WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 2, 2017 21:15:04 GMT
Bought one today. I was in Currys to collect Boy 1's required-for-sixth-form Chromebook and there was a stack of them behind the counter, priced at a tempting £20.
Tempting because I'd read earlier that my preferred streaming service, Deezer Hifi, née Elite, has (a) broken its dependence on Sonos, which is how I've been using it at home, and (b) promised to incorporate MQA encoding and thus stream high-bitrate music at 16-bit data rates, along with MQA's magical quasi-analogue timing corrections.
Anyway, technical details on what hardware I'll need to enjoy all this are sketchy. Seems unlikely the Deezer client in my Sonos boxes will be updated with an MQA decoder - in a multi-room network that would leave a lot of work to be done simultaneously in each player without breaking synchronisation - but it may well be that the Windows and/or Mac client will be. So I'd need a means of playing the decoded stream and the supported one is - yes - Chromecast Audio, either built expensively into a self-contained speaker or, as here, in a unit the size, shape and colour of a Pontefract cake.
So I can play about a bit and see if it's any good. Meanwhile, ponder the psychology: at £30, this would have felt like a lot to spend on an unnecessary experiment, but at £20 it seems almost free.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2017 0:16:59 GMT
I wish I wanted this stuff, because it sounds like fun.
But sadly, I don't. My phone is always around and either bluetooths or networks to most thing around the house and even in the PPOS, though it requires a cable in the real Landcruiser. I'm sure your toes would curl at the sound quality, but it sounds just fine to me.
But then I'm mostly a radio man anyway. I did go and gets us the family Spotify account (the first piece of software I have ever actually bought for a phone or any other mobile device!!) thinking that I should aspire to be more like WDB, I do quite admire his approach. To be fair daughters 1 & 2 hammer it to the tune of 6 or 7GB a month each - though that includes an unknown amount of YouTube videos.
But I can't quite see the use myself. Its the same reason I prefer linear channels and not VOD, I want to choose a style not have to worry about every track or what's next. And no, I truly can;t be arsed to make up playlists. That's about as much fun as making your own mix tapes, and that was BAF as well.
On top of all that, I really dislike voice control. It doesn't help that I feel like a bit of a dick using it, but the commands it does understand I can push buttons more quickly and the ones where it would be an advantage its not very good at. I do realise that I'm not very good at asking it questions, but that's not the point. I demand that it be made more useful forthwith.
If it could receive UK Radio, I'd have a transistor radio on my bookshelf and be very happy.
If I was ever to be invited to WDB's house, I reckon I'd be dead impressed, swear I was going to do the same myself, buy all the kit and then kind of not bother. I have cupboards full of technology I was sure was going to change my life. I even have a prototype 'MP3' player. It would hold 2 (yes, two) tracks, might have been three, no more. I was doing a contract in the company designing them and I thought they were amazing, so they gave me some. Still unused.
I wish I was older, I reckon I could perfect the art of technology hating.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 3, 2017 6:47:36 GMT
I'd actually agree with most of that, Otto. My house wouldn't impress you much: our 24-year-old heating system is controlled by a dial thermostat in the hall (why the hall? Only the cat spends any time there) tests even calibrated in °F. If I want to close the curtains, I get up and pull them. My cooker is rather good, but it doesn't even have its own timer.
I do have two Amazon Echo Dot devices, and I've trained the female demon that lives inside them to work with our Harmony remote control. But all she can do is turn the telly and its associated services on or off; anything further is easier and quicker with the buttons. I doubt I'll buy any more.
But I've always loved music, and regarded any investment in making it more enjoyable or accessible as worthwhile. The Sonos kit is great, unobtrusive, easy to use and remarkably good to listen to for such small units. (Bluetooth speakers, in contrast, are awful things that constantly lose connection.) Deezer has been a real blessing in terms of opening up the range of music I can listen to. Expensive at £200+ a year but it gets used every day by three out of four of us. I remain to be convinced by MQA because I've not heard it, but the technical and mathematical arguments are convincing. Up till now, I'd have had to buy the equipment and enough encoded files to give it something to do, but here it is on a service I already use, and with luck I'm only a software update away from playing it through my existing kit. Looking forward to finding out.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 3, 2017 10:37:22 GMT
I'm quite impressed with the gadget. Easy to set up - remember to turn on the Full Dynamic Range option - and now happily playing Mozart out of the Deezer app on my iPad and into the 3.5mm input of the Pure Contour that mostly serves radio duty in my WAH room.
The Pure is roughly the sonic equal of the Sonos Play:1 that sits next to it, but it ain't hi-fi and I can't tell through it or the Deezer app whether this is now a FLAC stream or the old 320k one. Next step will be to rummage for a free input at the back of my A5 to see how it sounds through the proper rig.
But for £20 and so little effort, I reckon most people could find a good use for one of these.
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