01-Oct-2017, 09:08
So first let me say hi to you all. Nice to be joining you. I've used forums in the past and do find them incredibly useful to tap into all the experience.
I'm now in the middle of changing my system. Unlike many, I tend to buy a system, listen to it for some years then move the whole thing on for something new. My current system comprises Sonus Faber Guarneri Homage with Gravis B subwoofer and an all tube linestage, amp and CDP sitting on Finite Elemente racks. The system is powered and cabled with Shunyata. My room is quite small and I have my speakers firing across the width in order to get speakers well away from walls. On listening, the soundstage I get usually fills the room (close your eyes and it sounds like a far bigger room) and the speakers truly do disappear. I have a fairly large CD collection
A couple of months ago I decided to buy an iPad and a bluetooth speaker in order to put a toe into I streaming and help me find new music. I bought a Naim Mu-so Qb, which for the price is a pretty impressive little box. I took out subscriptions to Apple Music and Tidal. I'm really enjoying the ability to create players lists of my favourite tracks and share other people's playlists to find new tunes that I like.
This lead me to wanting to upgrade my present system, but with 4 big boxes full of tubes I had no more rack space and didn't really want to add yet more heat generating capacity to my room with a matching DAC. So I decided to turn over my entire system.
I auditioned speakers, choosing those I thought would work well in my small room. It came down to 2, the YG Carmel and the Magico S1 MkII. I auditioned the YGs with some AVM kit, which was based on digital amps and ps and sample rate conversion to 192. Frankly, I was most impressed with how detailed, transparent, pure and unfatiguing it sounded, so started to look at digital amps more closely, which is where Devialet came into the equation. Condensing four boxes of hot tubes into a single integrated chassis that included Streaming and DAC was a major benefit for my small room. I have had a turbulent relationship with digital, owning 4 CDPs and an SACDP that caused me to grind my teeth when listening. Even top of the line maga $$$ outfits sounded too 'electronic' for my taste.
I finally managed to get a demo of the Magico speakers driven by a single chassis Devialet and I loved what I heard enough to take the plunge and order a system....a pair of Magico S1 MkII and 440. I also needed new cabling so this time went for Synergistic Research, who offer what I believe are well matched components in their Atmosphere power and speaker cables.
The system is currently being manufactured and should be with me by the end of October....which brings me finally to my questions (thank God I hear you sigh
).
My broadband enters my house in my lounge, where the modem/wifi router box is situated. According to my ISP (Virgin) I have 200mbps coming to the house to their most recent Hub 3.0, which unfortunately has no USB ports. Running various speed tests my Broadband is plenty fast (up in the 80Mbps range download) but the wi-fi seems fairly weak (could be to do with the positioning of the Hub, which is at a room boundary. My hi-fi room is upstairs roughly 10 meters from the Hub. I am keen to get the very best results from my Devialet, so am looking for the optimum set up. I have ordered a 10m Synergistic ethernet cable, so could connect directly from Hub 3.0 to the Devialet. I also intend to add a 3TB Apple Time Capsule (NAD and wi-if base station) to back up and share music. So, can you please tell me, what is the best way to get music to/from my Devialet, bearing in mind my networking and my CD collection? I have a iPad Pro and could add Apple MacBook Pro and Apple Airport Express modules if that got the best results. Thanks for taking the time to read this rather long message. Cheers Steve
I'm now in the middle of changing my system. Unlike many, I tend to buy a system, listen to it for some years then move the whole thing on for something new. My current system comprises Sonus Faber Guarneri Homage with Gravis B subwoofer and an all tube linestage, amp and CDP sitting on Finite Elemente racks. The system is powered and cabled with Shunyata. My room is quite small and I have my speakers firing across the width in order to get speakers well away from walls. On listening, the soundstage I get usually fills the room (close your eyes and it sounds like a far bigger room) and the speakers truly do disappear. I have a fairly large CD collection
A couple of months ago I decided to buy an iPad and a bluetooth speaker in order to put a toe into I streaming and help me find new music. I bought a Naim Mu-so Qb, which for the price is a pretty impressive little box. I took out subscriptions to Apple Music and Tidal. I'm really enjoying the ability to create players lists of my favourite tracks and share other people's playlists to find new tunes that I like.
This lead me to wanting to upgrade my present system, but with 4 big boxes full of tubes I had no more rack space and didn't really want to add yet more heat generating capacity to my room with a matching DAC. So I decided to turn over my entire system.
I auditioned speakers, choosing those I thought would work well in my small room. It came down to 2, the YG Carmel and the Magico S1 MkII. I auditioned the YGs with some AVM kit, which was based on digital amps and ps and sample rate conversion to 192. Frankly, I was most impressed with how detailed, transparent, pure and unfatiguing it sounded, so started to look at digital amps more closely, which is where Devialet came into the equation. Condensing four boxes of hot tubes into a single integrated chassis that included Streaming and DAC was a major benefit for my small room. I have had a turbulent relationship with digital, owning 4 CDPs and an SACDP that caused me to grind my teeth when listening. Even top of the line maga $$$ outfits sounded too 'electronic' for my taste.
I finally managed to get a demo of the Magico speakers driven by a single chassis Devialet and I loved what I heard enough to take the plunge and order a system....a pair of Magico S1 MkII and 440. I also needed new cabling so this time went for Synergistic Research, who offer what I believe are well matched components in their Atmosphere power and speaker cables.
The system is currently being manufactured and should be with me by the end of October....which brings me finally to my questions (thank God I hear you sigh
).My broadband enters my house in my lounge, where the modem/wifi router box is situated. According to my ISP (Virgin) I have 200mbps coming to the house to their most recent Hub 3.0, which unfortunately has no USB ports. Running various speed tests my Broadband is plenty fast (up in the 80Mbps range download) but the wi-fi seems fairly weak (could be to do with the positioning of the Hub, which is at a room boundary. My hi-fi room is upstairs roughly 10 meters from the Hub. I am keen to get the very best results from my Devialet, so am looking for the optimum set up. I have ordered a 10m Synergistic ethernet cable, so could connect directly from Hub 3.0 to the Devialet. I also intend to add a 3TB Apple Time Capsule (NAD and wi-if base station) to back up and share music. So, can you please tell me, what is the best way to get music to/from my Devialet, bearing in mind my networking and my CD collection? I have a iPad Pro and could add Apple MacBook Pro and Apple Airport Express modules if that got the best results. Thanks for taking the time to read this rather long message. Cheers Steve
