The New Hardware Thread

[charlesr]

I've finally got a hifi again (after divorce). All second hand but sounds OK. Some Mission M70i speakers probably about 18 years old but they seem brand new. A fairly recent Sony dual stereo 100W amp with Bluetooth. And a Chromecast Music. Speakers a bit lacking in bass compared to the Denon Soundbar I was casting to before, but everything else is lush.

[Brad]

Nice! I love having an actual hi fi. I don’t use it that often, only for putting vinyl on and when we have music club at my house. Enjoy!

Oh, I got one of those reMarkable tablets, after they ditched their stupid subscription system (they still have a sub option but it’s only for value add if you need the extras, it’s £3 a month and year 1 is free). So far it’s pretty good. Does what I want which is note taking, reading and annotating pdfs.

[charlesr]

I have loads of CDs (and buy all new music on CD) and keep thinking I should get a CD player again. But the convenience of lossless streaming from the phone makes it seem daft.

The new Amp doesn't have a DAC, so I'd need to get a decent player with integrated DAC, or transport and separate DAC. Years ago I would have poured over options. Now I'm not sure if I can be arsed

[charlesr]

I was assuming an external DAC would be a good upgrade for the Chromecast too, but apparently the inbuilt DAC in that is super

[CMcK]

On the topic of external DACs I recently bought a Questyle M15 DAC/Amp for my phone.

https://questyleshop.com/en-gb/products/m15

It makes a huge difference to listening to music on the go. My daily headphones are B&W P3s which sound a lot better with the M15. But the real upgrade is I can now use my Oppo PM2 headphones with my phone. Which blows my mind. The Oppos are planar magnetic headphones and need a fair bit of oomph to drive them. The wee M15 does it no bother. Having sound quality like that on the move is an absolute treat.
I was hoping the M15 would work with PS5 thinking it would be great for the 3D audio stuff but no joy unfortunately.

[Brad]

I have a Fiio x3 for on the go tunes. Doubles up as a dac on my pc too. Sennheiser momentum 2 for when others are around (closed back) and 595s when it’s just me.

[CMcK]

Don’t see many people using a dedicated music player on the move these days. Why do you carry another device instead of a phone & DAC combo?

[Yakumo]

Don’t see many people using a dedicated music player on the move these days. Why do you carry another device instead of a phone & DAC combo?

I use a dedicated music player. Phones sound crap for music compared to a quality dedicated device.

[Brad]

Also, hundreds of gigs of music so phones don’t cut it.

[CMcK]

External DAC takes care of the sound quality and phone capacities are huge these days. I bought a 256GB phone knowing it was going to be the music source in my car. I store the music on it in lossless or better where available. I guess a dedicated player would be expandable though?

[Brad]

A 256 gig phone would be enough... if I only used it for music storage. Once videos and photos and apps are on there that 256 gig diminishes. Plus I'm on iPhone and 256 gig versions cot a fortune, plus I like dedicated hardware buttons and yes I can put a bigger card in if I need to, plus it has an actual headphone socket so yeah, dedicated player for me mate!

[wakka]

You can get 512GB and 1TB iPhones. The cost is pretty eye-watering though £1400 to £1600 I think. And no physical buttons or 3.5mm port of course.

[speedlolita]

I've been on the fence with one of these for over a year but I found one used in great condition and with the spec I wanted. That combined with finding nothing but praise for this model from people that have been daily driving them in excess of a year. Picked up a silver MacBook Air M1 2020 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, my first foray into macOS. Should be quite a step up from all the business laptops I have used in the past. Loving the lack of heat and noise so far. Oh and the speakers are real impressive for a laptop!

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[dataDave]

I'd definitely have one of the new Walkmans if I worked in a city and did more walking/cycling as a commute. I miss my old portable MP3 players sometimes.

[dataDave]

I finally got myself my own Apple laptop. It’s only the very base level MacBook Air (M2), but it should do me for my Figma work and occasional light front-end coding. To be honest I only care about the portability and battery life, as lugging around 12KG of old gaming laptop and power brick (the battery had long died) was becoming seriously tiresome.

Disappointingly the Magic Mouse I ordered with it doesn’t sit flush on flat surfaces, so that needs replacing.