Opus #2 Digital Audio Player Discussions | Drop

Sep 22, 2019

Lot of posts (below) stating this is ‘no good’, missing a certain file support or ‘ancient OS’=“no good”. whilst I completely agree that some aspects of audio benefit from ‘moving forward’, thirty years+ of high fidelity audio (and other tech) purchases reaffirms a basic belief “you get what you pay for”. This is a massive part of Drop being so special/beneficial to we pundits- getting stuff for less! The high pricepoint for this item at retail indicates what tier of equipment we have here. I would take a higher tier piece of equipment, with a slower or older interface and lacking a sound format I have no interest in, if it gave me exceptional music / did its’ required task brilliantly. hi res formats on lesser equipment can sound weaker than yesteryears formats done brilliantly. (I’d take this part over some new fangled phone whose spec sheet reads brilliantly anyday)(and “No!-an LG quad dac phone couldn’t touch this thing if it had a 100ft pole”...) newer androids might give LDAC (defeating the point of buying this for its digital conversion anyway as the Digital audio conversion is then done by the headphones) or some new format- but a top spec format played averagely will sound lousy vs a cd format played well, and this unit does the hi resolution formats expected by dedicated music players. even price tiers below this units’ can render compressed formats to sound better than most of the best phones, even with their nice DAC chips/spec sheet bulletpoints. sadly DAC implementation isnt the white doc/spec sheet read manufacturers like to quote us. -Digital to Analogue Conversion is a whole circuit, and a reason why Digital Audio Players usually have less running hours than multitool devices that implement EVERY feature so as to appear impressive on paper. This part would prove a better front end than most high quality CD players from when hifi was actually hifi. (A hard target to hit!) given the multicapabilities of a device like this, and the removal of needing ‘further upgrades ‘down the track’, this proves a worthwhile investment. might have a few weaknesses not relating to actually enjoying/listening to the sound (ie I use an android 5 playback unit with an ancient processor that has very noticable lags between when I press a button and when it responds- but it sounds SO GOOD). this part is ‘a keeper’. It will always be useful in some form and will allow some creative uses for many years to come. and trust me- years down the track when this part gets passed on to a niece or nephew as their true start to high fidelity sound- they will be amazed at how their ‘new phone with XX capabilities’(that technically SHOULD be better); sounds flat and lifeless and practically unlistenable against a true dedicated audio high end piece of kit like this one. not many tiers of sound going up from here, and what there is starts to cost a lot for a little extra bang. for the money saved, this would buy ancillory upgrades that would net a better sound anyway. (Or a real lot of high res files and some fine brew to go with) ;-) food for thunk! (Safe buy, confident aquisition, buyers remorse vanishes once heard)

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Feb 13, 2020

WhitedragemI’m enjoying your posts today (6months or so later). Thank you!

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Feb 14, 2020

Evshrugyes, the internet is forever (and so are my spelling mistakes). muchly appreciated, glad you are here to further the community- which is what the peeps behind (mass)drop were all about when they started this wonderful portal- they recognised that we all just need a place to hang out and ‘forum’ (as a verb). ;-) I’ve been away for a bit, was a house move... as of today I actually got on top of some unpacking/new house setup stuff, and was happy to get on the tablet and join in... cheers for the cheer! “be well”, mon amigo.

Feb 14, 2020

WhitedragemYou too, and congrats on the house! 🏡 I’m trying to get my first house (and not just because the new apartment neighbors I share a wall with have started having an alarm going off at 5:30am and hitting snooze/letting it go for an hour or yesterday keep hitting snooze for an hour and a half). It’s really hard to save up enough money, especially since I work freelance... all the mortgage lenders want to see 2019 taxes, then I had a financial setback in the form of breaking my dominant arm on New Year’s Day (how’s that for starting off the year with a bang?), which temporally reduces the amount of work I can do because of that, then there’s the doctors’ bills, and then lost a client (unrelated reason out of my control). Wish there was a forum for home buyers, but I bet that would almost all be first time buyers, not too much reason to stick around once you figured that out 😅 Anyway, hope you love your new place!

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Feb 19, 2020

EvshrugCheers, Ay- I am a renter. A person with much aquired wealth once broke it down to me, and, true, paying rent isn’t great... but here is some food for thought!: How easy is it, comparatively, to move from your rented domicile, vs having to sell... The person who told me they PREFER renting explained that THEY never had to deal with the hot water system breaking, etc... I do a concierge roll, and a few tenants in the building have been having issues with noisy AC units, generally their neighbours. When hanging out with them in the Air Conditioning ‘Room’ (one on each floor of the building), it became apparent that half the issues they are having with LOUD AIR CONs, is actually uninsulated walls... they could speak and hear each other on the other side of the wall. Been nearly a month for them without quality sleep (residing on the loungeroom floor on the far side of the apartment), sure it is ‘luck of the draw’ with these things (we never fully know what we are getting into), but their apartment would be the only one of the floor with that issue. Two other apartments would back onto elevator shafts,.. but at the end of the day, I can guess they are feeling pretty poorly about their asset right now. As a renter they would have the freedom to move. Like I just did. OUT of apartment living. My new suburb name literally means ‘leafy plants’ (in the native tongue)... I have always held on to the joke that suburbia is where they rip up all the trees, and then name the streets after them. Evshrug; its always darkest before the dawn, yes? May 2020 bring you much joy, when you are ready to receive some ;-) And ‘yes’ - the first million is the hardest to make. Rich people can zero gear. not have the properties grow /lose money and borrow from the bank against the increased value of the land etc, to build more property investments into the portfolio. Me? I’m just happy when my tech is eligible for a new OS release. (Unless of course it is Windows 10 related!)

Feb 19, 2020

WhitedragemPart of my home shopping, I contacted a local homeownership program, with some knowledge documents and a class. Part of the 8 hour presentation was a breakdown on where it made financial sense to rent instead of own, and the other way around, based on the cost you would lose maintaining a home and taxes vs just paying rent. Long story short, the money I “spend” rather than invest now is about equivalent to a $260k home, where if I bought a house between $100k and $150k I could actually pay less per month (including occasional maintenance and the rare roofing/appliances update) and still gain more capital. With regards to my neighbors, things were getting rough with their alarm going off continuously (or with “snooze” breaks) from 5:30am to 6:30 or 7, smoking pot inside their unit (but it bleeds through the AC to stink up our home), in addition to stuff I don’t care as much about like rocking out during the day or operating something that sounds like a dentists drill. Friday, before a night I would have to fly and work late, I decided to knock on the wall when their alarm started going off, made sure they woke up and turned off the alarm. They left for work 15 minutes early that day 😂. However, I followed up with what I hoped was a classy move: I bought them a thank you card and some candy from the store. In the card, I wrote “We understand that sometimes we all have to be up early. It is difficult for us and our pet to go back to sleep when the alarm goes off for an hour or longer, and can really affect us on days where we have to work late, like tonight. So, Thank You for promptly turning off your alarm this morning. Enjoy the candy, and happy Valentine’s Day! Your wall sharing neighbors.” There are neighbors on both sides of their unit. My mom had her first townhouse, which she owned, when she was 23. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m starting late, but at least I’m putting some stuff into retirement and investments. On the topic of darkest before the dawn, I got to speak with some influential people during CanJam NYC last weekend, people representing 2-3 companies that need the kind of work I can do, and also people representing some retailers who might stock a piece of merchandise I am designing in my sudden freetime. I’m trying to make it cool, and helpful! It is audio related!

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Feb 20, 2020

EvshrugI am a fan! (Its nice the ambiguity that two sides brings to the equation) Nice one- being a parental I hugely favour positive reward for behavior we seek. (It is a harder sell to make a difference than negative stimuli). Evshrug, not arguing the facts of a ‘course’ that no doubt linked to refinancing to avoid tax by mortgaging towards a second home (or whatever angle they were selling), but something to consider is where one lives when the value of their house is two/fifths less... travel time and crime and various other factors, multiplied by ten- twenty odd years might balance that equation somewhat. (Not trying to argue, and I don’t have a horse in this race, so I don’t really care, I just like to think outside the box whenever possible). Yeah my Missus owned her first place in her teenage years, and I have met many who have. The best story/example was a couple of friends who got together; He was an IT guru of the highest calibre, She a ‘lowly’ teachers assistant... She had two houses before He had finished paying off a car loan. Whilst His income was much greater than hers, being raised very ‘Male’, lived on take away and life expenses that were silly, in hindsight. In their early days of coupledom, the challenge to lower His living costs was thrown ‘out there’, and the joke reply came back that ‘He would eat home made lunch from a Thomas the Tank Engine lunchbox’. It took less than a week for ‘She’ to find it! Their property portfolio would be looking pretty solid a few decades on.... It has taken a few years of me chipping away at my lady friend to not squirrel away every last cent. I have shown the financial benefit of buying stuff cheap, enjoying it for awhile and then selling and recouping the cost. We live a fantastic lifestyle filled with all sorts of ‘tech’ery and ‘gadget’ry... That being said; both of our respective families screwed us out of homes. So we are probably still in a healing state over being so late in life and ‘starting again’. I wouldn’t do anything differently, though- the lessons in life are worth the investment. Thanks for sharing the candy story. Andrew Birds ‘Bowl of Fire’ Album is extraordinary. Opens with a track called “Candy Shop”. Probably not a lot to do with anything we are talking about.. but there is a lyric - “you let me in your house with a hammer”, appropriately dark and no doubt befitting a scenario of being reawoken at silly-o-clock all too frequently. Glad they got to work early with your assistance- You are too kind ;-)

Feb 20, 2020

WhitedragemMe knocking on the wall in response to their dark of the morning alarm; you thinking “You let me into your house with a hammer.” 😄😂🤣 That lyric says to me a lot in relation to your story of the IT Guru and the TA. Many times we need the perspective of others to push a “development” of our own, even if sometimes we need the lessons pounded into our skulls 😂. Sometimes, as uncomfortable as it is (my mom was/is great at “lessons” and giving a push), we need to be pushed to greater heights. At my wife’s current rate of college debt repayment, she’ll be 55 before she’s done, and ho boy do I wish she wouldn’t leave laundry wherever she happens to stop for a moment, but with my guidance her credit score is slowly improving, and thanks to her grandfather she doesn’t have a car loan anymore. She’s trying to teach me to care less... useful for acting and starting/completing tasks, I guess. I’m not sure I understand what you mean in your “2/5ths value” paragraph about the courses... it was like a $50 class that just pointed out the process of buying a house, and was mostly intended for first time home buyers, and it connected with a bank grant to help with down payments (keeping the property for at least 5 years to get the full grant, so not intended for flippers). Eligibility was partially based on taking the course (to keep your eyes open about what it will take to not get a bad house or undergo foreclosure), but also a yearly income below $62k. It was also eligible for the whole county around my city and suburb, so here were plenty of good, rising value properties, and a few not so great areas, included in the grant... but I think most of the info would have been useful even if I moved to another state. Pittsburgh had a recession after the steel and glass mills left, so there’s a lot of empty houses and lots, but it’s seeing a Renaissance with lots of health and tech firms moving in (big offices for robotics, self driving car research, Amazon, and Google). I’d say it was transparent and a good deal, except my “self employed” situation delayed me till basically now (finally have tax docs), and now they’ve allocated all their grant money 😔

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