Yes, but it is not impossible. Even with Acourate, which is the most difficult (and maybe the most effective), it wasn’t unreasonable. Some organized and careful work. Mitch’s book is pretty clear. And I will say, this exercise of a few days and a few hundred dollars had by far the greatest impact on my sound quality, even compared to $100,000 gear investments.
Or simply use Thierry to do it, I have a room with many hard surfaces and achieved good endresults.
I agree with Anders here. Room correction is by far the most effective way to improve sound quality for relatively little money. It needs some dedicated work though. But it can be done by any Roon user.
I see that my Onkyo system already has pre-amp outputs, which could immediately be used to drive SCM40A speakers (or the like).
My Onkyo also has preamps. In part, that’s why I got that model.
They may or may not work, as their limited voltage might not be enough to signal your amp.
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AFAIK the Onkyo has unbalanced / RCA preamp outputs only. Some active speakers have just balanced / XLR inputs (e.g. the ATC).
The output voltage wouldn’t be a problem with the Onkyo. As the ATCs come from the studio world, they are on full load with 1V (can be trimmed down to 2V on the speakers). Still this can be an issue with some preamps/DACs as consumer hi-fi often has much higher output voltages and therefore don’t create a good synergy.
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There are cables with RCA at one end, the other end having XLR, FWIW.
So, here I was, all ready to buy an Oppo UDP-205 to replace my Sony DVD player (which is so old it doesn’t have HDMI outputs), when I see the company has gone out of business. So that’s out. Darn, really nice set of capabilities there. What Hi-Fi seems to like the Sony BDP-X800 as a CD player, though. Not Roon-capable, but doesn’t need to be. Other suggestions? I liked the Cambridge Audio CXU, but it appears to be off the market already, and the CXUHD seems like overkill with no DAC.
Yeah, to bad with Oppo.
I have the UHD from CA but don’t use it anymore. I have all my CDs on SSD, don’t watch DVD/BR anymore, and you can’t play SACDs through it with a normal 2 channel DAC. Going to sell it. But - CDs sounded fantastic.
Why not buy one used? They only stopped making them fairly recently, afaik, so they should be available close to new or even just open-box.
The price of the units (on Amazon) doubled when they went out of business. And it’s kind of complicated, all that stuff in it. Rather have something still in production.
Oh, I see! I didn’t realize that had made prices go up like that…
Does it need to be a disc spinner?
If so, you really cannot beat the OPPO 205. It decodes everything and has great sound quality to boot.
If not, consider any of the Mytek offerings. Easy to use and very compatible with Roon.
@AndersVinberg, I 100% agree with you for a starter system. Please let us know what are those systems you bought . I bought a Klipsch RPM 15 for my second home ($600 with a turn table) 2.5 years ago and the sound for that price ($350 or so) is amazing. Now I have more experience to build a better system, but originally I could not.
My main system is Meridian, an 818v3 control unit, and active digital speakers, DSP8000SE. The speakers do several forms of DSP processing including several layers of buffering for jitter elimination, plus digital domain crossover and time correction, plus multiple DACs, and include five amps. Nosebleed money.
I recently bought a Chord Hugo 2 for headphone use, replacing a LHLabs Geek Pulse.
These two systems are wonderful.
I have a system with BelCanto electronics and Mark & Daniel speakers in a smaller room, a book-lined library.
I have a video system with a Meridian control unit and three Avantgarde Solo active speakers.
All systems are room corrected with Roon.
The Avantgarde and Bel Canto systems are nice enough but the digital processing is behind the times.
These are far from starter systems. I’m retired and self-indulgent,
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Thanks @AndersVinberg . In 2018 Axpona, Gayle Martin Sanders introduced one of these integrated speakers (not as expensive as yours, around $25000), that with scanning the room in advance would have eliminated sweet spot. All amps inside where class D. Sound was OK, but with 25000 I can build a way better system than that. It is matter of taste as well. I enjoy switching cables DACs and Amps. I have an Audeze LCD-X headphone, but sometimes I turn off the Roon DSP correction of it, to feel the real sound.
I don’t know… the RPM 15 looks very nice. Add a Chromecast to make it Roonable, and you’re set. Might replace my library system with that. So what would you build for a $600 budget today, instead?
@Bill_Janssen, I have a Roon server (with Ethernet) attached to the USB of Klipsch. Chromecast drops on wifi if you go 96K. I have a $300 ($250 on sale) Subwoofer with that Klipsch as well. If I wanted to buy a cheap system today I would have bought:
Elac DEBUT 2.0 B6.2 (about $300) on sale $280
Emotiva TA-100 (400$)
A good speaker cable (you can start with http://ghentaudio.com/part/s01.html) $40, 5 ft
Later on you can add a better DAC (than TA100) preferably Schiit Modi Multibit and upgrade Speaker cable. TA-100 also has a phono stage, if you already have a turn table. No Subwoofer required.
I noticed the Elac speakers, but the whole Emotiva line is new to me. Thanks! Here’s another thing that has me confused – the TA-100 has a “standby” mode, but what exactly is it standing by for? Ideally, it would be standing by for some input to “come alive”, and turn itself on (and off) when that happens. But that sounds like it would be too useful to be true.
I have A-100 on my desktop. The no remote just Amp of same thing in TA-100(80 W into 4ohm, 10 W less than the TA-100, both 50 into 8 ohm). An amazing class AB amp with a an Amazing headphone Amp (drives an Auduze 110 Ohm, a very difficult to drive, like a charm). it goes off (yellow) after no use, then comes back when an audio signal comes in (blue)
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