Fairly new to streaming. Where to start?
I got this idea from Aurender CEO in a interview. He does not let hdd do the playing. OK for storage, but hdd hands off to SSiD for play. Thus the question as to whether the vault has ssid and therefore a better player? I think this level of details are less important in low end or mid end equipment. Try something and see if you like the sound regardsless of the tech inside. Read what others like, like the Node 2i. |
If you are only gonna play ripped music a simple RaspberryPi with a dac should work great. You can buy them with built-in dac-cards or with inteface cards to connect to an external dac (I use this right now). If you can tinkle a bit with it yourself you can have a solution for less than $200. If you prefer to buy pre-built solutions they cost somewhere around $500 and up. Here are some options https://orchardaudio.com/shop?olsPage=products%2Fpcnp-strmr https://volumio.org/product/volumio-primo/ https://www.hifiberry.com/ |
I second the Bluesound approach - excellent app then you can upgrade the DAC. Lumin D2 has a far less friendly app, does not have an antenna, and support from Lumin at least in the USA is non-existent. The access to all the streaming radio stations in the world will be a revelation. Tidal on the internal Bluesound DAC is pretty darn satisfying for all but those who sit in the perfect listening position imitating Jonsey from the Hunt for Red October. |
If you're looking for a way to try out streaming, consider the Sonos Connect (which you could probably pick up for cheap on eBay these days.) I'm using it as a Roon endpoint and feeding the digital output directly to the (way higher quality) DAC in my HK990 integrated. Streaming TIDAL and my own HDTracks content from my NAS, the results are really good. |
