Computer Audio..Stream or download?


Fellow Audiophiles,

Until now, i never cared for music streaming or downloads, simply because of compression. I owned fairly large selection of CD's, SACD's, DTS and DVD audio discs. DTS and DVD audio are long gone and SACD's are now pretty much limited to classical titles. I have been watching the digital trend pretty closely..it seems that we have evolved from digital downloads to now streaming. For sake of convenience, i have installed Sonos in couple of rooms. In my HT setup, Sonos just couldn't live up to high standards set by Krell and Raysonic. The streaming from Spotify, Amazon and Rhapsody is just average (flat and dull most times).

I am looking for ideas and feedback based on your experiences with high-res downloads. I am only interested in listening to high-rez / DSD64 or DSD128 files.

Please respond with your recommendations on DSD software and DAC's/Players.

MY Equipments:
Classe SSP-800 / CA-2200 / CA-5200
Krell Cipher
Raysonic CD-128
B&W 803s/804s/HTM2s/SCMS
Audience Au24 SE - IC's, Speaker, Power and Digital Cables
Audience AR6-TSSD/AR2-TSSD
128x128lalitk

Showing 2 responses by wisnon

If you are going to do a lot od DSD playback or use HQP to upconvert all to DSD, i would strongly recommend looking at Lampizator. Used, as DSD only L4 Lampi will run you about $2,500.

I think the DHT versions will give you even more and a Lite 7 is the cheapest entry point there. Lampi uses "chipless" DSD and its unlike anything else in digital to me. Lots of guys with deep pockets and SoTA setups are jumping for the top model, the Golden Gate, but its quite pricey at $18K approx. They are also pairing that with the new Lampi server, the DSD Komputer which is a maxxed out CAPs style server for about $7K or so.

I myself have a Big7 and am delighted by it.
Modwright makes very good stuff, but the DHT tubes are incomparable. I have played around with ECC88s, ECC40, ECC81/82/83 of all kinds of exotic old brands from my local tube guy and they are great, but the, 345s, 45 triodes (mesh plate), the 101ds, 300bs, 6A3s, etc combined with the big bottle rectifiers do it for me.

I have (as rectis) metal base Philips GZ34, Mullard GZ37, vintage 5u4g, 5AR, new production 274b, military spec double mica 5r4gy, etc, all from the 1940s to 1960s. When combined with the big bottle DHTs are a quantum leap over the small signal tubes and especially for DSD.

I have NOT tried the uber expensive 300bs like from WE vintage, Takasuli, Elrog, etc nor the EML anniversary 45 globe (unobtanium). people say these are worth the high pricetag.