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Top 5 streamer devices by ASR community

amper42

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Okay, I'm doing the same on my PC using a USB connection, the sound quality on Audirvana is excellent but I'm still running the demo version. How are you connecting everything on your amp?

I have two different setups I use with Audirvana
1. I use the Denon 4700 via wifi with the Denon supported DLNA/UPnP interface. UPnP offers a higher quality streaming option without compression as it sends the audio to your device in the same format as it's stored on the computer. In contrast, Airplay compresses the audio.

2. I also use Audirvana via the Hegel H90 integrated amp by plugging directly into the USB port on the H90 from the MBP. This connection automatically configures the Hegel H90 as a sound card on the Mac. I select
“TE7022 Audio w/ SPDIF” inside Audirvana and all my Qobuz, Tidal and High quality CD rips play over my BMR's thru the Hegel H90.

It's so nice to have every music source available on one screen - whether it's searching Qobuz or selecting a CD or playlist. No remote to deal with and a nice large screen for viewing what's playing and what's available. I never use the Qobuz or Tidal apps and I have no need for iTunes. Audirvana does it all.
 
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intothedragon

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I have two different setups I use with Audirvana
1. I use the Denon 4700 via wifi with the Denon supported DLNA/UPnP interface. UPnP offers a higher quality streaming option without compression as it sends the audio to your device in the same format as it's stored on the computer. In contrast, Airplay compresses the audio.

2. I also use Audirvana via the Hegel H90 integrated amp by plugging directly into the USB port on the H90 from the MBP. This connection automatically configures the Hegel H90 as a sound card on the Mac. I select
“TE7022 Audio w/ SPDIF” inside Audirvana and all my Qobuz, Tidal and High quality CD rips play over my BMR's thru the Hegel H90.

It's so nice to have every music source available on one screen - whether it's searching Qobuz or selecting a CD or playlist. No remote to deal with and a nice large screen for viewing what's playing and what's available. I never use the Qobuz or Tidal apps and I have no need for iTunes. Audirvana does it all.
Nice! So your Denon has an inbuilt streamer? I wonder how I can connect my Rotel 1572 amp wirelessly to my computer, maybe a dongle but I’m not sure. This config with the Audirvana would be ideal for me too.
 

abdo123

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the miniDSP SHD seems really good. How's your experience with this device so far?

Unfortunately my income is between the no money and have money so in my journey I have settled me on the DDRC-24 with a RPi 4 with Volumio installed.

It's basically the same set of features, other than the lack of balanced outputs. So I would say it's everything you would ever need in a box.
 

BDWoody

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Is there a consensus among ASR community about what are the best Audio Streamers today on the market?
From Allo Digione signature to Cambridge Audio CXN V2,
what are the top 5 more recommended and mentioned streamers?

I still use, and would still look for (if I didn't have plenty) CCA' s.

On the used or NOS market, but definitely a viable choice.
 

Colonel7

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Is the Yamaha MusicCast streamer any good?
It will depend on your streaming services and how you use them. MusicCast is rock solid. I can't recall it ever becoming glitchy. That said the GUI is basic and depending on your services it may strip down some of the functions you may enjoy, like recommendations etc. On the other side of the coin, if you use Spotify then you don't even need to use the MusicCast GUI because of SpotifyConnect; it'll look native to your device. I assume same thing with Tidal now that it has Connect functionality but I dropped Tidal before Connect so I'm not sure. I haven't tried other services with my unit so I can't comment on that. BTW, I'm using the Yamaha RN303.
 

francisg

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I hadn’t heard that. Can you elaborate?
With upsampled 384k streams for me, there's something about how Qobuz "downloads" the whole file as fast as possible. That causes WiFi saturation and the stream to stutter and in most cases drop. This is over a 5Ghz WiFi network with a full signal (Wireless AP within 5-8 ft).
 

amper42

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With upsampled 384k streams for me, there's something about how Qobuz "downloads" the whole file as fast as possible. That causes WiFi saturation and the stream to stutter and in most cases drop. This is over a 5Ghz WiFi network with a full signal (Wireless AP within 5-8 ft).

I have never heard that with Audirvana and Qobuz. That sounds like a buffer issue.
 

Kegemusha

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Is the Yamaha MusicCast streamer any good?

Just my 2 cents:
A friend of mine has musicCast at home, he has a big AVR for movies and some small satellites speakers around the house, works very good.

That is the thing with these Heos, Sonos, MusicCast and some other systems, you use them if you want easy working from the box multiroom systems.

The yamaha musiccast wxad-10 (streamer for an amp) seems nice, but I have no idea how it performs, I think has 24b capability.

Of course you can use Roon and have multiple systems from Rpi, ayrilic and some other stuff, but Roon cost too.

If you main goal is just to connect a streamer to your amp, then I would use the Raspberry way, the DAC32 streamer from Polyvection seems a good solution or the WXAD10 from Yamaha (I have a 2nd hand sonos connect for my amp, but I would easily replaced it but the 2 previous or Rpi if I would, sonos stuff ar too expensive).
 

gotnohome

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did you have any interference, noise, or poor performance because of the USB connection?
I'd imagine D90 should be pretty good, Topping have decent USB implementation. As good as it can be. I have a RI4 running ropieee USB to SPDIF coverted through a D10s into a Naim DAC. Now this might be off topic slightly, but I thought i would mention if you don't like the sound as much after a bit of listening. I did a bit of experimentation with SMPS options for it with stuff I had to hand. I found that the stock RP SMPS gives (bearing in mind it costs pennies) it a very harsh digital sound at the top end. I tried an ANKER wall SMPS which was much better but eventually settled on an APPLE 12W SMPS which sounded more smoother than the ANKER (iPAD's power supply). If you want a little more smoothness you can also try any power bank that can output 5V 2A, that improved things a bit further but is obviously a faff because of having charge it. This cost me nothing AT this point. I have on order though the PI2EAS (comparable to All digione signature), reviews well by ZEOS and golden sound on youtube. Interested to see the improvement as it removes USB from the equation and turns the PI into a very versatile Audio streamer with RCA, BNC, I2S and EAS balanced outputs.
 

MaxBuck

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What about the idea of using an LG phone (connected to the Windows 10 PC via MyPhoneCompanion) to serve as both the wifi streamer and the access point to the media stored on local storage?
 

somebodyelse

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I wonder how it sounds, by any comparison.
It's using a PCM5122 like several of the Pi HAT DACs and IIRC the Node 2i, and the headline THD+N suggests they've not messed up the implementation, so it should be similar to those at a similar price to a HAT DAC alone. The low compute power of the ESP32 does impose some limitations that you won't find even on a Pi Zero - see the Performance section of the github page.
 

Darwin

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Sorry, but no.

Both the analog and digital outputs of the Chromecast Audio have been performance analyzed here and were found to able to surpass the thresholds for audio transparency. Of course, its digital output is much cleaner from an engineering perspective, but its analog output is able to surpass the lenient threshold with ease.

Once a device surpasses this threshold, the rest just becomes an engineering exercise that we couldn't possibly hear.

View attachment 119825
What about the privacy aspect of Chromecast? I would no more use this than an open Google mic in my house. I prefer Airplay anyway.
 

ahofer

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What about the privacy aspect of Chromecast? I would no more use this than an open Google mic in my house. I prefer Airplay anyway.
Not sure it's capable of picking up more than your music selections by address.
 
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