UKC

Can anyone offer any advice on the best way or best device for playing streamed music. I've got a old school hifi with decent amp and speakers right next to my router which I would like to connect up.
Is the Google Chromecast for music all that I need or do other devices offer better quality or a better experience?
Thanks

In reply to stevieb:

I'm looking at one of these when I move to my new place: http://www.arcam.co.uk/mini.htm . The reviews are pretty good and pretty neat for £100.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Thanks. I assume with this and the Google device, you use your phone/computer as the interface for everything?

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

I've been looking for this for ages - Everytime I talk to a sales monkey, he tries to sell me a sonos, even though I DON'T want a speaker! Ta!

In reply to stevieb:

Not used the Google ones (I have a Windows phone, and Google don't play with Windows Phone) but the Arcam is just a high quality bluetooth receiver and DAC, so you send from whatever device you want directly to it and bish bash bosh. If you want highest quality audio, check whether your device is AptX enabled. Apparently the non-AptX sound quality is still pretty damn good for Bluetooth.

In reply to stevieb:

I've got a little Philips Bluetooth gizmo that connects to the aux phonos in the back of the amp. I then use my mobile to stream anything from the web I want to hear over the hifi speakers. Cost about £20 from Maplin, and I'm very happy with it.

In reply to Smelly Fox:

Phono to twin L/R outputs connect my i pad to my hi fi.

Think it cost bout a tenner.

In reply to stevieb:

Don't go bluetooth, lower bandwidth = loss of quality.

I went with a Neet Airstream, check Amazon. Cheap, tidy and works well (3.5mm + optical out).

I was So impressed I bought a second, then use Whaale (app) to control them both, multi room and sounds better than Sonos for very little money.

Cheers
LD

In reply to stevieb:

I've just bought a Gramafon Spotify Streamer. It was about £40 and uses Spotify Connect to play direct from wifi, using the phone as a remote.

I've tried a Bluetooth streamer, but it was hateful.

Only downside is its Spotify, or files from the network - no Apple Music.

An old laptop or tablet is probably the most flexible solution, but the Spotify Connect clients (like Gramofon or Chromecast Music) are easy to use, and sound pretty good for a streamer.

I can hear the difference from a CD, though. Dynamic range and soundstage are a bit reduced. But it's a hell of a lot more convenient.

In reply to stevieb:

I use Apple Airport Express to connect to a 1980s amp using 3.5mm to 2 RCA cable. Quality is good - 16/44.1 (CD quality) and it can supply multiple destinations simultaneously.

It uses AirPlay to fire audio around your wifi network, not sure of all the implications/limitations if you're not on iOS/Mac but worth a Google as there are some Android apps that can jump on it.

Or you could take the cable route suggested earlier. All depends on your source and its proximity to your amp.

In reply to Pwdr:

sounds like a good setup....i googled and came up with this for some instructions:

http://streaming-blog.com/enable-use-existing-speakers-airplay/

In reply to stevieb:
I haven't tried the audio only Chromecast but I've found the video one easy to use.

It was slightly flaky at first since the wi-fi reception in that room wasn't great but it's been fine since I moved the router.

In reply to stevieb:
I use Squeezeboxes - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Devices

They're no longer available to buy new (though you should be able to get a Squeezebox Touch on ebay, for example), but, if you want a project, you can build your own using a Raspberry Pi, a DAC, and a distribution like piCorePlayer (https://sites.google.com/site/picoreplayer/home.)

The user community for Squeezeboxes is still very active - see http://forums.slimdevices.com/

Coming at it cold, you might feel a little overwhelmed. But these devices are still a great solution.

In reply to toad:

As well as their 'all-in-one' solutions, Sonos offer a device called the 'Connect' which integrates a streamer into your existing hifi. That sounds like what you might be after.

For various reasons, I myself don't like Sonos products - but many people do, and they have their place.

A cheaper technical equivalent to the Sonos product is the 'Raumfeld Connector.' That might also be of interest to the OP.

In reply to Morgan Woods:

Yep, that's pretty much it, except I don't plug AE straight into the amp, as in the first pic, but into the wall like a normal appliance.

I can stream anything from the iPhone straight to it - BBC iPlayer Radio app, for instance, not just the Music app. Then I use the Remote app to control the main computer with my full music library.

In reply to stevieb:

Thanks everyone.
It sounds like everyone has gone for the small 'puck' style device controlled from a phone/tablet rather than the expensive standalone kit. Good to hear everyone is happy with this set up.

In reply to stevieb:

It's OK for the money.
If I listened more, I might go for something better.

I liked my squeezebox before it blew up, but the requirement for a server was a right faff.

In reply to stevieb:

My playing with streaming digital audio is largely documented here:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=604349
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=607262

The cheapest upnp/dlna audio streamer I found was one suggested by Toby_W, the SoundMate, which cost me £19 delivered (from a UK warehouse!).

<posted from a cheap Android media box mentioned in the second thread>

In reply to stevieb:

The Chromecast dongle is for an HDMI port on a TV. How will you connect that to your existing amp? (A: you can't, I don't think; there's no analogue AV out).

In reply to captain paranoia:

There is also a Chromecast audio version which includes a 3.5mm jack. I don't know if this is the only difference from the TV version.
Thanks for your links above.

In reply to stevieb:

Right; I wondered if there might be.

There are dozens of generic 'android media players' out there, and they usually have AV, HDMI and optical SPDIF outputs. The one I bought is fairly typical, a CS918.

The SoundMate audio renderer is here, but seems to be OOS:

http://eu.banggood.com/Wholesale-Warehouse-M1-Wireless-Wifi-Audio-Streaming...

In reply to SiGregory:


Depends a bit on what the OP intends to 'stream' - something the original post doesn't make clear. Purely external stuff? Or his own locally-stored stuff as well?

In reply to Pwdr:

I use Apple Airport Express to stream music from my devices too. But some times I experience dropouts. Have you had the same issue and how have you solved it?

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Ideally I would like to be able to access locally stored music as well as streaming. I assume this would require a server, an attached computer or a new expensive hifi storage device.

In reply to stevieb:


As discussed in the linked threads, check out the facilities of your router; many have a USB port, to which you can attach a hard disk, and they have firmware to provide network file server and DLNA media server. All you need is the HDD (to store your own media) and you have a streaming media server. Since you may already have the router and the HDD, this would cost you nothing.

Add on a networked digital media renderer box (e.g. the Android media box or SoundMate-like thing, or even an old phone or tablet), and a digital media controller (app on phone or tablet), and you have a full streaming media player system...

In reply to Sir Stefan:

Rarely but yes, sometimes I do. Only when streaming from Mac to AE, not iPhone to AE, interestingly. It hacks me off no end because I'm quite... what's the word... I don't like interruptions in music.

Although, I find my BT hub will disconnect all devices from the network at odd times, regardless of streaming, before reconnecting. Even with fixed IP. Forums elsewhere seem to suggest the hub 'isn't great', shall we say, particularly for this kind of problem. I've been meaning to upgrade it but haven't yet, so unfortunately can't say whether the drop outs are caused by that.

In reply to stevieb:

Streaming locally stored media necessarily implies a local server - something's got to provide the 'necessary' access to the data - but it certainly needn't be expensive. And you might already have it.

Sonos/Raumfeld devices just look for shared filestore made available over the network by the server; they then do all indexing etc. themselves. Squeezeboxes are driven by a bespoke server application (it's free, and available for all common OSes) which itself maintains the central index. DNLA clients expect to speak to a DNLA server which provides indexing and access to the data. DNLA implementations are common (in fact, such a server is part of Windows), though often very crappy and unpleasant to use.

The crux in all this is to have well-tagged data (good metadata organised how *you* want it is critical), as well as a system that works in the way you want, rather than one you have to put up with.

I can expand on detail as necessary - but some playing around/experimentation will help.

In reply to stevieb:

Btw regarding servers, you might like to experiment with Vortexbox - see http://vortexbox.org/about

In reply to coinneach:



I've done this too on an old stereo and now in my car. Works in the headphone jack of an ipod classic.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/35mm-twin-phono-to-stereo-jack-cable-05m-n04jz

In reply to stevieb:

I have the soundmate m1 in my car, and it's brilliant, got an old AirPort express in the house and qualify is better on the m1 at a fraction of the price.

In reply to cathsullivan:

You can get 3.5mm stereo jack to L/R phono leads in most pound shops.

In reply to all:
Where it's possible to make a physical connection ( a wire ) then do it and do it with decent cables. Very easy to spend silly money but chord cables are still largely uk made ( well old ones off flea bay are ) and reasonably priced for what they are . An ichord mini jack to mini jack or mini jack to rca is about £50 off eBay and will make a huge difference to the sound quality . iPad / iPhone / iPod wired directly into old school amp and speakers with good inter connect cable will sound loads better than any wireless.
Just try make sure your brother in law doesn't "loose" a box of them that were stored in your sisters loft before he bl&&dy well met her.
Edit : to OP , so what I meant say was, plug phone or tablet into the back of your amp with a good cable

In reply to stevieb:

I've an X-mini WE 17 bluetooth speaker, it has a setting where you plug in a 3.5 mm jack and lets you stream from your phone to the hifi/amp.

In reply to stevieb: I use a Musical Fidelity device, an M1 Clic. It got rave reviews when it first came out but never seemed to sell, so having a look at eBay might unearth a bargain.

It's a complicated wee beastie, but is very capable. The DAC within it is better than the DAC in my (admittedly older) Linn CD player, so CDs get routed through it, I can (and do) play my iPod through it and it will link up wirelessly with your network to give you access to the frankly bewildering number of radio stations available through the internet (I like the fact that the wireless is available wirelessly, but that might just be my sense of humour).

I put a review about it on Amazon if you want a fuller description.

T.

In reply to mike123:


Unless you're using ALAC files, then the biggest sonic degradation will be the lossy CODEC, not the wire. AAC/MP3 is poorer than even the cheapest cable.

And if you're using ALAC, how much music are you going to fit on an iThing? 1.5TB? No.

So you're going to stream from some large storage device. And it makes bugger all difference whether you stream via Ethernet cable or WiFi (assuming you have a decent WiFi connection).

What matters, sonically, is the quality/encoding of the source material, and the quality of the DAC that is rendering the stream to analogue signals you connect by wire to the amp; the means of delivering that stream is immaterial.

In reply to captain paranoia:


For that matter, if you're serious about it, why bother with proprietary formats like ALAC? Or crappy mechanisms like iTunes? Sure, these things have 'market share' - but there are far better and more future proof options.

There are a number of quite reasonable approaches in this thread; but, at the end of it, it all really depends on what you're trying to achieve, what you're happy with, and how it all sounds to you.

In reply to Pursued by a bear:

Thanks, I'd never heard of that.

For music stored on the local network it uses DLNA, right?

In reply to Rob Parsons:

Answering my own question: yes. So, as regards access to locally-held music, the usability of this device is at the mercy of whatever DNLA server implementation you're using.

For anybody considering an 'all-in-one' box like this, other questions to ask might be: is any integration with external streaming services possible? how is the integration with 'Internet radio' (still the wild west as regards standards, so far as I can see) done? etc.

In reply to stevieb:

This was on the gadget show looks like it might do what you want?
https://rocki.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

In reply to Andy DB:

Doesn't work, I was given one for Christmas and there was a software issue.

In reply to jonnie3430:

Shame looked like a neat idea.

In reply to Andy DB:

I know, I've been looking for a good way to stream music off the phone to a set of speakers my dad made when he was younger. Best I've found is plugging the X-Mini WE to an amplifier and connecting to it with Bluetooth. The X- Mini WE really is good, the size is tiny, music is good and it's pretty cheap. When it's plugged in it doesn't play itself, just passes the music to the amp and speakers.

In reply to Rob Parsons:


Indeed. But my main point was to address mike123's suggestion that a wired connection from iThing to amp is critical, whereas I'd say the far greater improvement will be gained moving from lossy compression (MP3, AAC) to lossless compression (FLAC, ALAC, etc). Since he suggested iThings, I referred to the lossless format available on iThings; ALAC.

And if you're going lossless, then the storage requirements of a large music collection mean that you cannot (yet) store it on an iThing, and will therefore require a server, and streaming.


Agreed. If you're a 'super ear and no instruments, oxygen-free, unidirectional, silver litz interconnect' audiophile type, you can spend stupid amounts of money. If you're rational, it can cost very little...

And some people will want perfect synchronism between rooms, and I'm not aware of an open-source system to do that yet.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Agreed on all that.


The DIY 'Squeezebox' implementations should achieve that I think.