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Residency Evil posted:I'm looking at home theater speakers again. For the main speakers, floor standers are pretty much always going to sound better than bookshelf sized speakers? Say, a 1k pair of floor standing speakers versus a $1k pair of bookshelf-sized speakers (like the KEF LS50, for example)? It can get a bit complicated. In general, a floorstanding speaker will have more/larger drivers and a larger cabinet volume, which just by itself will make the speaker more efficient and play lower frequencies better, since the drivers will have a larger volume of air to work with. For a given desired volume level, the larger speaker will (as a general rule) require less power and have less distortion. However this is also highly dependent on design and tuning, so simply saying "bigger = better" is an oversimplification. For speakers within the same series, I would be confident in saying that the floorstanding speakers are generally just better all-round than the bookshelf speakers, aside from taking up more space, which may or may not be a problem for you.
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Jan 6, 2021 15:39
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Maybe a bit off beat but I used to use Google rewards money to buy loose tracks on GPM. Now that its shut down, whats my best way to buy single tracks? I wont say I'll never stream but I dont want that to ever be my primary listening source
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Jan 6, 2021 15:54
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KozmoNaut posted:It can get a bit complicated. How about this example: I can get KEF LS50s or these KEFs: https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/kefq950wlna/kef-q950-8-2.5-way-floorstanding-speaker-walnut-each-new/1.html For about the same price. Doesn't it make sense to go with the Q950s every single time?
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Jan 6, 2021 16:20
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Residency Evil posted:How about this example: Can you listen to them?
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Jan 6, 2021 16:26
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Residency Evil posted:How about this example: For me, I'd rather have a set of bookshelf speakers with a subwoofer than a set of floorstanders sans subwoofer. Low frequencies are so dependent on room positioning and having a sub gives you flexibility with placement that you don't have with floor-standers. Something like a Revel M16 or ELAC DBR-62 with a decent sub would beat either of those options, I'd think.
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Jan 6, 2021 16:34
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powderific posted:For me, I'd rather have a set of bookshelf speakers with a subwoofer than a set of floorstanders sans subwoofer. Low frequencies are so dependent on room positioning and having a sub gives you flexibility with placement that you don't have with floor-standers. Something like a Revel M16 or ELAC DBR-62 with a decent sub would beat either of those options, I'd think. What if I already have a subwoofer? I have a Hsu VF2-Mk5.
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Jan 6, 2021 16:37
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Residency Evil posted:How about this example: The Q950's are on sale right now for $800 if that makes a difference. If we are taking a big open space, I think you'll enjoy them much more than the LS-50's. I have a pair of the anniversary LS-50's and they're FANTASTIC desktop speakers, but not so wonderful in my big open 1st floor family room.
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Jan 6, 2021 18:24
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Residency Evil posted:What if I already have a subwoofer? I have a Hsu VF2-Mk5. It’s about the size/scale of your room. KEF sells single LS50s to be used in HT setups, so they clearly don’t think they’re inappropriate for the use case. Still, for that kind of HT setup, if I had the space, I’d go with floorstanders+ a sub. Are these only going in a 2.1 arrangement? Will there be a center channel? If so, that’s going to have a much bigger effect on the overall performance in HT surround mode. It’ll be the “limiting reagent” so to speak. In that case, having an LS50 center matched to LS50 R/L will mesh better and probably extract more value from the speakers than pairing a tiny center channel with two big floorstanders that will be held back. Ultimately that would be decided by the amount of space under your TV, etc.
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Jan 6, 2021 18:48
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Ok Comboomer posted:It’s about the size/scale of your room. KEF sells single LS50s to be used in HT setups, so they clearly don’t think they’re inappropriate for the use case. Right now it's only a 2.1 setup. I could get a center channel, but the center channel would have to rest on the ground below our current TV stand, because otherwise I'd have a 65" OLED resting on a center channel. Is that ok?
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Jan 6, 2021 19:21
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Do we have a dedicated multi-room audio thread? Didn't see one so I'll post here. My place had previous owners really embrace the 80s/90s and put speakers everywhere in various rooms. A lot of these are ancient / almost rotted, so I'm going to replace a few, but hey, I'm not going to say no to pre-wired speaker cables in a few spots because I don't have to cut drywall and run cable! (And I'm just going to assume a nice 60 Hz hum on all of my audio is unavoidable). Currently, 4 sets (8 speakers) are all home-run to my kitchen (yes) and end up in a cabinet. I have a single Sonos One, but don't actually use the app much / am not super invested in the ecosystem... most of my listening is Spotify on my PC to my headphones or amp setup, and my girlfriend mostly uses whatever Echo device is nearby. Are Sonos and Blusound still the front-runners? Sonos doesn't seem like they make a nice multi-channel solution without you buying quite literally one Amp/Connect per pair you want to hook up, and I'd rather not do that. I've seen NAD makes some little rack-mount style modules of sorts that seem like a more effective solution — feels like in my head a single DAC/streaming unit with a few independent outputs would be the way to go and I can mix and match amps if I want, since I care more about power/quality on some of the rooms than the others.
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Jan 6, 2021 21:15
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Multi-room is either complicated or expensive. Sticking a Sonos/Node on every pair would work perfectly with a couple hours of setup but cost thousands. There's no such thing as a streamer with multiple independent outputs, just 4 figure rack stuff like the NAD modules that are even more expensive than Sonos. The cheapest way I can think of would be raspberry pis running volumio or something similar. If you don't need complete independent signal per room you can just get a multi-channel amp system that can be a lot more reasonable price-wise: https://www.htd.com/Products/Whole-House-Audio/basic-multi-room-audio https://www.parts-express.com/cat/audio-distribution-systems/1951
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Jan 6, 2021 21:45
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eddiewalker posted:I’ve never seen that rode adapter, but it looks clever and the “plus” version should do what you need. Flipperwaldt posted:It self describes as requiring T-powering on the link they provided though. Thanks to you both, that's really helpful. I get the feeling maybe the T-power reference was mistranslated/misunderstood... I'll give the VXLR+ thing a shot, its pretty cheap at least.
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Jan 6, 2021 23:16
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Residency Evil posted:Bookshelves vs towers For me I was considering £500/pair bookshelves vs £1000/pair towers (svs primes) so then I thought, save £500 by getting the bookshelves and put the £500 towards a minidsp 10x10. (4x svs prime bookshelf, prime center, + subwoofer or 2) I'm paying for them but they're going in the family living room. "ooh I don't like those exposed bolts" but they're SVS's! "they look unfinished. you could use the grill?" but then they'll look like any other speaker! As for centers, I wish svs offered a quad 5.25 instead of dual like the Klipsch 504c. I think they just look better right under the TV.
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Jan 7, 2021 00:26
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qirex posted:Multi-room is either complicated or expensive. Sticking a Sonos/Node on every pair would work perfectly with a couple hours of setup but cost thousands. There's no such thing as a streamer with multiple independent outputs, just 4 figure rack stuff like the NAD modules that are even more expensive than Sonos. The cheapest way I can think of would be raspberry pis running volumio or something similar. If you don't need complete independent signal per room you can just get a multi-channel amp system that can be a lot more reasonable price-wise: Chromecast Audio was this solution until they killed it and I will never forgive them for it  You can still pick them up on eBay for a markup if you're desperate. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Google-Chromecast-Audio-Media-Streamer-Black/114089304887?epid=217053957&hash=item1a9040a337:g:dnYAAOSwx-9Wtzhe
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Jan 7, 2021 00:34
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KillHour posted:Chromecast Audio was this solution until they killed it and I will never forgive them for it The most annoying thing to me about this whole situation is that these all are homerun'd to the kitchen. Four zones: den, living room, kitchen and back patio area (outdoor). Living room and kitchen are next to each other on the same floor / open concept, and then den and back patio are both one level up. Thinking about it some more, I honestly think I might do something different for each room. There's already an ATV in the den hooked up to a TV there, so all I need is an amp + I re-run wires to near where the TV is, using the big-rear end speaker holes to avoid more drywall work. The back patio one is basically just hot tub audio, so I just really need a smartphone there to trigger a streaming box somewhere else for Spotify / YouTube. Could be AirPlay, could do Spotify Connect, either one really. The living room, I actually want to mount a good set of stereo speakers up (TIL : LS50s are not wall mountable) so that one I'm willing to do a separate DAC/amp combo. And the kitchen, well, as I typed this my girlfriend let me know that what she really just wants is to extend TV audio there, which remains on-brand with my life of late-breaking customer requirements, so I need to spend a bit more time thinking about that, how the soundbar is wired up right now and how to pipe an audio stream from that area to the kitchen with the least fuckery possible. At least we are mostly Apple, and IIRC, ATV makes it easy to send an audio stream to another AirPlay-receiver... but piping audio from the soundbar / the primary audio device would be the universal solution that would cover antenna / game consoles / etc as well.
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Jan 7, 2021 01:31
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Running them to the same place makes sense. You want something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Dayton-Audio-MA1240a-Multi-Zone-Amplifier/dp/B003DKVZHQ Then you need a device that can be controlled independently for each zone; preferably one that supports grouping. A bunch of Chromecast Audios would be perfect if you can scrape together enough off of ebay or something. If not, Sonos is the only game left in town and at $449 for each room, it ain't cheap. Making the kitchen as the place they were run to is an odd choice though. Most people pick a closet. Edit: If you're Apple only, you're pretty much Sonos or bust sorry. https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/port.html You need one of those for each room and they would all plug into that amp above. KillHour fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 01:49
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LS50s really like space between them and the wall but I've seen people on AVS using them as surrounds so I'm sure there's some kind of mount that works with them. e: Multi-room stuff is expensive by design because a lot of the people who buy it are home renovators and custom installers who just bill it onto their customer as part of a $50k renovation and they always pay full price. This is why a Sonos port costs four times as much as an IKEA speaker even though the internal hardware is probably almost identical. qirex fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 02:49
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qirex posted:LS50s really like space between them and the wall but I've seen people on AVS using them as surrounds so I'm sure there's some kind of mount that works with them. Yeah if you're going to use LS-50's you kinda have to commit to stands and having them basically in the middle of the room. They take AMAZING to room correction software if you do this though.
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Jan 7, 2021 03:24
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qirex posted:LS50s really like space between them and the wall but I've seen people on AVS using them as surrounds so I'm sure there's some kind of mount that works with them. I can't believe Monoprice hasn't made "Sonos but cheaper" yet. Denon has one, but it's still expensive. It would solve the "I need to synchronize with my home theater stuff" issue nicely though. https://www.denon.com/en-au/category/wirelessspeakers/preamplifiers Edit: The HEOS Drive is pretty much exactly what you're looking for in a single box and it's a lot cheaper than doing it a la carte: https://audioplusdepot.com/product/denon-heos-drive-blackeach/ Would pair nicely with a Denon receiver from A4L for the living room. Done and done. KillHour fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 04:41
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KillHour posted:I can't believe Monoprice hasn't made "Sonos but cheaper" yet. Yamaha has one, right? MusicCast?
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Jan 7, 2021 04:44
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Dayton actually does have a cheap endpoint with a 2x20w amp but I don’t know anyone who’s tried it. Sonos has two advantages over other systems: a shitload of patents which they vigorously defend in court [this is also why many others aren’t much cheaper, they’re paying royalties] and an actual investment in their out of box experience, software and UI which a lot of the cheaper solutions like Musiccast, HEOS, play-fi, Dayton’s Hi-Fly, etc. don’t do. I’ve stuck with Sonos because it works with drat near everything, I’d guess there’s over 100 services it integrates with [even niche stuff like Mixcloud] and it’s still really good at playing local music while a lot of other systems are more focused on streaming. Bluesound is better in a lot of ways but it’s even more expensive. If I move on to something else it’ll probably be to go with Roon with Rpi endpoints. Dayton has a no-amp version too: https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-wba31-wireless-wi-fi-bluetooth-audio-receiver-with-ir-remote--300-597 qirex fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 08:22
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KillHour posted:I can't believe Monoprice hasn't made "Sonos but cheaper" yet. Oh that HEOS looks legit, actually. I am receiver-less in my living room, I went soundbar — just no room for any real speakers without some real intense work to drywall / etc to mount it, unfortunately. No floorstanding room either, sadly. If the HEOS can still be an AirPlay 2 endpoint though, I think on Apple TV, I just swipe up, select it as an audio sink, and I'm done, right? $1800 is a lot less than $650 * 4, so that's quite appealing — I'll start it off with WiFi and then just move one of my MoCA adapters there since for some loving reason there's coax in that cabinet too. Even if I want a "better" amp for higher-end speakers in my living room (I should note for clarity — these speakers are _not_ the TV speakers, they would be mounted along the left side of the room for just general music action), using 3/4 of them is still more cost effective (and elegant IMO) than 3x Sonos AMPs. I'll take a look at the rest of the HEOS eco-system to see what's there in case I want to expand more.
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Jan 8, 2021 04:45
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Denon has HEOS soundbars and all of their networked receivers support it. Another option is to use the regular hdmi Chromecasts with hdmi audio extractors, which is kind of nice because they can do both audio and video duties, and they still support multi room streaming for audio. You can even mix and match them with the audio ones if you find used ones. Can you tell I REALLY like Chromecasts? KillHour fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jan 8, 2021 |
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Jan 8, 2021 06:10
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The SPDIF hat I got for my Raspberry Pi finally arrived today and it's so nice to not hear static whenever it tries outputting anything approaching a high frequency. Now my Pi pretty much covers all the modern features I wanted to add to my ancient receiver without breaking the bank. The only thing I haven't got running yet is aptX over Bluetooth, but that might be due to myself not rebuilding the codec stuff correctly. I got AAC working, but honestly with other connectivity options I'm not using BT all that much since can pull everything off my NAS or online. What's the go-to software I should look at to organize and tag music these days? I'm coming from the days of Tag&Rename and everything being organized by folder structure to play in Foobar, so it's probably time I clean up my music collection to make it easier to sort by album and such, and having higher-res album art would be nice.
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Jan 9, 2021 02:56
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KillHour posted:Denon has HEOS soundbars and all of their networked receivers support it. Hah, just a bit  I might grab a single HEOS 2 ch AMP thing right now just to toe the ecosystem a bit, and then if the app doesn't suck / it's an OK experience, I'll grab that 4 channel model.
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Jan 9, 2021 05:07
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Coxswain Balls posted:
It's been awhile, but I would assume either Plex or XBMC are still the standards.
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Jan 9, 2021 05:33
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Um am I blind or is there no HEOS components on the US Denon website? I just want to see all the available components... I keep getting the Aus Denon site from Google. Is this due to some patent poo poo with Sonos / they got an injunction? movax fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Jan 9, 2021 |
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Jan 9, 2021 06:36
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I noticed that too and it's relatively hard to find the HEOS stuff for sale here. I think they might intend for that stuff to be sold through integrators to rich people building mcmansions instead of direct to consumers. Whole home audio is either expensive or loving fiddly or both unless your idea of that is an echo in every room. Turns out most people listen to poo poo through the speakers on their phone and don't care about garbage quality.
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Jan 9, 2021 08:07
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Coxswain Balls posted:What's the go-to software I should look at to organize and tag music these days? I'm coming from the days of Tag&Rename and everything being organized by folder structure to play in Foobar, so it's probably time I clean up my music collection to make it easier to sort by album and such, and having higher-res album art would be nice. I like using https://beets.io/, but it does require a little bit of geekery to set up. It tags and sorts music, and it can download covers automatically. For a Windows application, Musicbrainz Picard works well.
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Jan 9, 2021 09:57
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I’ve been using a combo of plex server and Plexamp for the frontend. Works pretty well and the amount of metadata it fetches is cool. My only complaint is I think I hosed up importing my iTunes library so some tracks are messed up, and the plex library cli commands are a loving joke so it’s a whole lot of clicking and full library re-scans whenever I want to fix an album.
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Jan 9, 2021 11:06
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movax posted:Hah, just a bit Man, the HEOS reddit is not kind to the product. I can't believe their product stops working if their central cloud server goes down (apparently) -- does Sonos have the same limitation? Don't see why a HEOS-specific server would be needed if each HEOS device just runs whatever music services' app / API locally. Trying to find the manual now to confirm if the Drive HS2 will do AirPlay 2.
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Jan 11, 2021 07:34
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Got a FiiO E10K Olympus 2 headphone amp, my only issue is latency. I'm a little unclear about the pros and cons of ASIO drivers, though that seems integral to the issue. My motherboard output has a lot less latency, should I just try tweaking the output buffer until it starts crackling or is there another button to push or driver to install? Thanks! 
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Jan 11, 2021 20:23
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My buffer size is at 256, I'm not sure why it would automatically set it to a max of 6144.
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Jan 11, 2021 20:47
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I looked in IYG but didn't see a specific thread for soundbars/casual TV audio setup, so apologies if this isn't the right thread. Looking for a new soundbar. My current one is an older JBL SB100. No frills, no subwoofer unit, and also...kind of sucks. I can't complain too much as it was free from work, but it has two annoying habits. 1) It "pauses" if the audio is not constant. As in...a show I'm watching on Hulu/Netflix goes to "commercial break" (which is just like 2-3 seconds of black) and it cuts the audio because it thinks there's no signal, so I miss the first few seconds of audio coming back from the commercial break. Same thing if I pause it, I miss a few seconds of audio when I resume. 2) Possibly related to 1, but if something is paused for too long, or sometimes just if I switch inputs...it goes into sleep mode. No audio at all, and the only way to get it back on is to push the power button. Since I got it for free from work, there's no remote...it was lost long ago, so I have to get my rear end up and walk to the TV to do it. Is it the epitome of a first world problem? Yes, but annoying and I'd rather not do it. I have gotten it to learn my TV remote's volume up/down, but it seems it's not capable of learning to power on/off from a third party remote. So I figure I might as well buy something at least a little better. Neither I nor my girlfriend are anything close to audiophiles, so I want to keep my budget low, like under/around $300. I don't need surround, just a bar w/ a sub would be plenty, though f it can be latter upgraded with satellite surround speakers, that would be cool, but I'm thinking that's probably more the realm of a dedicated receiver unit situation? Did just a little searching, and Amazon recommends a SAMSUNG HW-T450 2.1 for ~$150, Wirecutter's budget pick is the current JBL 2.1 unit, and I saw Monoprice has a couple moderately priced ones, though I've been burned on Monoprice stuff before (just headphones, so not really the same realm as a soundbar, but still.)
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Jan 12, 2021 20:40
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People looking for speakers: there's a sale on the KEF Q series going on [prices should be the same at other vendors]DrBouvenstein posted:So I figure I might as well buy something at least a little better. Neither I nor my girlfriend are anything close to audiophiles, so I want to keep my budget low, like under/around $300. I don't need surround, just a bar w/ a sub would be plenty, though f it can be latter upgraded with satellite surround speakers, that would be cool, but I'm thinking that's probably more the realm of a dedicated receiver unit situation?
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Jan 12, 2021 21:43
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KozmoNaut posted:I like using https://beets.io/, but it does require a little bit of geekery to set up. Thanks for the suggestions. Beets was a bit above me, but Picard works great and I managed to get my entire library cleaned up with proper tags with minimal fuss. Moode still does this weird thing where it thinks certain albums are multiple albums when there are different artists involved, but it's probably just a tag thing I need to fix because it works fine with other multi-artist albums.
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Jan 13, 2021 02:07
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Okay maybe I'm going crazy but I've been looking for hours for a mains extension with master-slave ability. You know, turn 1 item on, the rest come on. Did they stop making them, I can't seem to find any?? I'll even accept a power strip that has a 12v trigger. Closest I can find is a power conditioner, a Furman PS-8R/E III which looks like it has a nice feature of delayed activation. (UK type or C13/C14 only)
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Jan 16, 2021 00:04
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movax posted:does Sonos have the same limitation? Yes and they famously discontinued a product by bricking it.
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Jan 16, 2021 00:09
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e: Probably wrong thread
LODGE NORTH fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Jan 16, 2021 |
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Jan 16, 2021 00:20
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KillHour posted:Yes and they famously discontinued a product by bricking it. Sonos works locally, at least it did the last time I had an outage. The "bricking" was to encourage people to upgrade and was unrelated to mandatory logging in. They're a bad company in a lot of ways but there's no need to exaggerate it. My current favorite fuckery is they keep giving me ads for their premium radio service that I should want because... reasons? It costs as much as an actual music service. Sadly it's still the cheapest and easiest way to do multi-room.
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Jan 16, 2021 00:25
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