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Shakeydeal

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Posts posted by Shakeydeal

  1. Granted my experience with a laptop was many years ago. At the time I thought it sounded pretty good. But as usual, better is the enemy of the good.

     

    I think sometimes in this hobby people expect improvements to be on the same scale as tuning a boosted car. You'll certainly notice 150 more hp at the wheel. Whereas with audio upgrades, differences are more subtle. So it comes down to whether or not  you want to spend an extra 5K to get that next 5 or 10% improvement.

     

    Now in your case it's somewhat the reverse. You have a 5K laptop and find it hard to imagine something much cheaper could even be even as good, much less better. Only you can say if this could be the case or not. I just know my Lumin sounds better than any laptop I've experienced.

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  2. Because a raspberry pi has one job and only one job to do. Stream your music. No background processes or other programs running. It also has a better output stage with less jitter and noise. It’s not going to be a huge leap going from one to the other but it will be noticeable. Things get better when you move up the streamer chain.

  3. Use a laptop into a DAC if sound quality is only marginally important. Use the DAC in a laptop if you really don't like music at all and just want some noise in the background.

     

    Choices, choices......

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  4. That’s a shame because there are very few speakers that will be optimal with such amps. Notice I didn’t say “work with”.  Because there are many that will sound good, but those aren’t an ideal pairing and won’t give you the best performance of amp or speaker. So what Steve thinks is acceptable levels of hum limits the use of his amps with speakers that would make them sound the best.

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  5. Will it work? Yes. Is it ideal? No.

     

    When you can buy a good streamer for a thousand dollars or less, it makes no sense. I streamed from my laptop years ago and the first one I bought (a raspberry pi) was a huge improvement. I now have a Lumin, but there are several less expensive choices.

     

    Just my two cents.

  6. 9 minutes ago, Flevoman said:

    Can I perhaps make a very strange suggestion? Since it has been suggested a few times now that it might be your home's power grid causing the issue, if your neighbors live right next to you (such as in an apartment or townhouse), could you use an extension cord to borrow power from them to see if the hum disappears?

     

    That's a good suggestion. Also, you could take it to a friend's system. Even if they don't have high sens. speakers, if the amp has a hum, it'll still be present, just much lower in volume.

  7. The problem is that if you have any level of inherent noise in your system, most tube amps will bring it to the surface with horns. Especially if you have excessive gain in your preamp.

     

    I used to think some level of noise in tube amps (especially in SET amps) was normal, especially with high efficiency speakers. After owning three Aric Audio amps, I have a different opinion. All of them are as dead quiet as 3 am. I mean "put your ear next to the speaker and think the amp is off" quiet. If Aric Kimball can make excellent sounding amplifiers with such a low noise floor, why can't others?

     

     

  8. 24 minutes ago, jjptkd said:

     

     This is the first I've read about this I almost put myself on that list a few years back when the wait time was 8 months I believe? I cannot image the upset I'd have felt had I waited all that time to receive a hum master. Two year wait time is unacceptable in my book- an 8 month wait was for me back then but to each their own I guess. 

     

    Yeah I wanted to get on the list for a new Torii a couple of years ago. Glad I didn't. My custom Aric Audio 300B amp only took five weeks from commission to receipt. And as good as Steve's work is, I think I made the right decision.

     

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