In late 2008, I was a hi-fi world newcomer with an integrated amplifier (a Redgum RGi35) and standmount loudspeakers (Krix KDX-M). A degree of disappointment will be dodged if the chosen loudspeakers closely fit the acoustic make-up of the room, but this isn’t the time to discuss treatments beyond rugs and heavier curtains.īut what of the DAC? I’m often asked if a step up from a laptop or smartphone’s headphone socket is worth the cash if the source is Spotify? The reasoning is sound – that better D/A conversion will expose the shortcomings of lossy streaming – but it’s being popped way too early in the journey. To think otherwise is to flirt with the arrogance that keeps the audiophile world entrenched in a ghetto.įor the newcomer stepping up from a Bluetooth speaker or soundbar, a new pair of loudspeakers will bring the most dramatic change to her music-listening world, closely followed by the amplifier used to power them. More importantly, those of us who feel our experience is worth sharing with others must meet the newcomer where she lives – in Spotify land – and not where we might prefer her to live. What point upping one’s source quality if the hardware required to realise any audible improvement isn’t yet in place? Not so fast! Such ‘source first’ idealism often pays no mind to the newcomer’s pre-existing hardware. The die-hards will insist that an immediate change to the newcomer’s streaming service is required: to the CD quality (and above) of Amazon HD, Tidal, Qobuz or Deezer. Where does this leave the newcomer looking to dip her toe into the hi-fi world?
Giving die-hard audiophiles pause is Spotify’s choice of streaming codec: Ogg Vorbis is lossy - its psychoacoustic compression algorithm strips away the musical information that we are less likely to hear in order to squeeze the file size down to 320kbps or lower. It has the catalogue depth, the UI elegance and, thanks to Spotify Connect, hi-fi system integration ready to roll.
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