RDock on Arcam Solo - Which interconnect ?

[admin_exported]

Interested to hear from anyone using their Arcam Solo with the RDock to connect their IPOD.

I spent the other day (sad) messing around with various cables to connect it, and came to the conclusion that the cheaper cables gave the best overall impression The cables I tried were

QED Qunex 1 - This one seemed to perform the best and gave a nice warm rounded sound

QED Qunex 4s - Far too harsh.

VDH The Second - Far too detailed - I was testing using 192KBps MP3's and you could tell

profigold ?? - (cheapest cables) - nearly as good as the Qunex 1, just seemed a bit more "muffled".

would be interested to hear other peoples opinions and experiences.

 

[Andrew Everard]

You're not making a great case for the sound quality of MP3, you know, if you need a lower resolution cable to cover up all those nasties!

🙂

 

[Anonymous]

actually, it is interesting what you say - For 2 years now I have had my whole cd collection ripped to a hard drive at 320KBps. I have been using this with a netgear mp101 and a cambridge audio a5 amp to produce what up until now sounded reasonable.

since purchasing the Arcam Solo, and selectively picking CDs back out of the archive and comparing the listening experience with the wirelessly streamed mp3s, there really is no comparison. I am considering ripping them all again in some losless format, but before I do that I think the ideal solution lies somewhere between getting an mp101 replacement that has a digital out, and using the arcam DAC to do the conversion.

At the moment however I am enjoying the actual part of the process where I pick a CD, and pop it in the drawer. It feels kinda "retro" 🙂

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="lazaroonie"]
At the moment however I am enjoying the actual part of the process where I pick a CD, and pop it in the drawer. It feels kinda "retro" 🙂[/quote]

That's the kind of nostalgia you usually hear from vinyl die-hards...

 

[Thaiman]

Laza, you make me feel so old reading your post, however I still think the silver discs will still be with us for a long while yet regardless of mp3, mp4 or whatever the trend is now a day. As your system stand, you only can hear half of what your Solo can do! If you prefer convenience over sound qaulity I have no problem with that as it's your choice but why worry about interconnect? red and white freebies will do the a better job as £150/metre pair! if you are using compress files as a source. Don't take my word for it, do a BLIND test and you will find out for yourself.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Thaiman, I always enjoy your input to this forum, you always have something worthwhile to say.

I guess I was trying to make the point that the interconnect DOESNT actually matter when the source is compressed - in actual fact there is an argument for saying that you should use as cheap a cable as possible with this type of setup, so as not to reveal to much compression.

TThe convenience factor is a trade off against decent sound quality - even my wife can hear it (and she thinks this hifi business is all snake oil) - To give you an example, I will be having a party at the weekend where I can setup a playlist running to several hours - meaning that we dont need to change discs, argue over music etc, and it means I can get on with the real important business - making cocktails 🙂

cheers

 

[Thaiman]

Laza, I certainly doesn't want some cables manufacture's boss hunt me down and slap me on the wrist by posting some silly comments about their cables on the net! but the fact is although I can hear the different between some cables, most of them will sound so similar ,if not the same, when you are blind folded! I have done it and a lot of people I know did it too....the results shocked me so when I said about freebies cables will be as good I didn't mean to sound like a hifi snob....It was from an hands on (or ....ears on) experienced!