matthewb.eth on Warpcast

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by popular request (okay just @ted and @nicholas) here is an overview of our hi-fi setup: * but first, why? listening to music can be either a passive activity, like background music while cooking or commuting, or an activity that demands your full attention. if the latter, then the quality of your experience is shaped by the ability of your system to reproduce music. this means everything from source (streaming, CD, vinyl, reel-to-reel tape) → amplification → volume control (preamp) → speakers and all of the cables in between. maybe this all sounds dumb (who cares about cables???) but until you have a once-in-a-lifetime experience listening to a really great system, you won't know what you're missing from your favourite music. not just technical qualities like detail or extension, but emotion, texture, and meaning. hi-fi is a great real-world example of plato's cave, because once you've heard what you're missing... you can't unhear it. [1/4]

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* speakers: dutch & dutch 8c they look pretty normal, just big "bookshelf" speakers, but they are high-tech under the hood. 8c are some of the only speakers in the world with a cardioid dispersion pattern, meaning that frequencies >100Hz only radiate forward and don't interact with the walls nearby. this makes them basically immune to whatever room you stick them in, so they always sound great. the biggest challenge in hi-fi is usually the room, not the speakers/electronics. they have two 8" subs on the back and use close placement to the wall behind them to extend their frequency range flat to 20Hz. the average speaker you've heard probably extends to 100Hz or 80Hz, meaning that you're missing several octaves of low-end info. despite their modest size, I'd characterize the 8c as having a big immersive sound with great detail and extension. they can be ruthless though and will reveal flaws in production, which can be annoying. @nicholas listened to them extensively at our place, maybe he can chime in.

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* streamer/dac: roon + 8c contrary to most hi-fi gear, the 8c have streaming built in via ethernet as well as digital → analog conversion (otherwise known as a DAC). this works with an audiophile music app called roon, which is a slick interface for playing lossless and high-res music via tidal, qobuz, or similar streaming services. it's a bit more clunky than say, spotify, but it's not bad. roon requires a dedicated box (basically a NUC) to act as a server which sits on our little coffee table stand. it does all of the heavy lifting while the small "player" chip inside the speakers handles the rest. this may seem complex but it is actually among the simplest and no fuss setups possible for hi-fi. typically the goal is to separate each function to its own dedicated device, which can mean 5-10+ boxes to handle everything you need from streaming to volume control and amplification. this setup is just one box connected to ethernet + ethernet to the speakers.

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* what's next? even though our system is great, one of the curses of hi-fi is always wanting to climb the mountain and reach higher even if nothing is wrong. so, that means larger passive speakers with amp(s) and preamp, all those messy boxes. if anyone reads and enjoys this long post (let me know!) I'll write more about this stuff and share some details about the system we're putting together.

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GENUINE JACK pfp

I really enjoyed this!

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erica pfp

excuse me that rug though 👀

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Goals. For now I just have a real nice headset - but once I figured out where I want to live for a longer time I definitely want a setup like this. Pls talk more about it. There's worlds between consuming passively VS actively. And latter is much more fulfilling and in the end leaves more of a mark.

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