I know it's an old thread, but I just stumbled into it last night while reading through Archimago's brilliantly done blog.
Looping back to the original question, my take. Like a lot of people, I wasted way too much time on dubious audiophile claims, though my particular weakness lies in the direction of "how cheap can you go and still get hi-fi?" Also like a lot of folks, I've come out the other end, chastened and realistic. So... - I'm 57 and have tinnitus. - I don't have a lot of resources to pour into improving what I already have. - I have little choice as far as speaker placement or room environment. - I only have so much time left on this earth, and can't really listen to everyhing I already own, let alone everything that's out there. The placement of my speakers, the room and my ears are obviously much, much more important than the subtle/questionable/non differences from DACs, cables and the like. So here's what I'm after: I want equipment that plays acoustic jazz and pre-rock American Songbook-type singers well, at low to moderate volumes. Also, a touch of blues and old country and Bach. Also, streaming radio. In other words, nothing too demanding. I want it to sound good, which to me means splitting the difference between being accurate and treating the music gently, a la tubes. Mostly, it means using what I have at hand. I've simplified lately, and my main system is now a NAD C740 receiver, which combined the C340 amp and C440 tuner under one roof; an Oppo blu-ray player (a cheap one from a few years back); a SB3; PSB Alpha B1 speakers; a Roku box. I no longer use a separate DAC with the the Oppo or SB - maybe I just don't own one that's good enough, but I couldn't hear the difference between audio from the DAC or the analog outs from either. The SB3 is exclusively a radio tuner for me, and my big project needs to be moving all the shiny spinning discs I think I'll want to hear over the next 20 years to some sort of server - but I'm torn because of the abundace of options: I ran Vortexbox for a year or so and liked it, but thought the tagging was weak. I could run a Win 8 box with JRiver and dbPowerAmp, both of which I own, but Windows is fussy. Or I could use a Mac, but that means buying further into the Apple eco-system, maybe, than I want. As a Linux guy, I'm inclined to go the V'box route and build a player or two using a Pi or one of the other boards, but on the other hand, I'm not sure I want to work that hard. Meantime, I have a Boom on my nightstand and just got a used Duet for my office. Squeezeboxes continue to delight me. Scott A. Watertown NY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ satkinsn's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11398 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=98057 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
