Good afternoon all,
I have been a regular reader of the magazine for quite some time but I didn't noticed there is a forum also. From what I see this is a nice place to share thoughts and I will be glad if you clear my mind on a few topics...
In a couple of weeks, I will be experiencing the agony of moving to a new city again. And as always, having not enough free space is a big problem. A friend of mine suggested me that I should stop moving my CD collection around and make high quality FLAC rips of them.
For some time, I have been meaning to buy a turntable and go back to analog system, thus it seemed a reasonable suggestion to get rid of CDs and clear some space. So I started to look my options in this area and found two solutions.
1) Laptop -> a USB supported DAC -> Amplifier -> Speakers
2) Laptop -> so-called Streaming Device -> Amplifier -> Speakers
If there are any more probabilities please tell.
Now my questions are,
1) In order to listen some music, do I have to open my laptop?
2) Assuming mid-budget options of a DAC and a streaming device, is there a difference in terms of sound quality? Or is it one system just connected with cables and the other one is wireless?
3) Squeezebox seems to be very popular but 2011 what hi-fi winners are different (cambridge audio product). And the money difference is not so much between the winner and Squeezebox, which is around 100£. So why this gadget is so popular? Maybe ease-of-use?
Thank you very much for your answers and time!
I have been a regular reader of the magazine for quite some time but I didn't noticed there is a forum also. From what I see this is a nice place to share thoughts and I will be glad if you clear my mind on a few topics...
In a couple of weeks, I will be experiencing the agony of moving to a new city again. And as always, having not enough free space is a big problem. A friend of mine suggested me that I should stop moving my CD collection around and make high quality FLAC rips of them.
For some time, I have been meaning to buy a turntable and go back to analog system, thus it seemed a reasonable suggestion to get rid of CDs and clear some space. So I started to look my options in this area and found two solutions.
1) Laptop -> a USB supported DAC -> Amplifier -> Speakers
2) Laptop -> so-called Streaming Device -> Amplifier -> Speakers
If there are any more probabilities please tell.
Now my questions are,
1) In order to listen some music, do I have to open my laptop?
2) Assuming mid-budget options of a DAC and a streaming device, is there a difference in terms of sound quality? Or is it one system just connected with cables and the other one is wireless?
3) Squeezebox seems to be very popular but 2011 what hi-fi winners are different (cambridge audio product). And the money difference is not so much between the winner and Squeezebox, which is around 100£. So why this gadget is so popular? Maybe ease-of-use?
Thank you very much for your answers and time!