Shankman Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 (edited) EDIT : after further research I'm editing the question. Hi everyone, I'm new to these forums as part of the wave of people that came over when we thought DTV was going to shutdown. I should introduce myself, my name is Sam, not an audiophile, mostly a basic newb when it comes to sound. I guess I'm a "Videophile" but that would be a stretch, however I do know a lot more about video than audio. Joining these forums has come at a good time for me though. In the last week I've purchased a B&W CM theatre set at a price I couldn't say no to which consists of : CM10 S2 CM5 S2 CM Centre 2 S2 ASW10 CM S2 I'll try to keep this short but provide as much info as relevant. I've spent the last few weeks educating myself, googling and researching amplification needs and possible setups for my use. Please bear with me if I use any technical terms incorrectly. Current listening distance from fronts: 3 metres but could increase if I move. Listening priorities for amp selection : 1. Home theatre 70% 2. Music - 30% I plan to get a dedicated pro+ power amp or integrated amp for the CM10s initially to listen to music with a view to get a pro+amp or AVR for the other channels down the line for HT.(waiting for the HDMI 2.1 situation to become clearer) My question is how much amplifier power will I need to drive the CM10s safely at an SPL of 85dB with a headroom of 20dB for movies. I've used a few different online calculators which all give different results. So I'm a little confused. Appreciate your guidance. Sam Edited August 9, 2017 by Shankman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shankman Posted August 9, 2017 Author Share Posted August 9, 2017 (edited) After a few weeks of further research I bit the bullet on a second hand Parasound Integrated. Got it hooked up to the fronts. So far so good. For digital music I've been using a laptop via USB to the amp but don't like the idea of having a laptop hooked up and controlling it from there. Want something a bit more user friendly. So thinking of using Volumio on a dedicated Raspberry Pi. My question is does the player and the hardware it's on affect the quality of the music? eg Volumio on Pi vs Foobar on PC vs dedicated hardware player. My logic is, if the player is decoding the file and sending a digital signal to the amp's DAC, then it shouldn't make a difference as the decoding is basically an algorithm that's applied to the files. Edited August 9, 2017 by Shankman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frednork Posted August 10, 2017 Share Posted August 10, 2017 (edited) Hi Sam, welcome to SNA, There is a lot of info on this type of stuff on the site. Search for computer audio or volumio etc. I went down this path a while ago and tried all sorts of things. Also the computer audiophile site has lots of info although they are commercial. Although your assumption re digital files is logical, it seems things arent quite as simple in the real world, (also lots of discussion and info regarding this). To try to summarize the lengthy tomes on this topic, the signal is subject to noise which can introduce unwanted artifacts into the sound. Therefore there is lots of info about removing or preventing noise entering the signal. Also there are lots of reclockers, samplers, regenerators and cables which also can make a difference, For what its worth I have tried Roon, Jriver, Volumio, Music Bee, Moode, DAphile and there are many proprietary all in one solutions,. Many of them sound different to me and then a hardware change can also change that. So in true audiophile fashion best to try and listen to see what works for you. There are supporters for most camps so getting advice from others can be confusing. Its pretty much like any other aspect of hifi reproduction, no simple answers unfortunately Also to answer your question re Volumio on Pi vs Foobar on PC vs dedicated hardware player. it depends! if running a pi then the quality of the power supply may m,ake a difference. the hardware on the pc may make a difference, Volumio on pi is no slouch in sound quality but can be improved by running better cables, a USB regenerator etc. but so can FOobar on pc. and so can a dedicated player. You may also find the interface of Volumio is great (or not) compared with others. If you have time and ability just try a simple cheap solution and go from there. If not, buy what your budget can stand go from there. Edited August 10, 2017 by frednork Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shankman Posted August 10, 2017 Author Share Posted August 10, 2017 (edited) Thanks frednork. I've been doing a lot of reading up on the subject the last two weeks, thought to ask the question in case I'm missing something obvious. My research has been inline with your response and as you said it seems with most things audio related the answer is "listen to it and see how it sounds". I'll keep playing around with different configurations and see what I like the best. What I've really found interesting the last few days of reading are the plethora of blind and ABX testing results on cables, amps, music files and other audiophile equipment(speakers excluded) and that most if not all blind tests result in a 50 50 split, meaning no audible difference in using expensive kit even by the so called experts\audiophiles. Still lots to learn. =) Edited August 10, 2017 by Shankman 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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