What’s the old song? “Everything old is new again…”
I remember the parametric equalizer fad of 70’s. They were supposed to be the answer to speaker/room interface. Yes, DSP is AI driven and cleaner in its effect, but it’s still just another form of parametric equalization. Will not ultimately have legs, or transform the industry.
Sorry.
One-box appeals, for when I’ve finally had enough adjusting and configuring and tweaking, but for now I’ve just gone in the opposite direction of as much “Lego brickiness” as I can, that way I get to swap around and swap again until I have a system architecture I like.
It keeps me amused.
When I break it I still have the system I put together (in the same room) for my wife’s use - tuner, cd player, (hidden) link from my streamer, and an integrated amp and speakers.
I’m only happy when I’m plugging stuff together!
I don’t use DSP products, but professionally I’ve used powered studio monitors for years and well-measuring professional DACs that generally cost far less per channel than a high end DAC. When I went to high end audio my sound and listening experience increased dramatically. A lot of that came with things that are impractical and unknown in pro audio: vibration feet, electronic component isolation, upgraded fuses and power cables, and less compact and more “colored” sounding gear like PS Audio, LTA and Ayre. I think the opportunity to eliminate cabling is very significant, but it seems like sticking all of this stuff bouncing/buzzing around in the same box would definitely come a sonic cost, one that I understand is offset by the overall design improvement, but seems like would result in a very different flavor.
I am intrigued by the notion of what if, perhaps by luck, an all in one box gets me a sound I’m happy with, like the Naim Atom or Nova? If it’s right to my tastes, then I can get rid of all these boxes and cables.
And what if the one box is better precisely because it doesn’t have all the extra boxes, cables, and power supplies?
It’s all part of the adventure init, one way or another 
Ultimately the right one-box will probably sound better, certainly less variables to control for a manufacturer, but less fun for me!
Well, as I am committed to Roon (because I think it’s fantastic, not because I paid for a lifetime sub) I’d look at their partners.
https://roonlabs.com/partners
You are spoilt for choice.
You also have beautiful speakers, you don’t say which model, but SF tend to be easy to drive. The Naim unit of choice would be the Uniti Nova. I would be biased towards the Devialet 140. It’s a steal for the quality of the streamer and DAC alone if 140w at 6ohms is enough power, plus it takes no space. Cambridge Audio make fantastic stuff, their latest streamer/pre-amp the Edge NQ and matching W amp is actually more expensive than the Devialet with about the same power. All I’m saying is that there is a lot of choice because Roon in now really well established.
This hobby has never been about convenience. Haha. Sure some people want the convenience of certain setups. Me too under certain conditions. But what we do is different. This is a sport - not casual listening.
Interesting way to put “it”.
Thanks.
Your opinion, digital always become obsolete, NOT analog, that’s a FACT! I am using a Classe’ CA-2100 Amp from 2000s, still has the same price I paid for it. Checkout OLD McIntosh gear, ALL have retained value… then check literally ALL old DACs! Worth next to ZERO. Upgradable modular systems are rare and sometimes costs just as much to upgrade than buying new.
Last, WHO said you can’t have smaller speakers sound good without DSP?! I’ve been doing it for YEARS so have many. You’re just trolling!
I had the same system for about 12 years. Did not change a cable or anything. Then streaming came along. That was about 2009 or 2010, although I bought a Linn system that was first released in 2007. The Linn DS system I bought has been constantly upgradeable.
Linn put the streamer, DAC and pre-amp in one box and amplifier in another. That made perfect sense to me. They still do and that is still a very popular combination. What I also realised then was that high fidelity digital music equipment will become very cheap and hi-end audio companies will hate it and struggle to make money.
I have a Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI. It started life as a Devialet D-Premier in 2010. I think it became a Le 250 in about 2013 or 2014, a 250 Expert in 2016 and a 250 Expert Pro CI in 2017. The major upgrade when I had it was from Le 250 to 250 Pro. A new 250 Pro cost about £12,500 at the time, the upgrade cost £2,990. I got an improved amplifier, DAC and power supply. That payment included the Pro CI upgrade in 2017, which gave me a dramatically improved streamer that in 2019 became Roon Ready with a free software upgrade. All hardware upgrades are collect and return from your home included in the price, from anywhere in the world.
Manufacturers like Linn and Devialet, who are larger hi-end manufacturers, know customers want affordable hardware upgrades and free software upgrades. There are other choices.
I had a PS Audio DAC. It cost me £2,500 new. I sold it 2-3 years later for £1,000. The problem was it would have cost £2,500 to upgrade to a DSD DAC and I would have to build it myself. To me that was a poor upgrade option. So I sold the DAC and bought a replacement that was just as good for £650 new. I actually sold it a year later for £700.
Streaming and good Class D did change things dramatically, it is not about to happen, it happened 10 to 15 years ago.
I feel like being provocative. Forgive me. Digital will annihilate analog. It will not be a fair fight. Vinyl will be a joke. Real time endless digital choice will make physical medium seem more and more silly.
Spending hours of your day for weeks labeling ripped medium will be deemed worthless.
The sound quality gap with all in one products will continuously close!
Dsp will be so good room treatment will be unnecessary.
(I have rebuttals many of these comments but it depends on the timeline)
Lols… grenade, pull pin… throw!
While I have no doubt digital will improve enormously over the years, currently it’s entire base is flawed compared to analogue. All digital is sample based, so you’re only getting snapshots of the music sewn together. IMHO, it’s exactly this reason why analogue still wins. Digital is only representing a fraction of the entire sound signal.
It hasn’t yet. There are just some things about about analog recording and playback that no PCM digital source/DAC I’ve heard can accomplish. DSD is just about there, and some of the ultra high end DACs like DCS, EMM Labs, MSB, etc. But can you fit 8 channels of EMM Labs DSD playback into a powered speaker with DSP (without mangling the audio and defeating the point of DSD)?
Digital A/D conversion and processing will also need to improve, because ADCs still lose something, and digital processors are still inferior in audio quality to analog processors when it comes to recording and mixing.
That beginning and ending point cannot change, AFAICT, so digital will always be two added conversion stages in the process of listening to reproduced music.
True. But as I said, if both the conversions are really good, and at least the output conversion is DSD, the advantage true analog has narrows substantially. In most cases I prefer a good DSD 128 source over vinyl, provided a DAC that does DSD well.
Assume you mean “DSD 128 Output”
Strange that this isn’t really a problem in photography anymore but still noticeable in audio in suitable test cases, isn’t it? It would be interesting to know the relation between visual and acoustic levels of differentiation depending on involved technology and whatever noise influences. I guess it’s 1:1000 or more.
Not sure how, or if, it is different. I’m sure we could find video/photography-ophiles who are waiting for the next resolution/format/etc., as ever. In Pro video, 8k resolution (at 30, 60, or greater fps) was introduced a good while back, and is steadily creeping toward commercial reality. But most don’t have an 8k monitor.
Many pro video people were surprised at how quickly 4k was adopted, but that had to do with the availability and affordability of 4k TVs and media. If DSD or DXD audio recording and playback media had been similarly inexpensive and available (not to mention Industry supported), we’d be shrugging at this point. Sony, with SACD was both ahead of its time in the market, and poorly marketed/overly restrictive in implementation.
I wouldn’t call the current resolutions of either audio or video a problem - or particularly noticeable/discernable in most suitable test cases.
For most people, video and photography is now usually both deliverd via and experienced on a digital display of some sort, whereas music is still played back - for the forseeable future - over analog speakers. So I feel like that is sort of a different end point in that respect somehow.
While digital is now a given in video and photography, I tend to still see analog in audio as the Standard, where these issues don’t enter into it, These are sampling rates and resolutions of Digital, going into and out of Analog. They can’t make the analog at the beginning and the end better, they can only potentially render it more faithfully.
Yes - you can still make movies and take pictures on film, and print photos out on paper and show a movie in a theater from film, but it is no longer common. The Singularity is likely Near for Audio - and what form that will take, I’m not sure.
I mean a real DSD 128 source file. IMO they have much better dynamic range and top end than the single rate. With the right converters they sound almost perfect. I wish I could advocate for DSD 256, but I’ve never heard it.
You can buy DSD 128 files, and it is excellent format to archive analog recordings.
I hear you, but I admit in photography I didn’t think about 4K monitors as a typical device to experience it (that’s rather a kind of “measurement device“ in my eyes), I just thought of comparing analog and digital photography on devices like prints of various sizes or ipads. This is different in video, I agree with your observation that the typical digital endpoint there also makes a difference to the matter.
I agree resolution is usually not a main problem anymore as a direct cause of information loss except for big prints in photography and here and there the impression of less resolved details of digital audio vs. analog. But it seems (as used for internal processing in the DS or mastering/editing processes) that higher resolutions in audio also reduce information loss in indirect characteristics like ambiance and soundstaging due to other side effects.
I also assume that when comparing an all analog production with the same one (same mastering engineer) that had digital processing inbetween, the multiple back and forth digital processings and production phases are responsible for the information losses we can hear in such cases vs. very good all analog produced and played back versions.
Analog processes and restrictions have their quirks, but it seems we’re still further away from really lossless digital processes in audio. All this certainly just audible in really good setups.
As you say a film recorded and processed digitally, played back on a digital screen, has no modern all analog counterpart to compare to.