« Last post by BSD2000 on April 06, 2017, 09:19:35 AM »
My Denon receiver came last week and I had a few days to mess with it. So far, it's a mixed bag; some good some not-so-good. I'll update this post with a review in the next few days.
« Last post by BSD2000 on April 01, 2017, 07:04:10 AM »
If you’ve got a thing for vinyl, then you’ve got a thing for turntables too. Both are dependent upon the other, and as worldwide sales of LPs hit upwards of 3 million copies in 2016 according to several news outlets, turntable manufacturers saw demand for their products rise in kind.
According to SEV Litovel – the manufacturer referred to as the largest producer of quality turntables in the world, and which provides Pro-Ject Audio with a number of models – the company’s production rose four-fold in the seven years between 2009, and 2016 to more than 124,000 ‘tables
Heinz Lichtenegger, who is director at Pro-Ject, attributed part of the huge growth in sales to the way people were choosing to listen to music on vinyl in an attempt to “…make their life more enjoyable, more slow.”
Jiri Mencl, the managing director of SEV Litovel, said the company opened a new $7.2 million USD turntable production facility this year in order to keep pace with demand, and expects approximately 400 employees to build 150,000 units – ranging in price from $2,000 to $10,000 USD – within three years.
« Last post by BSD2000 on March 25, 2017, 01:07:22 PM »
2017 update: Since my last update I added a QNAP TS-451+ quad core 4-bay mini server with four 2TB Toshiba server hard drives (6TB available in RAID 5), another 5TB USB 3.0 Seagate and a Seagate 2-bay 'cloud' storage drive with 8TB's of space.
So far, the Xeon server is working flawlessly with six enterprise level Seagate drives in a RAID 5 (no more mixing and matching desktop drives!). I use KLS Backup Professional to automate the nightly backups to two 5TB external drives and my Seagate cloud server. If you run a Windows Server, I highly recommend KLS Backup Professional.
I also setup a Windows 7 virtual machine as my torrent client with all the traffic going through a VPN for anonymity.
It has almost everything I was looking for - a decent amount of power (125W/ch @ 0.05% THD, 4ohm stable), 4K Ultra HD upscaling on all analog inputs, HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.2, DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby True HD, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, DSD audio playback (2.8Mhz), network playback with DLNA support, front USB port, audio preamp outputs, dual band WIFI, phono input (I might move my Denon turntable in the living room), Audyssey Platinum DSP Suite (MultEQ XT32) and AL24 plus processing. The only thing it's missing is 128x 5.6Mhz DSD playback, but the only files I have in that format are a few I recorded with my Korg MR-2000S.
I called Parasound and the closest authorized repair shop is only about 35 miles away - so in the coming months I plan on dropping off my HCA-2205A so they can check it out. I have no idea how many channels burned out, but it's at least two. I'm afraid to plug it in and test it for fear of destroying what's left of it. Actually, it's been a 'problem child' from the beginning with the center channel cutting out within a few years of owning it (which was fixed under the 10 year warranty); then conveniently burning out again after the warranty expired. If they can repair it at a reasonable cost, I'll end up using the Denon as a preamp with the Parasound since I'm sure the Parasound is a much better sounding amp (when it works).
To help fund the amp repair I'll probably end up selling my Parasound Halo C2 preamp/processor. I paid a staggering $3,200 for it; and as far as sound quality goes, it was worth every penny. Nowadays it's only worth about $450 on eBay, but if you don't need all the latest and greatest audio formats or streaming capabilities - it's still a fantastic 5.1 DD/DTS processor, high-end 96k/24bit DAC and amazing audio preamp with XLR analog outputs. The DAC in it is amazing and sweet - the best I ever heard; even better than my Audio-GD NFB-12.1 DAC. I know once I sell it I'll end up missing it. The Denon uses Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM) AK4458 DACs, which is the same brand used in my Halo C2 (AK4393), so I'm hoping it sounds just as good.
« Last post by Admin on January 20, 2017, 06:52:02 AM »
Vinyl Audio is going on it's 6th year and things haven't changed much around here, so I thought I'd start thinking about a major overhaul of the design, layout and logo. The forum software we use has been patched over 100 times and I think it's about time we hit the reset button and start off clean and with the newest versions of the core modifications and incorporate some new ones. My original plan was to wait until version 2.1 of SMF Forum software was released, but it's still in the beta stages, so it looks like we're stuck using v2.0.xx for the foreseeable future.
Here's a few more reasons for the overhaul:
Fix all of the hard coded http calls since we are now able to use secure https connections. Going through all of the patches and changing them by hand would take forever. Use a single theme that is responsive and works throughout the entire forum. Upgrade all of the PHP code that's using deprecated calls that are no longer supported in the newer version of PHP that we use. The error log fills up daily with deprecated PHP calls and other error messages from using outdated code. Cut back and simplify the amount of PHP and CSS changes that took place over the last 5 years for easier debugging. Fully utilize Bootstrap CSS, Google's Font Awesome and a single set of icons to unify the look and feel of all areas of the forum.
I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to accomplish the transition yet, I may move the current forum to a different folder or sub domain while I work on things in the background. I'll let you know when I'm at the point to go live with the changes, but that will be quite a ways off in the future.
For now, watch for news and updates on my progress, maybe a poll or two asking for your opinion and suggestions on some of the changes along the way.
« Last post by Man Duka on January 19, 2017, 04:22:07 PM »
Dear friends, we are ready to launch our project CoverArt on KickStarter, an innovative procedure to transform your favourite LP covers into wall art. We have been working hard but now are very happy to bring you the fruit of our efforts. By pre-ordering today you will help us and will also save up to 30%. Become a supporter and receive our love and gratitude! Thanks to your contribution, you'll be the first to receive our products: just follow the instructions here: Thank you and may the force be with us!
Recent Posts
Fix all of the hard coded http calls since we are now able to use secure https connections. Going through all of the patches and changing them by hand would take forever.
