Review and Measurements of Chromecast Audio Digital Output

[Leewclark]

Hello all, sorry I am very new to this thread so apologies if the subject has been covered.

I am evaluating streaming services at the moment, moving away from Google play (Via CCA) for higher quality like Tidal or Amazon music HD.
I have my CCA plugged in to the Aux 3.5mm jack on my Cambridge audio amp and listening via Monitor audio speakers.
I am looking to possibly add a DAC (with or without streaming/bluetooth) if recommended?
Generally just looking at getting the best sound for as little £ as possible from my setup.
Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[BDWoody]

Hello all, sorry I am very new to this thread so apologies if the subject has been covered.

I am evaluating streaming services at the moment, moving away from Google play (Via CCA) for higher quality like Tidal or Amazon music HD.
I have my CCA plugged in to the Aux 3.5mm jack on my Cambridge audio amp and listening via Monitor audio speakers.
I am looking to possibly add a DAC (with or without streaming/bluetooth) if recommended?
Generally just looking at getting the best sound for as little £ as possible from my setup.
Any advice greatly appreciated.

Welcome!

If you add a DAC with optical in, you could use that same CCA with optical out and stream up to 24/96. While the analog out of the CCA didn't measure the best, there are lots of excellent inexpensive DAC's that will be audibly transparent you could pair it with. That way, you've still got the convenience of the CCA with the higher measured numbers from your DAC of choice.


What other connections or features do you need or want? I use Tidal, Qobuz (with and without Roon) and YouTube music mainly and stream through CCA's optical out into an SMSL M500, a D70, a d50s, an Integra pre-pro, and a few other things scattered around, and analog out into a couple of powered speakers, etc.

 

[tades]

So did you actually make a test? As in a proper, level-matched, double-blind one? Make the test, before making *any* claims. Once you have made your own, I'm interested to see if you actually managed to hear a difference - so please post ABX logs.

Who said I claim before testing?
And twice with both 5V 4A on CCA + 5V 10A on smsl M300
give my opinion of what I have been able to here and check with a friend (who's btw is a designer)
I just can invite you to make the test aswell (15€ for the 4A and 25 for the 10A) ...
and give us your feed-back, and may be be able to explain better than me what you heard.. or didn't heared

 

[Leewclark]

Welcome!

If you add a DAC with optical in, you could use that same CCA with optical out and stream up to 24/96. While the analog out of the CCA didn't measure the best, there are lots of excellent inexpensive DAC's that will be audibly transparent you could pair it with. That way, you've still got the convenience of the CCA with the higher measured numbers from your DAC of choice.


What other connections or features do you need or want? I use Tidal, Qobuz (with and without Roon) and YouTube music mainly and stream through CCA's optical out into an SMSL M500, a D70, a d50s, an Integra pre-pro, and a few other things scattered around, and analog out into a couple of powered speakers, etc.

Ok, so just so this idiot gets it correct Tidal app on phone/laptop connects to CCA. CCA is plugged in to DAC via Toslink digital optical cable, then out of the back of chosen DAC ( I am looking at Topping E30 or iFi Zen DAC) RCA cable in to the back of my AMP (AMP has no optical in).
??? all sound ok? thanks for your help its appreciated.

 

[BDWoody]

Ok, so just so this idiot gets it correct Tidal app on phone/laptop connects to CCA. CCA is plugged in to DAC via Toslink digital optical cable, then out of the back of chosen DAC ( I am looking at Topping E30 or iFi Zen DAC) RCA cable in to the back of my AMP (AMP has no optical in).
??? all sound ok? thanks for your help its appreciated.

That's it spot on...

 

[Leewclark]

That's it spot on...

Perfect, thanks so much, do you have a preference for a reasonably priced DAC? is RCA from DAC to AMP ok (not that I have a choice

 

[Julf]

Who said I claim before testing?
And twice with both 5V 4A on CCA + 5V 10A on smsl M300

So what kind of test? Sighted, blind or double blind? Sequential listening, or A/B, or ABX?

 

[BDWoody]

Perfect, thanks so much, do you have a preference for a reasonably priced DAC? is RCA from DAC to AMP ok (not that I have a choice

Honestly, I really don't have a preference...I would look at the E30 or maybe the Schiit modius. The Schiit would give the option for balanced in the future if you switch amps, but like any of the competent DAC's, they will both be transparent and indistinguishable from any other competent DAC.

RCA is perfectly fine... Balanced can help with mitigating certain kinds of noise, if there is a noise issue, but isn't inherently better in terms of sound quality.

https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/schiit-modius-balanced-dac-review.13769/

 

[tades]

So what kind of test? Sighted, blind or double blind? Sequential listening, or A/B, or ABX?

I hope you will trust your-self, once you made the experience by your-self ;-))

 

[Leewclark]

Honestly, I really don't have a preference...I would look at the E30 or maybe the Schiit modius. The Schiit would give the option for balanced in the future if you switch amps, but like any of the competent DAC's, they will both be transparent and indistinguishable from any other competent DAC.

RCA is perfectly fine... Balanced can help with mitigating certain kings of noise, if there is a noise issue, but isn't inherently better in terms of sound quality.

https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/schiit-modius-balanced-dac-review.13769/

Great advice. I thanks you sir.

 

[BDWoody]

Great advice. I thanks you sir.

Gotta love the versatility of the 'lowly' CCA.
You'll need a mini-toslink-->toslink cable or adapter if you don't already have that covered.

 

[Leewclark]

Gotta love the versatility of the 'lowly' CCA.
You'll need a mini-toslink-->toslink cable or adapter if you don't already have that covered.

Just ordered one, also I went for the S.M.S.L Sanskrit 10th MKII as it was only £69 on Amazon hope this improves things a little. Again thanks for your help.

 

[Jimbob54]

I guess then this is it: Here is probably the best, cleanest, most economical (subjective) HiFi setup one can have right now - per my info: Get a CCA ($35-50) + a Mini Toslink cable ($7) + Topping E30 (SNR 113 by Amir) + Schiit Heresy ($99) = ~ $270 (all in - add any headphone of choice...the Heresy runs them all!) and call it a day! No dedicated PC, No premium USBs, No expensive XLR cables, No expensive balanced headphone cables...no BS!

Hoping this will help someone starting this journey...

Sounds about right.

 

[Julf]

I hope you will trust your-self, once you made the experience by your-self ;-))

Uh uh, that's what I suspected. I hope you have noticed the word "Science" in the forum name? Science is based on facts and verified evidence. Not feelings, subjective perceptions or beliefs.

 

[TonioRoffo]

I have procrastinated testing the Chromecast Audio because I was not happy with using Google Cast software due to fear of it not being "bit exact." The protocol Google uses for streaming is proprietary so until recently, you were stuck with whatever opaque data path Google provided. Previous tests used PLEX media server which I have also used in other testing but I still preferred to use something more known and better.

Sorry to jump on a really old thread like this - but there is a trick to figure out if a digital path is bit perfect. DTS files embedded in WAV.

DTS chose its bitrate to match redbook audio bitrate perfectly.

So you can simply stream a DTS Wav file (which will be noise on normal DAC of course) into a receiver's spdif in/hdmi/whatever. If the receiver decodes DTS you are bit perfect.

Tried that with LMS/squeezebox and it worked. As soon as you change the squeezebox volume to 99%, the stream breaks and you hear noise as the receiver think it's getting 2 channel PCM data.

 

[Willem]

hope this improves things a little

I don't want to spoil the party, but I doubt you will hear a difference (under controlled conditions) between the analogue and the digital outputs of the CCA. The inbuilt DAC of the CCA is pretty decent, even though with many amplifiers it is probably better to avoid the high dynamic range setting. That misleadingly named setting has nothing to do with dynamic range but is just a higher (2 Volt) output level that may clip the input circuitry on some amplifiers with a high input sensitivity. My hunch is that an external DAC will only make a difference in very revealing systems. I was very happy with the analogue output of the CCA into my Quad 33 preamp, although I admit that I think the digital output into the RME ADI-2 that replaced the Quad 33 seems to sound marginally better. But the difference was small at most, and was probably due to the better measuring ADI-2 compared to the vintage Quad 33. And I did not bother to do a proper test.
Something similar may apply to the source material. CD red book at 16/44 is already as good as it gets, and anything over and above that is probably unnecessary. Even a lossy 320 kbs stream is probably good enough.

 

[BillG]

I don't want to spoil the party, but I doubt you will hear a difference (under controlled conditions) between the analogue and the digital outputs of the CCA.

I agree, the CCA's analog output already exceeds the lenient thresholds for transparency as defined here on ASR - Redbook is covered by it. It won't, however, meet the dynamic range requirements for 24 bit recordings. Fortunely very few (if any?) recordings take full advantage of that anyway...

 

[Julf]

I agree, the CCA's analog output already exceeds the lenient thresholds for transparency as defined here on ASR - Redbook is covered by it. It won't, however, meet the dynamic range requirements for 24 bit recordings. Fortunely very few (if any?) recordings take full advantage of that anyway...

Indeed. Very few recordings (or listening rooms for that matter) go beyond 16 bits.

 

[Shoaibexpert]

 

[Shoaibexpert]

I don't want to spoil the party, but I doubt you will hear a difference (under controlled conditions) between the analogue and the digital outputs of the CCA. The inbuilt DAC of the CCA is pretty decent, even though with many amplifiers it is probably better to avoid the high dynamic range setting. That misleadingly named setting has nothing to do with dynamic range but is just a higher (2 Volt) output level that may clip the input circuitry on some amplifiers with a high input sensitivity. My hunch is that an external DAC will only make a difference in very revealing systems. I was very happy with the analogue output of the CCA into my Quad 33 preamp, although I admit that I think the digital output into the RME ADI-2 that replaced the Quad 33 seems to sound marginally better. But the difference was small at most, and was probably due to the better measuring ADI-2 compared to the vintage Quad 33. And I did not bother to do a proper test.
Something similar may apply to the source material. CD red book at 16/44 is already as good as it gets, and anything over and above that is probably unnecessary. Even a lossy 320 kbs stream is probably good enough.

What about Amir's own tests that clearly show the Analogue out of CCA is noticeably sub par to the optical with the right API?