The All Purpose Advice Thread - Part 2

If you have a UPnP server on your PC (other than the crappy Windows one), try either HiFi Cast or USB Audio Player Pro (which is now a full UPnP player & renderer as well as a great player for the music on your phone).

 

I am personally partial to Plexamp, but it requires running a Plex server plus a paid subscription for Plex.

 

For those who live in a dry climate (I live in Colorado), how do you guys deal with static? Lately I seem to be getting a lot of static, esp. through my ETA Mini C's, and sometimes it discharges inside the cups. I try to discharge to metal before using, but I'm still having issues. I'd love any advice on how to deal with this.

 

Get yourself an anti-static mat with a grounding wire. Should be $20 on Amazon. Put your gear/headphones on top, tap the pad before touching your gear and that's it.

If you find you're building up and discharging while wearing the headphones, time to get a humidifier.

 

Armaegis,

Great, thanks for the info. I'll throw one of those in my next Amazon cart.

 

I'm looking for an ultra compact computer speaker. This is for my kitchen pc setup, I have a usb-c monitor on an arm that I can swivel around, hooked up to my laptop. The speakers on my laptop are horrible, and the monitor doesn't have any built-in speakers. I would rather not have bluetooth or battery or external power brick and just run off usb (also willing to plug in an analog cable). Just want something small-ish enough to use some double sided tape and mount onto the backside of the monitor or the arm so it doesn't take up counter space. Not looking for fidelity, but something beyond $20 amazon crap.

Something like the size of the JBL Go could work. Is there anything similar but without the battery so I could squeeze a bit more performance out of that form factor? I was kinda curious about that Audeze speakerphone thing as it's nice and slim, but again don't need the battery or wireless capability.

 

Something like a soundbar? https://www.amazon.com/Dell-AC511M-Stereo-SoundBar/dp/B07FZY2MJN/ref=psdc_172471_t1_B09DJ1ZM5W?th=1

 

As my allo usbridge sig appears to be uncommunicative (both ethernet and USB dongle adapters), it looks like I'm now looking for a new USB source for my Walnut x.3. Since allow appears to be MIA, I'm not really interested in trying to purchase another usbridge sig (their site is up, but they do not respond to email and their support site is gone).

Any suggestions on a good/reasonable streamer with good USB output? (isolated with filtered power to the USB). I've tried streaming USB from rpi4 and results are less than stellar (top end glare, overall sounds harsh)... completely changed the character of a DAC that I really, really like.

 

Holo Red is still my favorite USB source, but maybe outside your budget. I actually compared recently to using USB from an Intel nuc running Roon ROCK and thought it sounded excellent (Unison Yiggy A2). Much better than using rasberry pi USB.

 

I thought about those, but is there any way to separate the wheat from the chaff? I used to have a similar one at my old workplace years ago and the sound was worse than the laptop speakers.

 

You are correct that the red is more than I was really looking to spend on this system... maybe if one comes up used... as for USB from a computer source, this location doesn't have a computer nearby and I'm not really wanting to get one just for this purpose (and I would have guessed a computer to be worse than a rpi4... but I guess it depends on the system)

I'm curious if the ifi streamers are considered to have good USB? I do use this system with roon, so it looks like the zen stream might fit the bill.

 

Probably worth a shot. I've heard they can be a bit finicky to get working. YMMV.

 

I haven't had this issue since Win7, but my Win10 workstation is suffering from some SERIOUS latency, it started out as an issue with Audio thru the OS dropping every few seconds and it's now reached a point where my key strokes are delayed... I had a tool kit of stuff for Win7 but not much of it still works.

Any quick tips would be handy!

Update - Apparently, there was some RBG controller "update" that came thru mid November, and a quick google search shows others with Pre-Built ASUS desktops having issues too... and now my key stroke problem is resolved as well.

What's more concerning is a lot of the programs as I went to uninstall weren't named and just popped up as "msi" programs with numbers and a few of them had non-English "uninstall" prompts... fun

Either way, I might have solved my own issue but I figured I'd chime in with my results in case anyone here or elsewhere has a similar issue in the future

FanControl is pretty handy for Windows 10! I gutted a bunch of the OEM RGB and fan software and I'm noticing more improvements.

 

Who the hell needs pretty lights inside a computer case anyway?

For a modern-day computer, playing music is trivial. It doesn't even need tweaks. There's a lot of unnecessary nervosa. But once DPC latency rears it's head it is a killer. And can be very hard to diagnose and fix. Like throw the machine away hard. Been there.

@Elmer Danilovich, I'm glad your problem got fixed without needing to go to those extremes!

 

I'm going to have a $250 Amazon credit soon and I'd like to get some iem's, mainly for tracking/monitoring my home recording projects. I don't like wearing big headphones while playing, and the idea of being able to just pop an iem in one ear is very appealing. It would also be nice if they could act as a neutral-ish reference point for mixing, not a main mixing tool, but just another way to check the mix. And thridly, if they were also decent for music listening on the rare occasion I might want them for that, but that's lowest priority.
I'm thinking about paying an extra $100 on top of my credit for the Senn ie400 pro. or just going with the Etymotic er4sr. Any other recommendations? I've never had or heard anything in-ear aside from bluetooth workout headphones so I'm extra clueless in the iem realm.
Is there something like an iem hd600 that doesn't cost a ton?

 

I'm not a fan of the Senn IE xxx Pro series. The 400 (the one I haven't heard) is according to @Brause the best of the lot, but he's an unreconstructed Senn fanboy. The others have weird tonal balances through the treble. I didn't like the 300 there either.

Moondrop Kato is a bit more bassy than strictly neutral, but might tick your boxes at $189. Here are impressions.

 

Another thing that works well (if you have carpets) is to do a 10:1 dilution of water and liquid fabric softener in a spray bottle and lightly mist the room. Reapply every couple of weeks or so.

 

I actually just saw that Amazon has the drop/erymotic er-x, I read @purr1n 's review and it seems like a good fit, but I'll check out the Kato impressions as well. Thanks!

 

I'm listening the the MHDT Orchid DAC. Is this supposed to have any specific output that sounds better than another?

 

I suspect you mean "input" not "output," because stock MHDT Labs Orchid's have a single RCA output (no choices there).

I've used the USB input, along with a well-regarded USB cable (original Lush Phasure), but as with every DAC I've had, I prefer the coaxial input. I used to use SPDIF converters to change the USB output of the computer to a high quality digital coaxial cable connected to the DAC. In recent years I switched to a DDC--I have the same Matrix Audio X-SPDIf 2 DDC in both my desktop systems.

I've done enough listening to coax vs USB on this DAC and several others to know at least for me, coax always sound better--clearer, more tonally correct, and missing that slight little quality of hashiness/roughness I hear from USB.

FWIW, if you're interested in changing the sound of the Orchid, the easiest way to do it is by rolling the buffer tube. That gives the most noticeable sonic difference from stock. Second would be using the coax input.