I am purdy sure if you go with a dedicated quality streamer you will beat the pants off airplay from a phone. Do some searches on here as this topic has been covered many times over many moons. As a matter of fact this site could use a dedicated streamer pin.
Do I Need a Dedicated Streamer?
Hello everyone,
As the title states, I am still unsure of if I need a dedicated streamer and if it would increase the fidelity of my music compared to how I am listening at the moment. Which is using AirPlay 2 from my iPhone to my Hegel H590 Integrated amp.
I know that the DAC in the Hegel H590 is considered quite good and it was one of the reasons that I bought the amplifier to begin with. However, would I get a better input using a dedicated streamer for around $1000 (such as the Cambridge CXNV2 for example) or would I be better off leaving things as is?
I am just not sure if airplaying music to the Hegel is degrading the signal in comparison to a streamer that would pull its own data and send it directly to the amplifier? Also, would improving my router placement and wifi signal make any difference to the sound since my Hegel is hardwired using a mesh wifi system?
I am open to switching streaming platforms if I can gain something out of it such as resolution but I’m not sure if apple music is the issue in any of this.
If the answer to the title is a no. I am curious what I would need to take the quality of my listening experience to the next level or where money would be better spent to achieve that. I do have acoustic panels in my room and have done my fair share of research on speaker placement already.
The only thing that I have been considering in the near-future would have to be the isoacoustics gaia 1 feet.
My equipment:
Hegel H590 Integrated
KEF Reference 5 Meta
Metra Velox Speaker Cables
Thanks for reading.
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- 103 posts total
What @jbuhl said |
AirPlay 2 is limited to 44.1 kHz sampling rate. If you're trying to playback a higher resolution stream, it will be resampled to match.
However, the Hegel supports another protocol that will perform high-res playback - UPnP / DLNA. You need to use an app that supports this feature. On iOS, I use mConnect Player HD. On my Android phone, I use BubbleUPnP. Unfortunately, neither supports Apple Music so if you're planning on sticking with that service, it's best to use your iPhone and AirPlay.
There's no advantage to using a wired Ethernet connection vs Wi-Fi. As long as you're not hearing dropouts or glitches during playback then your network is performing fine. I have a Mac Mini on a mesh node that functions as a streamer / file server for a second system without any issues. I also pull the music files over the wireless backhaul to a Raspberry Pi 4 running moOde for the main basement system and it works perfectly.
Streamers, whether they're standalone or built into an amp, are just tiny computers - usually running some form of Linux. If you don't hear any obvious problems, then it's functioning as intended. |
@yage - "There's no advantage to using a wired Ethernet connection vs Wi-Fi. As long as you're not hearing dropouts or glitches during playback then your network is performing fine." Hmm - well yes - but there are different opinions. Some say that the streamer means a lot. And I have not seen anyone who had the choice between wired ethernet vs wireless who says it sounds better with wireless so I'll use that. |
- 103 posts total