@Robshaw I used this method until about a year and a half ago. I did find adding a separate dedicated streamer fed by ethernet via a switch and optical cable lowered the noise noticeably in my set up. I stream Qobuz via Mconnect, but have not found a way of streaming Amazon Music through the streamer yet. |
@robshaw Believe it — it’s a real thing. Your computer is very noisy, and although you won’t hear actual noise per se, the music quality suffers a lot, which you might not notice until you use a decent streamer. The difference is not small, and I’d strongly encourage you to at least demo a streamer in your system to see what you’re missing. I was skeptical too until I added a streamer, but there’s absolutely no going back. I control my music through Qobuz on my iPad or iPhone — easy peasy and no computer necessary. Just my $0.02 FWIW. |
@robshaw Count me in as one more guy who consistently prefers the stream I get via my dedicated streamer/DAC over what I get from my Microsoft laptop. More color. More space. More dynamics. Less distortion. Cleaner, more beautiful sound. Of course, that doesn't mean I spurn stuff I have on my laptop's hard drive or on various SD Cards, etc After all, how else could I listen to the recordings me and my buddies did over the years? |
to those trying to help, I really appreciate it. I have what I believe is a very nice system. However, as far as understanding Audio, etc. I am somewhat of a novice. I want to thank dbb, soix,and edcyn for their suggestions. Other than paying off previous audio purchases, you have my attention. Just a few novice questions, I currently use my laptop to stream qobuz, i pick a song on qobuz, and hit play. When over, I just pick another song, etc. If I were to get a streamer down the road, how does it hook up to my system,(from where to where) I have an outboard DAC that I love, so I would not look at a streamer that has a built in DAC. Second, Do I needs to have the computer hooked up any longer. Does the streamer down load my qobus account?? Would I just access my streamer via an app from my phone for qobuz? One of the posts mentioned that Amazon HD isn't supported by any service, other than the Blue sound node which I had and didn't care for at one time. Love the way qobuz sounds, but, their site is very poorly done compared to Amazon HD. Somewhat of a dilemma, when it comes to Amazon and streaming? Any help would be appreciated. So hard to imagine my system sounding better has me very intrigued. Robert TN For what it's worth, I just got a pair of FRITZ carbon 7SE bookshelf speakers for a secondary system, in a smaller room. These were chosen from a suggestion of another member a very short time ago. I can't thank the person enough, I wish I could member his name? They are GREAT, so impressed!!!! Thank you |
@robshaw Goodonya for keeping an open mind on this, and you’ll be richly rewarded for any effort you make toward getting a separate streamer. BTW, totally agree with you on Qobuz, and I prefer the Amazon interface too but not at the expense of sound quality. Also, great choice on the Fritz speakers and not surprised you’re very impressed with them (maybe @erik_squires was the helpful member who recommended them?). So, to answer your questions, I run Qobuz on my iPad/iPhone wirelessly through my iFi Zen Stream streamer. The Zen Stream doesn’t link directly to Qobuz (yet) so I spent $6 on an MConnectHD app that has an interface somewhat similar to the Qobuz site. The streamer can work over Wi-Fi, but it has issues with that so I’m going to use an Ethernet cable to get around that and will likely sound better as well. Since my router isn’t near my stereo I’m gonna use a TP-Link Wi-Fi extender (that plugs into an outlet) and run an Ethernet cable from that to my streamer. Then you just use whatever digital connection that works from the streamer to your DAC and you’re all set. Sorry for the long-winded reply but hope it helps. |
