Point of higher priced streamer?

[MattHooper]

A friend bought a Philips plasma setup back in those days. It got quite hot in use -- almost space heater hot. Must've raised his electric bill mightily. He returned it when an image 'burned-in'. His dealer told him that most of them came back.

Wow, that does look old school! Mine looks (and was) more like an industrial monitor. Though still somewhat sleek. Amazingly enough, no burn in (that I notice) after all these years. Yet the model comes from a time when plasma burn in was particularly prevalent.

You could aid the cause by buying a PSAudio $40K speaker pair. Paul needs the money to charge his Tesla.

I'm on it!

 

[Willem]

The most important thing for a streamer is app support for as many sources as possible. This rules out any proprietary system from a small hardware manufacturer. They may design an app for Spotify and a few others, but that is it. This is where Sonos or Chromecast come in: no content provider can afford to ignore those platforms.

 

[Chr1]

Just wondering if there are any downsides to using an Android media player? Used one of my Minix Neo U1s for a while with Hifi Cast, spdif out to a DX3 Pro and seem to remember it was flawless. Now using them as control points as I am using several Beelink AP34 fanless PCs as renderers as I want to use MathAudio RoomEQ, but surprised no one has mentioned budget Android boxes for streaming...

 

[12Many]

Would you mind explaining why? Or linking to something that does?
I know the topic of audibility of jitter has been done to death before, with various conclusions. But the other matter at the very least to me could do with some clarifying, since it’s recently been spread by Darko’s podcast.

My thought (perhaps wrong or right) on jitter is that receiving devices will have a CDR or some other retimer that should fix jitter and the distance traveled for audio is very short in relation to max distance so any jitter should be minimal and fixable at the receiving device. It is important to note that IMO, we have to define devices and prices when having a conversation. Could jitter be an issue in a 35$ item off amazon, sure. Or a very long run near maximum distance for a protocol, or with really bad cables, sure. However, I don't worry about jitter in any well built and properly functioning device - for example I don't worry about jitter when comparing a $500 DAC to a $2000 DAC as both should easily correct it. Plus, my ears are far from perfect, nor is my system a 50k system where such minor issues could be detected. I could be wrong and would appreciate correction.

 

[Apesbrain]

surprised no one has mentioned budget Android boxes for streaming...

My experience with these devices is that they depend on DLNA for music transport/control protocol. DLNA had great promise, but seems to have died on the vine. Lack of standards and requirement of gapless playback is the main area where DLNA fails for me. Maybe Hi-Fi Cast has solved this?

In any case, the WiiM Mini is an equal and less expensive alternative as a DLNA playback point. That Beelink device could be a great low-cost server, but RPi is even cheaper (if currently hard to find).

"Best" budget solution I've found is RPi 4-4GB running piCorePlayer with Logitech Media Server (both free) and Pi Zero players. LMS remains the standard for local music streaming from lossy up to DSD64.

 

[Chr1]

---

My experience with these devices is that they depend on DLNA for music transport/control protocol. DLNA had great promise, but seems to have died on the vine. Lack of standards and requirement of gapless playback is the main area where DLNA fails for me. Maybe Hi-Fi Cast has solved this?

In any case, the WiiM Mini is an equal and less expensive alternative as a DLNA playback point. That Beelink device could be a great low-cost server, but RPi is even cheaper (if currently hard to find).

"Best" budget solution I've found is RPi 4-4GB running piCorePlayer with Logitech Media Server (both free) and Pi Zero players. LMS remains the standard for local music streaming from lossy up to DSD64.

Think it's using UPnP, which is the same as the WiiM but being Android, is far more flexible/multi - use. Hifi Cast is excellent. The Umix Neo U1 can be bought cheaply second hand now. And Android, I would suggest is a tad more "user friendly" than Linux as used on the Pi.
I recently bought two Beelink AP34s for less than £100 and given the flexibility and along with the ease of use of RoomEQ, reckon they will do me fine.

Anyhoo, seems pricey, bespoke streamers are a bit like expensive audiophile computers. (stupid)