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Help With Streamer - Aurender, Auralic, HIFI Rose, Eversolo A10, etc.

Happy New Year All,

Longtime reader and follower of Audiogon, but less than a handful of posts.

I’m done with Apple’s Music app.  It’s turned into a disaster.  Some people have no issues at all with it, but for countless others, it has become almost unusable.  I’m one of those.   With that, I’m looking to finally get a streamer.  Under $4,000.00 and much less than that preferably.   I don’t have a LAN to plug into one, so all of my music will be primarily stored on the internal SSD.  I  don’t necessarily need a DAC in a streamer, so a transport is fine, but I’m fine if it does have a DAC.  I definitely want a streamer with a screen on it.

My questions are, how do I rip my CD collection into a streamer?  Can I connect an external CD drive up to one and rip directly into a streamer’s SSD?  Who has the most user friendly streamer and app?  Can I connect my iPhone and iPad up to it and transfer the music over to those devices for “one the go”? Do any streamers have an I2S HDMI output, and does it matter, or should I just use a dedicated SACD player for that?


I’d probably use a streamer as a preamp as well, if it’s decent enough.  Or should it be a separate music source in the system with a dedicated preamp?  It’s really not that big of a deal to me, as I no longer have the hearing that I used to.

I’m in my 60’s now, so I’m just not interested in the “esoteric” stuff anymore, but I still want decent quality gear.

Much appreciation to any and all recommendations.

 

boltapuresource
soix
9,642 posts
 

Here’s an Innuos Zen at a very good price.  You can rip all your CDs right into it, and their Sense app gets the highest marks for being user friendly to the point that some have even dropped Roon — high praise.  They also have excellent customer support if you have any questions/issues, which is important.  Best of luck. 

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisbcfc8-innuos-zen-mk3-mkiii-music-server-streamer-cd-ripper-2tb-music-servers-docks

boltapuresource OP
26 posts
 

@dwest1023 

Thank you for the details on the Eversolo, especially the app software on the HiFi Rose machines.  I was considering one those, but I do not want glitchy difficult to use software.

I don’t think any of the Bluenote models have a screen and I’d really like to have a screen to display album art, etc.  

Thanks again

boltapuresource OP
26 posts
 

@soix 

Thanks for the heads up on the Innuous.  I will check this out.

Thank you, Sir!

gdnrbob
4,452 posts
 

I will give a +2 for Innuos. 

I first owned the Bluesound, then Aurender, but settled on Innuos.

I liked the Aurender, but it was limited in streaming choices (which has changed since my usage). I liked the sound quality, a definite improvement over Bluesound.

I ended up with Innuos because it works with Roon and the sound quality is much better than the Bluesound.

I will say that Bluesound offers a wide array of streaming services to choose from,  but in doing so, they seem to have compromised sound quality.

B

boltapuresource OP
26 posts
 

@gdnrbob 

Thanks for your insight on the Innuous.

In all honesty, I plan to only listen to my ripped CD’s, so any music streaming service is of no importance to me.  I guess I could change my mind down the road, and sometimes I do.  In fact, I had never considered a streamer until Apple’s Music app has become unusable and completely corrupted my library.

I have nowhere near the CD collection that many the folks here do, but even with around a 1000 CD’s, I only want to have to rip them one time.  Fortunately, I have all of the time in the world to do this though.

Thanks

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