@stievus Yes, very happy with price… when I saw it on TMR as a trade in, jumped on it immediately.
My CD player is a Marantz CD6007, attached via digital coax to my Chord Qutest, with the N150 attached via USB. Thanks.
New streamer needed
My streamer, 10yrs old, stopped functioning. Now I am listening to CDs again with the transport of the older Accuphase DP-67 and Merason Frerot DAC. The combination sounds great, very detailed and transparent. Now I am wondering how much money I would need to spend on a new streamer to match that sound level and which brands and models to look for. Any suggestions, possibly also from people who know the Merason and/or Accuphase? I am using Qobuz for streaming, and wireless options would be great too. Thank you.
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Whatever streamer you decide upon, make sure the user interface is easy and even fun to use. If it is a chore to work, you'll HATE it every single time you use it, and eventually you'll find yourself spinning discs instead. If the Aurrender UI is top notch then for your money, I'd go with one of those. |
@audphile1 would the FLAC’s sound better if ripped with a weightier optical drive, SOTA USB cable and laptop with LPS? I would suggest my pref:
Teasing only in good fun - promise - just couldn’t help myself 😜 I still use a 10-year-old Samsung bus-powered optical drive to a desktop through an old Canon scanner’s USB cable, files sound indistinguishable from the original CD’s played back on an array of CD players / setups (some of which are far blingier than mine). It was particularly informative to compare the two formats on AIO streamer+CD player devices, since same sound from such a device implies truly no [audible] underlying differences resulted from my generic ripping setup.
@stievus , it could be a straightforward way to toe the water before diving in the deep end? If your expectations don’t get the best of you and your ripped FLAC’s do sound similar to the CD’s, that would rule out a more costly streamer. Only thing you’d be missing are the club points and bragging rights from a given high end streamer manufacturer. 😉 Of course, even if an inexpensive streamer option like Wiim sounded different than your CD player, that wouldn’t insinuate it being the streamer, as the DAC could also have that role. Or depending on how deep you dive into component expectations/suspicions/synergies/etc, interaction of a specific streamer x DAC, or streamer x DAC x interconnects, or… This is also an excellent chance to do blind testing, but that approach seems remarkably unpopular on Audiogon. It saved me a lot of money to redirect at demonstrably influential parts of my chain, but to each their own so no pressure implied! |
@benanders LMAO. I’d love to compare the two files though - one ripped with my $40 LG and another with that high end drive. But I won’t be buying it to do it because I’m pretty sure it would be exact same 💩 as my $40 drive and I would have to return the fancy burner. And that would be unethical. |
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