New to the forum, but not new to stereophile reviews nor hi-fi in general. Really just got started in the hobby a few years ago as budget has increased with income. I have been an audio enthusiast for many years, however. I only recently realized that I should have ripped all of my cd's to ALAC when I transferred them to iTunes several years ago. As such, and because I use my old iPhone 6s as my source, I have been listening to all of my music in mp3 format and even the albums I downloaded from iTunes are not even cd-quality - I thought I had read that they were.
Long story short, I'm in the process of re-ripping all of my cd's to ALAC on my wife's Apple laptop (3 years old) and will start purchasing 24 bit of what is available of my music. I'm looking for the easiest way to (somewhat) quickly access my music collection and play hi-res through my current setup. My questions are around whether I should pick up an external DAC (up to $250 budget for now) and play it all from my iPhone via Vox or some other hi-res player or maybe even build a Raspberry+HiFiberry Dac+ based system and connect directly to my amp. I'm currently using Vox as I like the idea of being able to access my media from my numerous Apple devices via their "cloud," but I am not married to it. It's just what I found first. I did play the same song back to back out of my iPhone in mp3 form via iTunes and then ALAC via Vox and there was a noticeable difference for sure - both still via my iPhone. This single song is what turned me down this road, as I knew it could be even better.
So, looking for suggestions. Small-form factor is a plus. I guess I'd consider going straight from the laptop into the amp if you guys think the sound quality couldn't be improved upon without spending $500+ on an external USB DAC, but it would be nice to have everything contained in one spot at all times (laptop stays in the office usually) and turn everything on and go on the fly without having to retrieve the laptop. I also like the idea of being able to stream hi-res from my phone through the Raspberry, if that is even possible.
My current setup is an NAD T757 with the AM200 card - 10ga Belden 5T00UP Speaker wire (35ft runs in the wall) to a pair of Martin Logan Motion 40s. I will be getting a separate power amp sometime around Christmas. Pretty good start, I think, and certainly worth implementing good source material rather than straight out of my old iPhone and into the NAD.
New to the forum, but not new to stereophile reviews nor hi-fi in general. Really just got started in the hobby a few years ago as budget has increased with income. I have been an audio enthusiast for many years, however. I only recently realized that I should have ripped all of my cd's to ALAC when I transferred them to iTunes several years ago. As such, and because I use my old iPhone 6s as my source, I have been listening to all of my music in mp3 format and even the albums I downloaded from iTunes are not even cd-quality - I thought I had read that they were.
Long story short, I'm in the process of re-ripping all of my cd's to ALAC on my wife's Apple laptop (3 years old) and will start purchasing 24 bit of what is available of my music. I'm looking for the easiest way to (somewhat) quickly access my music collection and play hi-res through my current setup. My questions are around whether I should pick up an external DAC (up to $250 budget for now) and play it all from my iPhone via Vox or some other hi-res player or maybe even build a Raspberry+HiFiberry Dac+ based system and connect directly to my amp. I'm currently using Vox as I like the idea of being able to access my media from my numerous Apple devices via their "cloud," but I am not married to it. It's just what I found first. I did play the same song back to back out of my iPhone in mp3 form via iTunes and then ALAC via Vox and there was a noticeable difference for sure - both still via my iPhone. This single song is what turned me down this road, as I knew it could be even better.
So, looking for suggestions. Small-form factor is a plus. I guess I'd consider going straight from the laptop into the amp if you guys think the sound quality couldn't be improved upon without spending $500+ on an external USB DAC, but it would be nice to have everything contained in one spot at all times (laptop stays in the office usually) and turn everything on and go on the fly without having to retrieve the laptop. I also like the idea of being able to stream hi-res from my phone through the Raspberry, if that is even possible.
My current setup is an NAD T757 with the AM200 card - 10ga Belden 5T00UP Speaker wire (35ft runs in the wall) to a pair of Martin Logan Motion 40s. I will be getting a separate power amp sometime around Christmas. Pretty good start, I think, and certainly worth implementing good source material rather than straight out of my old iPhone and into the NAD.