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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. 

 
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echolane OP
112 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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2psyop
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I was surprised by the quality of the sound from the Bluesound Node 2 internal DAC. It held it’s own with my external Schiit Bifrost Uber and Benchmark DAC USB1. Most often bettered the sound with Tidal MQA albums. But I had noticed after I went to great effort to tag all my own digital files so that Bluesound could find, display and play them via my home wifi network that I found myself playing streaming services much more often. As of today, these are the apps that are listed in the Bluesound Node 2 menu: Amazon music, Calm Radio, Deezer, IheartRadio, Juke, KKBox, Murfie, Napster, Qobuz, Radio Paradise, Slacker, Spotify, Tidal, TuneIn and Wimp. Keep in mind that one must choose and pay for each service. I have heard many people using Roon with Bluesound to great success. Others doing this will have to chime in. I can say Spotify and Tidal are tremendous but I have not explored the classical catalog. I think Spotify has a very big library.
echolane's avatar
echolane OP
112 posts
 
Thanks for the list of Apps.  Can Bluesound be configured for an App not native to it?  For example, I would want Primephonic which is a classical music service.  What if I wanted to subscribe to that?
echolane's avatar
echolane OP
112 posts
 
Thanks for the list of Apps.  Can Bluesound be configured for an App not native to it?  For example, I would want Primephonic which is a classical music service.  What if I wanted to subscribe to that?
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2psyop
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Primephonic to be made available on BluOS

05 Feb 2018Press Release293

Amsterdam, 2 February 2018: Primephonic, the CD-quality streaming service dedicated to classical music, has agreed to a deal which will see the platform made available on the BluOS operating system this Spring, in both the United Kingdom and United States.

BluOS, developed by Lenbrook International, is the premium high resolution multi-room audio ecosystem that allows enabled devices from NAD, Bluesound, and soon Dali Loudspeakers, to stream from a range of music services. As the latest service to announce compatability, Primephonic will join the likes of Spotify, Tidal and Amazon Music on the platform.

Via the BluOS app, US and UK listeners will be able to stream 16-bit FLAC (CD) quality classical music from one place across one or multiple devices to help deliver the ultimate classical listening experience in the home.

The partnership will also extend the BluOS experience for classical music lovers by integrating Primephonic’s unique metadata system, tailored to the specific needs of the classical music genre.

Thomas Steffens, CEO of Primephonic, commented on the partnership: “Since our launch last year we have been committed to finding as many wonderfully digital ways as possible to listen to classical music, so we are naturally very excited to team up with BluOS. We want to deliver an unbeatable solution and multi-room listening is becoming increasingly pivotal to the way we consume music at home.”

“For BluOS users, we think the Primephonic announcement is an exciting one,” says Andrew Haines, BluOS Product Manager at Lenbrook. “Our user base features a strong contingent of classical music lovers who expect a premium experience. Primephonic, along with the work we are doing to incorporate a richer set of information about the recordings they enjoy, is a perfect blend of what they want.”

Primephonic subscribers will be able to listen via BluOS Enabled players as of Spring 2018, with more details expected to be unveiled at Munich High End Show in Germany

echolane-
As a side note- Bluesound has been continually updating their apps and software since I have had the Node 2. I have no reason to think Primephonic will be overlooked as a streaming service for the BluOs app.
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