New to streaming, please help.

I will agree that Raspberry Pi based streamers can be a pain to set up. However, I have found the latest version of Volumio to be easy to install. Just follow the step by step instructions or watch the video and you are sorted. I am using an RPi3 with the latest Allo Digione board and the sound quality is exceptional. For around 150 quid all in, it is hard to beat.

In my experience, computer/laptop based solutions are pretty poor. It may be down to the quality of the soundcard, or the "noise" generated by the computer, but they have always sounded harsh and "fuzzy".

Some of the purpose built streamers are good. I have a Cambridge CXN. It is very easy to use and has Spotify built in (for Premium users). The bass and midrange performance is very good, but my Pi based system is much better.

Geoff

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeandvan

Currently play just vinyl and CD. Want to try streaming, that is downloading music from the internet! I have a laptop, but no idea how to go about all this. Do I need a streamer? My amp is naim 72, so pre digital, so guess I'll need a dac?! Was thinking about getting a Sony 700 or similar, do these have dacs? So with these 2 amps in mind, how do I go about this? Sorry for my complete ignorance........... Budget? Well, normally buy second hand, so I guess £100 - £300. Ta.

---

Mike, did you try any streaming ideas given in this thread since you posted in October?

Just so you can get a flavour of things I'm willing to help. I can, if you wish, send to you from Amazon a 3.5mm jack/rca cable. This will allow you to connect your laptop to a spare input of your amp. Then it will simply be a matter of booting up your laptop and playing sounds. Willing to chat on the 'phone (or I can remotely login to your laptop) to walk you through things.

Let me know if you are interested and if so send me your contact details via PM.

(small question: is the RCA input on your Naim 72 still free? If not and you still have a din input free I'll order a 3.5mm jack/din cable.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by montesquieu

I'd rather use the best individual components to do this - a Mac with remote ipad control for user interface, the best USB to SPDIF converstion possible, a good tube DAC - than rely on someone's choices of a one-box solution, fixed in metal until its inevitable obscolesce

---

Choosing individual components will give you the flexibility to avoid all the, IMHO, unnecessary filtering and a host of unnecessary inputs. One box, badged solutions do their best to cover as many connectivity scenarios and file formats as possible. Obviously that approach is to maximise companies potential sales. Not everyone needs a swiss army knife.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edwardlon

Mike, did you try any streaming ideas given in this thread since you posted in October?

Just so you can get a flavour of things I'm willing to help. I can, if you wish, send to you from Amazon a 3.5mm jack/rca cable. This will allow you to connect your laptop to a spare input of your amp. Then it will simply be a matter of booting up your laptop and playing sounds. Willing to chat on the 'phone (or I can remotely login to your laptop) to walk you through things.

Let me know if you are interested and if so send me your contact details via PM.

(small question: is the RCA input on your Naim 72 still free? If not and you still have a din input free I'll order a 3.5mm jack/din cable.)

---

No I didn't! I was gonna buy a Naim unitiqute, but then thought twice as it has low power output, and I might want to try monitor type speakers in the future, and they need at least 70w. Thanks for your help, think I'll try something like Raspberry PI soonish. The Naim is gone, currently a Harmon Kardoin hk6500 is on its way to me. I have a 3.5 jack plug, didn't realise it was that easy.

The 3.5mm jack will give a flavour of what is possible. It will be the start of your journey. Once you see the possibilities you can go from there to higher end things.

Let me know if you want 1 on 1 help once you get the new amp.

Sent via Tapatalk

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edwardlon

The 3.5mm jack will give a flavour of what is possible. It will be the start of your journey. Once you see the possibilities you can go from there to higher end things.

Let me know if you want 1 one 1 help once you get the new amp.

Sent via Tapatalk

---

you are a bloody good chap Edward! Proper AoS gold badge material! and there are a few on here who really go beyond :clapclapclap:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Edwardlon

The 3.5mm jack will give a flavour of what is possible. It will be the start of your journey. Once you see the possibilities you can go from there to higher end things.

Let me know if you want 1 one 1 help once you get the new amp.

Sent via Tapatalk

---

Thanks very much Edward, I'll let you know how I get on.

One thing that should be pointed out is that not all of the streaming setups are equal, as far as RasPi is concerned.

If you go full hog and rip your CDs to a local (meaning in your home) library (for example, all of my CDs are ripped to FLAC, and stored on a NAS box), you need to be aware that a fair number of RasPi builds require connection to the outside world in order to function at all.
They connect back to a remote server, and stream information back to your device, which is fine, just so long as your broadband is working fine.

I recently had an issue with my broadband service, and as a result lost connectivity to external services (Spotify/BBC iPlayer).
I have good neighbours, and one of them gave me access to their WiFi so I could get internet access for general internet use, but I was still screwed for internet access for the streaming services.
I could still play my local library, because it is managed by my RasPi running piCorePlayer, which in turn runs LMS (everything is managed locally).

piCorePlayer can also run as a self contained player - it is quite happy performing both server and player duties simultaneously.
The server stuff goes under the title of LMS, and the player side of it goes under the title Squeezelite.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sherwood

I will agree that Raspberry Pi based streamers can be a pain to set up. However, I have found the latest version of Volumio to be easy to install. Just follow the step by step instructions or watch the video and you are sorted. I am using an RPi3 with the latest Allo Digione board and the sound quality is exceptional. For around 150 quid all in, it is hard to beat.

In my experience, computer/laptop based solutions are pretty poor. It may be down to the quality of the soundcard, or the "noise" generated by the computer, but they have always sounded harsh and "fuzzy".

Some of the purpose built streamers are good. I have a Cambridge CXN. It is very easy to use and has Spotify built in (for Premium users). The bass and midrange performance is very good, but my Pi based system is much better.

Geoff

---

I used a HifiBerry Digi+ board in mine, output to an Audio Note DAC.

The Mac into a proper, self-powered USB interface sounded better.

There are no limitations at all in using a laptop into a streaming device via USB (they run off DC after all) the issue is the quality of the USB interface. (Including the ones in many supposedly 'usb' DACs.)

Using Audio Out via headphone jack is a different matter of course which is where PC laptops in particular acquired their bad reputation - Macs are better of course as their sound capabilities have always been streets ahead, PCs have generally required additional hardware to match what Macs do OOTB.

never tried a digi board with my pi. always had i2s dac board on.