MikeJazz

This was a great review. Having had great experiences with Chord DAC's before, this makes me wanna spend money, so I must admit I have to calm down now!

I am interested in that DIY approach. And a integrated server/streamer of HQPlayer, embedded, even if running the more economical DSD512 filters.

Condolences. So glad you had a musical father and have those memories. I hope to be also a "musical father" to my young son..

http://audiodesigner.pt/

I follow his work with great curiosity and hope to have one of his designs one day.

Thanks Mitchco, that's very useful information to me. Sure I can try to have a second listen one day, because the Kii score high in other departments to me (simplicity of the solution, fun factor, dinamics..).

Thanks for the excelente analysis. I was so excited to experience the kii that recently went to the local dealer to have a listen. This must have been one of the most disappoint experiences I had. Maybe in part due to the previous hype surrounding the kii. I hear some of the well know qualities: spacious sound, dinamic, revealing, time coherent, yes. But I also heard a speaker with some issues on presenting tone. Tone was not rich, voices did not sound natural, but a bit harsh. On the end it was a bit disappointing hear that the speaker was lacking on the tone department. Tone is very important to get me involved in the music. The quest to find a replacement for my QUAD ESL 2805 continues...

This is very interesting!

try Lyngdorf. Or, even better, Steinway Lyngdorf.

Linn as been adamant to the use of open codecs since the beginning...

Hi ebrandon. What Chromebook are you using? Could you elaborate a bit on how to use Chromebook ou Pixelbook to run HQPlayer. Was there any trick to do or are you just using the Chromebook as standard? By "NAA running in Ubuntu" you mean in a different machine or you found a way to install Ubuntu on the Chromebook? I was wondering if the more capable i7 based Pixelbook could be enough to run HQPlayer (and eventually a roon server). The attractive part is that they are silent machines... Sorry for so many questions, I am still new to this...

Thank you. And happy Holidays.

"in theory reducing all the stages between the input of the A/D converter to the output of the D/A converter to a transparent "pipe," Well, why use proprietary solutions, not bit-perfect when open/non-proprietary and bit-perfect are available. I guess I fail to see the transparency in the "pipe" or in the mqa "solution". Well, we may just dismiss transparency as a absolute goal after all. The choice of the microphones that are at the start of the process is the first non-transparent process as is the first device to color the sound anyway...

BTW Miska, and how much do you like the Pro-ject doing upsampling to DSD512 compared to the iFi machines...? Sorry for the Ot.

So you compared a CD resolution with the "sort-of-high-resolution" of the MQA version and preferred the later? What was the point of the comparison? To be able to make such a comparison work you would have to make sure both tracks were cumming from the same master, to judge MQA merits on it's own. I would also prefer to test high resolution music with dac's with good attention to detail in their construction... Maybe the point of MQA, after all, is improving resolution of low and mid-fi systems??