Boulder 1021 Disc player

[AMP]

Cheers for the insights, a couple of questions

Is that comment cd via K-03 v hi-rez or are you also talking about sacd v hi-rez files?

Also, have you tried hi-rez files via the K-03s digital inputs?

Sorry, should have been more clear here. All mentions of High Res were related to streaming files to the players either via USB (Esoteric and Bricasti) or UPnP (Boulder).

I can't really comment on the SACD performance of the K-03 too much as I only have about 12 SACDs. Of those 9 are from the RCA LSC re-issues and my preference there has always been for the original vinyl, followed by the XRCDs, followed by the LP re-issues, with the SACDs missing some of the magic. Oddly, though, I have purchased a few of those RCA titles as 176/24 downloads and prefer those over the SACDs even though the downloads were taken from the DSD masters... strange...

 

[Sofronit]

Hello AMP, I'm using 1021 too. I'm using bubbleUpNp softward on Android to control the play of the stream from my NAS. However i have trouble finding an appropriate software on iOS to do the same job. PlugPlayer can work but is extremely unstable (loss connection from time to time).

Would you share what controlling software do you use to play stream to 1021?

Thanks.

 

[AMP]

Hello AMP, I'm using 1021 too. I'm using bubbleUpNp softward on Android to control the play of the stream from my NAS. However i have trouble finding an appropriate software on iOS to do the same job. PlugPlayer can work but is extremely unstable (loss connection from time to time).

Would you share what controlling software do you use to play stream to 1021?

Thanks.

I too am using bubble on android as my primary control. It's an excellent app and puts pretty much everything else out there to shame. Unfortunately, there's nothing as good on iOS.

PlugPlayer has some serious issues
PS Audio's eLyric is based on PlugPlayer, except it actually works quite well with the 1021.
8Player works, but I don't like the interface at all
Linn's Kinsky works as well

Ultimately I settled on two control methods for the 1021. The first is bubbleUPnP using Minimserver as the back end. This has worked well, but there were a couple of issues with the way that the 1021 handles playlists. The other option is using JRiver as the server and control point and then using JRemote to control JRiver. This works EXTREMELY well, but lacks support for gapless playback.

 

[Sofronit]

I too am using bubble on android as my primary control. It's an excellent app and puts pretty much everything else out there to shame. Unfortunately, there's nothing as good on iOS.

PlugPlayer has some serious issues
PS Audio's eLyric is based on PlugPlayer, except it actually works quite well with the 1021.
8Player works, but I don't like the interface at all
Linn's Kinsky works as well

Ultimately I settled on two control methods for the 1021. The first is bubbleUPnP using Minimserver as the back end. This has worked well, but there were a couple of issues with the way that the 1021 handles playlists. The other option is using JRiver as the server and control point and then using JRemote to control JRiver. This works EXTREMELY well, but lacks support for gapless playback.

Thank you very much AMP for your quick reply. I cannot use JRemote since my NAS doesn't support JRiver server which is not designed for Linux based system (My NAS runs on Linux). Finally I use Kinsky as per your recommendation. I like the Kinsky interface, simple and straight-forward. However I cannot queue the tracks I want to listen to. I can only play one song at a time and have to manually select another track after the current track stops. 8Player functions well without any problem. Yet I agree with you the interface of 8Player sucks.

The 2021 DAC has a powerful sound with lots of details and clarity, as well as authority and transparency. I like the performance over the Linn ADS-1 that I owned a while ago. 1021 is a good bargain for me since it integrates CD play and music stream play in one box. For me, CD play and stream play can reach an almost identical level of performance if the source data of stream is good.

 

[AMP]

I'm in a similar situation with my files stored on a NAS. You can run JRiver on any PC and have it mount your music library from the NAS and then serve up those files to the 1021. This works perfectly fine and from what I've found has no bearing on sound quality due to the way in which the 1021 processes data. Decoding is always the bottleneck so with gigabit network (even with two hops to get the data to the 1021) everything works just fine.

As an aside, you can also run JRiver on a PC and have it play from a UPnP/DLNA library on the network. Due to the way in which UPnP works JRiver would be the control point, your NAS running a UPnP server would be the server, and the 1021 is the renderer. Typical playback would involve JRiver telling the 1021 to play a track and the 1021 would fetch the data directly from your NAS. It's essentially the same configuration that you're running now, but JRiver / JRemote is a solid control system. I've run this configuration using Minimserver on my NAS and it works just fine.

 

[Sofronit]

Thanks. I'll try that. I have only MAC at home. Hope it'll work on MAC. I heard Jriver is a very solid system too. My friend use it to play DSD files for his Devialet gears and it works very solidly.