Where do I go from here?

[George Hincapie]

What sort of cycling do you coach? Proper cycling, or that track nonsense?

[antonio66]

What sort of cycling do you coach? Proper cycling, or that track nonsense?

Let hope it's not that track nonsense George.

[Daniel Quinn]

never mind the cycling , some one tell him what to do with his Apple .

[slinger]

never mind the cycling , some one tell him what to do with his Apple .

Make a Pi with it?

[CN211276]

I think the advice about selling the Linn/Nain equipment and buying the £300 NVA amp and pre amp is sound.

As a source I would stick to a computer. Decent DACs cost very little in comparison to a decent tt, arm, cartridge and phono stage, not to mention the cost of vinyl. I subscribe to lossless Tidal Hi-Fi and the sound quality is very good, far better than Spotify which is compressed and the catalogue is nearly as good. I think it is well worth £20 a month. In addition, you can download music on up to three portable devices. I am in the process of ripping my CD collection. From the PC the SQ is equivalent to Tidal and far better than my previous CD player which I sold.

I use the Audioquest Dragonfly Black DAC (£90)to play Tidal downloads through my phone. It is very good and will produce good results on a main system. I used to use the previous version (not phone compatible) on my system before upgrading to the Chord Mojo. It was better than my CD player, even with Spotify.

[Classicrock]

You could sell the Linn/Naim and buy a whole decent digital and vinyl front end from Richer Sounds and combine this to NVA amps with the proceeds. Take advantage of the fact so many people are still brainwashed and look on this stuff as the ultimate in hi-fi. I think speakers are very much personal taste but you can try Cubes with no penalty.

[CycleCoach]

What sort of cycling do you coach? Proper cycling, or that track nonsense?

Let hope it's not that track nonsense George.

I coach road, TT, cyclocross, MTB and track. It's all "proper cycling" to me!

[savvypaul]

Lossless streaming - Tidal or Qobuz - and a decent budget dac should make a very obvious improvement.

The £300m NVA starter pre-power combo looks to be about the best bargain in hifi.

I had a pair of Rogers LS4 for a while. Mine were the 4a/2 variant. They were quite even handed but a bit plummy and slow and the plastic driver quacked along quite obviously. Taking the foam out (I've done this myself a few times) could bring out a useful upgrade in clarity but may also further expose the aforementioned failings (again, in my experience).

Take a look at the NVA Cubettes...

[Geoff.R.G]

You don't say which MacBook you have, the later Intel Macs, certainly up to 2011, actually have a reasonable sound card so they make an acceptable source but MP3 isn't Hi-Fi. If you have an optical drive you can play CDs or import them into your iTunes library, use a lossless option. If your Mac is one without an optical drive an Apple Superdrive will allow you to use CDs for minimal outlay while you consider your options, it will also let you access software on CDs should that be necessary.

[CycleCoach]

You don't say which MacBook you have, the later Intel Macs, certainly up to 2011, actually have a reasonable sound card so they make an acceptable source but MP3 isn't Hi-Fi. If you have an optical drive you can play CDs or import them into your iTunes library, use a lossless option. If your Mac is one without an optical drive an Apple Superdrive will allow you to use CDs for minimal outlay while you consider your options, it will also let you access software on CDs should that be necessary.

It's a (less than 2 years old) Macbook Pro, but interestingly it doesn't sound as good as my Samsung Galaxy Note phone in the same setup - maybe the little headphone amp flavours the lower output from the phone better? Also I think I paid to update my Apple library to MPEG 4 audio - I thought these were a higher res file but I'm not really up on the digital stuff tbh.