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Suggest me a streamer

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Motowoodman71

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Jan 29, 2019
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My budget is $250-$300, I have a receiver and an external amp that I want to stream music from spotify & youtube music from my iphone, so airplay2 is needed. From some of my research wiim pro plus seems to be the popular option.
 
A WiiM Pro Plus will do the job
 
Add a little bit to your budget and pick up Cambridge audio's MXN-10. Built like a little tank, no wall wart, highly regarded in every review and the software is mature and easy to use.
 
I think I'm set on the wiim pro plus, thanks guys for your suggestions!

Eventually I want to replace my 2.1 bedroom emotiva integrated amp set-up with a wiim amp pro or amp ultra; the interface in the emo is terrible and the volume only works on the remote.
 
Wiim is a good choice in the appliance category. If you have a DAC or a Toslink input on your amp the Wiim mini might be the answer. If you want a project, a Raspberry Pi with audio software and a DAC, a 43131 dongle might do, would be fun. The latter is only for people who have fun with or don't mind configuring software and hardware. Either way you get good audio for under $150 and, depending on your existing equipment, under $100.
 
Why not use your phone as your streamer... just add a Bluetooth Receiver like the FiiO BR13.

I am happy with the AAC Bluetooth quality in my Living Room setup.
 
Motowoodman71 said:
I think I'm set on the wiim pro plus, thanks guys for your suggestions!

Eventually I want to replace my 2.1 bedroom emotiva integrated amp set-up with a wiim amp pro or amp ultra; the interface in the emo is terrible and the volume only works on the remote.
Click to expand...
Well then save money on this set up and just get the Wiim pro rather than the pro plus, since you'll be using your amp in the main set up mentioned in your opening post.

I have the Wiim pro connected to my Yamaha amp via coaxial. It's fantastic! Does gapless too, which was my reason for getting it.
 
People say Bluetooth does not support Lossless. That is true if you only use Apple.
I use LDAC to stream FLAC to a SMSL RAW MDA1 from a cheap Android tablet. Tablet is BT5.4, MDA1 is BT5.1.
About 30’ is the limit for clear, reliable transmission. More than that will become distorted sometimes. Lower bitrate streams work a little further, 320K MP3 is good for another 5 or 10’.
The MDA1 will only connect when the input is Bluetooth. But the tablet and dac have worked together as designed and selected the best codec available automatically. Had read how to change codec on the tablet. Never have needed to.
FLAC over LDAC to a dac is very good sounding. Do not miss Toslink, coaxial, USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire. Those in order were was used prior.
I like not being tethered to the dac. I can take my tablet and move around.
 
Panelhead said:
People say Bluetooth does not support Lossless. That is true if you only use Apple.
Click to expand...
It's true regardless of what operating system you use. Bluetooth supports several audio codecs, ranging from the goddawful SBC codec through to LDAC, aptX HD and LC3plus - all of these codecs are lossy, by design.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs#Bluetooth

Panelhead said:
I use LDAC to stream FLAC ...
Click to expand...
A Bluetooth encoder chip accepts an I2S uncompressed PCM signal - it does not care what codec this PCM signal originated as. In other words your source audio file may be FLAC (or MP3, or AAC, or uncompressed, or whatever) but it must arrive at the Bluetooth encoder hardware uncompressed, then the Bluetooth hardware encodes it to LDAC, if configured to use that codec.
A Bluetooth receiver device will then receive this LDAC (not FLAC) Bluetooth stream and decode it back to uncompressed PCM, ready for a DAC to convert to an analogue signal.

Regarding your reference to "Apple" I think you are confusing "lossless" with "LDAC" - neither macOS nor iOS support LDAC. But I reiterate that LDAC is not lossless.
 
linuxfan said:
A Bluetooth encoder chip accepts an I2S uncompressed PCM signal - it does not care what codec this PCM signal originated as. In other words your source audio file may be FLAC (or MP3, or AAC, or uncompressed, or whatever) but it must arrive at the Bluetooth encoder hardware uncompressed, then the Bluetooth hardware encodes it to LDAC, if configured to use that codec.
A Bluetooth receiver device will then receive this LDAC (not FLAC) Bluetooth stream and decode it back to uncompressed PCM, ready for a DAC to convert to an analogue signal.
Click to expand...
That is one way it can work, but not the only way. Encoding and decoding can also be handled in software at the OS level. See for example PipeWire's use of Opus as a vendor codec.
 
Im up & running!
 

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Motowoodman71 said:
I'm up & running!
Click to expand...
Great. Your WiiM Pro-Plus is a solid investment.

Motowoodman71 said:
I want to stream music from spotify & youtube music from my iphone, so airplay2 is needed.
Click to expand...
Since you now have a streamer as good as the WiiM Pro-Plus I suggest you bypass AirPlay and instead use optimal casting methods:
for Spotify, use Spotify-Connect - fully supported by the WiiM.
for YouTube Music use Google Cast - fully supported by the WiiM.

I won't go into the (lengthy) reasons why AirPlay(2) is flawed, but you can read about it at these two links -
https://darko.audio/2023/10/apple-airplay-isnt-always-lossless-sometimes-its-lossy/
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/apple-music-lossless-mess-part-2-airplay-r1026/
 
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