I don't have to believe what I read. I have the Tunein issue with my Marantz amp. It's not platform dependent. I can see for myself that most foreign stations have disappeared, apart from a few which are mainly news. Tunein has a copyright issue and most foreign channels are blocked. Copying and storing a URL manually is not a solution.
I have read a bit about this and indeed, BBC Radio 2 has disappeared from the 'Local Stations' menu, but is still accessible from my 'Favourites' - I guess this is akin to manually storing the URL?

That said, I don't really listen to radio via my system as I only really use radio as background and a house full of Google thingies does a better job of distributing it throughout. For me it's a non-issue, but I can imagine why some would find it a real buggeration!

Russ
 
I don't have to believe what I read. I have the Tunein issue with my Marantz amp. It's not platform dependent. I can see for myself that most foreign stations have disappeared, apart from a few which are mainly news. Tunein has a copyright issue and most foreign channels are blocked. Copying and storing a URL manually is not a solution.
After digging a little deeper it seems that I must be effectively bypassing some international access restrictions due to the fact that I normally access the internet via a VPN. After trying a 'direct' connection I concede that many of the foreign stations become inaccessible...
 
Unfortunately it was decided that TuneIn were breaking the law by allowing unlicenced cross-continental content to be available on their platform. I have no reason to believe they're going anywhere and as radio apps go I think it's still one of the best. If you can access the stations you want via their dedicated websites then you're probably best outputting from a PC/phone to the onboard DAC.
 
I am currently considering a Marantz / Denon AVR and in regards to the problems that TuneIn has, I have TuneIn on my iPad and found that I couldn’t access any of my favourite stations. However when I turned on my VPN app and reloaded Tunein, every international station appeared.

Now I am wondering if you use Tunein via the HEOS app with the VPN active, are you able to add in your favourite stations to the receiver so that you can just go straight to them in the future without the VPN active ?

Many thanks
 
Interesting idea. In theory it should work the same as manually adding a foreign station URL. As they are accessible for playback without a VPN, maybe foreign stations will be accessible the way you suggest. I have a Marantz NR1200, so I'll do some experiments.
 
Interesting idea. In theory it should work the same as manually adding a foreign station URL. As they are accessible for playback without a VPN, maybe foreign stations will be accessible the way you suggest. I have a Marantz NR1200, so I'll do some experiments.
I have never used HEOS before, the only app I guess is similar what I have used is the Denon app for my AVR X2000, you select Internet Radio which then takes you to VTUNER and then you select country and station, from there you can add stations to your favourites or recently played, without the need of going to the station search again.

Thankfully all the stations on VTUNER are active without the need of VPN, but now that my AVR is on it’s way out after a little over 7yrs of heavy use, I am looking to upgrade and of course VTuner is non existent in more recent models.

Thank you, it will be interesting to hear how you get on.
 
I wonder if there is some national rule. My Bluesound Powernode 2i has a menu by location, with stations from around the world, including Europe and UK. I’m in the US.
 
I wonder if there is some national rule. My Bluesound Powernode 2i has a menu by location, with stations from around the world, including Europe and UK. I’m in the US.
From what I understand it is Sony & Warner that had the links removed for UK listeners. Basically Sony & Warner took TuneIn to court for playing copyrighted music unlicensed in the UK. TuneIn provided the Judge with evidence that they were not streaming the music, but were just providing links for accessing them. The Judge ruled in favour of Sony & Warner and ordered the links to be removed, so while the links haven’t been removed, they are just made invisible to all UK IP addresses, so are basically geo-blocked.
 
That's a good summary. It does seem odd that Sony & Warner's complaint was specific to the UK and Tunein. There are many other radio streaming apps available in the UK that still carry foreign stations.

For the moment, my workaround on this issue is to use a Chromecast-compatible device plugged into the amp, and then stream to that using another radio app on the phone.
 
That's a good summary. It does seem odd that Sony & Warner's complaint was specific to the UK and Tunein. There are many other radio streaming apps available in the UK that still carry foreign stations.

For the moment, my workaround on this issue is to use a Chromecast-compatible device plugged into the amp, and then stream to that using another radio app on the phone.
Yes I would definitely agree with you there, apps like Radio garden are absolutely fantastic, however it does make me think when I go on the Denon / Marantz product pages and they clearly state that you can listen to radio stations from all around the world. Which is correct if you only listen to public radio and podcast, however if you listen to regular stations then you are only stuck with ones that are normally available on DAB.

It is a shame really as Marantz and Denon do make some fantastic devices, it is just unfortunate that a third party feature isn’t fit for purpose without either more money being spent out, or the manual adding of URL’s.
 
Thanks for your comprehensive review of NAD products though at times I wasn't clear about whether your review was on the C658 or the M10 that you apparently switched to. Anyway as a fellow NAD user I agree that the C658 appears to be an excellent product. You said you liked the single box idea, but you chose the streamer/preamp/DAC in favour of the true single box M33 that offers even better quality and is only a few hundred more than the C658 plus C268 plus an interconnect cable.

My experience with Dirac differs slightly although I agree with much of what you say. Can you explain this - my Dirac is the included sub-500 Hz only version and it does subdue the bass as you say, although I think this is largely because my speakers deliver more deep bass (30-50 Hz) but less a bit higher up the scale, so I accept that Dirac flattens the curve as it should. OK what I can't quite understand is that engaging Dirac takes away a little of the live feeling of the music - a little sparkle is missing - yet this life and sparkle is surely associated with the upper frequencies that are not adjusted by the standard Dirac. My conclusion (rightly or wrongly) is that the extra signal processing with any Dirac filter does slightly (and adversely) affect the upper frequencies despite no level adjustment by the filter. After several measurements and always experiencing this slight loss of life and sparkle, I prefer to use No Filter. Fortunately I can adjust my sub-170 Hz bass within my speaker's software so I tend to use Dirac to measure and speaker software to adjust my bass. This maintains all the life and sparkle that I really appreciate from my Avantgarde speakers. Having said that, I’ve also found that Anthem, RoomPerfect and MARS room correction systems also slightly affect the life and sparkle and Dirac possibly to the smallest degree of the 4 DSPs I’ve tried. Peter
 
I have never used HEOS before, the only app I guess is similar what I have used is the Denon app for my AVR X2000, you select Internet Radio which then takes you to VTUNER and then you select country and station, from there you can add stations to your favourites or recently played, without the need of going to the station search again.

Thankfully all the stations on VTUNER are active without the need of VPN, but now that my AVR is on it’s way out after a little over 7yrs of heavy use, I am looking to upgrade and of course VTuner is non existent in more recent models.

Thank you, it will be interesting to hear how you get on.
I've done some Tunein tests using HEOS and unfortunately the process you suggested doesn't work.

If you add e.g. an American station to favourites whilst using a VPN, as soon as you turn it off and try and access the station, you hear a warning beep and a voice announcement: "This station is not available in your country".

It looks like manually adding the stream's URL is the only way to play most foreign stations on Tunein when you have a UK IP address.
 
I've done some Tunein tests using HEOS and unfortunately the process you suggested doesn't work.

If you add e.g. an American station to favourites whilst using a VPN, as soon as you turn it off and try and access the station, you hear a warning beep and a voice announcement: "This station is not available in your country".

It looks like manually adding the stream's URL is the only way to play most foreign stations on Tunein when you have a UK IP address.
That is a shame as it was a good idea in theory but not in practice, thank you for trying tho.
 
They definitely used to, but I've had a C388 and C368 and both have had issues. NAD definitely won't be a brand I'll be revisiting anytime soon thats for sure.
I've had my NAD C388 for about 2 years now and still have not had a problem with it. It produces a good natural tone to the music.
 
Hello Tony212…I have the NAD658 with Elac ARB51s. NAD TuneIn (I live in USA) provides radio from many countries as of 11/20/2021 (see pic).

The NAD works great…the Elacs sound great…although no expert on Dirac…it does make a difference to adjust well for various reasons…all of which depend on calibrated mic, room acoustics, furniture, etc.
 

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Hello Tony212…I have the NAD658 with Elac ARB51s. NAD TuneIn (I live in USA) provides radio from many countries as of 11/20/2021 (see pic).

The NAD works great…the Elacs sound great…although no expert on Dirac…it does make a difference to adjust well for various reasons…all of which depend on calibrated mic, room acoustics, furniture, etc.
Hi, and thanks for your reply. I'm glad you're happy with the C658 and that it works well with active speakers.

I still have my actives (Dynaudio) and I'm still looking for a preamp with room correction to drive them. I haven't totally discounted the C658 yet.

However, today I discovered news of the NAD C399, which is becoming available here in the UK before the end of the year. It's an integrated amp but looks to me like an updated version of the C658, but with a power amp stage included.

Very similar except it doesn't have balanced preamp outputs. It has more digital inputs and it includes an HDMI ARC port, which is great. It also has a decent headphone amp, designed to drive high impedance top of the range headphones.

It's a bit more expensive than the C658 and the downside is that you have to spend an extra $549 if you want BluOS and DIRAC, as it's only available on an MDC-2 module.

I think this device might be a contender for me as it does everything I need and covers me in case I go back to passive speakers. The power amp stage seems very well specified.


Regarding Tunein, the issue I mentioned previously is specific to the UK, and most international stations are still blocked. Some background to the issue:


It's not really a problem any more as I now have a Chromecast Audio device, so I can just plug that into an optical port and use a ton of other radio streaming apps on my phone that don't have Tunein's restrictions.
 
However, today I discovered news of the NAD C399, which is becoming available here in the UK before the end of the year. It's an integrated amp but looks to me like an updated version of the C658, but with a power amp stage included.
Interesting that this new amp uses a technology that is only found in older Master Series amps from NAD eg M22 and M27. Their latest Master Series amps (M33 and M28) use the reputedly superior Purifi Eigentakt Class D module. This is also found in the C298 and I suspect the C298 will be the best sounding amp from their C range. Good hunting. Peter
 

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