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Help With Streamer - Aurender, Auralic, HIFI Rose, Eversolo A10, etc.

Happy New Year All,

Longtime reader and follower of Audiogon, but less than a handful of posts.

I’m done with Apple’s Music app.  It’s turned into a disaster.  Some people have no issues at all with it, but for countless others, it has become almost unusable.  I’m one of those.   With that, I’m looking to finally get a streamer.  Under $4,000.00 and much less than that preferably.   I don’t have a LAN to plug into one, so all of my music will be primarily stored on the internal SSD.  I  don’t necessarily need a DAC in a streamer, so a transport is fine, but I’m fine if it does have a DAC.  I definitely want a streamer with a screen on it.

My questions are, how do I rip my CD collection into a streamer?  Can I connect an external CD drive up to one and rip directly into a streamer’s SSD?  Who has the most user friendly streamer and app?  Can I connect my iPhone and iPad up to it and transfer the music over to those devices for “one the go”? Do any streamers have an I2S HDMI output, and does it matter, or should I just use a dedicated SACD player for that?


I’d probably use a streamer as a preamp as well, if it’s decent enough.  Or should it be a separate music source in the system with a dedicated preamp?  It’s really not that big of a deal to me, as I no longer have the hearing that I used to.

I’m in my 60’s now, so I’m just not interested in the “esoteric” stuff anymore, but I still want decent quality gear.

Much appreciation to any and all recommendations.

 

boltapuresource
boltapuresource OP
27 posts
 

@koestner Thank you.  

That sounds like a good idea.  I’ll have to check and see if DB Poweramp will automatically pull album artwork.

Thank you again.

dwest1023
215 posts
 

Boltapuresource,

I’m 70and I went through what you are. I started with the Eversolo A6 that had just come out. Rave reviews everywhere. Like you I did not want to stream, just digitize  my cd collection to have it all at my fingertips. I wanted my music to sound just as good as using my Mac air as a transport. The Eversolo was easy to use and you could do all your editing right on the machine. However the Eversolo imparted its house sound on my music and I did not like it. Tried the master edition to the A8. Same thing and none sounded as good as my mac air. In frustration I moved up to the Hifi Rose 130. Beautiful machine and I wanted to love it. Not only was the software a pain to use it still did not leave my music alone. Thank goodness it was hot at the time and sold it in a day. After much research i stumbled across Aurender. Specifically the N200. Finally a unit that played my music right. Software was easy  to use and understand. I Used it for a while then the up ites hit. In comes the Aurender N20. Endgame streamer for me. 
 

Having said all that, I believe the bluenote model with the cd player model is a good choice for not much bucks. I’ve heard it at a dealer and I was impressed. 

soix
9,646 posts
 

Here’s an Innuos Zen at a very good price.  You can rip all your CDs right into it, and their Sense app gets the highest marks for being user friendly to the point that some have even dropped Roon — high praise.  They also have excellent customer support if you have any questions/issues, which is important.  Best of luck. 

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisbcfc8-innuos-zen-mk3-mkiii-music-server-streamer-cd-ripper-2tb-music-servers-docks

boltapuresource OP
27 posts
 

@dwest1023 

Thank you for the details on the Eversolo, especially the app software on the HiFi Rose machines.  I was considering one those, but I do not want glitchy difficult to use software.

I don’t think any of the Bluenote models have a screen and I’d really like to have a screen to display album art, etc.  

Thanks again

boltapuresource OP
27 posts
 

@soix 

Thanks for the heads up on the Innuous.  I will check this out.

Thank you, Sir!

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