The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

Hey @Englishbob I have had a Node 2i for almost a year now and love it. A few things I have found out over this time

It is best to plug the Node into your network as opposed to going wireless. I have all my digital files on an external drive connected to my iMac. Both the Mac and the Node are wired into my network. It works fine over wifi but you do get the odd drop out.

Other than using the BluOS app for firmware upgrades, as a music player it is not great. It is pricy but using Roon works perfectly with the Node, and is nice with integration if you use either Tidal or Qobuz, though if you use Spotify it can stream to the Node directly as well. I use either my phone or tablet as the remote control for Roon.

Overall it has really changed the way I listen to music. I have a large digital collection and it handles everything without a hitch.
 
Englishbob said:
Thanks for the input @jamieanderson1968. The hard part for me to justify is the fact that it doesn’t do any more than my laptop right? the laptop is hooked into my amp and I use it for Spotify and accessing my personal collection. The only annoying thing is controlling it remotely.
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Ya, if you are hooked right into your amp with the laptop then it does nothing more for you. I guess the plus would be that you could have our laptop anywhere in the house/apartment now and leave the Node connected to the amp.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Ya, if you are hooked right into your amp with the laptop then it does nothing more for you. I guess the plus would be that you could have our laptop anywhere in the house/apartment now and leave the Node connected to the amp.
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Well, it should sound way better than whatever DAC the laptop is sporting, no?
 
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looks like spotify hifi is actually happening now and now i wonder why i even bothered buying a DAC with MQA support (its thankfully still a great sounding DAC) and a tidal subscription when spotify ends up putting its amazing UI and high quality audio on one platform
 
duke86fan said:
looks like spotify hifi is actually happening now and now i wonder why i even bothered buying a DAC with MQA support (its thankfully still a great sounding DAC) and a tidal subscription when spotify ends up putting its amazing UI and high quality audio on one platform
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the DAC will still work and improve your laptop audio. I've just never liked spotify since I was an early iTunes adopter but it will be interesting to see the price and quality.
 
MikeH said:
I've just never liked spotify since I was an early iTunes adopter but it will be interesting to see the price and quality.
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speaking of apple (which btw in the 2000s you totally had the right gamble on itunes), i dunno i apple music is EVER going to go hifi... but with spotify dropping this it kinda feels like to stay relevant they might have to...

or they can do the tried and true method of weird ideas to sell more niche products that though are a bit too pricy for what they are have too good integration with the one product they are great at that its hard to ignore (i mean you needed amarra to have FLAC and DSD in itunes)


the one thing we know about spotify hifi is that it might for now JUST be CD quality, and thats not a bad thing even if i feel sorry for
 
duke86fan said:
speaking of apple (which btw in the 2000s you totally had the right gamble on itunes), i dunno i apple music is EVER going to go hifi... but with spotify dropping this it kinda feels like to stay relevant they might have to...

or they can do the tried and true method of weird ideas to sell more niche products that though are a bit too pricy for what they are have too good integration with the one product they are great at that its hard to ignore (i mean you needed amarra to have FLAC and DSD in itunes)


the one thing we know about spotify hifi is that it might for now JUST be CD quality, and thats not a bad thing even if i feel sorry for
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To be honest, I'm okay with potentially just keeping Apple Music for streaming when I'm out and about (car/walking) and not connected to WiFi. Before pandemic when I was walking to work I listened to Apple music over Qobuz most of the time but listened to Qobuz at work or on nights/weekends at home. It's too late for me to start using Spotify now I think.
 
MikeH said:
To be honest, I'm okay with potentially just keeping Apple Music for streaming when I'm out and about (car/walking) and not connected to WiFi. Before pandemic when I was walking to work I listened to Apple music over Qobuz most of the time but listened to Qobuz at work or on nights/weekends at home. It's too late for me to start using Spotify now I think.
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the real question is why using 2 different streaming services.. why not just use Qobuz and then import some albums you wanna try out in the car (though i understand sometimes its hard with iphones as they cant be expanded like my LG DAP... plus i just dont care as i have unlimited data)
 
duke86fan said:
the real question is why using 2 different streaming services.. why not just use Qobuz and then import some albums you wanna try out in the car (though i understand sometimes its hard with iphones as they cant be expanded like my LG DAP... plus i just dont care as i have unlimited data)
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Because if I pre-planned what albums I wanted to listen to any time I left my apartment I would go crazy haha. My Apple library also just has everything I have ever downloaded or listened to since high school. the selection is just better on Apple at this point for me since I’ve spent so much time adding to that library. And I find when I go through places with patchy cell service, Apple loads quicker.
 
its almost my birthday tomorrow and one of the things im going to use with the money i will have gained from it is either a year of roon or audirvana.. and im stuck between roon rock and audirvana hard place (then there is JRiver but why use that when foobar already exists)

roon looks amazing, can work on a single headphone and dac setup up (but its got a clunky way of turning off the sound and letting me go back to watching whatever youtube video i had planned).. seamless integration, and an infamously good recommendation system... BUT a yearly price seems awkward even though i know i can afford it for once, and it seems like it was definitely meant for if you have a good amount of zones though it seems it works with anything

audirvana on the other hand also has a great UI though just not as good, the sound was really nice, and its definitely more made for a standalone one DAC, one PC setup, but at the same time i dont like how the integration with tidal is definitely not as seamless, it aparently works a bit better when you upsample it by 2X and i dont really like upsampling that much (i did try upsampling like once or twice and i thought it sounded too robotic.. the PRaT was off, and there isn't as much long term improvement and award winning respect (for some reason its not on stereophiles recommended components and i have no idea why.. again Jriver is on there and the only thing it has is upsampling and a prettier layout than foobar).
 
duke86fan said:
its almost my birthday tomorrow and one of the things im going to use with the money i will have gained from it is either a year of roon or audirvana.. and im stuck between roon rock and audirvana hard place (then there is JRiver but why use that when foobar already exists)

roon looks amazing, can work on a single headphone and dac setup up (but its got a clunky way of turning off the sound and letting me go back to watching whatever youtube video i had planned).. seamless integration, and an infamously good recommendation system... BUT a yearly price seems awkward even though i know i can afford it for once, and it seems like it was definitely meant for if you have a good amount of zones though it seems it works with anything

audirvana on the other hand also has a great UI though just not as good, the sound was really nice, and its definitely more made for a standalone one DAC, one PC setup, but at the same time i dont like how the integration with tidal is definitely not as seamless, it aparently works a bit better when you upsample it by 2X and i dont really like upsampling that much (i did try upsampling like once or twice and i thought it sounded too robotic.. the PRaT was off, and there isn't as much long term improvement and award winning respect (for some reason its not on stereophiles recommended components and i have no idea why.. again Jriver is on there and the only thing it has is upsampling and a prettier layout than foobar).
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Happy bday!!!

what’s clunky about Roon? What do you have to change to watch a YouTube video? Don’t you just pause the music?
 
MikeH said:
Happy bday!!!

what’s clunky about Roon? What do you have to change to watch a YouTube video? Don’t you just pause the music?
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Like I push pause and the DAC is still being used.. so if I play a video the audio renderer. For some reason I can't just pause with foobar or roon, I have to put it in stop and then pick the song again after I'm done with the thing I'm doing... Tidal alone I just have to pause and the audio renderer is back to everyone but with foobar, roon, and audirvana, I have to directly stop the playback or go into zones and push the stop button
 
duke86fan said:
Like I push pause and the DAC is still being used.. so if I play a video the audio renderer. For some reason I can't just pause with foobar or roon, I have to put it in stop and then pick the song again after I'm done with the thing I'm doing... Tidal alone I just have to pause and the audio renderer is back to everyone but with foobar, roon, and audirvana, I have to directly stop the playback or go into zones and push the stop button
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Hmm...that doesn't seem right. But I don't really use Roon with a headphone setup. I'd definitely dig through those settings though. I used to occasionally run Roon through my system output on my mac and never had issues with audio when playing a video or other application. I'd get sound out of both.
 
MikeH said:
Hmm...that doesn't seem right. But I don't really use Roon with a headphone setup. I'd definitely dig through those settings though. I used to occasionally run Roon through my system output on my mac and never had issues with audio when playing a video or other application. I'd get sound out of both.
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I wonder if it involves the exclusive mode and WASAPI/ASIO.. so it makes sure that if anything that has audio it won't play it and even cause an error on YouTube videos
 
duke86fan said:
I wonder if it involves the exclusive mode and WASAPI/ASIO.. so it makes sure that if anything that has audio it won't play it and even cause an error on YouTube videos
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I can see something like that. I would run an experiment, but my main computer runs Linux, so I can't run Roon desktop. I've had enough trouble with verious pieces of adware, websites, email, and text messages ringing just as the beat drops that I would gladly take some switching difficulty to shut up the noisemakers.

(guitar crescendo) na-na! na-na-naaah-na! THUND*** ☎️☎️ Do you want to renew your 5-year-old, second subscription to the New York Times? 💥💥💥💥 NOT NOW!
 
and now i have the money for either audirvana or roon

the only thing going off roon is the fact that it seems to be more for radio and multi room but the fact that stereophile says its the thing you DEFNINITELY should get to start with computer audio makes me feel i should.. both i know are beloved and great (seems people like audirvana more sound wise but roon better UI wise), but i'll figure it out.. i dont need roon radio as things like rym and music map and last.fm (which is not compatible with audirvana) in theory could probably give me just as good and detailed recommendations without having to do a long lasting playlist
 
Kris said:
I maintain multiple digital libraries and I realize this might be a bit of overkill but it works for me.

I use iTunes for music I want on my devices. I have only Apple devices so it works the best. It's free.

I use Media Monkey Gold for my main music library. I don't know how much it costs now but I paid $25 for it 10 years ago and I still get updates. With Gold you get more options. I really like splitting my files out into separate libraries (FLAC, MP3, Classical, Holiday).

The Spotify desktop app will scan your hard drive for files and show them to you in the library, but it's not an exact science. The tags would have to be the same as Spotify or you'd have tons of duplicates. I stopped using it to scan my local files and just download everything. It's not a full featured tag editor either.

Edit: Media Monkey 5 is in beta and it says that it will integrate with cloud services so if you're willing to try a beta that might be the way to go.
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How is Mediamonkey these days? It used to be my primary app and kinda miss it. I switched to the darkside and went all Mac/iPhone/iTunes years ago because it was the only reliable ecosystem to manage and sync a desktop library along with mobile devices and keep everything in sync including tracking playcounts & smart playlists on mobile devices.

I really miss the flexibility and customizing in Mediamonkey though. I remember the different things you could do with the database and plugins that people would make were awesome.

Did you ever try to use it to sync music to your phone? I remember they had an Android app, but since Android versions are so fractured between different phone brands, mobile syncing in Mediamonkey was never reliable for me 😢
 
debar22 said:
How is Mediamonkey these days? It used to be my primary app and kinda miss it. I switched to the darkside and went all Mac/iPhone/iTunes years ago because it was the only reliable ecosystem to manage and sync a desktop library along with mobile devices and keep everything in sync including tracking playcounts & smart playlists on mobile devices.

I really miss the flexibility and customizing in Mediamonkey though. I remember the different things you could do with the database and plugins that people would make were awesome.

Did you ever try to use it to sync music to your phone? I remember they had an Android app, but since Android versions are so fractured between different phone brands, mobile syncing in Mediamonkey was never reliable for me 😢
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I don't use it to sync to my phone. I have an iPhone so I still use iTunes for that. I keep a subset of my main library on my phone, mostly stuff from the last year. I find it less necessary to keep a ton on my phone with Spotify.

I was using MM to sync my iPod, but I really don't think to carry it with me now that I have a phone that can hold as much as I could possibly want. I do like the flexibility of creating different database views with MM. I keep a "High Res", "MP3", "Holiday" and "Classical" library within it. I haven't tackled adding composer info to the classical library yet though. MM is greatly superior to iTunes for managing a library and mass editing tags.
 
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