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I suspect the pre-out is volume slaved.

you might also try using one of the zone-out pairs.

Just want to understand how you formed such a passionate opinion. It must only take some people 3 songs. It takes me a lot longer - I must be slow.

You formed your opinion based on one engineer's three recordings at Axpona 2017?

Agree!! I have yet to hear a difference and I can switch between MQA and non-MQA versions very easily with Tidal + Roon. I'm not saying there isn't a difference, but I just can't hear it. A solution in search of a problem IMHO.

Chalk it up to yet another small sacrifice for your children. Won't be the last one.

How much further away is one from the other? If one cable run is 2X longer than the other, then I would just use the same gauge cable on both and not worry about the different lengths. However, if one run is 10X longer than the other, then I would consider some options. Here is a decent (I think) article I found: https://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/speaker-cable-length-differences-do-they-matter

Here are a couple of tools to help you: http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable http://www.bcae1.com/images/swfs/speakerwireselectorassistant.swf

For a year, I ran a Schiit Sys passive switch box between my DAC, turntable and amp. Sounded great - no complaints. About 6 months ago, I added an active pre-amp with a 5-band analog equalizer. It also sounds fantastic and it simplified my cabling. My initial impression was the active-pre-amp smoothed things out a bit, but without losing dynamics. I think if you have great impedance matching and don't need to switch between several sources, a direct/passive-pre is perfect. However, if you have to smooth out impedance mis-matches between several sources, and/or need an equalizer, bass management, or home-theater-bypass, then an active pre is best. Assuming quality products, I think the slight difference in sound is related to how each method handles impedance.

not sure but that's what the spec sheet says.

Total speaker weight is 175lbs with the bottoms being 100-110lbs in my estimation. Those base bins are heavy and bulky. Definitely need a dolly.

Deezer is sending you CD quality (44,100 samples x 16 bits x 2 channel stereo = 1411 kb/s). Your laptop is upsampling this to 192/24. Your laptop may or may not be doing a good job at this. It's worth experimenting and sending the DAC the native unaltered CD quality stream.

I'm not familiar with Windows asio/wasapi/directsound drivers and settings, but if Deezer is sending 44.1/16 and the DAC is seeing 192/24, then something within the laptop is upsampling the stream. You may want to try sending the DAC the native Deezer sample rate. See http://connectedmag.com.au/digital-audio-windows/

Don't worry about fancy cables, roller blocks, or moving transformers. As suggested above, just get decent quality, reasonably priced, RCA and USB cables. I've never used Deezer, but make sure it is configured to stream the best quality - looks like they have a premium tier for CD quality streaming. Your wifi is fine. I'm sure your cables are fine. Sounds like you have your DAC setup via USB properly. Your DAC is a good budget DAC for the money according to reviews. Are all drivers working properly on your 301's? Are you playing Deezer via your browser or the app on your laptop? I ask because if you have a CD quality source (44.1/16) coming in from Deezer, is a CD quality stream being sent over the USB to your DAC? I know the Cambridge driver allows for up to 192/24 via USB, but you may or may not want to do that. The lights on the front of the DAC will tell you what stream-rate it is receiving. Roon or Audirvana don't support Deezer AFAIK. Other than that, yes clean things up and get rid of those top speakers. Wouldn't kill the cat to skip a meal or two either, but this also applies to me 😉

Router and wifi dongle brands don't matter assuming you are getting a good signal. what is the path to the DacMagic? Deezer --> wifi --> laptop --> usb --> dacmagic?

Yes it's a standard USB 2.0 type-b jack.

Cat food speakers have too much internal reverb resulting in a harsh, shouty midrange. Everyone knows this.

The Roon signal path looks correct - it is sending MQA to the Meridian for it to decode, then on to the analog outputs (not toslink) to your AVR. According to the CXR120 manual, direct mode will "bypass any DSP, Bass/Treble controls and multichannel post processing." So as Schu says, you must like some sort of processing or tone enhancements the AVR is doing to the analog feed from the Meridian. Do you have a sub? Direct mode on the CXR120, if it is truly direct, will not output anything to the sub which may explain why it sounds brighter with less bottom end.

There are a couple of suggestions in this thread. Good luck. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/airplay-stopped-working-with-denon-marantz-receiver.1677598/

Lots of choices that depend on: 1. sources: local files, NAS files, and/or Internet sources and whether you have a Mac or PC 2. end-points: purpose-built devices like chrome cast, roku, apple airport./tv, amazon fire stick or network-based integrated amps like the NAD mentioned above that have chrome cast, Spotify connect and bluetooth built-in. You could go old-school and run a usb cable from your computer to your integrated amp and use something like iTunes (although it doesn't support FLAC) or your favorite internet streaming app. But, most likely, you will want to get your integrated amp network-enabled via a purpose-built device or buying a network-based integrated amp to start. The daunting part is there are a lot of different and somewhat closed ecosystems. Google doesn't make their money on a $15 Chromecast puck, they make their money selling you content and services within their ecosystem. I have a lot of Apple stuff already, so Airplay streaming works well for me - from Macs and iPhones to Apple TVs and Airports - both local content and internet sources. Everybody in the house knows how to stream Pandora to the Airport connected to the DAC on the family room stereo. I don't get any support calls 😉 For the last year, I've been using Roon. It's basically iTunes on steroids. It can take almost any source in your house, or Tidal on the internet, and stream it to almost any destination, without a lot of the interop / lock-in headaches.

Yes, then you are good. Just make sure that the DSP volume on the CA is at 100% and it is supposed to pass 96/24 bit perfect to your CXA60. The Roon Path shows 48/24 MQA embedded FLAC coming from Tidal which gets unfolded by your Roon Core to 96/24 and sent on to your CA and DAC. I'm assuming in the CA device setup in Roon it says 'no MQA capabilities' and your Roon DSP engine is disabled and/or set to 'for compatibility only.' As an experiment, in Roon, click on the 'versions' and play the non-MQA version of the same album to see if you can tell a difference.

Are you plugged into the aux-input on the front of your CXA60 with a 3.5mm cable from the Chromecast Audio? Or are you using an optical cable from the Chromecast Audio to a Toslink input on the back of the CXA60?

What is the function of R1A in the photos?

Another vote for a used Channel Islands VDA2 w/power supply. Also the Schiit DACs are great bang for the buck.

I believe the replacement would be the K77-D. I've swapped between the stock K77-D and CT120s on my LSII's at least 20 times and keep coming back to stock. On paper, the CT120 looks better and can handle more power, but the K77 integrates better as a whole with the crossover and squawker in the LSII. For example, above about 8khz, the CT120 gets very hot on the LSII, by as much as +4-5db at 10khz vs the K77. Even after eq'ing this out, the K77 is a better match with the crossover and other horns in the LSii IMHO. Although if you keep listening at 116SPL at your MLP, you might need the stronger top end of the CT120 sooner than you think 😉