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Spotify Streaming: Chrome Cast Audio > Volumio > Wiim Mini streamer; My experience

photodesignch

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Joined
Jul 23, 2022
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7
I have CCA and chromecast, volumio and wiim mini. PI I’ve tried usb out, optical out hat, volumio, mpd + mini DLNA, bubbleupnp, audirana, LMS, ROON. I can’t agree entirely with your assessments though.

First of all CCA is crap both rca or optical out. When deliver hi res not only android capped bandwidth it also crashes a lot. One way to use best potential of CCA is to run a bubbleupnp which “transcode” before feeding into CCA makes CCA cpu workless then high quality audio is deliverable but still it will cap you at 96khz

Roon is the best if you want to pay high price for it. Same goes to streamer like bluesound.

As from LMS to be free push up upnp sounded great! Only problem is LMS transcoding would be stutter on very huge file size such as DSD or DSF files. Simply upnp will passthrough raw data but renderer would depend on both software and hardware that’s running to decode it. For example! Wiim mini streaming upnp with dsd will either be ended up no sound or it couldn’t decode real time (wiim has both hardware and software issue to decode).

And as for LMS and Volumio both works great only they will once a while update software will kill your vibe. LMS will suddenly lost all upnp connection and player list doesn’t align and won’t playback correctly. Volumio when I upgraded to 3.0 is either Pandora plug-in went missing or the Spotify plugin suddenly refuse to work. The update of those software tend to be not very stable and forums of them don’t help much either.

Here comes to ROON Vs audiravna. Both are great and excellent sound quality. Only roon is expensive on tax and requires a full running computer to do indexing tasks. Auduoravna fall short on the device switching and multi room switching. It will hold on playback one device and can’t switch to another renderer and UI is less likely to be any ideal from user perspectives.

Here comes down to wiim mini. From my experiences this IS the only streamer hardware there cheaper than any amazon devices and bluesound node and allows amazon UHD to be stream at true bits. Although the downside is upnp can’t render proper dsd playback. The solution is to take offload from the cpu by having a DLNA server that transcode into wave before sending to wiim mini then it will play perfectly.

As sound quality I rated optical out to nice dac gives almost identical sound quality to roon and audiravna and it’s a bit more clear than volumio. That’s my opinion
 
Last edited:

FuzzTone

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2022
Messages
78
Likes
25
I use spotify, for exploring new music & for a quick preview of media I am about to purchase
Connecting a laptop to my rig, through USB was too clunky
Hence I was on the market, for a compact streaming solution

1 Chrome Cast Audio

I was a late adopter, having picked one up late in 2021
Paid a 100$ on ebay, for a new in box, out of production product
well packaged, compact and well made, comes with a power adapter & a small analog plug for aux input
Set up was easy, very compact puck sized device, connected easily to my home network

I was up and running very quickly,
Audio quality was average & sounded worse than what I was experiencing through USB playback from my laptop
I tried the minitoslink to optical input, sound quality was not much better
Also had connectivity issues intermittently and varying volume levels, hence gave up on it

2 Volumio on minidsp SHD

I liked the idea of reducing the number of devices on my rig & was excited about trying out the raspberry pi based volumio player on the minidsp SHD
After following the instructions provided in the minidsp manual, I was unable to find the plug ins for spotify on my volumio web interface
Finally ended up contacting the minidsp forum & after a usb based volumio software, the spotify plug ins magically appeared

The setup was straight forward, I had spotify running pretty soon
Sound quality was a step up from the CCA, no latency or sound drop off issues so far

3 Wiim Mini Streamer

while I was having issues with the volumio, came across this highly regarded product on ASR & picked one up
Ironically the day it arrived, I was able to fix my issues with volumio

comes well packaged, with a whole bunch of cables, lot of connectivity options & a mobile style USB type C charger, which works 100 -240 V

Set up is straight forward, for initial setup, keep it close to your router & phone
Install the app, it gives you straight forward instructions

Plugged it in to my Topping DX 7 Pro, through optical set audioquality to 24 bit 192 KHZ
Sounded very good
Better than the CCA, cant say if better than volumio, gain is a bit higher, I used the 2V fixed output
I tried the audio sync option & this caused some sync issues, which I am still trying to sort out

So far, the volumio player, seems the best option for me
No need for extra cables or components, decent sound quality & connectivity
The Wiim is a much more polished device than the CCA, more reliable & has better sound quality

View attachment 202038View attachment 202039
The miniDSP comes with a custom version of Volumio that allows free Qobuz and Tidal like the Pro-Ject S2 Ultra does. Please Spotify and HiRes.
 

FuzzTone

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2022
Messages
78
Likes
25
I have CCA and chromecast, volumio and wiim mini. PI I’ve tried usb out, optical out hat, volumio, mpd + mini DLNA, bubbleupnp, audirana, LMS, ROON. I can’t agree entirely with your assessments though.

First of all CCA is crap both rca or optical out. When deliver hi res not only android capped bandwidth it also crashes a lot. One way to use best potential of CCA is to run a bubbleupnp which “transcode” before feeding into CCA makes CCA cpu workless then high quality audio is deliverable but still it will cap you at 96khz

Roon is the best if you want to pay high price for it. Same goes to streamer like bluesound.

As from LMS to be free push up upnp sounded great! Only problem is LMS transcoding would be stutter on very huge file size such as DSD or DSF files. Simply upnp will passthrough raw data but renderer would depend on both software and hardware that’s running to decode it. For example! Wiim mini streaming upnp with dsd will either be ended up no sound or it couldn’t decode real time (wiim has both hardware and software issue to decode).

And as for LMS and Volumio both works great only they will once a while update software will kill your vibe. LMS will suddenly lost all upnp connection and player list doesn’t align and won’t playback correctly. Volumio when I upgraded to 3.0 is either Pandora plug-in went missing or the Spotify plugin suddenly refuse to work. The update of those software tend to be not very stable and forums of them don’t help much either.

Here comes to ROON Vs audiravna. Both are great and excellent sound quality. Only roon is expensive on tax and requires a full running computer to do indexing tasks. Auduoravna fall short on the device switching and multi room switching. It will hold on playback one device and can’t switch to another renderer and UI is less likely to be any ideal from user perspectives.

Here comes down to wiim mini. From my experiences this IS the only streamer hardware there cheaper than any amazon devices and bluesound node and allows amazon UHD to be stream at true bits. Although the downside is upnp can’t render proper dsd playback. The solution is to take offload from the cpu by having a DLNA server that transcode into wave before sending to wiim mini then it will play perfectly.

As sound quality I rated optical out to nice dac gives almost identical sound quality to roon and audiravna and it’s a bit more clear than volumio. That’s my opinion
I've had no problems with LMS. No need to update ever in 3 years. Coax sounds much better than Toslink on my M50. All results are specific to the entire system. I've only had to use UPnP on free Volumio.
 

linuxfan

Active Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2019
Messages
257
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173
I run a good quality DIY audio server, based on a single-board computer outputting I2S via TwistedPear Audio's isolator/reclocker, into an ES9018 DAC.
As a quick-and-cheap solution for Spotify streaming, I purchased a Chromecast Audio, and was pleasantly surprised at how good it sounds via optical s/pdif into this same DAC.

The CCA is stupidly good. In setups where the CCA does not sound good, it's most likely due to the Android hardware which is casting to the CCA, and possibly also software issues with the Google Home app. See here -
https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6279392
and here
https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6293749
 
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