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Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2017 10:57 am
by CN211276
As far as young people are concerned the physical media is virtually dead and there will be no way back. A small niche market will remain because of low second hand prices. Anyone under 25 would have, for want of a better expression, come of age musically when down loading, mainly illegal, had taken over. This book, which I read last year, is very informative.



Downloading (legal anyway) is now on the decline as streaming is increasing its market share. It is only recently, with improvements in broadband speeds, that sound quality equals and exceeds that of CDs.
A lot of revenue is being generated but it is a bit of a mystery as to where it is going. I suspect it is the record companies who have always been rip off merchants. It is certainly not going to new bands. However, I think the old big name established bands are doing ok because people who bought there LPs and CDs in decades gone by are now paying to stream the same music.

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 7:18 pm
by Fretless
Computer Networking update:

Having a home office means that there are several networked bits all plugged in to a network switch here - for the less technical, a Network Switch is a little splitting box that sends the data to and from all the equipment plugged into it. Sort of telephone exchange. Anyway until now I had a 100MbpS (Mega-byte per second) switch in use - but the opportunity came to get a new unit and I spotted a Netgear Gigabyte (10x faster) 8-port switch at an advantageous price.

Image

So, running from this unit are now 2x PC, 2x Pi and my NAS drive with the music library. I noticed immediately that the reaction times for internet access were improved on the PC and that file transfers PC to NAS are 7x faster than before.

As an added extra it seems that the SQ from the Pi's (office and Main rig) that run directly from this switch has also gone up a notch. Certainly through the NVA system I can notice an extra clarity and improvement in imaging sharpness. I attribute this to the faster link allowing for better data transfer and integrity checking of the data packets.
Now I just have to sort out a mega, valve-powered, ultra linear PSU for the switch. Maybe SW1X make one ? :ugeek:

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 12:47 pm
by terrybooth
I've been playing again. Fidgets are awful but...

I decided to try a new DAC board for the Pi - JustBoom - and bought another kit - this time with a Pi3 in it. Just it sounded a bit different but I think on the whole the experiment was not worth it.

In the middle of all this, I got network issues - playback would stop and start. So I had to investigate that. One of the steps I took was to try my Pi2/Hifiberry Dac Plus kit to see if the problem was with the player itself (it wasn't) but along the way, I tried playing a track encoded in DSD.DFF format. This almost worked on the Pi2/HifiBerry Dac Plus but the Justboom DAC only produced a hiss.

So I put the HiFiBerry Dac Plus card with the Pi3 and I now appear to be able to play DSS.DFF using Volumio 2.175. (Doesn't play DSS though)

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2017 10:53 pm
by George Hincapie
Calling Fretless...come in Fretless...

Oh. My. God. Lundahl Output Transformers. On a Pi board...

http://taudac.com/

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:38 am
by Fretless
Looks promising but they recommend using an SBooster LPSU with that DAC (maybe a Tomanek?) - the combination won't come cheap but could sound great.

The 9V SBooster unit is 270 euro over here. A Tomanek is about half the price.

Don't see a price for the Tau DAC. :think:

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:22 am
by George Hincapie
How does the Tomanek compare performance wise to the SBooster?

Believe the Tau Dac is £200 or so.

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:53 am
by Fretless
Both are linear power supplies and both make a definite improvement on the units they drive.
Can't make a direct comparison as the Tomanek is on a Pi and the SBoosters are running DacMagic DAC's.

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:57 am
by George Hincapie
Thanks.

While the Tau looks amazing, it is unclear how/whether it supports Roon. That is a deal breaker for me. I have send the developer a message so we'll see.

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 11:46 am
by George Hincapie
Also, I forgot to add that I have found a super high quality USB cable that looks like a Curious USB but is 1/10th the cost. I should have it this week, so I'll post and let you know. If you'd like to look then Google 'Ghent Audio U01 JSSG'.

Re: Life of Pi

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:35 am
by George Hincapie
I've bought a second Pi2 and a HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro. Currently streaming as a Roon end point to my main system connected by TIS (LMAO). It all sounds very good indeed.

I am going to order an i7 Sonic Transporter to run Roon Core (which has Ethernet bridging so Pi has a direct cable link to the i7) and stick that on the bottom of my rack with a short cable run (50 cm or so) between the i7 and Pi.

I've also ordered a new capacitor based PSU for the Pi from the company that makes the Mamoberry DAC Pi Hat. That'll keep me going until I can get my hands on the TAUDAC boards.