Further evidence the Hemps where a “test run” of sorts, all the new “x” models are 38ohm like the Hemps while all the previous “e” models where 32ohm.
interesting that 6ohm’s would make that much a difference.
my first thought was they had to change because supplies ran out for their e series.
and odd that they have been alphabetical in their generations until now.
BIG article on the chinese expo this last weekend:
Apple Hi-Res and lossless is confirmed
It’s awesome that they’re just using ALAC, and giving you 16/44.1+, another blow to MQA. Also I’ll take “no extra cost” wherever I can get it
And this is by far the cheapest lossless/high-res package for students I have ever seen, at 5 USD/GBP. Also Mac users can download a remote app to control their music with their phone as a remote. I’m sold, think I’m definitely moving.
make sure their selection is as good as where you’re coming from
I was thinking about this the other day as I’m a guy that threw money at Tidal but not because of MQA… The only DAC I owned that was MQA capable was a Dragonfly Red I used on my phone. For me availability was the factor when I first signed up. Amazon wasn’t available, no one else had Lossless and I had no clue what Qobuz was and it was expensive (given the fact that I was paying $9.99 for Tidal Master with a student discount.
So it was just a matter of it didn’t impact me. Other than superficial knowledge of MQA and knowing the intent (which as you pointed out went right out the window before it was even implemented) I though tit was “cool”. All marketing as 1, I didn’t have an MQA DAC and 2) the thing I thought they were doing, they clearly weren’t.
I had already been kicking around the Qobuz trial when the Goldenaudio video came out so it was an easy migration given that it’s $12.99 a month now. I couldn’t justifiably sit idle since now Tidal’s decision to go full MQA does impact me an d what I’m looking for sonically.
This is important. First impressions are hard to overcome, too, especially when you have no real reason to reconsider. Tidal was available, had a good library, and sounded way better than Spotify and the lossy versions of Amazon and Apple (which is going lossless soon, apparently). I used Tidal back when MQA was a choice. It was the only “lossless” streaming game in town for a good while. I got annoyed with them when it was clear they were moving to MQA. At the time I was a grad student with little extra scratch. I resented having to buy a specialized dac - at that time the DF Red and that Meridian dongle dac were the cheapest options and I was in a life position where $200 for just a dac was too steep. Then Qobuz came along and their US launch wasn’t exactly smooth. They claimed something like 40M tracks in early 2019. I think the initial impression of their library being underwhelming stuck. Now they claim over 70M tracks. Most of what they don’t have, at least in what I search for, is indie stuff. Either way back when I tested Qobuz sounded noticeably better even on my meager FX Audio DAC-X6 and Monolith M1060 setup (I was so naive, lol) and Denon AVR with Def Tech speakers in 2 channel mode. So even though their library had holes in early 2019 I stuck with Qobuz and filled in those (still few) holes with buying downloads or CDs of the missing stuff. That ended up being little because I already had amassed a fairly large library by that time.
I’m coming from Deezer. Before that I was with Tidal and that move went okay without me losing much of my music. I understand that Apple Music has a much bigger library than Deezer. Nevertheless, I plan to sign up for Apple Music’s free trial and then use Soundiiz to determine if there are any gaps. Thanks for the heads up, either way!
is this Spacial Audio with Dolby Atmos going to be a competitor to Sony’s 360 audio tech?
As a follow up - Amazon now offers lossless in the standard subscription. It’s good to see some competition, hopefully the prices of streaming services can be brought down
EDIT: just realise it’s been posted in the music section. Apologies for the duplicate post.
yowza…that’s like 3 revision in the last 2 years, LoL!
I’m guessing the 3 was using AKM chips?
4 still uses akm from what I see, looking at it, it seems the big upgrade over the 3 is compatibility with most consoles now
Wait, is that…a Type-C connector? From Schiit??? If we aren’t careful they actually might just start putting power switches on the front of some of their units, lol.
I like the power on the back. Reminds me of my computers in the 80’s