photonman

Another item tucked away in my audio trove of unused parts. This the 12 AWG cord at 1.5 meter length. It is pretty flexible for its size. $85 + $10 shipping via USPS domestic.

So I bought this device in September 1990 to pair up my new Adcom GFA-535 to my old Harmon Karmon receiver and I have hung onto to if forever, safely tucked away in my closet all these years. But no more nostalgia to it for me and I would like to sell it. It is defintely a legacy piece but someone out here might appreciate it. It is pretty mint condition. $55 shipped mainland USA.

Definitely got me interested in Qobuz again. This is the only service where my wife actually noticed a different sound on one of her favorite albums (Ryan Adams live at Carnegie Hall). I am back on at the monthly $14.99 for now and can once again utilize my mothballed Audirvana license. A few of my favorite titles are missing (all the Lumineer albums) but there is plenty more to listen to. At this price I will keep my Spotify for music discovery and their superior playlists for background music. Thank you Amazon!

That can be frustrating but you just got to accept it will happen in the wonderful world of software and developer perspectives not aligning with user expectations or that software sometimes just does not work right. It is like traffic in Southern Cal in that everyday I hit the road to go to work I don't know if it will be a good day or a bad traffic day but either way I just have to accept that their will be horrible stop and go traffic so I can either make myself miserable everyday while fighting traffic or find another way to deal with reality. I don't have to drive but I choose to. [stepping down off box]

Item is SOLD!

This is a pretty mint specimen of the Pass Labs 85 lb class A amplifier conservatively rated at 30 WPC. It can heat up a small house no problem so you not only get get great SQ but heat recovery in form of space heating at the same time. Since shipping would would be insanely expensive I am hoping for local pickup here in San Diego, CA. I have the original inner box and all packing materials. New retail is around $6,000 so I am asking $3,500 as mine is like new and has very light use. Thank you for looking.

I don't know but 2012R2 is getting long in the tooth, I would seriously think about upgrading the OS. Also, why not just load Windows 10 instead of the server OS as there really is no advantage to the server OS versus the workstation one and many times the workstation driver will not work on the server OS.

Go to blackbox.com as they have everything you need. Patch panels are like post-it notes, lots of choices and they all work well. The only constraint is how well you can punch the wires down.

My 2014 Mac was in bad need of a refresh so I just completed the disk wipe and reinstalled the OS and then upgraded to Catalina. Just for the heck of it, I bought Bitperfect to try out Apple Music service. I must say, it sounded pretty good, probably better than Spotify. But because I go DAC direct to amp, I do not have good control of the volume, the default level is way too loud so that will not work as my wife thinks I play music too loud anyways. I see no way to adjust the system volume level?

Back to Mac! It really is a decent platform that provides a lot of flexibility to experiment with different software packages and setups and I really cannot discern any SQ degrading even if it is not "optimized for audio" and is a general purpose computer. My current Macbook Pro is a 2014 and apparently the last one with Toslink out.

I synched up a couple of songs between Amazon and Spotify with the Mac desktop players and I could not hear any difference. At least not enough for me to give up the better Spotify UI and playlists. I used Norah Jones "I don't know why" and Leon Bridges "Beyond". Maybe Spotify is secretly pushing out lossless as a social experiment, probably not. The Amazon HD implementation kind of reminds me of when you buy things at Home Depot that say "Contractor Grade" when anyone in the know already knows that adding some badass plastic padding on a utility knife does not magically make it something you can proudly hand down to your grandkids.

Isn't it great to have so many options. I am not the most patient person but I do believe that it is only a matter of short time before some software vendor integrates with Amazon HD and then this drawback is eliminated and the debate can really begin about the sound quality difference. And I gotta believe Spotify might have something up their sleeve too because they cannot stay forever in their equivalent world of cassettes and 8-track tape. I keep going back and forth between all these streaming services and I was content to settle back onto Spotify for all the aforementioned benefits (catalog, superior algorithms, UI etc.) but then Amazon has to rock my world. I find Amazon's curated playlists pretty darn good and the music selection is great but that OCD thing about getting bitperfect has me swaying back to Spotify but I intend to take advantage of three free months with Amazon. I figure if I set my Audio Midi to 24 bit/44.1 i am at least at Tidal level, except for the resampling of the higher rates but Amazon's catalog is heavy on the CD quality stuff. What I find ironic too is that Amazon probably already runs some of their competitors' backends in their data centers so they make money either way. Lets see what Amazon HD evolves to in a year or so. It wasn't so long ago that we were buying our SACD's and Chesky CD's from them so this is just the next chapter of Amazon music.

Yes that is it exactly. The Qutest is connected directly into it via RCA. Speakers are biwired and are still dead quiet with no music. My setup is full of controversy: Class D amp, no pre and biwired. Just waiting to get banned LOL.

Received and hooked it up today. Based on the sound so far, it is a keeper. I have not done any focused listening yet but it sounds pretty good to me and for such a small, lightweight and cool package, I am sold on Class D. My Pass is up for sale.

So how do you like the Bluesound interface compared to the Mac with Audirvana? I have gone back and forth in my head with this exact question too (BlueOS vs. Macbook). How about the remote functionality. The Node 2i has been on the back of my mind for a while too. At one point I had an Auralic Altair which I loved as a one box solution but the software was very unstable and ultimately drove me back to the rock solid reliability of the Macbook with Audirvana.