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Help—How to Marry High Bitrate Digital Streamers to Two Channel Audio Systems

I have four more than decent stereo systems in different rooms in my house, one living room, one TV room and two at desktop computers, along with a good collection of classical and opera CDs and LPs.  Problem is I’m getting old and laid up with back problems and it is getting really unpleasant to get up and down to change CDs and LPs all the time.  So it’d sure be nice if I could digitize my music and stream it and/or also stream High Bitrate music from subscription sources, all the while taking advantage of my good receivers and speakers.  And I’d love to play the same  music in more than one room at the same time.

But I am technically challenged to do this.  I’m discovering that It’s not that easy to marry the colliding formats of digital and analog and it can be exceedingly expensive! About $3000 plus tax for a midrange Network Streamer such as the Linn Majik.  Ouch.  And that would service only one of my stereo systems and I’m pretty sure I would still have to buy more than that to make it all work just at that one stereo system.   I am especially concerned to choose gear that will maintain the good quality sound I already have, but won’t be ridiculously expensive.

Is anyone successfully doing this?  What sort of gear did you have to buy and How is it all connected?

Anyone using an Oppo as a streamer?  Which one?  Would their latest, the Oppo UDP205 be a decent choice?  It is Roon ready and has WiFi and Ethernet connectivity, with two channel analog outs but 7.1 analog out as well, and also has the all important feature to convert digital to analog, so an external DAC wouldn’t be needed.  But does it produce decent sound? 

Just to briefly describe some of my audio gear I want to set up for Streaming:
  Living room stereo features an  Audiomat Prelude Reference MKII Tube Integrated Receiver with Quad ESL Electrostatic Speakers,
   TV room stereo features an Audiomat Arpege Tube Receiver and Spendor FL-6 speakers for music and Arcam SR250 Stereo AV receiver for TV. 

 
128x128echolane
gdnrbob
4,421 posts
 
Yes, I read that. Unfortunately, it is an issue for some, and from some of the questions sent to Bluesound, I think they realize their deficiencies. Considering how good their customer service is, I think that issue will be corrected soon.
 As you have seen the Bluesound is attractively priced. The internal DAC is pretty good (and you can output to a better one, if you wish).
B
2psyop's avatar
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2psyop
1,507 posts
 
echolane- I had struggled with the metadata migration when I bought the Bluesound 2. Customer service is good, but it still required alot of computer work on my part. To get folders made with the correct music tags and album art tag that Bluesound recognizes required me to find much of the album art myself then tag it and place it in a folder. I also needed the Bluesound customer service rep to remotely go into my computer network which allowed for the remote access of music. I learned alot along the way. For many folks, just using Spotify or Tidal’s streaming site will be much easier to do. The vast majority of albums or CDs can be found there, no need to access one’s own digital library.

amg56's avatar
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amg56
887 posts
 
If you are on the internet get ROON and also TIDAL. These will allow you to have tagged files automatically, ie. they do the work for you. ROON allows you to control playback room by room once you set it up. I use an iPad with ROON on it and can play all my (single source ie. digitised and streamed) music to rooms with say one of the Bluesound Pulse active speakers in it. For me the whole house is a stereo system.
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echolane OP
91 posts
 
That’s what I want - my whole house to be a stereo system.

i have two Windows desktops  the house, my husband and I each have one, each with serious hardware attached for stereo listening.  And there’s also a living room stereo and a tv room stereo.  It’d be nice if I could get them all to play the same thing at once!
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echolane OP
91 posts
 
2psysop,
  Are you suggesting it’s not necessary to rip my CDs because most everything is on Tidal anyway?  Even opera and classical music?
  Regardless,  Bluesound sounds like a no go for me anyway if it involves a lot of sitting, my aging back just will not do that anymore.  I have read that classical music is harder to get correctly tagged, assuming I am using the right vocabulary when I say tagged.
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