i'm using an Oppo 103 into an external DAC for streaming Tidal. sounds good but i wonder is a Bluesound 2i or Aries Mini would sound better w/ex-DAC?
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 $200 or so. Or maybe someone is doing this, and it's just not well distributed?
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Hi @drugolf you said “My DAC is a Denafrips so I wanted to get high res files when available so that also limited me with the Bluesound that does not output those digitally when connecting it just as a streamer to the Denafrips.” I have the 700$ 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 |
@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. |
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/ |
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. |
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 |
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 |
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) |
@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 |
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, 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... |
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 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. |
@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. |
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! |
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. |
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) |
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 |
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. |
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. |
@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. |
Hey Dan, here is the gist of it. https://www.sony.com/electronics/hi-res-audio-mp3-cd-sound-quality-comparison |
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. |
This is not a rhetorical question.. I really want to know. If you think your streamer should sound better than a CD, where do you think the Streamer got its music. Most of what we listen to is from old CD's and LP's, which are the source for the streaming companies. Are we seriously supposed to believe that current recording techniques and equipment have some magical property that is recorded, mixed for CD, etc, and then digitally compressed and then transmitted via poine wires, optical, or through cell towers should sound better? |
I have been using a Nord Acoustics Easy Stream DAC Connect ES9038 streamer for months now. Pretty happy with it. This streamer uses the 4Stream app from your phone for connectivity. More streaming services than I knew existed. Including Qobuz. I believe these do have BT but I connect via ethernet. No problems streaming 24/192. Being equipped to use either the internal ES9038 DAC with RCA out, ethernet or SPDIF out for external DAC it has options. I believe I paid $310 delivered. |
Bits are bits, and the cheapest way I found to get them to my DAC is via USB from a RPI4 loaded with a Moode image. I use mconnect app on an iPad connected to Qobuz as my UI. I can stream 24 bit 192 kHz. The sound quality is as good as any streamer because bits are bits The streamer is about the size of a deck of cards. It is very easy to setup if you are comfortable with computers. The total cost is $50. If you don’t like it or can’t put it together, you are only out $50. Good luck in your quest. |
@musicsearch I may have missed something, but the Zen Blue appears to be just a Bluetooth adapter. Sounds like a very good one though, with BT 5 and Aptx. We are specifically for devices that can stream natively. A phone or tablet is used to control them, but is not the source of the stream. Virtually all devices that do this also act as bluetooth receivers. An understandably confusing thing. |
What about this? iFi Zen Blue HiFi Bluetooth Receiver https://ifi-audio.com/products/zen-blue/ |
Hi everyone Been reading thru this thread. When I look at tech. It all about the workflow ... it could be the best tech but if you can’t intergrade into a users workflow ... it’s not best tech. so going back to a cheap streamer ... like a pic based platform that is not plug and play etc ... it’s a great solution for some tech savvy diy , but would would in others users “workflows ...” as mapman pointed out any laptop w a usb to a dac would give you a good streamer , but it comes back to how you want to use it in your environment aka the “ workflow “ I have a used Logitech squeezeboxes , sad they dropped support and some services dropped supporting them .. like Spotify ... they are still very usable and you can tweek it and upgrade them and use them for local file server streaming . It’s a solution that is very user dependent ( tech savvy needed). I was asked to help a friend set up for an audio show years ago ..... and asked how they demo ... they sold speakers .. so to play music .... FYI. I used to be a regional sales manager ( I was a sys engineer previously aka tech guy ) in the area of hi tech pre press technology. Basically merging an all analog process with the on coming hi tech stuff in a tradition enviromoments... so making stuff new stuff be able to seemingly integrate into shops current workflow was paramount. ( it keeps going on in my head ). I “ looked at “ and not listen to different streamers FIRST.... It’s about how a user would use it ... if they could not use it .... so after the dust settled..... Node2 seems to be interesting to me . The Node2 has the ability to concatenate digital sources ( local servers, many streaming services , local USB port , Bluetooth ( if you want) ) into a single user interface ... approx retail price like 550 usd The software is included as part of the hardware . I went ahead a got one staged it with the system we were going to use at the show . I let the owners listen and make the call on the SQ . They were happy with what I assembled ... and we used that solution up nyc audio 2019 show .... last physical show we did. At home I my wife uses my main system w the node 2. For her the Node2 is bulletproof ( key feature want other then yourself to use the system ). We have file server with gigs of stuff but she prefers to use Amazon music HD . But the Node2 gave me crazy errors on wed . I was home early and check everything tried different wifi , hardwirenet ,local files , server files , other streaming services like Spotify and Tune-in .... everything else worked fine . I sent a email request to bluesound right from the ios ap . They replied a few hours later saying it was a Amazon web server authentication issue on Amazon side ... and Amazon took care of it . Guess I am trying to say the best cheap streamer depends on the workflow and the environment you want to use it in and the BIGGEST part of your environment is the USER who will be interacting with it . FYI mapman we met at the DC Audiofest via John S. At his booth . Happy holidays and be safe ! bill |
Pro-ject Streambox S2 is around £250 in the UK. It does what you ask though no DAC included. https://www.project-audio.com/en/product/stream-box-s2/ The S2 Streambox ultra is more expensive and more popular with audiophiles. The cheaper basic version linked to above gets overlooked, maybe as it is not roon ready. |
@dougthebiker Now this is something I'd personally consider. Definitely like the balanced outputs. While I personally am experienced with the Pi's. It'll never fly with our average customer, who usually spends around $1000 for the entire system, and would be intimidated by such a thing. Your's and all of the suggestions here are very much appreciated. Pending actually checking one out personally, it looks like the Arylic may be the closest to what we are looking for. |
Interesting that “cheap” is what is being discussed here. Not a word I’d associate with the vast majority of products sold on Audiogon. IMHO the Bluesound Node 2i for about $500 can’t be beat. Streaming, Airplay, Bluetooth, Alexa integration, etc. I just sold mine and bought a Cambridge CXN V2. Excellent features. Wolfson dac chips, upsampling, preamp and app. $1000. Fantastic sound reproduction. |
Interesting that “cheap” is what is being discussed here. Not a word I’d associate with the vast majority of products sold on Audiogon. IMHO the Bluesound Node 2i for about $500 can’t be beat. Streaming, Airplay, Bluetooth, Alexa integration, etc. I just sold mine and bought a Cambridge CXN V2. Excellent features. Wolfson dac chips, upsampling, preamp and app. $1000. Fantastic sound reproduction. |
