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Feel like I am lost deep in the forest....


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I think my source (digital) is my weak link.  Cds still sound better than Roon/Tidal through a microrendu and Exogal dac.  There are many choices out there and guess I need to do the research to take things up a notch but not sure I see the path.  A couple of notes:

 

  • I have good dacs - I have an older Lampizator that is still best dac I have heard but only digital rca connection (I no longer have spdif converter see bullet #2), I also have a Exogal Comet Plus which I use for digital streaming
  • I hate all the little boxes that come with using the Lampizator for streaming and seem to hang off the microrendu (have an Uptone LPs1)
  • I know very little about streamers but they seem more convenient - but maybe convenient does not = great sound with streaming
  • maybe streaming is not there yet or I am using wrong software in Tidal and Roon?

 

The goal:  I want to make next step to high quality computer audio (I know this is now called audiophile style).  Budget about $5K. 

 

If you were me where would you go from hold the course to blow it up and go different direction.

 

Thanks for any feedback you provide - hoping it kickstarts that research I talked about

 

My other gear is Sachs Model 1 preamp, Mivera class D amp, KEF ls50 speakers, all in a small 12 x 13 room.  Good headphone setup as well (Cavelli and ZMF Atticus) in which cd also sounds better than streaming.  Help me get out of the woods!

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1 hour ago, DavidS said:

maybe streaming is not there yet or I am using wrong software in Tidal and Roon?

 More than just a maybe.¬¬

 Streaming from the Internet where you have no control over the quality and bit accuracy of the material provided will never sound as good as with the original CD from a high quality CD player, or better still, a well implemented PC/Server setup.

 Neither do you know what kind of processing has already been done to the original music file  before transmission.

 

How a Digital Audio file sounds, or a Digital Video file looks, is governed to a large extent by the Power Supply area. All that Identical Checksums gives is the possibility of REGENERATING the file to close to that of the original file.

PROFILE UPDATED 13-11-2020

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Try to get off of USB altogether. If your CD player can act as a decent transport, then run spdif rca directly into your Lampizator DAC. Even with my Bryston BDP3 Playing hires files, the CDP sounds a hair better. Maybe from eliminating the USB conversion?  

 

 

 

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another bullet I should have included in my OP post.

 

  • about 2 years ago I had a great vinyl setup.  It sounded better than cds.  I had about 1200 records that took up a lot of room.  I discovered that I like new and latest releases, exploring interesting artists but having access to a much larger library than $40 a pop records could ever allow me.  So love what Tidal and Roon offer - every day a new discovery....

the Lampizator dac is good - it was personally modded by Lukas about 5 years ago so competes with his big boys.  Appreciate the advice about spdif convertor, maybe the sonore microrendu has been the wrong rabbit hole, or better just more lost in the woods.

 

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I've heard what a Lampizator DAC is capable of, but noted that it appeared sensitive to how it was driven - an Oppo used as transport degraded the sound badly. Not saying that your rig has such an issue; but I believe it would be worthwhile having the simplest path, experimenting with what is feeding the digital RCA.

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On 5/10/2019 at 8:07 PM, DavidS said:

I think my source (digital) is my weak link.  Cds still sound better than Roon/Tidal through a microrendu and Exogal dac.  There are many choices out there and guess I need to do the research to take things up a notch but not sure I see the path.  A couple of notes:

 

  • I have good dacs - I have an older Lampizator that is still best dac I have heard but only digital rca connection (I no longer have spdif converter see bullet #2), I also have a Exogal Comet Plus which I use for digital streaming
  • I hate all the little boxes that come with using the Lampizator for streaming and seem to hang off the microrendu (have an Uptone LPs1)
  • I know very little about streamers but they seem more convenient - but maybe convenient does not = great sound with streaming
  • maybe streaming is not there yet or I am using wrong software in Tidal and Roon?

 

The goal:  I want to make next step to high quality computer audio (I know this is now called audiophile style).  Budget about $5K. 

 

If you were me where would you go from hold the course to blow it up and go different direction.

 

Thanks for any feedback you provide - hoping it kickstarts that research I talked about

 

My other gear is Sachs Model 1 preamp, Mivera class D amp, KEF ls50 speakers, all in a small 12 x 13 room.  Good headphone setup as well (Cavelli and ZMF Atticus) in which cd also sounds better than streaming.  Help me get out of the woods!

David,

 

You didn't mention what type of music you own now other than your subscriptions for streaming services and that might help us point you in a different direction.  For example, if you had hundreds or thousands of CDs or LPs that you wanted to rip and then store, you would need the hardware to do that as well as playback.  

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Have a couple thousand cds from my collecting days but don't buy them anymore - everything I want / need is on the streaming service.  Have no plans to rip cds.  Just looking to continue simplifying and get better sound from my source.  Read about new Mytek Brooklyn Bridge on weekend, plus looking at streamers, just not sure if this is moving chairs on the deck vs making a real improvement to what I have.

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Nothing wrong with streaming from Tidal, it can sound superb if you know how to do it. Before you go out and spend a lot of money, let me ask you how you’re streaming from Tidal/Roon.

 

Have you turned off the ROON DSP? If not turn it off and listen.

 

How do you stream from the computer to microRendu exactly? It is important (IMO) to place the computer in another room and on another power line than there you have the uR and stereo, if you want good sound. And go headless and don’t use any video monitors.  

 

If I read you correctly you can’t use your Lampizator with the microRendu because it only has SPDIF and you don’t have any DDC, and don’t want to get one. It must mean that you in reality compare CD with one DAC and Tidal with another DAC. Am I correct?  

 

Maybe best to stop and think this whole thing over a bit. I believe your options is: change your DAC, send you DAC to Lampizator for modification (many does), get a good server/renderer that has SPDIF output or get one DDC.    

 

Btw you didn’t say which CD transport you have. Some good CD transport can sound really good and essentially better than many servers and network players.

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