The Great Divisive Queue Debate again…
It certainly has merit – but let’s keep it one place, shall we?
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In life we can have anything we want but not nessecarily everything we want. It’s all about priorities.
I too have always been frugal with money buying quality pre owned equipment that lasts. Sometimes it’s cheaper to spend more when you look at the overall costs. Price vs Value comes to mind.
Every year one buys a year subscription the lifetime gets more expensive and with the gambol of a discount there has to be a cut off point where you only lose. Any discount can only be so much. So to wait a year and pay only to get a three month discount on a lifer makes no sense.
If you like it, save, scrimp, hustle and buy it. We know this will be the industry benchmark from now on. I believe so anyway. I bought a lifer in the same way I would have bought some speakers and have never regretted it.
The analogy I like is LED bulbs, they save so much money that it will cost more not to buy them. Not an exact analogy I know, but you get the point.
Just random thoughts, enjoy the music… Chris.
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Mini meeting in Belgium (powered by Roon 1.3 and Roon 1.2 + HQ Player):
Sources / Transports
SonicTransporter i5 + microrendu (with Uptone Audio LPS-1)
Sound Galeries SGM 2015
DACs
Totaldac D1-Dual
Aqua Formula
Chord Dave
Chord Hugo (not on display)
Headphones
Stax SR-009 (x2 because you cannot have enough of them)
Audeze LCD-XC (not on display)
Sennheiser HD800 (not on display)
Fostex TH-900 (not on display)
Hifiman HE1000 (not on display)
Hifiman HE500 (not on display)
Headphone Amplifiers
HeadAmp Blue Hawaii SE (x2 because you cannot have enough of them)
HeadAmp GS-X Mk2 (not on display)
Speakers
I think B&W (I’m rather embarrased I don’t know the exact model)
Speaker Amplifiers
A pair of Marantz (again, rather embarrassed I don’t know the exact model)
Speaker Pre Amplifliers
Mark Levinson (again, rather embarrased I don’t know the exact model)
PS I can figure out the exact models if need be 
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The speakers are the new B&W 800 D3s. (The 802s have smaller cabinet and bass drivers)
Looks gratifyingly like some mad Heath-Robinson machine. What is it ? How does it sound ?
I love those things.
Nibbled at the bottom end of the Avantgarde universe, but never had the chutzpah to go all mad scientist.
[quote=“andybob, post:210, topic:235”]
What is it ? How does it sound ?
[/quote]Avantgarde Trios coupled with 6 bass bins. I’ve listened to numerous horns incl. the Duos previously and found them to be the typical horn… shouty, point source and fatiguing. This combination though, redefined for me what is possible. It’s a different level to anything I’ve heard prior, and I’ve been around the block a few times. I’d have to spend more time listening to familiar music to know if I could live with them, but I’ve never felt a room so energised before and the entire presentation was completely natural sounding. This was the first time ever I could’ve sworn the performance was talking place in the same room, it was that palpable.
I hope that your neighbours weren’t saying the same 
Those bass bins are a serious piece of furniture to have to accommodate in a room. And clearly, the old adage remains true: if you have to ask what it costs, you can’t afford it. So I won’t, because I couldn’t.
Nothing special just a lowly Raspberry Pi plugged directly into a DAC, and another using the Hi-fi Berry Digi+ Pro.
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And that’s what I love about Roon, as I’m sure what your hearing is far from “nothing special”.
.sjb
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Yes want I am hearing is “Special” indeed.
However I do think powering the RPI via the GPIO with a good Linear Regulated power supply is a necessity
Alas such things are beyond my capabilities.
I’ve often thought that there is a cottage industry in the making for people who could supply such items.
.sjb
Another GPIO powered RPI with Digi+ Pro and BNC out.
FYI, this Linear Regulated Power Supply from Jameco is great for the RPI…it measures a steady 5.00v…does not even waver 0.01v.
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Roon Server running on an iMac in another room, upsampling everything to DSD128 sent to Roon Bridge on Mac mini out to Teac UD-501 then processed by Dirac.
Loving it.
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Temporary set-up (may be semi-permanent)
- Roon Server running on a Windows10, Core i5 Lenovo Yoga hybrid laptop
- WD MyCloud with about 700GB of music (small collection around here) - mostly ALAC with a smattering of MP3
- Basic Raspberry Pi (SD card pre-loaded with Noobs) running Roon Bridge
- Meridian Explorer 2 DAC
- Yamaha RX-V1067 receiver
- B&W 804s
There’s also a centre, surrounds, projector, blu-ray players, set-too boxes and a modified Technics 1210 with an outboard power supply, and SME 309, Denon DL304 and a Trichord Dino II phono stage.
Various other ‘zones’ appear when I plug my Sennheiser HD700s into the laptop, or connect my Bose QC35s or Soundlink Mini Bluetooth speaker. All works pretty seamlessly.
One niggle is having to run ‘sudo shutdown-h’ to switch off the Pi - although I was pleased with myself when I found an app that allows me to do this from the iPad Air where Roon Remote lives.
Future plans:
- PC (doesn’t have to be small or silent) for Roon Server duties, possibly with HDD for the music alongside the SSD for Windows and Roon ( meaning that I get my laptop back!)
- Meridian endpoint for the lounge (maybe when there’s an MQA version of / replacement for the MS600
- The truly epic Explorer 2 and Pi go to headphone duty (or as part of a new office system with active speakers)
- Sonos or AirPlay speaker for the kitchen
This is a realy cool chain. I am still at the low end of the Avantgarde Acoustic setup. QNAP-NAS -> AURALiC Aries -> Avatgarde Acousic Zero 1, controlled by Roon.
Hope Avantgarde Acoustic will bring the same solution (digital dac/crossover/amp) to their other speakers. I would not hesitate to upgrade. But actually the Avantgarde Acoustic Zero 1 XD is all you need.
10 posts were split to a new topic: Pi running DietPi3, a minimal Linux distro, that you can just power off
