About five years ago I was a reasonably regular frequenter of this forum, but I somehow fell out of love with the whole hi-fi thing and ended up listening mostly to Spotify on my headphones. Part of the reason was that I was having intermittent connection problems between my Qute 2 and my network and playing music from my NAS was therefore a bit of a faff. Anyway, I came here last weekend to ask for suggestions and have a sniff around to see if others had had similar problems with their networks.
There was only one response to my network-related post, but I did glean some tips from other posts and set about cleaning up my network - Iām in the āeverything else on my network works, so it must be the Naimā camp - and Iām interested to see how the changes Iāve made improve things. (I was embarrassed to discover that my router firmware was not even up to date - a rookie error.)
But then I started getting curious about other ways to improve things. An Atom looked like a good next step, so I borrowed one from my local dealer and swapped it for the Qute 2 in my system. It was love at first listen. A revelation.
One of the Atomās other features that intrigued me was the support for Qobuz, so I signed up for a 30-day free trial to see if it was worth the hype. Lo and behold, not only were the hi-res recordings sounding fabulous, many of the standard-res classic albums sounded much better than the CDs I bought in the 80s and 90s. It seems that thereās āCD qualityā and thereās āCD qualityā, and just because an albumās on CD, doesnāt mean itās a great version of the album.
Off, then, to the Music Room, where I got some great suggestions for different recordings of classical pieces and non-classical artists I had never heard of and would never have encountered otherwise. And what do you know, so far, theyāve all been available on Qobuz.
I have to (very reluctantly) return the Atom to the dealer tomorrow, but Iāll place my order at the same time, so itās all good. What to do with the Qute 2 it will replace? Well, Iād like to use it in my home office, but Iāve grown so fond of Qobuz itās a shame it doesnāt support itā¦ But wait, whatās this: I can use the multi-room feature to stream Qobuz from the Atom in my lounge to the Qute 2 in my home office? This is the gift that keeps on giving.
Iām not sure what the point of this post is, except to say how useful I have found the forum, and how nice it is to fall back in love with music again. Iām guessing Iām not the only oneā¦