Old phones as streaming sources


   I'm curious how many  of you have converted old phones to streamers. I have found  that when I remove the sim card and shut off blue tooth and wire the phone to a dac with an appropriate USB adapter cable, my old iphone 6s makes a pretty good streamer. Just wondering what others experiance has been. It is a really economical way to source digital to a 2nd or 3rd system. You can even cut electronic noise further by running on battery power when listening and shutting off the screen once the music is rolling. Going one step further would be to transfer local files to the phones memory and turn off wireless altogether. I have not done this but theoretically it should help. I usually just run the Qobuz app and stream from that to my Chord Mojo. What's your experiance?

 

Ag insider logo xs@2xbruce19

I stream Qobuz from my phone temporarily just to make playlists since there is no "Connect" function.

The SQ blows. You can not get decent sound without a "single purpose" built device. A simple Raspberry Pi blows your contraption away.

Yes, you can do it. I have streamed from about every device you can think of. Honestly, in general, they sound pretty good… especially with a good DAC, until you start comparing with purpose built streamers.

 

@fuzztone It needs to be noted that a Pi is not a "single purpose" built device. It was conceived and built as a small computer that would be a teaching tool to get young folks interested in computers and programming. They are frequently used as a very affordable around computer. In contrast the electronics in an iphone are much more sophisticated, but that is why for our purposes it might be worthwhile to shut down most of the unnecessary functions.

I go back to the beauty of the battery power since in much of our hifi world it is the quality of the power supply that is the foundation of audio fidelity, and you just can't do much better than a battery. The extreme energy efficiency and nano scale design elements of todays phones permit tiny batteries.

@soix referenced an Ifi Zen streamer. I have not heard one, but have read good things about them and he attests  to this. I don't know for sure but based on the reasonable price of the Zen streamer I wouldn't be surprised if it is not based on the Pi or some small computer very similar. The further refinement comes from the power supply and the handling of the digital output, as I understand it.

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A Pi has to add on other purposes and is not built specifically to be a stinkin’ phone AND a camera+. I power mine with a filtered iPower Elite. You are free to show actual stats that it is inferior to a battery. Saying it does not make it so.

The best sounding streamers I have are all based on RasPi. (All better than my first, a BluNode.) RP tech is just a shortcut to sufficient processing power for a network player. Then design tech takes over to make them sound superior. I refuse to operate a "streamer" that cannot play local files including HiRez and DSD.