Hi!
I am a new user from Norway. I have been using surround for about 15 years. I am not an audiophile and on a budget, but I love the experience of surround.
When I upgraded to surround I bought a Denon receiver and a Yamaha combined SACD/DVD-A player, both secondhand, plus new (Dali) center and surround speakers. I already had decent, big front speakers (also Dali). My setup is 5.0, so no subwoofer. I am not sure if I need one since my front speakers have big bass elements. I am not sure if I want a sub either. My son has subwoofers in his room and in his car, and I think it sounds horrible. It is also very annoying for the rest of the family and people passing by his room or car. I added a Blu-ray player when some albums were sold only on Blu-ray. I have ripped all of my CD's, most of the LPs, and all my surround albums, except the unrippable SACDs. The files are on a small harddisk connected to my router. I play back the stereo albums from a microcomputer (Raspberry Pi) with Minimserver and an Openhome player controlled by BubbleUPnP, and the surround albums from another microcomputer (currently Pine 64) with Kodi.
I recently upgraded to an Atmos setup. I bought a secondhand receiver, and a Chromecast with Google TV, plus I upgraded my Tidal subscription. I already had a couple of extra speakers (Kef). The receiver has either 5.2.2 or 7.2 possibilities. I chose a 5.0.2 setup. It sounds fantastic. However, it is completely useless for streaming gapless music. The gaps are very long. I tested with The Beatles' Abbey Road and Stravinsky's Petrouchka suite. Horrible! So that was a big disappointment. I thought I could download the stream and remove the gaps in an audio editor. But when I imported the tracks into Adobe Audition or Audacity, the Atmos info disappeared. I don't know of any other audio editor that can preserve the Atmos info. Perhaps Protools can do it, but only on one of the more expensive versions. If anyone has a tip for a preferably free or inexpensive software solution, I would be grateful. I don't know if the gaps are hardware-dependent, but I don't think that I will flesh out for a more expensive hardware right now.
Favourite surround albums in my collection: Frank Zappa: "Quaudiophiliac". King Crimson: "Lizard". The Beatles: "Love" and "The Beatles". New discoveries of Atmos albums on Tidal: Eric Dolphy: "Out to Lunch". Larry Young: "Unity". The Beach Boys: "Pet Sounds". The latter, in a new Atmos mix by Giles Martin, sounds fantastic, even better than the Beatles mixes.
I am a new user from Norway. I have been using surround for about 15 years. I am not an audiophile and on a budget, but I love the experience of surround.
When I upgraded to surround I bought a Denon receiver and a Yamaha combined SACD/DVD-A player, both secondhand, plus new (Dali) center and surround speakers. I already had decent, big front speakers (also Dali). My setup is 5.0, so no subwoofer. I am not sure if I need one since my front speakers have big bass elements. I am not sure if I want a sub either. My son has subwoofers in his room and in his car, and I think it sounds horrible. It is also very annoying for the rest of the family and people passing by his room or car. I added a Blu-ray player when some albums were sold only on Blu-ray. I have ripped all of my CD's, most of the LPs, and all my surround albums, except the unrippable SACDs. The files are on a small harddisk connected to my router. I play back the stereo albums from a microcomputer (Raspberry Pi) with Minimserver and an Openhome player controlled by BubbleUPnP, and the surround albums from another microcomputer (currently Pine 64) with Kodi.
I recently upgraded to an Atmos setup. I bought a secondhand receiver, and a Chromecast with Google TV, plus I upgraded my Tidal subscription. I already had a couple of extra speakers (Kef). The receiver has either 5.2.2 or 7.2 possibilities. I chose a 5.0.2 setup. It sounds fantastic. However, it is completely useless for streaming gapless music. The gaps are very long. I tested with The Beatles' Abbey Road and Stravinsky's Petrouchka suite. Horrible! So that was a big disappointment. I thought I could download the stream and remove the gaps in an audio editor. But when I imported the tracks into Adobe Audition or Audacity, the Atmos info disappeared. I don't know of any other audio editor that can preserve the Atmos info. Perhaps Protools can do it, but only on one of the more expensive versions. If anyone has a tip for a preferably free or inexpensive software solution, I would be grateful. I don't know if the gaps are hardware-dependent, but I don't think that I will flesh out for a more expensive hardware right now.
Favourite surround albums in my collection: Frank Zappa: "Quaudiophiliac". King Crimson: "Lizard". The Beatles: "Love" and "The Beatles". New discoveries of Atmos albums on Tidal: Eric Dolphy: "Out to Lunch". Larry Young: "Unity". The Beach Boys: "Pet Sounds". The latter, in a new Atmos mix by Giles Martin, sounds fantastic, even better than the Beatles mixes.
