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Streaming music from android phone storage with Marantz/Denon HEOS and Yamaha MusicCast Apps?

Abe_W

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Audioscientists -
I have a 256 GB sd card in my android phone and i keep all my music in it. I have been using the HEOS app to stream music from my phone's sd card with a Marantz streamer
https://denon.custhelp.com/app/answ...streaming-music-from-my-ios-or-android-device

I am able to do the same with the MusicCast app for my yamaha wxa-50 amplifier (a.k.a stream music from my phone).

Do i gain anything with sound quality from a dedicated NAS setup in comparison to the above mentioned? Or should i save my cash?

Thanks,
 

Cahudson42

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Digital data is digital data- NAS or SD card. Unless you are experiencing buffering 'drop outs' from your current setup, save your cash if you don't need more than 256gb.

And if you are experiencing drop outs, look for possible network issues (internet connection speed, 2.4g wifi interference, etc) first. Also, some very cheap 256gb sd cards can cause buffering problems.

I use an LG V20 with 64gb and a 128gb sd for streaming /storing locally Amazon Music HD to my Liquid Spark and HE400i HP. Never a problem...
 
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Abe_W

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Digital data is digital data- NAS or SD card. Unless you are experiencing buffering 'drop outs' from your current setup, save your cash if you don't need more than 256gb.

And if you are experiencing drop outs, look for possible network issues (internet connection speed, 2.4g wifi interference, etc) first. Also, some very cheap 256gb sd cards can cause buffering problems.

I use an LG V20 with 64gb and a 128gb sd for streaming /storing locally Amazon Music HD to my Liquid Spark and HE400i HP. Never a problem...

Nope, have not experienced any buffering drop outs. I was close to pulling the trigger and experiment with a NAS setup......BUT.....God bless Yamaha for saving me loads of NAS cash, i guess!
 

EB1000

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I've tried both Musicast and Heos. Heos has a major flaw of the queue list limited to only 300 songs, and Musicast did not have replaygain support. I'm now using Bluos which is near perfect... I'll never look back. I keep my music on a shared folder on a Windows pc, not on my phone, however.
 
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Abe_W

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I've tried both Musicast and Heos. Heos has a major flaw of the queue list limited to only 300 songs, and Musicast did not have replaygain support. I'm now using Bluos which is near perfect... I'll never look back. I keep my music on a shared folder on a Windows pc, not on my phone, however.

Ummm...i don't listen to more than 50 to 100 songs on a queue list at any time. Are there folks who have thousands of songs on queue and go through them all at a stretch? That's gotta be one serious music luvva with plenty of time in his hands.

Phone MicroSDs are so cheap these days. I got a 256 GB microSD for less than 30 bucks on amazon...Feels very convenient/portable and i don't have to hear a PC with all its clunk and loud fan in the background!!
 

EB1000

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Ummm...i don't listen to more than 50 to 100 songs on a queue list at any time. Are there folks who have thousands of songs on queue and go through them all at a stretch? That's gotta be one serious music luvva with plenty of time in his hands.

Phone MicroSDs are so cheap these days. I got a 256 GB microSD for less than 30 bucks on amazon...Feels very convenient/portable and i don't have to hear a PC with all its clunk and loud fan in the background!!


I have a total of 35,000 songs in my library. With the 300 track limit, there is no way to shuffle the entire library and listen in random order. I rarely listen to a specific album from start to end.
 

wje

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From what you've provided, the limiting factor in such streaming might be that it's being done via Bluetooth 4.2. Bluetooth 5.0 with AptX HD might provide a better quality when it comes to streaming, but that would depend on the ability of your current cell phone to stream BT 5.0 and your system to receive the BT 5.0 signal. Though, to get a new cellphone that can handle BT 5.0 for AptX HD transmit capabilities might cost more than getting a new streamer (e.g. Bluesound Node 2i). For the moment, you might want to check if your current cell phone music transfer is via AptX instead of SBC, because AptX has a lower latency rate. There are guides that you can search for to get your cell phone into developer mode to check on the transfer method. Basically, go to your settings and where you see the build number of your Android installation, tap it 7 times, which should put you into developer mode. Then go to the connections section for Bluetooth and see if it's SBC. If so, change it to AptX and try it out. Chances are, the sound will be a little better, even though your most likely on Bluetooth 4.2. I did this for my Samsung tablet and did notice a bit of a quality improvement even though I'm stuck at BT 4.2 for that device.
 
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Abe_W

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From what you've provided, the limiting factor in such streaming might be that it's being done via Bluetooth 4.2. Bluetooth 5.0 with AptX HD might provide a better quality when it comes to streaming, but that would depend on the ability of your current cell phone to stream BT 5.0 and your system to receive the BT 5.0 signal. Though, to get a new cellphone that can handle BT 5.0 for AptX HD transmit capabilities might cost more than getting a new streamer (e.g. Bluesound Node 2i). For the moment, you might want to check if your current cell phone music transfer is via AptX instead of SBC, because AptX has a lower latency rate. There are guides that you can search for to get your cell phone into developer mode to check on the transfer method. Basically, go to your settings and where you see the build number of your Android installation, tap it 7 times, which should put you into developer mode. Then go to the connections section for Bluetooth and see if it's SBC. If so, change it to AptX and try it out. Chances are, the sound will be a little better, even though your most likely on Bluetooth 4.2. I did this for my Samsung tablet and did notice a bit of a quality improvement even though I'm stuck at BT 4.2 for that device.

Nope, HEOS and MusicCast do not use any bluetooth when streamed directly from your phone. It considers your phone to be a NAS device. You can also bluetooth stream with a significant drop in quality.
 

captain paranoia

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Are there folks who have thousands of songs on queue and go through them all at a stretch?

Auto-DJ racks up the 'now playing list'... I usually dump the playlist to a play history folder when it gets to about 2500 tracks...
 

Vincent Kars

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Indeed, storage is storage.
It won’t make a difference if this is a SD card or a SSD or a HD in a NAS or a PC.
The data remains the same.
But does it?

UPnP is a nice example, it works like the device enumeration as in case of USB.
When the devices see each other over the network, they start to exchange their properties.
e.g. a Airport Express is detected and it will tell the server that all audio will be limited to 16 bits / 44.1 kHz.
Highres will be down-sampled by the server as it knows the receiver can’t cope with anything in excess of 16/44
Likewise FLAC might be converted to e.g. ALAC as the receiver don’t support FLAC.
One can not rule out that some conversion is going on somewhere.
Often it is extremely hard to find out if this is the case.
Personally I do think it less likely that e.g. a NAS will make a difference.
But if you do have a PC at hand (Win is fully DLNA certified) you can try e.g. put the SD in the PC, enable media sharing and use the DLNA of the Yam.
But once again, I don’t expect audible differences as most today’s gear is probably perfectly capable of transmitting lossless over the WiFi.
 
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