HiFi buffs? A small but good HiFi system?

[Mike4]

Rest assured my yacht is small, old, and pleading for TLC (which I am giving her)

Point of Order M'Lud....

You never own a boat (especially not a yacht). the boat owns you....

And another boating cliché - the two happiest days of your boating life are the day you buy her, and the day you sell her.

[jaizan]

Have a look at something like the £250 Denon dm 41. A mini hi fi and well regarded in your what hi fi magazine. You can just buy the box and choose you own speakers.

I have the earlier version of this. The DAB failed when it was just out of warranty. Denon just referred me to some third party repairers, who wanted £40 just to look at it & refused to tell me what a repair would cost. Despite some internet searches showing this a known issue on this model, so they must have a very good idea. Also affects earlier models and the later model. Clearly Denon do not fix known issues.
I shall try to never buy another Denon or Marantz product.

[MaraMan]

Just a word for those who have or are interested in Spotify Premium. If you have children, as I do, they may well pay for Spotify Premium Family for their own use, but this also allows six different sign in's. This is what I do with my son's account, which he would have anyway for him and his girlfriend.

MM

[ReallyVeryFoolish]

Just a word for those who have or are interested in Spotify Premium. If you have children, as I do, they may well pay for Spotify Premium Family for their own use, but this also allows six different sign in's. This is what I do with my son's account, which he would have anyway for him and his girlfriend.

MM

That's exactly what we do with Apple Music, Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon Prime. Shared across a family, it's great value for money and extremely convenient. Increasingly the family is abandoning traditional broadcasting and both children no longer have TV licences. I see this trend accelerating and forcing through big changes at BBC etc....

Oh and recently, Disney TV too.

RVF

[genou]

Just a word for those who have or are interested in Spotify Premium. If you have children, as I do, they may well pay for Spotify Premium Family for their own use, but this also allows six different sign in's. This is what I do with my son's account, which he would have anyway for him and his girlfriend.

MM

Just as long as you all live in the same house.....

[ReallyVeryFoolish]

Just a word for those who have or are interested in Spotify Premium. If you have children, as I do, they may well pay for Spotify Premium Family for their own use, but this also allows six different sign in's. This is what I do with my son's account, which he would have anyway for him and his girlfriend.

MM

Just as long as you all live in the same house.....

I cannot speak for Spotify but see my post above. Those services are shared in the family across four addresses.

RVF

[servodude]

Just a word for those who have or are interested in Spotify Premium. If you have children, as I do, they may well pay for Spotify Premium Family for their own use, but this also allows six different sign in's. This is what I do with my son's account, which he would have anyway for him and his girlfriend.

MM

Just as long as you all live in the same house.....

I cannot speak for Spotify but see my post above. Those services are shared in the family across four addresses.

RVF

Spotify T&Cs do require that you live at the same address

2. Eligibility and Verification

A. In order to be eligible for the Premium Family Subscription, the primary account holder and the subsidiary account holders must be family members residing at the same address.

B. Upon activation of a subsidiary Premium Family account (excluding Spotify Kids account(s)), you will be asked to verify your home address.

C. We may from time to time ask for re-verification of your home address in order to confirm that you are still meeting the eligibility criteria.

We use Google Maps address search to help you find and set your address. The address you enter upon activation or re-verification will be subject to the Google Maps Additional Terms of Service and Google Privacy Policy.

Spotify reserves the right to terminate or suspend access to the Spotify Premium Family service and the Spotify Premium Family account(s) immediately and at any time if you fail to meet the eligibility criteria and as otherwise set out in the Spotify Terms and Conditions of Use.

- they do occasionally check - but it's as trivial click though "nothing to see here"

- just as they occasionally inform you of unexpected/unusual access

-sd

[stevensfo]

I can't thank the people enough who first introduced me to Spotify and Idagio. I haven't started Spotify premium yet but I'm amazed at what they have. Not just music. Last night I was laughing my head off - and annoying my wife - at tracks from Monty Python I haven't heard for decades. There are Radio comedy shows and even language lessons to explore. I'm also very proud that I can now say in fluent swahili, "Excuse me, do you speak English? I understand only a little Swahili." Should be really useful next time in Luton airport!

Steve

[dspp]

dspp

The kludges for the B2 are discussed on the Brennan website. I would put them all into the category of trying to make the best of a bad job, rather than pros and cons. There is also a brennan forum where this has been discussed, but it is difficult to find information on this quickly.

This a very widespread problem which is not just confined to Classical music, but also causes problems with other genres i.e. Jazz and Hip Hop where it is common for different artists to appear on different tracks. It all goes back to the inadequate metadata tags that came in with the first MP3s.

You might like to have a look at the website for MinimSever which is one of the few products designed with Classical Music in mind. On the features page it discusses problems with tagging and in particular Classical music.

Thank you, for others' benefit:

https://minimserver.com/features.html
https://www.blisshq.com/music-library-m ... -out-upnp/
https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.p ... gYourMusic

regards, dspp

OK, many thanks for the suggestions which led me to the Brennan B2 which I gave my GF for Christmas. I then ripped over 350 albums to FLAC in the last few weeks for the pair of us, and I found that about three quarters had the track etc data in the system (good), and that about a quarter did not (so I punched it in). For just a fraction I could not find the cover art. So a promising start.

The indicated drawbacks for the metadata were as discussed. So (e.g) our artist is sometimes ascribed to the composer and sometimes to the musician. Anyway that is how it is.

I am now trying to use the near-infinite number of playlists as a way of kludging the metadata for genre. That in turn is leading to my GF and I considering genre taxonomies. Since we have (crudely) a quarter jazz, a quarter classical, a quarter pop, and a quarter other stuff this is quite an interesting matter, prompting me to ask how others have done it, and any advice they would give us.

Searching around for genre taxonomies I have come up with this thoughtful paper from a pair of Sony France authors (https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/2856 ... nload=true) and I can see an interesting style list on Wiki at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_styles . Can anybody point me to any others I ought to read and consider seriously ?

(does anyone know if Brennan have any plans in this area, it seems a somewhat obvious software extension for them)

regards, dspp

[Grumpsimus]

dspp

I am glad you like the Brennan B2. However, as expected you are finding the limitations of the indexing system, which is really only suitable for most basic genres of music. Leading you to the work rounds for what appears to be a large part of your CD collection.

You ask if Brennan have any plans in this area. The only way to find out is to ask them directly.

However, I suspect not as it would really require a completely new version of the software. Brennan are a very small company and I will probably not wish to support two software versions. In anycase a new indexing system, suitable for complicated genres, would not match existing data sources and would require users to enter most of the information manually.

[Itsallaguess]

Just a quick heads-up for anyone that might have been considering the Tidal music service - there's a 6-month free code available at the moment, so just entering 'LIDLMUSIC' on the following Tidal page will get you into the summer for free -

https://offer.tidal.com/voucher

Like most free periods for services like these, it'll need a payment method registering, and then active cancellation of the service nearer to the 6-month period end.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Infrasonic]

Just a quick heads-up for anyone that might have been considering the Tidal music service - there's a 6-month free code available at the moment, so just entering 'LIDLMUSIC' on the following Tidal page will get you into the summer for free -

https://offer.tidal.com/voucher

Like most free periods for services like these, it'll need a payment method registering, and then active cancellation of the service nearer to the 6-month period end.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Thanks for that, just signed up.

I recently took advantage of Spotify Premium on a free six month trial so I'll be interested in any perceivable differences in quality.

Also I noted recently that I was getting adverts in SP, initially I though there was a glitch but upon investigation it turns out to be a deliberate policy change!
There's also known issues with the W10 app and W10 web access not playing all material (some podcasts are giving me issues), yesterdays update fixed nothing (Android/Chrome OS fine) - so I don't think I'll pursue SP at the end of the free trial.

[Infrasonic]

I've just noticed if you want you can try out the higher quality tier (HiFi) in Tidal for three months with the voucher offers.
It would have to be demonstrably better for me to stump up £20 a month though (£15 would be more tempting...).

[Infrasonic]

I've done some A/B listening with material I know very well that has been recorded by respected engineers, mixed and mastered properly and that I own on multiple formats (CD, vinyl, half speed masters et al) - on a few systems (HiFi, PC's, phone), using speakers, headphones etc.

My vote goes to Tidal.
It's close but when the dynamic level gets high and mixes get congested there's a fatigue element listening to Spotify Premium that implies the codec is not operating as well as Tidal's - which has more 'air' at the top end and is cleaner. At lower levels it is very close though. Both @ 320kbps.

I might try the HiFi Tidal option nearer the end of the free period, see if there is any real world discernible difference.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.allconnect.com/streaming/tidal-review

Our TIDAL review for 2021: Is it worth it?

[Infrasonic]

https://www.whathifi.com/news/spotify-h ... -streaming

Spotify HiFi is official. Almost four years after it was first teased, a CD-quality tier is finally coming to the world's most popular streaming service, the green giant has revealed during its 'Stream On' online event today.

Spotify will join the likes of Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer and Amazon in offering lossless streaming "beginning later this year". Spotify is promising to share more details on Spotify HiFi soon, such as the all-important price, device compatibility, territories and launch dates.

Cont.