optimizing my music setup
I wrote a piece a few years back, asking for feedback on how to update my music setup. I didn’t get any advice, but here’s a summary of what I’ve been working on recently. And yes, I’ve been watching lots of tutorial videos from Audioholics, Audio Science Review, Audio Advice, Techno Dad, PS Audio, etc. + reading up (the absolute sound, what hi-fi and online), and learning a LOT about acoustics and electronics. Fun discussions also with my son, who is in his 1st year of EE at his engineering school (skin effect, conductance, SNR, Delta Sigma DACs, etc.).
To increase the soundstage, and offer better viewing and listening experience to my household and guests, I moved the Hi-Fi rack I had to the side from where it was for 11 years and rearranged speaker positioning. Unfortunately, that meant I needed to re-cable everything as the previous lengths wouldn’t fit. And that I needed new gear to enjoy new technologies (new compression algorithms, surround sound, etc.) I suppose it’s OK to upgrade the previous setup after all this time. In addition, I watch so much video content now for work (and sometimes leisure) on Youtube, Masterclass, etc. that a proper A/V setup is necessary.
Hi-Res music sources and software management:
I now manage all my music with Roon, using a late 2019 iMac on my home network as a Roon Core (= music server).
Alternate options included Plex (I do use it as a media server for videos though, streaming to my TVs connected with Apple TVs) and Audirvana.
I love the simple interface, elegant and full-featured with tons of extra-metadata. It doesn’t feel like a computer app, nor like a vintage Windows app. It connects to my local music collection (now on an upgraded Thunderbay 8 RAID-5 enclosure and to hi-res streaming solutions (I use Qobuz, and stopped Tidal as I don’t really listen to rap).
Other explored options included hardware from Qnap and Synology.
The Roon clients work from any phone, tablet, desktop, tablet, and when away from home, still work on my iPhone with Roon ARC. Sweet!
It also manages super easily different zones in my house, connecting to old Sonos devices (and downsampling when necessary) in my bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, or my Hi-fi setup in my living room. Just a bugger that all protocols (RAAT, Airplay, Google Chrome) have to be the same for creating a group, so it won’t connect easily to all the Echo Dots I have in each room.
And although it doesn’t support Spotify, I still sync automatically my playlists between Spotify and Qobuz with Soundiiz, so it’s all hi-res in my new setup. The question is whether I should invest in the HQPlayer software for upsampling… What is also great is that I can display what I’m playing with album cover art (+ lyrics) on any TV supporting the chromecast protocol (GoogleTV).
The history of what I listen to is managed with last.fm (I connected it to Spotify and Qobuz, so whatever program / device pulls audio from both services, it shows up on last.fm).
Amplification, speakers and cables :
As my Onkyo pre-amp was something like 12 years old, and didn’t support 4K for home cinema nor the latest formats on the DAC, I just upgraded it.
I still have only 5.0 channels/speakers, with I thought no need for a subwoofer in my apartment, hence missing out on the LFE and sub 56Hz frequencies that my old Bower & Wilkins CM-9, CM-5 and CMC-2 don’t drive. That’s a lot of frequencies I’m missing out on, particularly after checking with RTA. I also have no space for more surrounds (to go 7.x.y).
So I’m now considering 1 or 2 sealed subwoofers from SVS (I ordered the SVS SB3000 as it sits between medium and large room bassoholics rating from Audioholics; too bad it doesn’t have XLR inputs). Theory says that adding more subs will enhance the listening experience for everyone watching and enhance room response).
I did not get to check other brands and models (Perlisten, REL, etc.)
As I’m keeping my McIntosh MC-205 amp (it delivers beautiful 5 x 200W per channel at 8 or 4 Ohm, whatever the load! all other amps usually are measured at 2 channels only for their published power that comes down with more channels active), I looked at an expensive pre-amp from the same brand. The closest to my need was the McIntosh MX123 (remember I don’t need more surround channels). Browsing video reviews on Youtube, I discovered it was based on the Marantz AV8805A, which in itself was only a slightly superior Marantz AV7706 — pfew, I saved like 10K€ right there getting the cheaper of the 3.).
But, this receiver is not an integrated pre-amp/amp like my previous Onkyo with more amp channels to drive more height channels, so I’m getting an additional Marantz MM8077 to go ATMOS with 4 firing-up speakers (I ordered 4 KEF Q50a); I want them to sit on top of my current speakers at 20x30cm and 20x28cm.
I had originally considered the Kliptsch RP-500SA II (but they are slightly too big at 32cm on one side) and the SVS prime Elevation speakers (but their litterature speaks against ceiling reflection).
Along the way I decided to passively bi-amp the 2 front left and right speakers with my MC205 (it doesn’t make much of a difference) and use the last channel of this amp for my Center channel. The back surrounds + 4 ATMOS speakers will go on the 8077.
Bonus: after 11 years of standing up to turn on the amp manually, I discovered that a simple trigger cable from the pre-amp to the amp at 12V would wake it up and turn it off. Beautiful ! :) Luckily I had an old Beats cable that did the trick immediately (mono output from Marantz, stereo input on the McIntosh: one contact to turn on/off, the other for the lights on the VUmeters).
As far as speaker cabling goes, I was looking to upgrade heavily. After lots of reading, a cable is just a cable, and OFC beyond 99,9% doesn’t make an audible difference; silver barely adds up 5% better conductivity than copper, so I was better off just going for larger than necessary AWG. Charts suggested 16AWG was enough at 8ohm (1.5mm2). Exit the crazy prices at Audioquest and Nordost.
I decided to go for 10 AWG (6mm2) for the McIntosh amp channels which delivers up to 200W, and 12 AWG (4mm2) for the 8077 which delivers only up to 150W on many more surrounds. Lots of good brands out there, I settled for german/swiss efficiency with Oehlbach, and shopped around online, comparing deals for SP-40 and SP-60. There are lots of opportunities to save money depending on the length and where you buy. Just calculate price /meter for each length and adjust your requirements.
Regarding cable lengths being the same for speakers, some serious guys ascertain that it doesn’t matter, but my vendor and hi-fi expert Robert Harley both insisted I needed the same length, which would be much much more expensive. Audioholics confirms that the quality (therefore price or brand) of all cables is the same, as long as I keep the AWG under 14 (2,5mm2 or more) and do not use super long cables (the high-frequency transmission problems barely apply for these short distances). I had to size precisely my needs measuring up all lengths in my living room with a lasermeter and added a bit of slack here and there to move the speakers (I’ll just rewire if I ever move to a new place). Finally to avoid skin effect at high frequencies and for added flexibility, stranded cables were the way to go.
I understand that stands for the cables is just snake oil, and that static electricity from my carpets is not something to worry about at all. Some inductance issues with all my cables running parallel is maybe a concern. More importantly it looks like a spaghetti plate behind my TV, and I need to organize that a bit better, even if I kept speaker length to a minimum (with a bit of extra distance to move them around).
I went also for sturdy BLS-500 banana plugs from Norstone, that attach well and have 2 screws to hold cables in place (for some security reasons, banana plugs are not allowed in the EU, and I had to remove the plastic protections on my speakers to be able to use them). Good quality and conductivity here are as important as the cables. I was attaching the cables bare in the past 11 years, like in my youth :) They were difficult to use for 6mm2 (so only the nude cable went in, and very easy for the 4mm2 cables.
After reading Robert Harley’s textbook, I discovered I might need to upgrade my bi-jumper cables, but not bi-wire nor bi-amp my speakers (which I did anyway). A lot of BS is sold by cable manufacturers and hi-fi vendors. Nevertheless, I changed my old OEM jumpers on the B&W with proper 6mm2 jumper cables from Oehlbach for consistency. Not sure I hear the difference, but easier to plug in.
I checked the interconnects of my devices: it seems RCA will do just as fine as XLR for my < 1m distance, so no need to upgrade there, although there is some dB gain to investigate between the 2. I do need to buy 6 more interconnects for the new Marantz (which I have as RCA), so I might get XLRs for the McIntosh. If the sound is better than the RCA, I’ll upgrade it all. Another reason is that these XLRs tend to eliminate the ground loop problem, and regularly I do get a bit of current on my amps.
Finally, I’ll need a RCA mono cable for the subwoofer.
I also needed new HDMI 2.1 cables (4K) to replace the 1.4 ones I have. They do come in all kinds of prices. My TV supports 4K at 120Hz, so I needed 48 Gbps cables. It was until now only displaying a 1080p image… Some say expensive HDMI cables are the same quality as cheaper ones… duh, just 0s and 1s, processed with a sync-ed clock. When I moved the previous setup, 2 cables disintegrated just by pulling them out. So build quality is what we’re looking at here, and certification (just to make sure everything is OK). Also, the required distance now for my cables is about 4 meters so I needed something with less resistance with the distance. So I ordered 48 Gbps 4K (Black Magic II) from Oehlbach (TV to receiver, Apple TV 4K to receiver and interconnect Blu-Ray to receiver as I might upgrade that one day), and 18 Gbps for the legacy devices I have (PS3, PS4, Xbox, etc) from just a cheaper but reputable supplier, KabelDirekt as they will never need more speed.
TVs / monitors:
I also upgraded my TV to a bigger 65" 4K display with built-in GoogleTV (I got another Google TV dongle for the other old 1K TV to support Roon Display — less than 40 euros, a steal).
I did not like the huge stand it came with the TV, so I got something else, that is just high enough to place the central speaker underneath. I also reinforced the old piece of furniture I had as TV furniture with cut-to-measure extra wood boards of walnut.
Power conditioning and AC plugs:
Finally, I bought new anti-surge power outlets from APC, separated the Hi-fi part to another wall plug, and added an UPS (which is now going to my computer and hard disks!). The power outages in December in Paris totally corrupted my hard disks (still working on recovering my data after 4 months — what a waste of time!), and I wish I had installed the right UPS solution back then. More work to do here to protect all my electric devices from power outages only, as my home power supply is pretty steady. It seems that I should get a dedicated line (not happening), and that if lightning stroke, it would fry my whole house. Also, seems AC conditioning is just useless. Just connect a proper multi plug and that’s it. And use stock power chords.
BUT, adding up the power requirements of my devices (and with the second amp coming up, and the subwoofer), specifically the amperage, I think I might have to go for a 14A or 15A multi plug.
I did spend so much time learning about the AC management tools from Shunyata Research, Nordost and Audioquest… even calculating the amperage of each device I have. That’s many brownie points lost for hi-fi magazines like TAS that live off their ads, or PSAudio founder who admires Audioquest cables…
My guess is that sonically it won’t really make a difference with my current gear, and unless I go for 1 or 2 orders of magnitude of higher prices, I shouldn’t worry more (I did get to listen to the amazing WADAX DAC on Magico M5 at the Precision Audio Conseil auditorium… wow. But that was close to a 500,000 € setup with crazy expensive power cords and interconnects. No need for that in my house).
Room Calibration
This is a fascinating area, and I’m still learning about it on the tutorials on Audioholics.
I did run the Audyssey XT32 in my room, and the results graphically were impressive. Sonically? I’m not sure I hear it yet. I did full calibration again when I get all my new cables with my current speakers. I’ll try again with all speakers, and different setups (doors closed, curtains closed, etc.). I did get a mic stand and advanced Audyssey MultEQ editor app on my iPad to do proper measures and calibration.
However, replacing the speakers and moving them slightly towards the seating angle has made a huge difference. I even tilted the central speaker up towards me (using simple door stoppers).
I understand that with subwoofers,I might need bass traps and acoustic panels in my living room. Damn… not cool in a living room. Hopefully the book shelves, heavy carpet, curtains will help avoid that.
I have yet to play more with the open-source software Room EQ Wizard. Luckily I had bought “a miniDSP UMIK-1 calibrated USB measurement microphone” years ago already. And I now have a mic stand for proper measurements.
To do list:
So still to be decided:
- Software: HQplayer plugin for upsampling? Probably yes. I haven’t had time to investigate.
- Sources: Upgrading the my old Oppo 105 to the latest players (Reavon UBE-X200?)? Probably not, as everything is streamed these days (music, video), and I have plenty to watch as it is. My existing collections of CDs, DVDs, and BRs will play on the old Oppo, upscaled to 4K by my receiver.
- Cabling: new XLR interconnects to replace the RCA cables on the second amp? Maybe after I test with the 5 XLRs I’m getting for the 1st McIntosh amp.
- Speakers: decide whether to get a 2nd subwoofer. Probably no need to add counter-spikes to each speaker as my floor is concrete (as non vibrating as it gets…).
- Rack: new tier for my current rack for the 2nd amp.
- Room response: new calibration when all is in place. New bass traps and acoustic panels?
- wifi: my current mesh runs on the original Eero Pro devices. Should I go Wifi6E now that I’m sharing more data at home non stop between devices? There seems to be some speed issues on my LAN between the Mac, TV, and AV. I might have to recable the Ethernet as well as all Gigabit/s or more (I get 2Gbs/s down via my fiber provider).
Bottom line: I manage all my music in one place (local files and streaming services Spotify and Qobuz) with Roon, even on the go; I play it easily in every room in my house on different speakers. I now need to figure out how to automate the zone transfer of the music when I change rooms, with my AppleWatch? I know it can be done for lighting with Philips Hue…
So much fun on my own, playing with technology… :) But also great I upgrade my system only every 10+ years :)
ps: this post helps me structure and document my thinking and system configuration. I’m sharing in case you have any great insights on my remaining questions!
Update on 21 Feb 2023:
Ha! Now I’m struggling again with Hi-Res audio. I have a subscription to Qobuz Studio (up to 24bit/192 Khz); the Qobuz Sublime subscription only includes an option to buy music with a 60% discount — no need.
But I discovered that Roon only supports Airplay 1 which limits streaming down to 48 Khz and 16 bit. Duh… So I was checking out a new DAC and network streamer. There’s a strong consensus on the BlueSound Node 2021 (v3). Should I get that? Then I read that ChromeCast actually supports 24bit.
Playing around with my new system, I figured I could stream from Roon Core (my Mac) to my new TV (Google-enabled), that is connected with an HDMI eARC to my Marantz pre-amp. And now I’m playing 24 bit on my Marantz via my TV, instead of 16bit via Airplay directly to the preamp. Duh… I suppose this is the real path of music (correct???) :
{Qobuz on the cloud} > fiber to home 2Gbp/s > Mac running Roon Core > Chromecast over Wifi 5 to TV > TV link to preamp via HDMI > DAC on my Marantz decoding the file? > McIntosh Amp > speakers.
or is my TV decoding the file with its own DAC? I hope not.
Update on 22 February 2023:
it seems Roon doesn’t stream correctly at 24 bit 96Khz, and downsamples at 24 bit 48Khz, even though the specifications for Chromecast should allow 96/24 streaming. A bad Roon implementation?
Update on 23 March 23
Heavily edited text with my latest answers and purchases. Added lots of pictures.
Update on 6 April 23
Edited with updates to my system, and more conclusions from my readings.
