The All Purpose Advice Thread - Part 2

Can somebody tell me what "Pyrate" means? I can guess, but that's all it would be (a guess).

 

SBAF is a reboot of the first forum we started called "Effin' Ringin' at Changstar.com. Marv started it after he, myself, LFF, Anaxilus, and Muppetface were sending long email chains to each other to make it easier to have discussions (and I imagine Marv had some bigger plans for it secretly). But that forum was originally just the 5 of us shooting the shit and having fun. And then people started joining and more people joined. And we started this "Pirate" theme on the forum from the beginning because it was fun, but it was also just fitting of the vibe and mood on the site. The forum was sort of in defiance of Head-fi's "everything is good" mentality and we saw ourselves as starting our own thing in a place where we could speak freely. And I filled the emojis with all the pirate themed emojis I could from around the web (a few are here on this site still).

Marv did A LOT of measurements then, even more than now and I think he had a lot more fun with it then because it was all rather revolutionary and revelatory and a new thing, It wasn't like now where everyone has mini DSP ears, Marv was pioneering CSD's for headphones. He'd take CSD's of a headphone that we all had hated for years but a lot of people on Head-fi loved and often praised as "accurate" or "neutral" or "revealing" and it was vindication of everything we had been hearing and saying for so long, and just everything we had been experiencing that went against a lot of confusing subjectivist takes on terrible sounding headphones. You know, Head-fi has always promoted an atmosphere of side grades. I spent years buying different headphones trying to find ones that literally didn't hurt my ears, only to find out when Marv started taking CSD's that they ALL had issues! All that time, I was just going from one shitty headphone to another.

So those early CSD's were a lot of fun. Me and LFF would make "ad-buster" photoshop images of headphones, like an HD700's FR plot looking like a mountain range. Or an Ultrasone making someone's ears bleed. We were sort of like rebels with a cause, I think that's where the Pirate thing made sense. Trying to push the headphone industry to do better.

Then that forum collapsed for reasons I won't go into, and Marv had to start anew here with SBAF and the pirate theme was dropped, but I think Marv is nostalgic of those fun early days and brought the Pyrate tag back for that reason, or one of the mods did.

Here are some "ad-busters" I made back then. I've lost most of them sadly, some were really great.

HD700 FR plot (compare it to the actual FR plot, it's the same)



The Beyer DT1350 at least originally had serious QC control issues and was all over the place sound wise:



And here are some making fun of Beyer's advertising:





And for fun, here's what got me banned from head-fi. Posting this image (AKG K550):

 

"Dirk Diggler Edition" ... elephant taking a dump. Omigod, so funny.

Thanks for an epic explanation...

 

Does anyone have any recommendations about using a Mac mini as a music server vs a dedicated NAS?

A Mac mini would be much easier for me because I know the OS and how to use it and backup, etc. And I found this software for UPNP/DLNA from a Mac

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firestream/id1005325119?mt=12

Any downside to the Mac mini as a server for FLAC files downloaded from Bandcamp? Or advantages to a dedicated NAS?

Thanks!

 

Used a mini starting in the 2008 or so era and for many years after that, never used a NAS. That being said, mini is good and can be tweaked, not sure what you can do with a nas. eg. you may not be able to run your player sw of choice on a nas, certainly not sure about plugins for eq, or if you do upsampling real time,etc.

Two options for storage. External USB on the mini, not great but okay. USB drive on a router for shared network storage, much better from a sound perspective. Assuming your router is tweaked to improve power. May be even better shared storage from another PC on the net, ext to the machine of course, and do use spinners for data.

As for the mini overall, there are a lot of tweaks I and my friend have done to make it sound better than stock. Lots of guides on the web. Do I still use a mini, no. I prefer the sound from a windows based machine and networked storage. I use Jriver.

Good luck with the journey.

 

Mike Moffat used to recommend a Mac Mini of a particular model as a great music server.

I currently use a trash can Mac and I use all the thunderbolt ports....

 

I'm not using USB audio, I would just be using the Mac mini to host FLAC files, and stream them from my Holo RED. How could it matter where the files are kept? The Mac Mini is just like the RPI below the Pi2AES in this case.

I would understand if I was using USB straight from the Mac mini, but I'm just using it to host the files which the RED will pull from using DLNA.

I really need to research this and setup something special just to put FLAC files on to stream them from my RED? I'm going to go crazy.

And it is a fanless NUS not a NAS that was the alternative, running Linux. Which I'm must not familiar with at all so the Mac mini is appealing as I can just use Time Machine and follow easy tutorials for how to setup the mini from my MacBook Air.

 

Just use a Mac mini since you're familiar. AFAICT, the tweaking he's mentioning is assuming you're going to use the Mac mini as your streamer and not just as a source of networked storage, so I don't think he understood you're using a Holo Red already. Years ago it was popular to use Mac minis as streamers and modify them with LPS kits and such. I am unsure what the router "tweaking" he is referring to is (hardware offloading? Powering a router with LPS? IDK). Regardless, if you're already using the fiber media converter nervosa tweakery that we all seem to have goaded you into doing already (lol), the optical connection should make files pulled from either a NAS or Mac Mini "better" anyway since it's all network attached, so don't worry about further mucking around there, IMO -- you've already gone far enough without getting into some serious $1k+ stoopidry.

 

Sorry for the confusion, I have no idea what a holo red is. Carry on!

If you just want a networked storage source, use any pc or a router, and yea, you will be using USB to connect the ext. drive in most cases or you could populate a tower with internal drives.

Router tweaking , yes @internethandle ferrite on the switching supply or iFi power supply, etc.

Mini tweaking can be linear supplies, but it is much more about turning things off in the OS if you are using it to host player SW.

 

Holo Audio Red is a Pi-based streamer meant for connection directly to a DAC, so playback software and OS tweaking aren't really relevant, people buy them to not have to do (much) of that kind of thing.

But yes not a bad point -- if you're using a Mac mini they don't tend to a have a huge amount of internal storage, so you'd use an external drive if you want to increase capacity. @bixby seems to be saying that a USB drive connected to a Mac mini sounds worse than one connected to a router that has a USB port built in. It seems to me you might as well just buy a NAS drive if you're going to go that route - not every router has a USB port, and you might run into some wonkiness there with compatibility vs. just a straight up NAS drive. I'm not even clear where @rhythmdevils' router (wireless or wired) is since it sounded like he's using a wireless-to-wired ethernet adapter at the moment to establish a connection to the Red.

Idk, don't agonize over it. You already have the $800 audiophile streamer and FMC nervosa. You'd probably be fine with a USB attached drive to a Mac mini, if that's what you're planning. You got to keep in mind all of this sounds insane to even a good number of audiophiles -- if you start getting too into whether a USB drive sounds better attached in what way, or whether HDD's sound better than SSD's, or what brand of router/switch sounds better, and powered with what, and and and etc., you'll never stop finding new things to mess around with and new crap to buy and obsess over.

 

Not saying usb drive attached to mini as a shared dedicated file server sounds bad. Never tested that. Just when using Mini as a player. Good luck with the setup.

 

Hi All,
I haven't posted anything in quite a while; I have been "listening", "reading" and learning quite a bit from reading the posts from many of the threads.
With Schiit components; do y'all stack them?
I am running out of space on my A/V rack.
Is it OK to stack Yggdrasil on top of a Kara( maybe with some slightly taller feet) or vice-versa?
I figured Yggdrasil probably gets warmer than Kara; but I could be completely wrong.

Schiit builds their casework very well; there shouldn't be any interference ( noise ) between the two.

What do y'all think?

Thank you for all my input

 

[Edit} Thank you for any input.

 

I E mailed Schiit in regards to this question.
They recommended stacking Kara on top of Yggdrasil, no worries.
So, I guess that answers it.

 

I'd probably stack Kara on top of Yggdrasil; Kara is only 8" deep, whereas Yggdrasil is 13" deep. I've had Freya S stacked on Yggdrasil for several years now with no ill effects.

 

Thanks Yota!
Yeah,

I wasn't thinking about the depth of the Yggdrasil; quite a bit larger than the Kara.
I ordered a Kara and a Vidar 2 recently; I would've realized the size difference pretty darn quick, LOL!

The Kara will be taking the place of my Tortuga LDR300 V.25 passive preamp. The Vidar will take the place of my Class D Audio SDS470 ( great dynamics, good bass, just wears me out pretty quick, I guess they call it "listener's fatigue").
The Tortuga is keeper, most likely for a second system.

 

The general rule, and it is quite important for longevity, is: heat-producing gear on top, cool stuff cam be underneath. This is for real, no nervosa or audiophoolery!

I read this in the blog of an old, wizened hifi repair man: keep your electronics cool for longer life. He suggested even increasing the space by putting something under the feet.

You can call me cynical (you'd be right!) but if a piece of hifi equipment produces enough noise to affect another piece, then I don't think it deserves to be called hifi! Even at the modest end of the market. But heat is real.

 

I agree,
I've got some Herbie's tenderfeet that I'll put under the Kara, they're about 3/4" tall.
I had them on one the components that I sold.
I don't think that's audiophoolery, any audio component that generates a decent amount of heat, needs to ventilate.
In Pro Audio applications; whenever we remotely setup the poweramp racks, we keep them spaced out from walls, etc.., even though they have fans.
I asked Schiit about the issue of (noise) interference between the Kara and Yggdrasil, since they will be stacked; they weren't concerned.
It's the Loki max that possibly can affect/or be affected by interference when stacked with certain other components. That being said; it's rare from what learned.
What I need to do in the near future; Is build a custom A/V console that is wider, so I can then place components horizontally, instead of having to stack at all.

 

Paraphrasing the repair-shop guy, the manufacturers do not want you to know this, the more the heat, the faster the components degrade and the sooner you buy a new one. That's fine by them. Increasing that space, all round, actually saves us money.

 

I have a Samsung TV with optical output that I feed into my soundbar. The optical output is not volume controlled from the TV remote. The TV does have eARC hdmi which I think is volume controlled? (I've never used it before) but my soundbar does not have hdmi input.

Is there a cost effective solution here so I can control volume with just the tv remote? is there any hdmi to optical converter/extractor that isn't a random junky amazon gamble? I'm not opposed to a dac to with hdmi input, but I'm guessing those are far more expensive.

Budget $100-ish (I'm not opposed to the upsell, but this is for tv youtube blah blah, so I'm going for "good enough" rather than hifi)