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Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Mon May 10, 2021 12:18 am
by George Hincapie
Fretless wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 4:38 pm I've got an Sbooster on a Cambridge DacMagic Plus, it really raises the performance to a completely new level.
I remember adding an MCRU LPSU to my Cambridge DMP some years ago. It was my first experience of the difference a proper supply can make. Incredible.

I've still got both items; hard to beat from a price/performance perspective.

I see Cambridge have finally replaced it; unfortunately there's a lot of incredibly competent competition in that price range now.

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Mon May 10, 2021 8:07 am
by CN211276
I am surprised how much better the Sbooster sounds than the MCRU powering my Qutest, costing less than £100 more. Think you would need to spend silly money to beat it. Am wondering what it would add to my MicroRendu, currently connected to a MCRU.

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Tue May 11, 2021 1:09 am
by antonio66
This really has to be the best value on the market PS, 4 outputs for approx £420 https://hdplex.com/hdplex-fanless-300w- ... evice.html
My brother is still waiting for the 500 model, getting on for two years now, but should be in stock later this month.

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am
by antonio66
Last week I thought I'd give Audirvana a go using their 30day free trial so down loaded their app. Once down loaded you come to 4 options, I pressed Free Trial only to receive a message, Your Free Trial has Ended. What do I do now, I asked the question on the Community and asked the question about my situation. No one had come across this before, I also asked if it was possible to contact Audirvana, I did get an email address, so asked about my situation, no reply came so asked again and still no reply, the only thing I learnt, it's more or less a one man band outfit and they had a big launch at the weekend of a new system, maybe that is why no one has replied. Still no reply as yet, but I'll give it a couple more days to see if a reply is forthcoming, if not I will send another message. One more point, this contact email is not shown on their website, I don't like that, customer care should be a priority whether a one man outfit, or a huge conglomerate, customers should have contact info. I really don't know whether this free trial will continue now or whether you will have to pay right from the get go, but I would not pay without seeing if it is suitable for me. I'll let you know in a few days the outcome, but I'm not hopeful a free trial will be forth coming. And another thing, when I went on to the site you get asked stupid questions by so robot, at 65, I really don't want to play silly games, if it is a learning process, come out with it and tell people what you want and how to do it, in this day and age most people do not have the time to bugger about, or is it that I've just become old and grumpy. :angry-tappingfoot:

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Tue May 11, 2021 12:23 pm
by slinger
Yup, you're old and grumpy. Allow me to welcome you to the "Old grumpy blokes on HFS" club. :lol:

Daft question (what else would you expect from me?) But is it possible you tried and failed, or tried and forgot, signing up some time in the past? Perhaps it was a "thought about it, but never actually completed the sign-up" sort of thing?

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Tue May 11, 2021 6:48 pm
by George Hincapie
I am currently experiencing the highest SQ I have ever had from a headphone system. Exciting stuff, as there is scope to elevate it further.

I am using Roon, with Vit OS on a Pi 4 as the EP. A Supra USB cable feeds a Metrum Acoustics Musette, which in turn feeds a THX AAA 789 HPA. Cans are Hifiman Sundara, with balanced cables by Periapt.

Spectacular.

The DAC has been on the 'to upgrade' list for a while. Not sure what to go for though.

Try Vit OS. It's excellent. And free 😊

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Wed May 12, 2021 3:15 am
by antonio66
slinger wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 12:23 pm Yup, you're old and grumpy. Allow me to welcome you to the "Old grumpy blokes on HFS" club. :lol:

Daft question (what else would you expect from me?) But is it possible you tried and failed, or tried and forgot, signing up some time in the past? Perhaps it was a "thought about it, but never actually completed the sign-up" sort of thing?
You are of course correct, I am old and grumpy. The strange thing is, I have a lot more patience over people making mistakes, which I never had a few years ago, and yet for somethings I just see red, get me to the nearest quack. :grin:
As for forgetting using Audirvana, I can assure you I have never signed up before, look at my previous posts and you can see I'm not too good with computers, and in any case, the first time I went onto the Audirvana site was 2 weeks ago.

Hello George, now what's this Vit OS, going to have to look that up since I've never heard of it, maybe I will come back with some questions. Upgrading the Metrum, what about the Magician Pegasus, someone on another forum likes his very much, it's the one I'd go for if I had the money. Don't know if you've ever heard of this company before, some what pricey though but I'm sure you always like to see something new https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164652091319 ... Swg5lgBYZC.

Just had a quick look at Vit OS, seems like it is made for Pi 4 users, I'm using a mini fanless pc, using Windows 10 and Foobar2000, don't know if I could use Vit OS

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Wed May 12, 2021 3:29 am
by antonio66
While I remember I read this yesterday, something else I don't know if I could use.
https://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum/topic/ ... oreplayer/

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Wed May 12, 2021 8:59 am
by Copperblue
antonio66 wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 5:10 am Last week I thought I'd give Audirvana a go using their 30day free trial so down loaded their app. Once down loaded you come to 4 options, I pressed Free Trial only to receive a message, Your Free Trial has Ended. What do I do now, I asked the question on the Community and asked the question about my situation. No one had come across this before, I also asked if it was possible to contact Audirvana, I did get an email address, so asked about my situation, no reply came so asked again and still no reply, the only thing I learnt, it's more or less a one man band outfit and they had a big launch at the weekend of a new system, maybe that is why no one has replied. Still no reply as yet, but I'll give it a couple more days to see if a reply is forthcoming, if not I will send another message. One more point, this contact email is not shown on their website, I don't like that, customer care should be a priority whether a one man outfit, or a huge conglomerate, customers should have contact info. I really don't know whether this free trial will continue now or whether you will have to pay right from the get go, but I would not pay without seeing if it is suitable for me. I'll let you know in a few days the outcome, but I'm not hopeful a free trial will be forth coming. And another thing, when I went on to the site you get asked stupid questions by so robot, at 65, I really don't want to play silly games, if it is a learning process, come out with it and tell people what you want and how to do it, in this day and age most people do not have the time to bugger about, or is it that I've just become old and grumpy. :angry-tappingfoot:
I have used Audirvana for a while now and found it to be stable and offering very good sound quality - so it is worth persevering a bit. I did a comparison against Roon a while back and in terms of sound quality using Quboz and locally stored lossless files I found that I preferred Audirvana. Roon at the time though was clearly a more sophisticated product but if you want a simple method of natively controlling streaming services and locally stored files then Audirvana works fine. Their remote app is also good.

The big launch you referred to was their new subscription based service, which is still quite a bit cheaper than Roon. Apparently they will
still support the existing 3.5 version though.

Re: Tinker, Tailor, Streamer, Pi.

Posted: Wed May 12, 2021 9:49 am
by Grumpytim
I tried Roon a few years ago and did not really get on with it, I didn't find the sound quality startlingly different to any of the other platforms I've used, but then my ears are probably shot to pieces now... The interface I found slick, but not really configurable in the way I wanted to use it. What I really struggled with at the time was the cost of the lifetime licence, which is telling because it was a hell of a lot cheaper then than it is now.

As regards Audionirvana problems - have you tried a different email when you register?