Showing (off) your Roon setup - description and photos [2015-04 .. 2021-03]

i already have over a million Sean. why would i possibly need anymore? where are you at with chord these days?

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Ha, not more. Just as a profile pic. Just a friendly joke :grin:

Why? Hugo2 can drive your PM1’s easily, no?

TT2 is more refined lol…

are you still in the chord eco system?

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LOL. Already demo’ed with your PM1’s to arrive at this conclusion? Or still planning to demo?

Yes, still enjoy my Hugo2, among a couple other DACs.

what happened to dave or what was your trigger that made you sell it? i’m genuinely interested. i had a good listen to mscaler+TT2. try not to think of it in terms of power delivery but more the cutting edge analogue noise shaper in TT2. don’t forget TT2 has a 3.5mm jack for iem’s too. TT2 is effortless whereas hugo 2 has to work a bit harder to get there if that makes sense.

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After watching this space for some time now I think it is my turn now to introduce you to my various systems connected to Roon.
Fair warning: it’s probably the weirdest combination of equipment you’ve seen!

CORE
Lets start with the Core: this runs on a QNAP NAS TVS-473 with 20Gb memory, WD-Red HD in Raid1+backup and a PCIe SSD from the Samsung 960 EVO series.
I’m very pleased with the performance of this system.

Office
This probably is the most used system in terms of running hours…
It actually has two systems: a speaker system and a headphone system.

  1. iMac > Bowers & Wilkins MM-1
  2. Chord Poly > Mojo > Stax SRM - 007tII > Stax SR-009

Kitchen
This system is build quite straightforward:

RPi3 + Allo Boss > Arcam A39 > Bowers and Wilkins CDM-1/MkII

Living Room
This system has evolved over many years. I’ve played for many years with various Avalon/Spectral combination. Then I moved over to Ayre amplifiers, added a DCS CD Player and now have moved to B&W 800D3 after testing the 803 and 802 first. I’m very pleased with the current setup and the only change that I’m envisaging is to move to a fully integrated DCS streaming solution.

This is what the system looks like now:

ALLO USBridge > DCS Scarlatti Clock USB in > DCS Puccini SPDIF+WordClock in > Ayre K1xe preamp > Ayre V1x poweramp > B&W 800D3 speakers


I’ve tested a lot of equipment in the living room system. In particular the digital front end over the past 12 months. The current setup with the USBridge + the Scarlatti Clock was by far the best overall package. I’ll try to share a bit more about this journey when I can find the time for it.

Thanks for entertaining this show-off :sunglasses:

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I’ve already extensively demo’d TT2 alone and TT2+M-Scaler too :wink:

I think my Aeon Closed cans (which I love after demo’ing everything on the planet, including your PM1’s) might be the limiting factor - perhaps they’re not ‘revealing enough’ with the better gear… or maybe I have shockingly bad hearing.

Either way, this is a fantastic problem to have (fantastic for the wallet) :grin:

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nice to see you’re still foot tapping…

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My neck (and feet) is sore from the new Roon Radio features…:sunglasses:

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Did you demo the Aeon opens? I’m hitting a meet in Los Angeles at the The Source AV, where Mr. Speakers will be present. It looks to be a nice light set of cans to go with what I have now. (Senn HD700/HD800, HiFiMan HE-6Se, Audeze LCD-X). Afraid I’m having a headphone fetish these days…

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Hey guys,

Im very much surprised (and sometimes jealous) about your great setups… Heres my one:

  1. Server on Qnap TS-451+ (RoonServer Folder on separate SSD Drive via USB 3.0)
  2. Speaker Sonus Faber Olympica III
  3. Amplificatin via Naim Uniti Nova
  4. Cans: Ultrasone Signature Pro

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Look honey, they shrunk the cabinet…

…and the Phantoms go on stilts.

Plan A was quite nice visually, but the larger cabinet wasted litlle time exposing itself as a singing coffin, wrecking havoc in the nether regions. This works just fine, while still looking the part.

Now… Bring on RoonReadiness. :slight_smile:

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Interesting. I like the look with the stands though, hopefully it will work better for you.

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So how are they now that you’ve had them for a while? Not missing the old Meridians?

Love the Olympica III speakers. Superb sound and gorgeous cabinetry. Enjoy them!

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Wrt the Chord Hugo stuff, I was very happy when I got the Hugo 2 (Audeze LCD-4z cans).
And I read about the M-Scaler and TT2 and was very tempted.
But then my friend recommended the THX AAA 789 headphone amp (all analog), for $350. And it is awesome. I drove it with the Hugo 2 and it was great, but that is silly because the Hugo has its own amp, and is not price appropriate.
Then I got an SDAC by Grace, also from Massdrop, for $80, and the combination makes me very happy.

I think we may be focusing overmuch on the digital subtleties, like one million taps, and forget the analog part. Or whatever. In any case, the THX feed-forward design works well (Amir liked it).

But I need a serious DAC for it, it’s in a different room from the Hugo 2.

So I could go all Chord, M-Scaler and TT 2.

But the other company that uses the THX technology is Benchmark, although at a different price point. And it goes well with the Benchmark DAC.

So now I am all in a dither.

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It does. With the stands, sanity has been restored – no more boom-boom for me. :slight_smile:

They’re good. I doubt they’ll ever be the end-all of music reproduction, but I like the way they sound and how they play everything I throw at them from whatever angle.

The Meridians are your favourite jeans: very comfy, but a bit boring after 10 years. That – and I really needed RC to handle the bass of the 5200. RC never comes free.

The Phantoms are a bit more naughtly in most respects, but ‘HiFi’ enough to enjoy the delicate details in a late night ECM session. I did not expect to like them as much as I do – so I kept them. :smiley:

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Is it me, or do they look like something from Star Wars? :slight_smile:

It’s you. :wink:

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I was thinking they needed matching black bowler hats to complete the look and integrate better with the television.:sunglasses:

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