A few years back I decided to try and re-ignite my passion of music, I’ve found over the years that the quality of music, output through phones and proprietary ear pods had taken music to more of a noise, rather than an experience, which is what the artist intended. I needed to get that back.
This was triggered on a visit to Harrods as I ascended the escalator onto the audio and HiFi floor I heard what I thought was an orchestra playing, when I arrived at the floor I was totally amazed to find that it was in-fact, an CD audio track being played, on further investigation it was playing through a £30,000 Linn system! I decided at that moment that I needed to achieve this level of quality at home (without a £30k outlay!) This was going to be challenging, I already had a top flight dual mono amp, a matching CD player and some serious speakers, all of which had been stashed away, the amp and cd in the back of a wardrobe, the speakers in an outside workshop. I pulled everything together and connected it up, the sound was good but not stunning.
I started searching google for tips on the best HiFi experience, how to achieve the ultimate experience, I drafted up an email to What HiFli magazine (which I still have in drafts!) I spent hours absorbing information, now for me, I just love the experience of learning, it’s doesn’t matter what, I have a quest for knowledge I just love to find the proper way to do anything, my most recent ‘school day’ was a You Tube video on how to sharpen a chain saw, I have spent 25 years doing it incorrectly, a 15 minute video and, ok I’m not a master, but can now do the job properly, I digress; the point being sometimes I can get carried away in the research, spending hours reading and learning, it gives me so much satisfaction as over a period of tome I accumulate knowledge, I’ve learnt reading one or two articles then acting on them often disappoints, as so many people write or produce videos and articles without really knowing the hat the hell they are talking about, so you need to take a big enough sample to really know the subject in depth, to a point where you are qualified to speak on it with an amount of authority. So over the months I read about different amplifiers, streamers, CD players, speakers, HD Audio tracks (don’t get me started on poor quality MP3’s) and DAC’s (Digital Audio Converters) a lot of my research came back to DAC’s I researched the different brands, Dragonfly, Chord, Oppo, Cyrus and Audiolab to name but a few, there’s so much to learn and when it’s in a field that you enjoy (I was in the film and sound recording industry as a youngster) hours even days are passed each moment gaining more knowledge. I decided to try some HD audio tracks which helped but didn’t get me anywhere near the listening experience I wanted to be, what next, I decided to buy a DAC, I really wanted to buy Chord but the one I wanted started was £400 and I felt it was just too much to spend on a bit of research, I found a second hand one but the seller seemed a bit suspicious, they were 200 miles away and she wanted my to transfer the money into her account prior to dispatch! I decided not worth the chance. Another few weeks passed before I started looking again, I stumbled upon an Arcam irDAC II on eBay, a bit of research and some excellent reviews validated its pedigree, so I took the plunge. It arrived a few days later. I was busy so couldn’t get it connected immediately, the following weekend I connected it to me existing Musical Fidelity A3 amp, connecting the CD player by Toslink optical cable. I popped in the first CD to hand it was Sam Smith Writings on the Wall, I couldn’t believe the difference, the track took one a whole new ambiance, the instruments seemed to lift off With a clarity, as if they were in the room the stereo separation astounded my, taking a central position the sound stage comes alive as if the musicians and artist is in the room, this bought a smile across my face, I had managed
What prompted my to write this, here we are in this surreal lockdown finding all sorts of ways to amuse ourselves, I sat down on the Living Room turned on the amplifier and the Arcam dac and a smile grew across my face, so much pleasure, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, it seems so strange that such a trivial thing to some can bring me so much pleasure.
So today from a Raspberry Pi computer and some parts I have lying around I’m going to make a computer streaming device with a HAT DAC.
Good luck through the lockdown, stay safe and try to find things that ignite your passion, let’s face it we’ve got the time!
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