and just like that 10 pages of hyperventilation and hysteria get deflated and all that's left is the deafening silence of a couple of former loudmouths. I'm loving it. Well done A&K!

just to inject another perspective into this strangely bad-tempered discussion: I did notice and I couldn't care less what BT version a device like this has

thank you @JasonNYC , but does Roon ARC on the KANN Ultra take advantage of the full audio decoding capabilities of the device (to the same extent that the Roon Ready feature/mode will)? I'm asking because on my current DAP Roon ARC runs fine, too, but outputs only 44.1kHz/16bit.

@JasonNYC , the CA1000T will eventually be Roon Ready, which is great - but only if on the same WiFi as the Roon Core. For streaming from a Roon Core to off-site locations (such as the office) many now use Roon ARC: will it be possible to run the Roon ARC app on the CA1000T with bit-perfect...

witness the birth of the (really helpful) soundstage emoticon!

no, of course Focal buys off-the-shelf chipsets for Bluetooth and DAC, so it would have been an option to buy state-of-the-art ones that don't have the limitations I mentioned. But I'm sure it's as @xxearvinxx and @ticoss said: doing so would have required late changes to the headphones (for BT...

The Bathys are not just wireless BT headphones but also include an USB DAC, something that is innovative and transcends the narrow BT ANC headphone market segment. Yet the DAC SOC they chose is sub-par and and so fails to decode an important subset of my music files (DXD, DSD, MQA, ...). So my...

with all the effort that obviously went into the analog parts of this headphone (starting with the precious driver), why skimp on the digital parts like the Bluetooth chipset and DAC? Wireless I expect the current BT version (5.3), wired (via USB) I expect to be able to play all my music files...

Advertisements are paid for by the advertiser, Meze in this case, and in most jurisdictions must be identified as such. It's a grave accusation to suggest that Meze paid for these (favorable) reviews - and it's entirely without proof. Instead these are just low-effort reviews by retailers who...

FYI @Resolve 's review: https://www.headphones.com/community/reviews-learning-and-news/audeze-mm-500-review

careful and well-argued compare & contrast : thank you very much! There is no such thing as a free lunch...

thank you for the excellent first impressions, especially the descriptions of how they reproduce the various songs you listened to. Since the tuning of the LCD-5 is virtually identical, an interesting question is if the superior tech of the LCD-5 buys you the punch and slam that the MM-500 seem...

FYI: https://majorhifi.com/audeze-mm-500-review/

as far as I can tell from https://www.audeze.com/products/mm-500, the MM-500 have now entered regular production (although https://www.headphones.com/products/audeze-mm-500-planar-magnetic-headphones still lists them as pre-order). However, there is a surprising dearth of independent...

translation: real Audiophiles (capital A) do not like these headphones. Is that about right?

if it were a real streamer it would have Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, Chromecast and Roon Ready in addition to Airplay (2?) and Bluetooth. As it is, it looks more like a really big DAP.

This was a supremely authentic, informative and enjoyable interview.

@audionewbi : could you please clarify what exact behavior you are observing? @JasonNYC : would you mind confirming that there is indeed an acknowledged issue that is being addressed? i'm asking because being a transportable battery-powered Roon-ready endpoint (over dual-band WiFi 5 with 4.4...

i've always been baffled by the amount of (always negative) emotion invested in what is essentially a codec. Yes, it's patented, but in a wildly capitalist world that's hardly unique. Yes, their executives seem to have behaved like :poop: at at least one occasion, but surely that pales in...

yes, i agree with all of that. And would add that i've only ever tried MQA with DACs/DAPs that are Full Decoders (best case scenario, in other words).

from the way you put your question it's clear that it is rather a statement :wink: but yes, of course it's about lossy compressing hires files, and by definition a lossy compressed file is "worse" than the original file - otherwise it wouldn't be a lossy compression algorithm. The question is...

unfortunately RAAT is a proprietary network protocol (it even requires the device to run Roon Lab's protocol server process), so the claims of superiority over AirPlay, Chromecast, etc. are hard to prove. But i do believe it's a genuinely different way of network communication between Roon Core...

to the best of my knowledge, the A&K DAPs (https://roonlabs.com/partners/astellkern) are the only Roon Ready portables - and it took them forever to get there. Every other DAP that runs Android can of course install the Roon app and play music to the local DAP system output, but it's sound...

"Roon Ready" means that the device responds to Roon's native RAAT network protocol, which is the most feature-complete and performance-preserving way of integrating with Roon. "Roon Tested" means a less bespoke integration, such as via generic AirPlay, Chromecast or wired via USB. It's all well...

thank you for digging up post #617 :smirk: So the ESS variant might be a full decoder - we'll have to wait and see.