At a loss

[rman9]

Couple of months back, bought the Gold Note DS-10 to combine that with the Mcintosh C53, having experimented with it, I am finding the DAC on the GoldNote is not to my liking. The volume level of the Analog out of the DS-10 is too low, where I have to crank it up to get some life out of the streamed music. However the DAC on the C53, performs excellent even with a Panasonic that I am using to pipe through Youtube music, using the Coaxial Input. Unfortunately the Gold Note DS-10 does not have digital out.. I am looking for a cheap alternate method to stream Spotify/Qobuz/Tidal and then use the C53 as an external DAC. Anyone can help to provide some information? what should I do, Please help..

 

[Helicopter]

If you are just using it as a transport, you shouldn't need much. I like the idea of MiniDSP SHD Studio for this purpose, with Dirac DRC, but something like an RPi streamer, PC, probably a tracfone with no plan, shpuld all be up to the task.

What are your budget and requirements, other than ethernet to SPDIF with the services you mentioned?

 

[rman9]

If you are just using it as a transport, you shouldn't need much. I like the idea of MiniDSP SHD Studio for this purpose, with Dirac DRC, but something like an RPi streamer, PC, probably a tracfone with no plan, shpuld all be up to the task.

What are your budget and requirements, other than ethernet to SPDIF with the services you mentioned?

Thanks for writing back.. I'll check into your suggestions. Yeah, I am just looking for a simple solution to just stream without any down compression or lowering bit rate and not have any DAC on board, or even if it did have a Coax or Optical output to use the C53's DAC. Budget I am thinking max $1K. cause I already shelled out ~3K for the DS10. I see Andover for $149, that seems to down the bit rate on its Digital Out terminal ..

 

[mdl]

have you tired buying a XLr to RCA connector? the XLR output is a higher volume compared to the RCa I've noticed