Recent content by JonRA

A quick update on this thread... after a few months more critical listening to music streamed via Amazon link, I decided that its quality wasn't quite as good as my CDs after all - close, but I think the CDs had the edge. I presumed this was because of the DAC in the Link. After a bit of...

This wasn't a deliberate test - nor is is part of a typical What HiFi product test - but this morning I managed to drop my Hip Dac 2 from about three feet onto concrete. Not a mark on it and it still works perfectly. I'll try not to repeat, but it is reassuring that it seems to be as robust as...

Yes, much of my formative years were spent listening to The Beatles, Cream, The Who and even Kraftwerk on a mono record player in a large, wooden-floored room - still loved the music but I am rediscovering it nowadays (also courtesy of Amazon Music) and am amazed at how much more there is to it.

That's interesting - I tried that with my phone plugged into a Hip Dac 2 plugged into my amp via RCA phono leads - it worked pretty well but before the phono leads arrived I had already ordered my first streamer (impatient!) I ordered an Echo Link and as a basic connection, I am very pleased...

Not exactly thrown away - although I was going to take my vinyl collection to a charity shop before my mother-in-law's possessions were sent for auction in 2016 and I tacked them on to that sale. Around 150-200 of the 70s finest (to me at least) went for 750gbp. I was quite pleased at the time...

John Martyn's Solid Air - the track, though the whole album has plenty of Danny Thompson's acoustic bass wizzardry on it - none of your newfangled electric stuff ;) View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UikPQOaJpfU

It is definitely a marmite design but even my 2008-ish example has a reasonable sound to it - they are pretty heavy. The new ones have been considerably reworked and I imagine the sound is better still. But they are still marmite!

Funnily enough, after gulping at the height of the ceiling, I thought that a Zeppelin might work as a single source solution. I have one of the first Zeppelins in my living room (smaller than the OP's at about 25ft long, 12 ft wide and 8ft high) and it provides a reasonable room filling sound if...

I had read that they are sometimes on offer, like most of the Amazon devices, so I waited until the Prime days earlier this month... No such luck. Echo Dots, which can be used to provide voice control were down to £19.99 IIRC but nothing off the Link. But it's still a pretty inexpensive option.

Now I'm googling cowbells!

As previously mentioned, I'm a newbie so please treat this post according to my lack of expertise :) Earlier this year I bought my first decent music system for decades - a Denon PMA600NE amp, a Denon DCD600NE CD player and a pair of Dali Spektor 2 speakers in order to revisit my CD...

I've just got two channels and only considered a sub after reading how they can add bass. I wasn't overly worried about the bass on my (pretty tiny) Spektors but thought I would see what difference it could make. I keep the subwoofer on around 30% of its volume control most of the time and it...

I would have said that if you want to listen to a system critically, even if only for 25% of the time, any system that doesn't let you enjoy your music that way is going to feel a bit of a let down. I like having background music when I'm reading or chatting or whatever, but what really gives me...

I'm a newbie (to the forum and to more-than-very- basic systems, so feel free to ignore me :) but I have a similar-ish set of speakers (Dali Spektor 2) and was thinking of upgrading to some Oberon 5's but driven by not wanting to throw out my Spektors so soon after purchase, I decided to add a...

Well, the 'what next?' soon came round and I've just added a basic Yamaha subwoofer to my set up. I'm really pleased with it despite using it with the volume set low - it just seems to give an extra depth to the sound without losing any of the Spektor's clarity. A bit basic by the standards of...