I honestly believe that CD quality is the sweet spot. As a format it exceeds what the human ear can resolve, which is why that was the bit rates and such chosen at the time it was created, I’m sure.

All that hires stuff… probably, in my opinion, a cash grab to drive more sales of the stuff people already owned.

A MiniDSP to split the signal and boom. Or rather, no more boom.

https://www.paradigm.com

https://hsuresearch.com

Paradigm is an established Canadian manufacturer that makes some outstanding stuff, and Hsu is a great sub specialist. Good shit. Not sure how good these particular Paradigms are off hand.

Well yes, but to be fair, he had 30 years of building time on it, and that was no doubt extremely satisfying. Also, by the time he got that done, his aging ears were probably the weakest link - growing old sucks.

Probably not a mystery; financial realities.

RIP to the system Fritz built (and I hope Fritz isn’t turning over in his grave now what it’s gotten dissected.)

The fact that it’s a default option in an online shopping system is in and of itself deeply alarming and disgusting. I would expect the staff to get a living wage at any business I deal with.

Because free money from dummies?

Tipping culture in the US is vomit, to the point where it’s apparently now metastasizing.

That’s pretty fucking disgusting, not gonna lie.

I’m making a point of not toeing mine in. Might toe them out… but straight forward at least. They get pretty forward in their presentation when aimed dead on.

Don’t ask us, ask your audiologist or doctor.

I SAID ASK YOUR DOCTOR! NO, NOT DAUGHTER, DOCTOR! DOCTOR!! ;)

Yep, life truly is finite, and one man’s life long passion usually dies with him.

Would have been really interesting to get in there and listen to the system before it was (essentially) destroyed, what with it being extremely bespoke for that space.

Irrationality is a very human thing.

We’re incredible pattern matching devices. 8 billion faces out there and all unique and we can detect the minute differences between them, even brothers who look very similar can be very distinct.

So we’re fantastic at patterns. And if there are no patterns, we invent patterns.

There’s also placebo, where - after we’ve invented the pattern - our brain is more than happy to confirm there is such a pattern. We know it’s a more expensive cable, so then we know it sounds a lot better. And then our brain agrees it sounds a lot better.

Humans are just not rational and we’re certainly not objective. And then someone claims cable A is better, because reasons. Person 2 hears this and is inclined to believe person 1. Boom, now two people are saying it’s better.

Hey, at least you have a plan and an aesthetic goal. Nobody gets to tell anyone else that their room sucks just because you have different sensibilities imo. It’s the people who don’t give a shit at all I personally wonder what they’re thinking.

Technology weenies are often not that artistic. There’s a little something to that meme about how men would be fine living in a bare apartment as long as it had a mattress, a chair, a carton of beer and a huge TV.

Wife approval factor can be an awful thing but not always.

I’m no Rembrandt but at least I try to make every room in my place have its own identity so to speak, and try to match colors, have artwork, a few knick-knacks (though not a lot) and so on.

Mine are sorted into alphabetical folders, then band name, then albums. The album are named after a standard (year first). The songs are named after another standard. All files have been either MP3Gained or Replaygained when I ripped them. Metadata is also standardized when ripping, so they have stuff like album art and other important information. Much of it is gathered automatically off the Internet of course, not hand-typed.

Then there are numerous ways of accessing them, in my personal case a Logitech Media Server (Squeezeserver/Squeezebox) that’s now open source does the honors. Been too cheap to go full Roon.

Optical output means it’s not really being decoded by a DAC. It’s just sending digital data. The decoding then happens at the DAC or in the amp/receiver. In other words, the data coming out of this should be just as good as any other data, no matter how expensive the player. That’s what digital is. It’s ones and zeros. If it gets there intact, it’s either all there or none of it is.

Yeah probably won’t get a lot of positive feedback on that Polk. They’re entry level and perform accordingly. But then again, nobody has to like your system except you, so congrats on at least adding some bass.