Any source other than digital streaming is just nostalgia. A good streamer with a good external DAC would beat any vinyl or CD at any price point. If you are claiming otherwise you are not living in reality, that is just admiration to nostalgia. Collecting CD or Vinyl is sort of useless fool’s errand. When you have access to 30 million songs, what is the point of accumulating physical Vinyl or CD etc. Young generations will not have luxury of having big houses and listening rooms. Speaker technology is advancing very rapidly, bookshelf speakers are becoming extremely good. Devialet for example has great product for younger generation. Our 200 lbs speakers will turn to relics of past or collectible items. Digital is future, adopt and move on.
Anyone else feel like it’s the Wild Wild West?
I’ve been following the streaming threads here for a while now, and I find it both exhilarating and intimidating. I mean, we all know everything in high-end audio matters to some degree or another, right (Ok, maybe except for the flat earth contingent)? From what I’m reading and from my own experience the process of optimizing steaming has near unlimited potential, and some even say it rivals or even surpasses vinyl if taken to the max. Cables, routers, optical, filters, extenders, power supplies, switches, etc., they all seem to make a significant difference despite the naysayers who say bits are just bits. I’m all in on this steaming renaissance, but most of the jewels of useful info are buried in other posts, so I’d like to have this be a consolidator post of your best streaming experiences and recommendations for others who could benefit greatly from your hard-won victories and maybe save a lot of people the agony you went through to get to streaming nirvana. So have at it — let’s empower this community in this noble task and help everyone realize the amazing potential of this magic gift to audiophiles. What say you?
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I started with a Bluesound as it was simple to set up, had plenty of features, good software that was easy to use, included a decent DAC, and was inexpensive compared to other solutions. Once I better understood streaming and what I really wanted to do, I got an Aurrender and a high end DAC. Sold the Bluesound for a decent price easily. So I agree with @ghdprentice. Just sharing my journey. |
@drbay LOL! |
@baylinor Thanks a lot for the tip of uninstalling the app to get it to recognize the streamer again. I didn’t think of that, and all the suggestions I got involved rebooting everything starting with the router, but I’m traveling so that’s not an option right now. I do have a TP-Link AC2600 and a Wireworld Starlight 8 Ethernet cable so once I get home I’ll be going hardwired from that and hopefully that’ll be the end of this digital horror show. Argh. |
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