New to streaming, i've got things up & running but.....

Steve, my advice is if you are new to this, and it is all working, DONT fiddle with it... Enjoy the music 

Hi Simon,

thankyou for your reply.

Yes, everything seems to be working fine and I must say i'm enjoying the new experience very much. I'm a bit surprised to be fair at how good everything is sounding and I am very pleased to be discovering new music!

kind regards,

Steve

Stephen,

If I may, as you seem to use web-based streaming only, something you may contemplate to improve things and that doesn't require black magic, is give Qobuz a few months try. The reason why is that Spotify, as far as I know, is still MP3-based (although sometimes up to 320 kbps), whereas Qobuz is the only service to provide lossless CD quality.

I don't know if Qobuz is available where you live, or if their catalogue would suit your tastes, but you may want to have a look. Will you hear a difference through your system, only you can tell, but taking care of the quality of the source material you're playing feels like the first sensible move to me.

HTH

Maurice

Hi Maurice,

Yes, I had a feeling that Spotify maybe limiting in some sort of way as the quality does seem to vary quite abit from track to track and yes I can see(hear) how the source material will have an influence on overall quality.

I have not heard of Qobuz and will certainly check it out, the thought of lossless CD quality sounds very intriguing and is really what i'm hoping to achieve eventually so I thankyou for the heads up!

kind regards,

Steve

+1

Agree with this advice also.

One thing I would add is that (this is a bit of a simplification) when you read about the changes people are making they are typically either to improve the stability / functionality of their set-up, or to improve the sound quality.

People changing routers / switches / wireless access points etc is usually about stability / functionality rather than SQ.

So enjoy the music and then over time you will figure out where you want to tweak next.

The interesting thing for me with the streaming thing was that it changed how I listened to music, what I listen to, how I find new music.  So changes I have made have been so I can listen in different ways (eg playlists vs putting a CD in and listening from start to end), find new music (eg Spotify), plus make the setup more reliable / easy to use.

Thanks for the advice and reassurance guys it really is appreciated.

I'm really enjoying the convenience of going through lots of new music and it's fantastic for my partner and I to re-live our youth listening to material that we had forgot about or have not heard for years!

I'm sure in the future I will start ripping or downloading to a storage device but as you say, for now, i'm enjoying what I have at present.

I must say it's opened my eyes up or ears to be precise, never thought I would ever go down this route but i'm glad I have.

Kind regards,

Steve

Steve when you're ready, playing lossless files, and higher resolution audio files, will really open up things for you.  At some point it would be quite logical to move to source material that is higher quality than what you're listening now . . . if you care!

Hi Bart,

Can I achieve a higher resolution by ripping my CDs onto my laptop via Windows Media player?

At the moment I am only streaming as this is all I have learned so far but I am keen to take things further in terms of quality. I have never ripped a CD, so it will be interesting once I have played around and got my head around it, obviously any tips would be very much appreciated.

Steve

Hi Steve

Welcome to the world of streaming, it's great!

I echo the others advice, keep it simple for now and enjoy listening as it sounds you are doing 

Regarding ripping a CD, there are many users on here and I'm sure when you are ready they can assist with a software program called dbpoweramp.

Another very important topic, Tagging your music files and album artwork. Again, don't worry for now but when ready just rip 5-10 CD's and make sure they display correctly, you can search correctly, album contents are correct, etc... Then interact with these Rips for a while to ensure you are happy with everything. Then you can follow the same process for additional rios if you want to.

However, it's Friday so enjoy your streaming and you have started what will become a wonderful journey!

ATB, Anton

Hi,

I've just managed to rip a CD into a WAV format and although it seems ok in does not sound as good as my CD5si. I shall continue to play around and see what happens, please forgive me guys, this all new to me.

Thankyou Anton,  yes i'm not going to try and run before I can walk, so, instead of getting myself into a bit of a do, i'm just going to relax at the moment and enjoy all this access to new music.

Thank you for all the advice.

kind regards,

Steve

Well done!

Forgive me for saying but I would assume your cd5si will produce a much better analogue output during cd replay than playing the same ripped cd through your Arcam. So your ears are working fine!

Be careful Steve as once you start this journey, it can hurt your wallet 

Going forward, there are 2 routes you can take:

1. Computer based as you are doing now, however you might want to look at the Naim dac's in the future.

2. Streamer based, I took this route. The Naim ND5XS streamer will be comparable to your CD5si.

Again, take your time and listen at dealers so you can make an informed decision..

Anton

Hi Anton,

I got the Arcam just to see if I could get on with streaming before investing further into something more serious and even so, if I do decide to up the anti with a Naim streamer then I can always pass the arcam on down to my son with which I assume will work great with his ipad.

Steve

A wired connection instead of wireless would be my only suggestion, but only if you experience problems streaming from the internet or plan to stream ripped/downloaded music from a source other than your laptop hard drive, i.e. a NAS.

Enjoy your new experience!

Thanks.

I've now had a wireless internet connection for over two years and I must be one of the lucky ones because it has been faultless, not once has it stopped working.

Regards,

steve

In my experience, the NDX XS is considerably superior to the CD5Si (I would consider the CD5Si to be on a par with the Uniti2 or possibly the 172XS).

If you move to streaming higher quality audio -- bigger files -- you may find this to change.  Especially with high res audio files.

The other problem with wireless comes into play as you improve the quality of the system and source material.  RFI rears it's ugly head.  High quality audio circuitry is, to some degree or other, inherently sensitive to RFI.  Any wireless transceiver is, as the name says, a transmitter as well as a receiver (even is the intended signal is being sent 'to' it).

Placing a radio transmitter close to RFI sensitive circuitry is bound to have consequences.  So (in addition to the drop-out problem) this is a reason why wired Ethernet connections are capable of higher sound quality than wireless systems.

The one thing I have noticed is that when I had my old slimline active system (five boxes just for amplification) it picked up every bit of RFI going.  I have put this down to all the SNAIC cables and extra Loudspeaker cables acting as a great big aerial of some sort, I mean I knew when a taxi had passed my house or the mobile phone for instance... Now I have gone back to a one box integrated without all these infuriating cables all my RFI problems have disappeared even when the mobile phone is in close proximity. 

I'm sure that wireless will bring it's own set of problems. 

Just something I've noticed that's all and thought it relevant and on the flip side of the coin although I maybe wrong.

Regards,

Steve

Steve,

You're absolutely correct, but, even with an integrated amp, it's still often worth taking measures to mitigate RFI.

Even if you don't hear it as signal breakthrough it can still take the edge off the sound by making it sound dull or masking details.  On the other hand it could equally add an harsh artificial edge through intermodulation or HF distortion.

Huge,

I can relate to this also as even just yesterday I moved my DAC into different location and after I did this I started to notice a very slight harsh distortion in the upper regions. I then moved the DAC back away from the system to it's original location and the sound cleaned up again and became more musical.

As you say, the further I plough up the ladder the more I can hear this is going to be more of a future issue.

I will try a wired connection and try the same thing just as an experiment although my lack of experience may lead me to just stabbing in the dark.

Anyway, thankyou for all this extra information as i'm sure I will referring to it.

warm regards,

Steve

Don't worry, we're all stabbing in the dark (all except perhaps Simon-in-Suffolk).

I've just thrown clip-on ferrites on every conceivable place where RFI could enter my streamer or amp, and on every SMPS that could be turned on when the audio system is in use.  I also have a special type of bandpass filter system for the mains.

Well, I've tried Qobuz and although the quality is better it's not for me. I much prefer Spotify as it has all the music I like and I find it much easier to navigate.

Ho hum....All Spotify needs to do IMHO is to bring in lossless but for now i'll just have to compromise and settle for what is available and use CD for more serious listening.

I don't think i'll be going down the dedicated streaming route just yet.

How the hell do you navigate on Qobuz - it's awful - I've done everything apart from play the music.