an accidental discovery-perhaps others have already commented on this, but it was new, and a surprise, to me.
background; my primary system consists of a Transporter-->MF A5 integrated. Transporter is connected via ethernet, as is a 4-5 y/o mac mini. music is stored on an external FW800 drive, with a 2nd daisy chained to the first for backup. (the meridian set up in my sig is old) Elsewhere in the home i have a touch, 2 Radios, and 2 Booms. i will likely add another touch in the near future. these days I'm also listening to a lot of vinyl, on an Avid Diva II SP, with Dyna 20x2H. Speakers are older Vienna Beethovens (not grands). the TT is newer, but the Transporter, amp & speakers have been in my system for at least 10 years, and i'm very familiar, and comfortable, with the way they sound. i use iTunes for ripping, and metadata editing, on a separate laptop, then copy the files to the mini using iTunes on the mini. i've also used iTunes integration mode in LMS (7.8, and every iteration before that). part of the reason being I used iTunes before i bought a slim devices, and it always seemed too much trouble to switch. and for a while, i occasionally used Pure Music on the mini, with the transporter as a dac. i like setting up genre based smart playlists in iTunes, based on playcount, as a way to delve deeper into my fairly large collection, and there was never an easy way to accomplish this in LMS. the excellent Smart Mix plugin has changed how I listen however, as has Qobuz hifi. recently, my local power company helpfully cut all power to our house, w/ no notice, as part of a "maintenance upgrade" for the neighborhood. when power was restored, I couldn't get either HD to mount on the mini, and further investigation showed the backup to be trashed. so i ordered a NAS, with the intention of running LMS on it, eliminating the mini & itunes all together. in prep for the move, I switched off iTunes integration on the mini so i could experiment with how LMS organized things on its own, and was able to mount the main music HD. and it sounds better. punchier, greater dynamic range (less compressed?), perhaps a little fuller? perhaps there's less processing overhead on the server- no idea. i have done no a/b testing, nor do i intend to. the difference is clear, and all the more striking for being unexpected- i made the change for -organizational- purposes, with zero thought about SQ. disclaimer: my system, my ears. ymmv. -- 4 TB Drobo-->FW 800-->mac mini-->Ethernet Transporter--> Wireworld Eclipse 6 coax-->Meridian G61 G61--> Nordost Red Dawn-->Primare 30.3 Primare-->Ocos--Vienna Acoustics Beethoven/Maestro ------------------------------------------------------------------------ netchord's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=21002 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=101788 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
