Open Season

[Alaric]

We have threads for analogue, What CD, etc.. So I'm going to kite this and see how she flies. No matter the source, what are you listening to today? I'll kick it off with a small portion of what I'm irritating the neighbors with on a Saturday afternoon. At the moment it's Joan Jett covering Gary Glitter's 'Do You Wanna Touch Me?', and JJ covering The Stooges 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'. Next up is Wolfmother's 'Woman' followed by Godsmack's 'Voodoo'. Then I'll be moving on to Scruggs and Flatt's Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Johnny Cash covering Sound Garden's 'Rusty Cage'. I'll leave Natalie Merchant and Linda Ronstadt for a future post. So what is scratching your musical itch today? Share it with us and let us explore your musical world. Maybe we'll find musical paths we wouldn't otherwise have discovered.

[madmac]

Lately I've become obsessed with this CD. Can't get enough of it ! This was the 2nd CD I bought for my first CD player back in the early 80's !

[JonMarsh]

Not on a CD, but on a new music server setup with sonicTransporter and microRendu, into my Vega and Taurus Pre. (had been doing a fair amount of headphone listening with that setup with CD transport, using headphones, and continuing that...




But also, one of my favorite female artists... via the new setup, on Roon on my iPad Pro...

IMG_0447 by Jon Hancock, on Flickr


First time I've tried Roon, but I can easily see why some people think it makes everything else in playback software look like Schiit. And I don't mean a Yggrdrasil.

[Alaric]

That's an impressive list of guests on Lee Ritenour's album! Holy cow. I'm not familiar with Ms. Brookes but I'll be looking in to that album now. Thanks! I'm also not familiar with Roon. (Googling now). OK, got it. Have you found any playback software that sounds any different than the others? I had one bit of software to replace Media Player (can't remember the name) and it regularly corrupted my music folder. I also thought Media Player sounded better, but it could have just been my brain not liking the player. LOL

[JonMarsh]

well, once you get to a certain level of playback software, things should be pretty equivalent- if they support the same hardware.

My NAD M50 has very good hardware, but if you're not fond of BluOS, then, you're out of luck. BluOS is quirky about dealing with albums it's not familiar with, and organizing stuff like that, and the metadata stuff is just so-so. IMO. YMMV.

Roon is split up into components that can sit on different pieces of hardware, or all on the same hardware- for example, you could have a Roon setup that sits on a PC or Mac, and the core, the controller, and the output renderer could all just sit on that computer. But, given that computers are kind of noisy beasts, and are NOT deterministic as regards realtime control, other solutions may be preferable sonically and also from a structural and flexibility point of view.

What the core does:

The core manages your music collection from many sources, and builds an interconnected digital library using enhanced information from Roon.

In my case, the core is a Linux version pre-installed on the sonicTransporter, which is a purpose built microPC with a local SSD for the OS and which ever server software you select (Roon in this case) plus networking and USB- it can use external USB or be equipped with an internal SSD drive for the library.

What the controller does is provide your interface to Roon:

You browse and play music with Roon apps on all your devices – Mac, Windows, iPad, iPhone, and Android devices.

In my case, we install that on iPads- free app.


Audio output can be assigned to many locations or devices:

Roon streams to all the audio gear you have, and makes it all play nice together. Any Mac or Windows PC can be an output, as can Airplay, Squeezebox, and Meridian network players. For the ultimate in performance audio, use network players from our Roon Ready partners.

In this case, it's sent over Ethernet to the microRendu, which is purpose built Ethernet to USB audio render, running Roon software and it's own Linux OS (off an SD card of all things), and purpose built for very low noise including linear regulators for the USB interface. It has over a half dozen types of software rendering modes, but in my case it's setup (via a browser configuration program) to the Roon licensed software.

So, it's a very flexible platform as regards how it can be configured in your own system, and more and more people are supporting it in their network player and control products. This appeals to the tech geeks who want to configure and setup things with a specific or unusual hardware configuration.

But the real beauty from the end user viewpoint, especially the non-technical person (perhaps a typical wife? My GF is a little more technical than average, being an ex IBM systems engineer) is that it turns the experience of your music collection into something more like a custom web site built around your music collection with a lot of imported metadata and information about the artists and albums, and a lot more ways than usual of linking genres and discovering new stuff, plus integrating Tidal and other services (if that's your thing- it's not mine).

I've not got that much time on it yet, but so far I'm pretty impressed- certainly enough to pay for the first year subscription. Whether I'll go for a lifetime or not remains to be seen, but compared with the cost of a higher end audio setup, it's not that out of line, IMO.

BTW, I like Jonatha Brooke quite a bit, including her earlier efforts with a group/duo called Story, that's where 10C wings comes from. She has her own web site, well worth checking out if you like artists like that.

http://jonathabrooke.com

[Alaric]

Well, obviously Roon is a little more than a media player. 8O My current storage is my HTPC as I have a TV tuner card in my tower. It's actually a HTAEEPC (And Everything Else) with pretty limited HT, since it only feeds a stereo integrated through the motherboard's DAC. The first step in upgrading would likely be some new Schiit outboard of the computer. I'm nigh on certain a better DAC would be a huge upgrade. That's one of the main reasons I keep my SACD player. Redbook CDs I burn from my files sound orders of magnitude better than just playing them through a cheesy mini jack adapter. And it's still a pretty fair disc player in its own right.

[Alaric]

This afternoon seems to be devoted to female artists at my house. Natalie Merchant's "Break Your Heart" and the remastered "Jealousy" are winding down from some classic Linda Ronstadt. Preceeded by Blondie's "Maria" and Alison Krauss (with Robert Plant). Just to keep with the accidental gender theme I'll move on to Juice Newton (!). All streaming today as my CDs have mostly mysteriously disappeared over the last few years. It's amazing how much of my stuff doesn't vanish now that my dirtbag in-laws are no longer part of my life. Clearing the decks of those low lifes is the best thing I've done in decades.

[bigburner]

I'm really enjoying the NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts which are available on YouTube. They can be dowloaded at 720p with 192 kbps audio. I have about 70 concerts on a hard drive plugged into my OPPO Blu-ray player. The concerts range from 10 to 25 minutes long, and they all take place in the NPR offices. They are informal performances but charming.

Here's a new band I've just discovered called The Wild Reeds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TiEO149Ydc

Based on this performance I'll definitely buy their CD.

Do a search on "NPR Music" in YouTube and see the range of concerts available. This is a great way to discover new acts as well as revisiting old favourites.

Nigel.

[Alaric]

I honestly would not have thought of youtube and good audio at the same time. I will definitely check that out!

edit: And I did. I only had time for one song this morning. I'm looking forward to picking through the series, though.

[bigburner]

I honestly would not have thought of youtube and good audio at the same time.

The secret is NPR's recording standards. They make an effort to get it right. We all focus on the role of our equipment to provide high quality sound, and there's plenty of discussion about the sampling rate ("kHz") and dynamic range ("bit") of the recorded music, but we sometimes forget that the most important link in the chain is the way that the music was recorded. Anyway, that's my humble opinion!

Nigel.

[Chris D]

Amy Lee (i.e. Evanescence) has a new EP out. She's my #1 favorite power female vocalist, and I'd buy an album of her singing the alphabet song, if she made it.

New EP is pretty good. One song excellent. And as a U2 fan, I enjoy when others put out decent covers of their songs. She does a goth version of "With or Without You" which is creative, if not great.

[Alaric]

The secret is NPR's recording standards. They make an effort to get it right. We all focus on the role of our equipment to provide high quality sound, and there's plenty of discussion about the sampling rate ("kHz") and dynamic range ("bit") of the recorded music, but we sometimes forget that the most important link in the chain is the way that the music was recorded. Anyway, that's my humble opinion!

Nigel.

I agree completely. In fact, using that criteria has allowed me to be exposed I to music I wouldn't have otherwise tried and really broadened my musical horizons. That was what led me to Natalie Merchant and Sheryl Crow, for example, as well as a lot of acoustic performances. :T

Chris, I've heard of Amy Lee but haven't given her a listen yet. I guess I'll have to put her on my (not so anymore) short list. I'm also a fan of U2, as long as Bono is singing and not talking politics. LOL. And now that you mention them I think I'll fire up some of their stuff tomorrow.

[Lex]

My new to me music lately has been listening to Amy Winehouse live in London off UTube. She was quite talented. Tragic how it ended. She has some talented horn and sax players with her too on the recording session.

[Alaric]

I forget the name of her band but I thought they were very talented, as well. They seemed very polished in live performances from what I have heard of them. Amy Winehouse's live performances were all over the map as far as the quality of her work. Some of it was quite good and I have also seen some concert footage where she looked and sounded like the drugs had just about won. Damn shame. I felt really bad for her parents, too. Nobody should have to see their child go through that.

[bigburner]

I forget the name of her band but I thought they were very talented, as well.

I think the band is the Dap-Kings who usually play with Sharon Jones.

Nigel.

[Alaric]

I think the band is the Dap-Kings who usually play with Sharon Jones.

Nigel.

Yes! Thank you for that! Even in the worst concert footage I have seen of Ms. Winehouse, they were very good. Definitely not a "studio" band. Now I'll have to look in to Sharon Jones. I love this place.