New Patio 2 Channel Setup!

[GFOviedo]

My son Vicente decided to be born early. However, I was able to test this today.

So I've been having issues with my patio BlueSound PowerNode, which BlueSound replaced under warranty.

So now I've moved the PowerNode to garage duties and I spent $160 dollars for my patio setup.

Denon HEOS Link G1 for $120 shipped and a used Denon AVR 1707 to power two Polk Audio Atrium 5!

I've been playing Pandora and Deezer Premium and it sounds great. The only thing I don't like is that I can't control the volume via cell phone app. I've got to manually change it via Denon AVR 1707.

Another thing I'm waiting for is being able to acces my pandora playlist via Denon HEOS pandora app. It doesn't have this option yet.

 

[leecreek]

Congrats there. Hope everyone is doing fine.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Whoa! Congrats all the way around! New son, new gear! Sounds like a pretty good week!!!

 

[GFOviedo]

Thank you guys. Last night was pretty rough. Vicente wasn't very happy and cried a lot. He's going to be a mamas boy. He eat about two onces and only went to sleep if mama had him on her chest lol.

We are supposed to be hosting people for July 4th and we've been in the hospital for the last 3 days. I've got a lot of cleaning to do. I haven't been sleeping that well since every time I hear that baby do anything I'm like a cheeta trying to see what he wants lol.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Congrats on the new additions! I have Denon AVR for our patio system as well and it has served us well for quite a number of years... about 24 actually.

Hope you all have a fun 4th.

 

[GFOviedo]

Congrats on the new additions! I have Denon AVR for our patio system as well and it has served us well for quite a number of years... about 24 actually.

Hope you all have a fun 4th.

Thanks. So far the Denon HEOS Link via Coaxial to the Denon AVR-1707 has been working great. A lot more WPC than the Bluesound PowerNode. It really woke up the Polk Audio Atrium 5's. I'm thinking of possibly adding a subwoofer, but I'm not sure if that would be a good idea for the patio area. I will be enclosing the patio area and adding a TV among other things in the next coming year.

My future bother-in-law is an electrician, and he's going to help me re-wire the whole house and change my 110 breaker box to 220!

 

[GFOviedo]

I'be been looking for my toslink cable and see if there is any difference in sound.

 

[tesseract]

Congrats on the new additions, GFOviedo!

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I've been looking for my toslink cable and see if there is any difference in sound.

I don't think you will notice a difference... or I would be surprised if you did.

 

[GFOviedo]

I don't think you will notice a difference... or I would be surprised if you did.

I found a toslink cable and I'll give it a try. The only reason why I'm trying out is due to the coaxial fitting a little bit loose on the AVR.

I agree that there will not be any sound difference.

 

[GFOviedo]

I don't think you will notice a difference... or I would be surprised if you did.

Hey Sonnie,

I downloaded the manual for my Denon HEOS Link G1, and this is what I found under the "Supported File Types and Codecs." If I use the optical / toslink option: 2-channel Linear PCM:2-channel, 32 kHz – 192 kHz, 16/20/24 bit.

Everything else it stated 16 bit. So, I'm assuming Coaxial is 16 bit.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Worth a try... some people believe they can hear a difference... others (with super good ears) say they can't. I would always try just in case.

 

[GFOviedo]

Worth a try... some people believe they can hear a difference... others (with super good ears) say they can't. I would always try just in case.

It doesn't hurt to try it out. I will later today. However, I've got cheap optical cables. So, I'm hoping the sound doesn't deteriorate lol.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I would definitely say that optical is optical... not sure one group of air is any better than the other, if you know what I mean.

 

[GFOviedo]

I would definitely say that optical is optical... not sure one group of air is any better than the other, if you know what I mean.

I know what you mean. In all honesty, I have never used optical. I did use optical for my dad's HT, but that's due to his receiver no having HDMI, and he didn't want to buy a new receiver since his dinosaur Onkyo still works lol.

 

[GFOviedo]

So, my dad came over a few days ago. We were hanging out drinking some beers. I showed him my HT, patio and garage set up. I also showed him the different music streaming providers that I've been using for music.
So, we were listening to some music from Tidal service via HTPC connect to my Denon AVR-X4200 through HDMI. So, we started comparing music from Tidal, Spotify, Deezer, Pandora and Amazon Music. I was trying to find the same song from all services, but for some reason or another Tidal and Deezer didn't have the same song. So, we just started playing any song and listening to it, and he and I came to the same conclusion:

1) For any of my set ups, Tidal Premium HiFi isn't worth paying for at $20 a month. Furthermore, it isn't worth paying at a student discount for $10 a month.
2) The sound difference between all the streaming services isn't noticeable at all in my patio and garage set up. Sound difference is noticeable in my HT setup, but you can only notice the difference if you are looking for it.
3) I hated that Tidal only has live songs for Metallica. Furthermore, there were many songs from Afro Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club that are only available live unlike Spotify.
4) I have got to use the Denon HEOS app and BlueSound App in order for me to be able to use Tidal. I can use the Spotify app and choose which device I want to play music to. So, I can use one app for multiple devices.

So, after using all of the above Music Streaming Providers, I am going back to Spotify Premium with Student Discount for $4.99. May be in the near future when I've got a really high end 2.1 set up, I will be able to take advantage of Tidal HiFi MQA.