Playing CDs sounds better than Qobuz — dammit
I’ve built a decent HeadFi rig over the past few months and am quite happy with it streaming Qobuz as a source via my iPad/iPhone. I recently brought my CD player into the rig as there are some reference CDs I need that aren’t available on Qobuz. Well, I made the mistake of playing some CDs and compared them to Qobuz, and in every case the CD sounds better — specifically a quieter background and more transparency overall. I’ve got good cables from the dongle out of my iPad to the USB cable that runs to my DAC for streaming, so let’s leave cables out of the discussion for now because I think this goes deeper than that. Needless to say I’m pretty disappointed right now because I’ve enjoyed not spinning discs over the past year or so and certainly don’t wanna go back to buying CDs again. Ugh.
So, what I’m thinking is that streaming over WiFi through my iDevices may be the bottleneck. IF that’s the case and I need to up my streaming game, what would be the cheapest way to go to overcome the bottleneck? My thought is going hardwired (which I can do) to something like an iFi Stream or maybe a ProJect Streambox, but just wondering if that’d get it done? Something else? I need something pre-made and won’t wrestle with doing a Raspberry Pi with hats, etc. as I have no patience for configuring/troubleshooting tech. Thanks for any advice/thoughts.
@kletter1mann Yeah, good point. My bad. Audience AR1p, Musician Pegasus, Singxer SA1, Hifiman Arya Stealth, LavriCable balanced silver cables for headphones and balanced between DAC and amp as well as Lightening cable and dual USB cable, Cullen power cables. So, what I’m thinking is Optical Rendu, iFi Zen Stream, ProJect Streambox, or a used Innuos Zen. Thoughts? |
@adasdad - our pleasure 🙂 |
You are absolutely 1000% correct. The point of the Node 2i was to get my feet wet without spending a fortune. And I like the Bluesound ecosystem - I've got another Node 2i is in place for a smaller system, a speaker on a TV, etc. Bluesound is a big step up from Sonos IMO. Anyway, I'm upgrading that as we speak. Leaning strongly towards Lumin U1. My challenge is that I don't want a streamer with a DAC. The DAC is a waste of $$$ for me. The old Node 2i will end up on my home theater system where it will be fine.
But back to the OPs problem. I'm not really familiar with the gear but it strikes me as a serious but "boutique-y" with some not-so-cheap bells and whistles (cables power conditioner etc). And all that for headphones. And yet being fed by dongled iStuff! If we'd known that I think the thread would probably have taken a different (and more helpful) direction. Anyway, here we are. OP wants a cheap streaming solution. This strongly leads me back to the Node 2i. Why? It's relatively cheap, it works well, it's very popular (i.e., not obscure) and hence easy to resell. Try it and see if it doesn't crush the iStuff. Dollars to doughnuts it will. It's also worth noting that most streamers include a DAC. This creates an opportunity to compare DACs. Who knows, maybe the Node 2i DAC will sound better than the Pegasus? Or each will shine on different material? Who knows. |
