BTW, I am also looking for an relatively inexpensive streamer and hope to keep reading here until I get one. I head one for $500 at AudiioAdvisors in West Palm Beach, but did not buy it for two reasons: It was more than I wanted to spend for something that does not sound as good as my CD player, which admittedly did cost a wee bit more.
Where are the cheap home streamers?
When CD players were first introduced, they were $1000 and more new. And this was in early 80's dollars. New ones would eventually drop to under $200, and new players that also play most all formats can still be had around at that price or less. Sure, not the best quality, but they work well enough for most.
The new frontier is of course, streaming. Whether from a local host, online, and so on. Many options in the high end, but what seems odd is the lack of budget options. Probably the least expensive that's of decent quality is the Sonos Connect. Oh sure, you can pair a computer or tablet with a cheap DAC, and get by. Or roll your own with a Raspberry Pi solution. And yes, most disc players are "smart" and can stream audio and video just fine. Among other issues, is that the budget options are defaulting to HDMI out, and omitting Optical, Digital, and Analog out.
There were some early efforts by Sony and Dlink a few years ago. Both not only required a display, but were pretty terrible implementations overall. We recently tried one of the Dayton WBA 31s. For a mere $50, expectations were of course also modest. As you might imagine, analog audio out is not great. Below that of many phones we'd say. It does however had an optical output. A dealbreaker for most of our clients in terms of added complexity. If produced in sufficient number, there is no good reason such a unit with a decent DAC couldn't be built and sold for $200 or so. Or maybe someone is doing this, and it's just not well distributed?
The new frontier is of course, streaming. Whether from a local host, online, and so on. Many options in the high end, but what seems odd is the lack of budget options. Probably the least expensive that's of decent quality is the Sonos Connect. Oh sure, you can pair a computer or tablet with a cheap DAC, and get by. Or roll your own with a Raspberry Pi solution. And yes, most disc players are "smart" and can stream audio and video just fine. Among other issues, is that the budget options are defaulting to HDMI out, and omitting Optical, Digital, and Analog out.
There were some early efforts by Sony and Dlink a few years ago. Both not only required a display, but were pretty terrible implementations overall. We recently tried one of the Dayton WBA 31s. For a mere $50, expectations were of course also modest. As you might imagine, analog audio out is not great. Below that of many phones we'd say. It does however had an optical output. A dealbreaker for most of our clients in terms of added complexity. If produced in sufficient number, there is no good reason such a unit with a decent DAC couldn't be built and sold for $200 or so. Or maybe someone is doing this, and it's just not well distributed?
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Hey Dan, here is the gist of it. https://www.sony.com/electronics/hi-res-audio-mp3-cd-sound-quality-comparison |
@danvignau Yes, no argument that lossy audio is no comparison to a CD. We can only complete with CD fidelity if we we are streaming lossless audio that is bitwise the same. And locally streamed rather than Bluetooth. As long as there is no data loss, and jitter and other issues are minimal, and our DAC is of sufficient quality. CD quality is no problem. In fact, I recently was listening to lossless audio via a computer connected to a Bryston BDA-2 DAC, and the results would best all but high end CD players. |
danvignau Obviously, only master tapes of old eight track studio recordings might be able to benefit from Hi Res reproduction and transmission, or maybe current recording that actually use musical instrrumentsI think that is neither obvious or true. There are exceptional recordings that predate the multitrack era. Nor are the highest quality recordings made only in the studio - nothing could be further from the truth. |
As others here have said, laptop with a USB connection to a DAC is the way to go. I've been doing this for 10 years now. You can make it cheaper by snagging a used laptop off of Craigslist for about $150, wiping Windows and instead loading Ubuntu Linux, which runs just fine on as little as 2 GB system memory. Most anything built in the last 5 years has twice that much and more, so Linux will run just fine for you. The first laptop I used for this purpose was so old, it had a Windows Vista sticker on it. It was about 13 years old when it finally died. |
Denon Heos Link. MSRP $349 Full streamer, with DAC or digital outputs (coax and fiber). Will accept a USB drive, and connect to NAS storage. Wifi or Ethernet. App is easy to use, and device will connect to all streaming service. Great sound, and resolution up to DSD 5.6ghz I use one in our summer house, connected to a restored Fisher 400. https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/network-audio-players/denon-heos-link |
Yamaha WX-AD10 for 129€ is an incredible way to start with the streaming and has a bt receiver too. The musiccast app is working quite well and without issues. Streaming services are served well too and Amazon HD will be added soon. No digital out, so you are stuck with the internal dac but for the price is quite good (not as good as the Yamaha NP-S303 or the Bluesound Node 2i) |
The Yamaha looks like another good candidate. It doesn't seem to be sold in the US unfortunately. They do have a couple of units north of $300 USD. Prefer to keep at or below $200 if possible. For those willing to spend a bit more, the Denon HEOS Link looks like a very nice unit. Denon seems to be turning out some good quality gear these days in general. |
When I started down the "streaming path" I installed the Tidal streaming app on a Dell laptop I already owned, with my purchased music managed by iTunes. The resulting sound quality (output from the laptop's USB to my DAC) was "good". My next improvement was to subscribe to Roon, running the core on that laptop, occasionally using the app on it as the UI (user interface), when not using my iPad or Android phone for that. I finally upgraded my streaming infrastructure by purchasing a Roon Nucleus Plus server, which has a much better USB port and is just "rock solid". It's not "cheap", but well worth the investment! |
@danvignau More and more recordings are available in high resolution, and that is a whole other can of worms. And yes, I would agree that some recordings benefit more than others from hi-res 24 bit. I was mainly referring to "lossless" audio. By that I mean files that are bitwise the same as what would have been on the CD. Flac, AAC, Wav, and so on. Tidal and Amazon currently offer lossless streaming among others. |
@danvignau No read errors or noise injected from the CD player mechanics. You'll note that some CD players (e.g., PS audio's well reviewed transport) use a computer drive and copy the track off the drive and then feed the data to the dac from memory in order to maximize sound quality. That's essentially what the streamer is doing. You're eliminating all moving parts and the issues they bring to the table. And critically, getting a giant boost to the size of your available music library in the process, which is the real reason to move to streaming in my opinion. |
Some mentioned that PS Audio, etc have CD players that put the music into a memory and then stream it. Yes they do. That memory is called a buffer, and was first used, if not invented, for Sony's Discman, to make a CD that skips when you run from sounding like it is skipping. Nearly all CD players do this. |
danvignau, totally agree, it doesn’t make since but having a huge catalogue at your fingertips for $22.00 per month is a bargain. Also, Qobuz offers high resolution streaming. I believe streaming today is a natural progression from the mp3 era, a way to access music conveniently. My biggest objection is that streaming services don’t offer remasters from MOFI, Analogue Productions, etc... |
We just received the
Arylic Up2Stream S10 yesterday, and spent some time with it. So far, we've just been playing tracks from Tidal. While it most likely falls short of the Bluesound (we've not had one of these in the shop yet), it's pretty impressive. Especially for under $100! Just to underscore a point, many of our customers spend less than $1000 for their entire system. The Arylic ticks the boxes of native streaming of Tidal, and a good chunk of the other streaming services. The 4stream app works pretty well so far. We've yet to try DLNA streaming or local media playback. And like all native streamers, it has a Bluetooth receiver. Bluetooth 5.0 in fact. The included remote is surprisingly good. A welcome plus to not have to reach for your phone just to mute it, or change volume. We currently have it on a system with a Sound Valves VTP 100, a Hafler DH220 and a pair of Fyne 303s. The performance is very listenable. If anything it errs towards the softer end sonically, rather than the edgy hard character of some budget digital players. This was especially true of the Dayton WBA-31, which is no comparison. Quite surprising for something so inexpensive. |
@danvignau & @goofyfoot This 6moons review of the PWT opens with almost two pages of technical details about why non-realtime playback of a cd from data storage is superior to the traditional method used in most cd players (which, as you correctly point out, do also include a memory buffer). http://6moons.com/audioreviews/psaudio7/perfectwave.html |
Thanks cal3713, my impression of the review is that too little is still understood when it comes to digital formats, which then would explain why technology is constantly progressing. Once digital information transfers from being stored on silicon chips and onto atoms, then we'll again have to adjust our understanding of the digital medium while it transforms into something else. I believe that we are in the beginnings of a digital renaissance. But one thing still remains true, 'a recording of Beethoven's fifth ain't Beethoven's fifth'. (john Cage) |
spacecadet65: I am still deciding, but my understanding is that Bluetooth is noticeably inferior to a higher bit rate streamer. Ethernet is supposed to be the best. jdt1 By cheap, I mean not thousands just to see if I like it at all. So far, I have not heard a streamer on a system as good as my CD/LP (and tuner) stereo. I really do not know whether I would be a fan. I am also not a fan of huge speakers or "full range" speakers. BTW: Free range chickens only have to see daylight and run free once, to be so labeled, even if it is just once from the coop to the death mill. Are full range speakers allowed out for longer periods? YukYuk |
Hi everyone just another thought about streamers etc... your infrastructure will also be a gating factor. I know hardwire enet is ideal but I have had great success with Netgear Orbi mesh wifi network solutions ... and streaming local files and streaming services ... there is a difference between a 30$ wifi access point/ router and more robust solution . good hunting bill |
I recently committed to separating my DAC from my streamer in the hopes that I could better manage upgrading needs along the way. One side up grades while the other doesn't etc. I did find it difficult to find a streamer that checked all the boxes and a lot of that had to do with services followed by sound quality. of course I am coming from a reasonable price standpoint because again, the technology for streaming is happening to fast for me to justify spending a bunch on a streamer yet. Th bluesound products really are a great way to go while more of this shakes itself out. Really versatile and can be used with Roon as well. (Although if all you have is a Bluesound Node, you don't really need Roon). My DAC is a Denafrips so I wanted to get high res files when available so that also limited me with the Bluesound that does not output those digitally when connecting it just as a streamer to the Denafrips. For now I am giving a Raspberry Pi 4b with RoPieeeXL a shot using Roon. Upgraded power supply addresses the biggest weak link with ese. Initially I am having too many issues with dropped signal even though I shouldn't. I am still working on it. When it works, it's all I need. Another product I might try is the Sonore Micro Rendue which get rave reviews. Yes the Google Chromecast is awesome. |
Here are some additional thoughts about the benefits of non-cd digital playback by Robert Harley in which he argues that jitter is higher from CD players than from hard-drive based playback solutions. Older, but relevant: https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/do-hard-disk-drives-sound-better-than-cd-2/ |
@austinstereo / O/P klipsch streamer is playfi costs about $130 (I forget exactly) and sounds better than Bluesound node 2i. Unlike raspberry Pi it’s plug and play. Their ap used to be quite bad so you’ll see early reviews as bad but is much improved. If your customers use just Spotify the ap becomes moot/is no longer used after initial setup I’m long past this level but it’s right in your customer’s sweet spot. They’re young right, and they’re probably already using Spotify. This (and tidal’s new similar system that not on much hardware yet) is key for you. It unhinges the streamer from control/phone. The answer to your original question is that hardware is probably less than half the question. Software has to be developed and maintained and that’s expensive. Software is also probably more than half the decision for the user. A big qualification in order if you want to sell any inexpensive streamer. This can be solved by the maker/seller by adapting canned systems like playfi and can be solved by the user by staying with Spotify (or both). There are about 6 decently good flexible streamers in the $ 4-6 hundred range. There are a couple of good threads on here where many gave good info about this. I did a summary in one of my posts (it was made less hastily than this one). Chrome cast sound is just bad. It’s a moot point I k ow for you because the audio only is discontinued. People who say it sounds good are either lying or don’t know the difference between good sound and bad. It’s useful for SoundCloud, Bandcamp but. Ugh. Also, it’s a problem for apples. Finally, take a look at this below. I haven’t used this gizmo but this reviewer is respected for his koweledge of digital audio (although not necessarily his politics or taste in music) : https://youtu.be/NvF1lTsgv6o Apologize to other members if I’m repeating their ideas (I didn’t read the entire thread) and to you if you k ow this stuff already. |
Hi @drugolf you said “My DAC is a Denafrips so I wanted to get high res files when available so that also limited me with the Bluesound that does not output those digitally when connecting it just as a streamer to the Denafrips.” I have the 700$ Denafrips DAC outbound from a Node2 . I stream 24/192 to it w/o issue ( files in my local server ) . The display in dac confirms resolution . What am I missing? be safe Bill |
