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lizarazu2000
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metal beat
metal beat

solace away from the girls  

rsa17
rsa17

Just spent a 4 year stint living in my car, yes, since the beginning of covid. Just got my own place last month and started with absolutely zero. After I got all the essentials needed to live again, t

metal beat
metal beat

one addition to the system - plenty of time to enjoy during lockdown.      

Lochawe Experienced

Lochawe

Posted
Posted

 

6 minutes ago, mwhouston said:

Make and model of the amps?

Amplifiers are Absolare Altius 845 SET monoblocks sitting on top shelf, flanking Absolare Altius preamp.

On the floor in between Voxativ 9.87 field coil speakers and the rack are a pair of Voxativ N5 field coil power supplies (10 x GZ34 tube rectifiers per channel).

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RankStranger Grand Champion

RankStranger

Posted
Posted

Nothing to do with hardware but I’ve made a recent software tweak to my system that I thought I’d share. This is a longish, not that exciting story about streaming software so if that doesn't appeal to you, you are excused :)  

 

My digital source is a Raspberry Pi with an Allo Boss DAC hat and it sounds great but I’ve never found a way to control it that I’ve been happy with. I run moOde and I like it for several reasons but the web interface is kind of ugly and hacky and a couple of months ago I stopped being able to get into the config menu on safari for iPad which is the only way I want to interact with it. Much troubleshooting has failed to fix this but it was just another thing that made me want to find a better control app. 

 

Right at the outset, I’ll say that Roon is a non-starter because, much as I like the look of it and I’d love to give it a try someday, I’m not in a position to pay $180 a year for it at the moment. Just not happening. 

 

moOde uses a library system called MPD (which stands for... something) and there are a couple of 3rd party MPD control apps (Glider, Rigelian) but either their interfaces also suck or I couldn’t get them to index and display my 3000-odd albums properly in the way I wanted to. 

 

Whilst researching something else in the moode config menu I discovered that it can also act as a UPNP client. This opened up a few more options for apps so I enabled UPNP and started buying or downloading UPNP control apps to try.

 

Holy cr@p what a dumpster fire of terrible UI design and long-abandoned zombie-ware. A good tip is to check when an app was last updated and if it was more than a few months ago, maybe think twice before dropping $15 of your hard-earned on it. I’ve been doing computer-based hifi for about ten years so I know what I’m doing but for some of the apps, the onboarding process was so bad I couldn’t even work out how to scan the network for available servers. For some of them, I would wait for them to index my whole library and then none of the embedded artwork would show or they would name the album from the folder name instead of the metadata, it really was bad. 

 

I found out that MoOde uses a type of UPNP that works with a few of the hardware vendors’ proprietary apps and I thought they might be better but nope. The ones I really wanted to try that get the best press were AURALiC’s and Lumin’s. AURALiC’s wouldn’t recognise my player and Lumin’s did but wouldn’t play anything and the UI was displaying all wrong. Linn makes a couple of apps that I tried and although their new one looks pretty (but is non-adaptive and looks stupid on my 12.9" iPad with huge expanses of empty white screen), their old one, which is mystifyingly named “kazoo" is actually pretty great. It’s stable and predictable, the navigation mostly makes sense, it’s got a useful and informative "now playing" screen. I really liked it straight away and kept liking it as I explored it more. Not perfect, mind you, but pretty close to what I was looking for. 

 

So, that settles it, yes? Alas, no.

 

Or, should that be, "ALAC? Nooooooooooooo!"

 

Kazoo recognises FLAC files but not ALAC and I reckon 85 percent of my library was ALAC from when it was all based in iTunes. Hooray! Let this be a lesson about closed ecosystems, kids.

 

So, I converted everything. My whole library got converted to FLAC in batches as large as I dared over the course of about 2 weeks. That's how badly I wanted a good control app. It also gave me an opportunity to thin the herd a bit and check and update all my metadata which I used to do very diligently (some would argue obsessively) but had slacked off a bit in the last couple of years as I was adding less new music anyway. And now I feel really good about having done it and having it done. And Kazoo is great and when I want to play something I can just do it and not spend 10 mins fighting an app for control.

 

If you think you'd like it, you can get Kazoo at https://apps.apple.com/au/app/linn-kazoo/id848379604

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Bunno77 Champion

Bunno77

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, RankStranger said:

Nothing to do with hardware but I’ve made a recent software tweak to my system that I thought I’d share. This is a longish, not that exciting story about streaming software so if that doesn't appeal to you, you are excused :)  

 

My digital source is a Raspberry Pi with an Allo Boss DAC hat and it sounds great but I’ve never found a way to control it that I’ve been happy with. I run moOde and I like it for several reasons but the web interface is kind of ugly and hacky and a couple of months ago I stopped being able to get into the config menu on safari for iPad which is the only way I want to interact with it. Much troubleshooting has failed to fix this but it was just another thing that made me want to find a better control app. 

 

Right at the outset, I’ll say that Roon is a non-starter because, much as I like the look of it and I’d love to give it a try someday, I’m not in a position to pay $180 a year for it at the moment. Just not happening. 

 

moOde uses a library system called MPD (which stands for... something) and there are a couple of 3rd party MPD control apps (Glider, Rigelian) but either their interfaces also suck or I couldn’t get them to index and display my 3000-odd albums properly in the way I wanted to. 

 

Whilst researching something else in the moode config menu I discovered that it can also act as a UPNP client. This opened up a few more options for apps so I enabled UPNP and started buying or downloading UPNP control apps to try.

 

Holy cr@p what a dumpster fire of terrible UI design and long-abandoned zombie-ware. A good tip is to check when an app was last updated and if it was more than a few months ago, maybe think twice before dropping $15 of your hard-earned on it. I’ve been doing computer-based hifi for about ten years so I know what I’m doing but for some of the apps, the onboarding process was so bad I couldn’t even work out how to scan the network for available servers. For some of them, I would wait for them to index my whole library and then none of the embedded artwork would show or they would name the album from the folder name instead of the metadata, it really was bad. 

 

I found out that MoOde uses a type of UPNP that works with a few of the hardware vendors’ proprietary apps and I thought they might be better but nope. The ones I really wanted to try that get the best press were AURALiC’s and Lumin’s. AURALiC’s wouldn’t recognise my player and Lumin’s did but wouldn’t play anything and the UI was displaying all wrong. Linn makes a couple of apps that I tried and although their new one looks pretty (but is non-adaptive and looks stupid on my 12.9" iPad with huge expanses of empty white screen), their old one, which is mystifyingly named “kazoo" is actually pretty great. It’s stable and predictable, the navigation mostly makes sense, it’s got a useful and informative "now playing" screen. I really liked it straight away and kept liking it as I explored it more. Not perfect, mind you, but pretty close to what I was looking for. 

 

So, that settles it, yes? Alas, no.

 

Or, should that be, "ALAC? Nooooooooooooo!"

 

Kazoo recognises FLAC files but not ALAC and I reckon 85 percent of my library was ALAC from when it was all based in iTunes. Hooray! Let this be a lesson about closed ecosystems, kids.

 

So, I converted everything. My whole library got converted to FLAC in batches as large as I dared over the course of about 2 weeks. That's how badly I wanted a good control app. It also gave me an opportunity to thin the herd a bit and check and update all my metadata which I used to do very diligently (some would argue obsessively) but had slacked off a bit in the last couple of years as I was adding less new music anyway. And now I feel really good about having done it and having it done. And Kazoo is great and when I want to play something I can just do it and not spend 10 mins fighting an app for control.

 

If you think you'd like it, you can get Kazoo at https://apps.apple.com/au/app/linn-kazoo/id848379604

Kazoo is great and even better with Linn DS devices

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Bunno77 Champion

Bunno77

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, RankStranger said:

I bet it is. Maybe one day, if funds allow :) 

Looks like you have a good setup already. Do you get the Linn Radio, tuneIn and streaming services show up?

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RankStranger Grand Champion

RankStranger

Posted
Posted (edited)
26 minutes ago, Bunno77 said:

Looks like you have a good setup already. Do you get the Linn Radio, tuneIn and streaming services show up?

Thanks. Hardware-wise, I have a ways to go. I really only use spotify and my local library for digital. I’ve never really gotten into internet radio, though I’ve been exposed to it plenty. One of the things I really like about moOde is that it has support for Spotify connect which I use for music discovery and my wife and kids use for everything. For serious listening I’ve got my library on my NAS

 

EDIT I just checked and there are a dozen radio stations available so I might check them out at some point

Edited by RankStranger
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Essence Collaborator

Essence

Posted
Posted

pWMAbGs.jpg

 

Got new Kanto SP9 desktop stands, very impressed. Stands are solid, the adjustable tilt design means I don't have to OCD over toe-in angles. Upgraded from IsoAcoustics. The base plate is near perfect match to the C1s base!

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SA23 Enthusiast

SA23

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Essence said:

pWMAbGs.jpg

 

Got new Kanto SP9 desktop stands, very impressed. Stands are solid, the adjustable tilt design means I don't have to OCD over toe-in angles. Upgraded from IsoAcoustics. The base plate is near perfect match to the C1s base!

awesome speakers .. especially being used for a desktop setup!!

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cheekyboy Grand Master

cheekyboy

Posted
Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, pine weasel said:

It's cold in Adelaide tonight.

 

 

 

IMG_9609.jpg.a5c50570a9455ff56fb375bdddcf31d4.jpg

 

 

IMG_9605.jpg.8f623b3998a1de3efc4be7424a7e7362.jpg

Ah, S, a very familiar room and good to see it again mate. One of the very best sound systems I’v had the pleasure to enjoy.

 

Cheers,

 

Keith

Edited by cheekyboy
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