I recently purchased a fiio M11 that along with some decent ear phones or buds would be far more use than a fixed setup in the shed. I can't imagine you'll be wanting to sit there on a rainy evening in October in the cold, draughty and damp listening to music. Of course, if you are insulating the floor, walls and roof and dry lining the shed you can ignore me. Before final decisions are made you could also approximate the potential sq of the shed as it stands by placing your upper torso and a transistor radio inside a tea chest.
Small, simple, good quality set up for shed listening?
- Thread starter wulbert
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wulbert
pfm Member
Cheers. Made me laugh! I'll have a look at the fiio M11 ( I have no idea what most of these gadgets are)
The shed is fully insulated now, with double glazing, 240V mains, infra-red heater & reading lamps. Still working on fitting the oak-veneer panelling and insulating the door, maybe turning it into a "stable" type door, so I can look at the tree tops as I recline listening to music in the summer. I'm fitting a 2.3m x 0.7m day bed/couch with 100mm thick foam upholstered cushion. So it will, when finished, be quite a comfy space.
The "tea-chest" sound quality is one reason for thinking of going down the headphones route. Plus, I don't want to annoy any neighbours with bass pulsing music. Not much room for speakers either. My Kef LS50's look massive in the tiny space. I got a couple on Anker Soundcore Flare mini bluetooth speakers from Amazon yesterday for £54 just to tide me over. They can be a stereo pair.
By September, the weans (children) will have hopefully moved out to London and Aberdeen respectively and I can re-claim the living room (and even their vacated bedrooms!).
Cheers. Made me laugh! I'll have a look at the fiio M11 ( I have no idea what most of these gadgets are)
The shed is fully insulated now, with double glazing, 240V mains, infra-red heater & reading lamps. Still working on fitting the oak-veneer panelling and insulating the door, maybe turning it into a "stable" type door, so I can look at the tree tops as I recline listening to music in the summer. I'm fitting a 2.3m x 0.7m day bed/couch with 100mm thick foam upholstered cushion. So it will, when finished, be quite a comfy space.
The "tea-chest" sound quality is one reason for thinking of going down the headphones route. Plus, I don't want to annoy any neighbours with bass pulsing music. Not much room for speakers either. My Kef LS50's look massive in the tiny space. I got a couple on Anker Soundcore Flare mini bluetooth speakers from Amazon yesterday for £54 just to tide me over. They can be a stereo pair.
By September, the weans (children) will have hopefully moved out to London and Aberdeen respectively and I can re-claim the living room (and even their vacated bedrooms!).
Nice job in the shed, what insulation did you go for ?
The fiio is amazing as a music player via wired phones, via Bluetooth phones with aptx, and as a self contained streaming device with qobuz.
I also purchased some Hidizs ear phones that sound fantastic for the money and I have an earstudio ES100 mk2 that for when I'm trying to work up a ladder and don't want the fiio in a pocket, this to be honest to my ears is as good as I would need unless focusing 120% on the music with no one else in the house and the heating and fridges turned off, no breeze outside and all the songbirds on holiday.
Darren L
Egalitarian
Every man needs a shed, tidy job @wulbert my last shed was 18' x 12' fully wired, insulated & panelled, it was actually really easy to heat, I used a 30 year old Denon midi system and a pair of Celestion 9 speakers, I probably spent as much time if not more in the shed as in the house, an oasis of calm, peace and quiet
wulbert
pfm Member
Sounds like you really like your music even when mobile! I'll check those gadgets out.
The wall "insulation" is the structural floor of an old, demolished caravan. It's basically a glued sandwich of 5mm ply, 40mm polystyrene, 5mm ply. I kept it to one side in case it "came in handy one day", and it did! The floor has 60mm of Knauf soundproofing slab (mineral wool) same on the roof. Not exactly "Passivhus" standard, but enough for a 3-season "escape pod".
Ensure you protect from vermin infestation, including family, as they'll love to make a cosy home in the walls and ceiling. It's no fun chilling out to music enveloped by the smell of warm mouse urine.
wulbert
pfm Member
Quobuz is endlessly glitchy in my home, on my laptop. I'm on a free three month trial right now, but every time I try it there are drop outs, sudden stops etc. By the time the third glitch occurs, I just quit the app and open Spotify.
Del monaco
Del Monaco
Maybe it’s to do with the bit rate and your network. Spotify is compressed. Qobuz is fine for me.
wulbert
pfm Member
I get 36Mb/s with BT FTTC. I'd have thought that would be enough? Maybe my laptop is too old ( 2014 MBP) ? Quobuz is just useless, spins its wheels instead of playing music, and the sudden drop outs and re-starts are very startling and upsetting. Can't listen to music when you are on edge waiting for the next glitch. My laptop also get very hot when playing Quobuz or Tidal....too hot for my lap.
I can't really understand how I can stream movies with surround sound in HD no problem and yet simple music files present such a need for bandwidth.
This sounds really odd. I presume that you also stream movies from that same laptop? So the Wifi connection is not the problem. Is it a Macbook Pro? I used to stream Qobuz and Tidal on my old Macbook Air (2017) without any problems, certainly not getting hot. Nowadays I mainly use Audirvana (on a Macbook Air M1), but the apps still work fine (using it right now) and don't use a lot of CPU.
Maybe you can check in the Activity monitor what the CPU usage is of the apps?
Maybe you can check in the Activity monitor what the CPU usage is of the apps?
cctaylor
pfm Member
No problems with Qobuz here. Streaming HD through LMS on a Raspberry pi with DAC or using Yamaha WXAD-10 as the end point.
Suggests that there is something throttling the stream on the laptop if the RPi is coping.
Could the router be limiting the stream? Spotify obviously needs less bandwidth.
Suggests that there is something throttling the stream on the laptop if the RPi is coping.
Could the router be limiting the stream? Spotify obviously needs less bandwidth.
There's a lot to be said for a small space. When I was living in a small house I had to cram a lot of stuff in the spare room. I ended up with a kind of cabin bed arrangement with stuff stored above, a little desk, lots of shelves. It finished up like Scott's cabin on the Endurance. It coincided with my recovery from injury and not having an income, so on the days when it was the warmest room in the house I'd hole up there with the radio, a book, and a duvet to while away an afternoon or three when I didn't feel great.
is that running Qobuz through Chrome browser or the Qobuz App? I use the former on a Lenovo Q190 because the App is useless, sluggish and flaky.
wulbert
pfm Member
It is using the Quobuz app from my laptop. It will only play at MP3 level or "CD 16bit" relatively smoothly. Anything above that and it glitches out.
Tidal playing at "Master" quality is fine. It's not a big deal for me, I don't really like anything about Quoboz, the way it looks or works, so no loss. I'd probably buy Tidal as an "upgrade" from Spotify if I was spending more money. It looks and works the way it should. We have a "family" deal on Spotify for £15/month and my two children chip in £4.50/month each, so it works out very cheap for me, even if the sound is compromised.
What I'd like to be able to do ideally, is use streaming to explore music, buy the stuff I like as high quality files, store it safely on some kind of drive and play it on a decent hi-fi, along with any physical CDs or CD rips that I have. AS few boxes and wires as possible.
wulbert
pfm Member
I'm slumming it just now with two cheapo bluetooth speakers. Decent sound for the cash though.
The shed is coming along nicely.
what is jpg
The shed is coming along nicely.
what is jpg
wulbert
pfm Member
Cheers, I've had a quick look and it seems interesting. Perhaps an older, used model (M10 or M9 ?) could be a bargain. Pity it doesn't rip CD's though. AFAIK. Will explore further.
robs
should know how this works by no
Looks like you're expecting company with those chairs...
wulbert
pfm Member
Can't decide which one to keep. Although they are both too big. A stool might be better. I've realised a small space needs miniature furniture. The hideous basket thing is actually very comfy.