NDS based system vs ....

Frank Abela posted:

If that's an original HL-P3, it's getting rather long in the tooth and all this expenditure may be held back by that. I would definitely take those speakers in with you for the demo, because it is unlikely the dealer will have anything similar. Even the P3ESR is quite different (same sonic fundament but completely different musical expression).

Of the 4 choices you suggested I would discount the 272-based ones. For around £13k I think you'd be in a better place with either the NDX/XPS or NDS/XP5XS into 282/200. However, your dealer may find at the time of the demo that the P3s really have had their day and he may offer a completely different solution using alternative speakers. This would mean less on the electronics of course, but probably a more cogent result. It might even end up being a simple 272/250 or NDX/Supernait into better speakers, just can't tell at this point.

Of course, it also rather depends on the size of your room. What are we talking about here? You may listen quietly but a speaker still needs to couple to a large room.  

Regards,
Frank.

Thanks for the tip about bringing my own speakers for the demo. The speakers are the latest P3-ESR. The room in question is about 15ft by 15 ft with some small alcove style side extension and fully carpeted. Ceiling is not low at all but I have not measured.

In that case a 282/200 should be sufficient with the rest spent on source. Now, if you are streaming rips, the question is how good your ripping is. Consider the streamer as just half the solution. The other half is the ripper/server. Best I've heard is a UnitiServe, which is coincidentally the least techie. That eats in quite a bit to your main system budget but it's the true source of the system.

Frank.

Frank Abela posted:

In that case a 282/200 should be sufficient with the rest spent on source. Now, if you are streaming rips, the question is how good your ripping is. Consider the streamer as just half the solution. The other half is the ripper/server. Best I've heard is a UnitiServe, which is coincidentally the least techie. That eats in quite a bit to your main system budget but it's the true source of the system.

Frank.

Oh my.  With all due respect . . . shall we have another discussion re differences in the output file from a rip performed by the UnitiServe vs. the output file from a rip performed by dbPoweramp or XLD?  That seems, so . . . 2012.

Frank Abela posted:

In that case a 282/200 should be sufficient with the rest spent on source. Now, if you are streaming rips, the question is how good your ripping is. Consider the streamer as just half the solution. The other half is the ripper/server. Best I've heard is a UnitiServe, which is coincidentally the least techie. That eats in quite a bit to your main system budget but it's the true source of the system.

Frank.

I do actually have a UnitiServe. Most of my recent music purchase have been hires (good quality) downloads up to 24/192.

Is there a difference between ripping by UnitiServe and dbPoweramp? Question is can we hear it?

Only in how metadata is written into wave files. The Unitiserve doesn't do this, dbpoweramp does. Audibly I can hear no difference.. I have also looked right down and analyzed the ripped audio data bits in the wave files produced, and they are identical.

however don't confuse differing ripped files with differing UPnP DLNA media servers.. I can notice a difference between different media servers, and the differences appear to be caused by the differeing dynamics of the low level TCP transfer of the audio data between the media server and the renderer. Again this can be analyzed using a network sniffer.

Simon