Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

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Neonknight
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Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

Unread post by Neonknight »

I can't remember the last time I have posted here, its probably been a couple of years I guess. It was at the beginning of Brexit as I recall, so that has been awhile hasn't it?

Some things have changed here, some have not. I don't believe I had these amps and pre amp when I posted regularly, but I don't remember exactly what I had then.

Currently have a Halcro DM8 pre amp installed

Got fortunate and found a pair of AVM Audio Amp Essential amplifiers, they are quite interesting.

I cut down the number of turntables here and currently only have a SOTA Cosmos Eclipse with SME V and Transfiguration Audio Proteus

Second table is a Well Tempered Reference, and was able to get it with an Ikeda 9 Kawami cartridge.

Finally am experimenting with a DAC, and am working on installing a Miverna Audio Purestream. Its interesting but I don't know what to think about it exactly.

I guess thats all the news I got at the moment. Hope all are doing well here, and looking forward to chatting with folks again.

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savvypaul
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Re: Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

Unread post by savvypaul »

Welcome back, Nk. Look forward to hearing more about your adventures...
I am in the hi-fi trade
Status: Manufacturer
Company Name: NVA Hi-Fi
https://nvahifi.co.uk/

antonio66
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Re: Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

Unread post by antonio66 »

Good to see you back NK, only two tt's, what's the world coming to.
Well no sooner are you back, you've given me a job to do, look up this new to me Miverna Audio Purestream

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Re: Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

Unread post by slinger »

Howdy, stranger. Nice to see you again.
Amps - NVA P50, AP30, A40, Stanislav Palo Tube Headphone Amp BB 85
Speakers - Monitor Audio Silver RX2
Cables - NVA LS1+LS3, SSC, Gotham S/PDIF, IBRA Optical
Digital - NAD C516BEE, SONY ST-SDB900 DAB TUNER, TEAC UD-H01 DAC
Analogue - Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB, Graham Slee Gram Amp 2 Phono
Cans - Grado SR80, ATH-M50X

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Neonknight
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Re: Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

Unread post by Neonknight »

@antonio66
Its tough to gather much information on Miverna. The designer is a contentious sort of fellow it seems, as most threads about the design have either been closed or he has been banned from the site. the threads I have read appear to show that he does not bend or compromise the engineering principals he has designed around, and in doing so earns the ire of those gatekeeper type members of said sites. So the threads become difficult and ultimately shut down, at least from what I have seen. I personally have never talked to the designer.

Last I have heard he has stoped Miverna as a product and he is a contract designer in audio and in his field of profession. However, I came across someone who knew him, another manufacturer, and they had an extra one I purchased from them. The machine is odd in that the DAC chip has been optimized to run at DSD256 and wants Roon as the music server program. The computer is supposed to perform the upsampling process to DSD256 also, so you need a machine with some computing power.

I currently do not have Roon installed but I do have a trial copy of Audirvana available. I purchased a new computer for this application which is an Intel Nuc with an i7 CPU and 16 G of DDR4 RAM. So far I have not been able to get the upsample to DSD256 work without significant noise, this is true even trying to upsample DSD64 files. So I am not sure what the issue is, and if its inherent in Audirvana. I have yet to find any native DSD256 files to play.

The second best sounding setting is supposed to be PCM 352.8, which is what I currently have the machine set at. I can also upsample up to DSD128 with no issues, and to be honest I don't hear a significant difference between either rate. When I changed computer formats from my old Mac Mini, I remembered that music files that were ripped would need to be converted. I also found my library was hit and miss on metadata, or at least images. So I decided to re rip my disc collection, and this time I used dbPoweramp as the ripping program as previously I had used iTunes.

That is what I am doing now, and once completed I will look at the possibility of running Roon and maybe even their operating system called Rock. I am not sure I want to go this route, as the purchase price is a bit steep for the program. You can subscribe a year for $125 USD, or make a lifetime purchase at $700. Thats a bit steep for a music program in my book. But its what the DAC is optimized for, and perhaps it becomes the titan it is reported to be when used with preferred software. I guess a trial will tell me, but Roon trials are only for 14 days, so I want this computer system fully set up before I start that.

So thats my battle on the digital front. Who knows how it will turn out.

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Re: Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

Unread post by antonio66 »

Getting things sorted before having a Roon trial makes good sense, my brother uses it and is highly delighted. He purchased the 'lifetime' option before the price rise, and since, folk keep talking about the sound quality of Roon, my brother has alwaysthought it to be very good, compared against the latest dCS app he could not hear any difference. You could always buy a one year sub for Roon and still experiment with others, a free one mentioned to me yesterday was Bubble UPnP, and another is Fidata Music app, I assume this is not free unless you purchase a Fidata product but here it is https://www.iodata.jp/fidata/en/product/app.htm and it can be downloaded from Google Play.
Sorry you are having to re-rip your music but dbPoweramp is the one my brother used/uses and is very good.

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Re: Been Away For Awhile. Thought I Should Stop In And Chat A Bit

Unread post by Neonknight »

After doing a bit of reading on the site, I somehow felt something was different than when I had last visited. I wasn't quite sure what, but I knew things had changed. Then I was reading a thread and I noticed at the signature line of someone's post RIP Richard Dunn.

I was shocked and taken aback. I did a search and came across the 12 page RIP thread for Doc. I read every post in one sitting. Sitting and remembering what I knew of Richard, and what had been said here and there, and sorting through my feelings.

I never knew Richard like many people on this board, as I am in the US. I never have gotten to hear his products. I appreciated his passion, but was conflicted on how he presented as a person at least on this board. From reading the thread and seeing others stories, I suspect he was an upstanding fellow and a solid friend and companion to those who knew him. I did get the impression he believed genuinely in the products he built, and I do wish I could have heard them and spoken with him about what I would have experienced.

The light of this world is a bit dimmer today, people like Richard are a treasure even if they can be a bit gruff and rough around the edges. I wish I would have spent more time here whilst he was with us. Certainly my loss.

PS and this reminds me of others we have lost. In the United States Mark Markel of Analysis Plus had a heart attack on 4/22/2020 and has passed. Another person I had spoken with and was as genuine and kind person as I have encountered. Genuinely smart and built quality cabling that didn't give you a song and dance. Not cheap but not jumping the shark expensive. Also thinking a bit more, we lost Roger Modjeski. in 12/2019. The older I get the more this happens, this sucks.
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karatestu (Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:38 am) • slinger (Thu Feb 25, 2021 3:55 pm)

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