REPRODUCED FROM AUDIO TBLOGS
decades. Lets not forget to m ention M iniDisc, Reel-to-Reeloreven the LearJetStereo 8 Portable 8-Track Player! As things have evolved, digital stream ing has becom e the m ostpredom inantform at,with over three quarters of the world favouring it over anything else.Thischange in trend hasm eantthat the charts are now counted in m ost part by the num beroftim es a song,artistoralbum has been stream ed, counting this towards their “sales”, m oving them up ordown the charts in relation to these num bers.M eaning thatm ostsongsthathave been num berone overthe lastfew yearshasm ost probablybeenstream ed m oretim esthanphysicaly bought. Contrastingly, it is argued that physical form ats m ainlyexistnowadaysasa m arketing toolto atract colectors. For exam ple, when the Spice Girls (I know whatyou’re thinking,“Can we go one blog withoutm ention ofthe Spice Girls!”,the answeris No!)released their25th anniversaryedition oftheir firstalbum Spice,itwas available on six individual releases ofvinyl,five cas etes and a double CD. Hardcorecolectorssuchasm yselfwould’vebought al the variants (each one a diferent colour representing each Spice Girl,and a generic one), m eaning the colectors have exactly the sam e album on m ultiple form ats.O fcourse I’ve bought them al,butthey siton m y display shelfpurely to lookpretyaspartofoneextensivecolection.Ionly realy everlisten to the album through stream ing platform ssuch asSpotify,asI’m sure m any others do! Now unles you’re using stream ing servicessuch as Tidal,QobuzorAm azonM usicHD,asm aldownfal with stream ing isthatm anyplatform scom pres the sound,m eaning thatthe m usicsom ewhatlosesthe life itonce had. So whatdo we do? Do we scrap physicalmedia altogether,considering how m uch ofthe world is now stream ed?O rare both able to happilyco-exist together?Let’sinvestigate… The Audiolab O m nia is an al-in-one pre-am p, am plifier,CD player and stream er system ,where with justa click ofa buton,you can choose to
stream orlisten to yourCDs;iteven hasa built-in phono input,alowing vinylloversto plug in their turntablestoo.So realyand truly,alyou need for thissystem are apairofspeakersand you’re good to go!The award-winning system com esin ablack or silver finish, and it’s alum inium fram ework is typical of Audiolab’s m odernised aesthetic for today’s living environm ents.Considering thatthe costissom etim esa bitoutofreach when buying al ofthese system s separately,the O m nia has a very efective price-point for it’s capabilties!So, withoutfurtherado,let’splug itin and see how it sounds.
The setup isrelativelyeasy.First,to getitrunning you’l need to plug itin with the provided power supply (orperhaps one ofthe m any afterm arket cables we stock Here).The O m nia com es with a rem ote control, m aking it that m uch easier to switch between sourcesatadistance.Iplugged in som e AcousticEnergyAE320sand Iwasreadyto go. Although the O m nia has an ethernet connection,Iopted forwireles connectivity. Now that’ssorted,on to playback… Iensured Iwas on the “Bluetooth” source and then simply connected through my phone’s setings. Ibegan stream ing m y favourite songs from Spotify first,then afterwards Iswitched over to Tidal,a stream ing platform thatusesthe M Q A file type.In com parison,Tidalprovided a clearer and m ore open sound qualitydue to the file types ituses.Icould hearthatthe detailwas cleaner am ongstthe broaderam bience in the room .Don’t get m e wrong, Spotify sounded briliant, but Tidal’s uncom pres ed file types are unm atched.
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