing.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Totally get it.

The FiiO uses a micro-sd card. I think mine can take a 500g card but have been using a 250. I can just plug it in to my iMac and drag and drop files onto the card. Slap it back in the FiiO and it reads it right away. But if it is being stubborn you can tell it to fully index the card again. I found that adding stuff to the card showed up right away but taking albums off took longer to disappear from the file list on the M7.

From reading reviews it sounds like they have upgraded the UI and it is easier to navigate around.

On mine, you can use the player app to locate music, either by artist or album title. But I found sometimes it had trouble with the tagging. I have a copy of Ziggy Stardust on there and each track shows up as an individual copy of the album, so there is like 10 copies of the album, each being 1 song long.

Thankfully you can navigate via the file browser and then play from there. This is what I do on the M7 usually. I use a standard file structure of Artist/Album title and it is super fast to find the album I want to play and away you go.
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thank you, this is the kind of feedback i'm looking for.

tagging was an issue for album organization on the pono, too, so i'm not surprised by that- pretty much everything except the song name and track number had to be the exact same between files or it'd sort them as separate albums. embedded art was a nuisance, too. i basically had to use mp3tag to make sure everything was kosher before copying over.
 
A little over a month into this PS Audio DAC and I really love it. Paired it with Qobuz and was streaming holiday music the entire month of December. One area I've found myself very deficient in is listening to new music. With this service, I'm already going back and listening to albums I had some interest in but never picked up on vinyl, my previously preferred method for listening to all my music. Very happy I took the plunge as this is really going to simplify how I listen to music now.
 
mdmost said:
A little over a month into this PS Audio DAC and I really love it. Paired it with Qobuz and was streaming holiday music the entire month of December. One area I've found myself very deficient in is listening to new music. With this service, I'm already going back and listening to albums I had some interest in but never picked up on vinyl, my previously preferred method for listening to all my music. Very happy I took the plunge as this is really going to simplify how I listen to music now.
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Qobuz is so awesome, paired with a great DAC it is TRULY awesome. And while they don’t publish their figures, it’s been noted that they pay around 4 cents per stream, which is substantially higher than any other service.

If they could improve their autoplay algorithm for certain genres, it would be game over.

Enjoy!!
 
HayesWeighsIn said:
Qobuz is so awesome, paired with a great DAC it is TRULY awesome. And while they don’t publish their figures, it’s been noted that they pay around 4 cents per stream, which is substantially higher than any other service.

If they could improve their autoplay algorithm for certain genres, it would be game over.

Enjoy!!
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I really liked Qobuz when I had but when I gave up roon it had to go because it’s so hard to wirelessly use it and get the full benefits. If they came up with a protocol like tidal/Spotify connect and improved the CarPlay app I’d definitely go back.
 
mdmost said:
A little over a month into this PS Audio DAC and I really love it. Paired it with Qobuz and was streaming holiday music the entire month of December. One area I've found myself very deficient in is listening to new music. With this service, I'm already going back and listening to albums I had some interest in but never picked up on vinyl, my previously preferred method for listening to all my music. Very happy I took the plunge as this is really going to simplify how I listen to music now.
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Glad you’re enjoying it! Since I got the new CD transport I’ve been loving it’s digital capabilities as a DAC too!
 
Joe Mac said:
I really liked Qobuz when I had but when I gave up roon it had to go because it’s so hard to wirelessly use it and get the full benefits. If they came up with a protocol like tidal/Spotify connect and improved the CarPlay app I’d definitely go back.
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Yeah, and unfortunately they seem to indicate that this won’t be happening in the near future.

That being said, even A/Bing to Tidal with both streaming at CD quality over Bluetooth (so, not CD quality output), I find Qobuz sounds better.

Spotify Connect is tough to beat. Seamless, virtually flawless, connects to basically anything and everything. They win hands down in UI and functionality.
 
HayesWeighsIn said:
Yeah, and unfortunately they seem to indicate that this won’t be happening in the near future.

That being said, even A/Bing to Tidal with both streaming at CD quality over Bluetooth (so, not CD quality output), I find Qobuz sounds better.

Spotify Connect is tough to beat. Seamless, virtually flawless, connects to basically anything and everything. They win hands down in UI and functionality.
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Yeah I’m on Apple Music at the minute because carplay and for a big company I just wish they’d redo AirPlay properly so that it streams from the endpoint, not the phone, and goes full 24/192.
 
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