Audiophile or other test on streaming audio - if you have a few minutes spare

Channel Hopper

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AI-Radio - streams - actual detailed list

During one of the quieter tracks, if anybody can flick through and provide a basic grade of the twelve streams in terms of quality from their system, plus what they are listening with.
It can be expensive kit in a soundproofed room or just the earpieces that come with the android phone, I'm looking for general responses on what is perceived as the better delivery for online content.

If one version sounds, on the whole better than another then I can also work with it, no need to spend more valuable time seeking the ultimate list.

Thanks in advance.
 

Analoguesat

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Having terrible trouble with buffering after about 10 seconds playing so tests are limited:

apart from that they all sound the same to me!
 

Channel Hopper

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A

Archive-8

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Just tried it on my windows 10 PC, usb into Maverick audio D1+ (Burr-Brown upgrade) dac >quad pre-amp and quad mono blocks, into B&W 683s2.

Using vlc to play the tracks.

My first choice is the Flac 44khz stream, and a very close second is the opus 320 stream.

Although the MP3 192 wasn't that bad.

I thought the other streams were all lacking a certain something.
 

Channel Hopper

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Thanks.

As a supplementary question, what broadband speed are you running and is it ethernet or wifi to the important bits ?
 
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Archive-8

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Thanks.

As a supplementary question, what broadband speed are you running and is it ethernet or wifi to the important bits ?

Plusnet adsl, 21mb connection, with a 15mb throughput, (exchange only line)

All switches and internal cable is gig lan.
 

Channel Hopper

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Running an iPad here with Maxell headphones I can only play the aac, aacp and mp3 Streams thanks to Safari . All sound virtually identical and percussion (especially cymbals) are a major letdown. Wifi to around 5MB , nobody sharing.
 
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Archive-8

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Apart from the opus 320 and the Flac stream, the rest was :-toilet

A few friends use an app called media connect, it's in the App Store, but I don't get on with it.

That is supposed to play Flac files etc
 

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Thanks for the information but I would rather remain distant from iOS and Android for the time being and concentrate on PC based stuff as I think a decent audio board could make a difference to the final output, sigma delta. (tango bravo and all that )

What do you use for pulling internet radio streams if you have an interest, and do you get all the pertinent detail on the format when listening to a station or blog/feed ?
 

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All this is going to be old hat stuff, last night at BestBuy I had the chance to listen to some UN-compressed audio wav files of some of my favorite songs, these wav files were created directly from the 16 track master tapes used to make all the recordings at the studios.

MAN was I impressed.......These wav files were stored on some 250 GB flash drives, they had one full album on each, these were plugged directly into the USB port on a top of the line Denon AV receiver, these flash drives had a USB 3.0 interface so did the AV receiver, all this played into a top of the line electrostatic surround sound setup.

The recordings were like sitting out in the audience front row center....All you had to do was close your eyes and your in the concert.

Had I had the money in the check book I would be setting it up now, but at $4500 US (3616 GBP) I would be out of grocery/booze money for several months to half a year.

If they could find a way to stream this type of uncompressed wav file recordings, it would be like replacing the horse and buggy with a Porch.

I have found a program that will convert the standard digital recording file like is stored on an Ipod to an uncompressed wav file, and store it on your PC. (or MAC)

I may even try it out with a USB turntable and drag out the old (but well cared for) vinyl. and see what it sounds like.

The only drawback is that these files are quiet large, so I may need to get a 4TB hard drive.
 
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