An idiots guide

[Flatty]

I love music, but take it for granted I'm thick as a ditch. I currently have a reasonable dac running into an edge g3 and I'm about to swap out a pair of waterfall audio victoria evos (for sale) for some very high end speakers.
I only want to stream music from my phone as I haven't the energy for messing around with a laptop or computer, or from a dedicated stream in device. I started to try and research it but got a full head reading about MAC (I think) unfolding and gave up.
Can anyone recommend a good, easy to use, digital streaming thing. All I want is to use WiFi or Bluetooth and my phone or a device I can plug into the dac or the amp.
I'd be really grateful for any help.
Dan

[Stratmangler]

There's lots of ways of skinning a cat.
What do you want to stream?

[Puffin]

I have a Chromecast and stream with that, however I have a Microsoft Zune (MP3 player) with hundreds of tracks on it so I use the h/phone out, into a balanced DTI, into a balanced Dac and out again and it sounds great to my buggered lugs.

[struth]

chromecast is cheap for wireless transmission. a mini toslink to toslink cable will connect to your dac and you should be able to cast stuff from phone

[AJSki2fly]

Can anyone recommend a good, easy to use, digital streaming thing. All I want is to use WiFi or Bluetooth and my phone or a device I can plug into the dac or the amp.
I'd be really grateful for any help.
Dan

Be careful streaming music from your phone as the quality could be poor if the music is compressed already or you stream from a poor source(iTunes to name one), this IMO would completely negate you have high and DAC, amp and speakers. The usual adage is put rubbish in get rubbish out.

Have a look at https://roonlabs.com/partners.html. I personally don't use Roon but the have many good and high end partners that have streaming devices you can control from a mobile device.

Another option is simple and not expensive and you can see if you like it, quite a few on here do similar to this. By a RaspberryPi and a HiBerry S/PDIF card set it up with Volumio(software) and subscribe to Tidal and/or Qobuz for streaming hi-res music, if you have digital music in an iTunes library then Volumio can use this as well. Volumio runs on the RaspberryPi as a server and this is where the music is processed. I do this and also us Audirvana on a MacBook for hi-Res music as it enables you to upscale the quality a bit.

Have a look at https://volumio.org, they have recently put up a new streaming player which is not expensive but looks good, alternatively have look at https://www.allo.com/sparky-eu/digione-signature-player.html

I hope this helps, there are a myriad of products out there. But be careful you can spend a lot of money for not very much, I know of a product that is basically RaspberyPi with a DAC card in a pretty box that is sold for over £1k, you could buy the equivalent or better for couple of hundred.

[Macca]

I'm intrigued as to why you have started 2 threads about exactly the same thing.

By the powers invested in me by the interweb I have merged them.

[Stratmangler]

By the powers invested in me by the interweb I have merged them.

By the scant powers invested in me I have deleted my post from the second thread.

[Stratmangler]

Back to Dan's question.

There's lots of ways of skinning a cat.
What do you want to stream?

Put another way, are you using a content provider (Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz or suchlike), or do you have a shedload of local files that you want to have playing through your rig?

[Stryder5]

chromecast is cheap for wireless transmission. a mini toslink to toslink cable will connect to your dac and you should be able to cast stuff from phone

+1, Chromecast Audio simple to use, I guess it depends on definition but it casts the content of your chosen media supplier ( Spotify etc ) but is passive, as the contact is direct by wifi from your router, your phone, pad etc to your DAC and onward.

If you also use Google Mini you get voice control over Chromecast as well.

Gary

[Flatty]

Thanks
I'm using amazon prime and a chrome cast at the minute, but it's poor quality compared to a CD even. The chrome cast is plugged into the dac.
I was going to get tidal as it's apparently better quality, but wondered if there is a single device which I can plug into the amp or the dac I have, which facilitates high quality streaming either from that device, or from my phone. I generally only play my playlists, which I'll have to start from scratch. Money isn't too tight at the minute, so I'm prepared to pay a bit.

[Sherwood]

Thanks
I'm using amazon prime and a chrome cast at the minute, but it's poor quality compared to a CD even. The chrome cast is plugged into the dac.
I was going to get tidal as it's apparently better quality, but wondered if there is a single device which I can plug into the amp or the dac I have, which facilitates high quality streaming either from that device, or from my phone. I generally only play my playlists, which I'll have to start from scratch. Money isn't too tight at the minute, so I'm prepared to pay a bit.

Yamaha Streamer https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/audio_visual/wireless_streaming_amplifiers/wxc-50/index.html

[Stryder5]

Thanks
I'm using amazon prime and a chrome cast at the minute, but it's poor quality compared to a CD even. The chrome cast is plugged into the dac.
I was going to get tidal as it's apparently better quality, but wondered if there is a single device which I can plug into the amp or the dac I have, which facilitates high quality streaming either from that device, or from my phone. I generally only play my playlists, which I'll have to start from scratch. Money isn't too tight at the minute, so I'm prepared to pay a bit.

Just for clarity (sorry) are you using Chromecast or Chromecast Audio?

Does Amazon Prime give you quality options, if you can only stream low quality to Chromecast then low quality output is what you get?

You have quality options on Amazon you just need to adjust, I believe file format is AAC.


Gary

[Flatty]

Thanks, it gives options, but it's not great even at the highest of its settings. I use a chrome cast audio.

[Flatty]

That looks ideal. Would that plug into the dac, or straight into the amp??

[dave2010]

Thanks
I'm using amazon prime and a chrome cast at the minute, but it's poor quality compared to a CD even. The chrome cast is plugged into the dac.Is that the basic chromecast or the chromecast audio, which should be better?

[Gaz]

I'm in a similar position to the OP, I Iisten to Spotify Premium through a Galaxy S6 or Kindle Fire plugged straight into my my amp via 3.5mm headphone to RCA lead, at best the SQ is acceptable.
I only really listen to Spotify as background music but would still like to improve SQ a bit but without spending a lot. Would an external DAC be of benefit?
I know nothing about DACs apart from they change 1s and 0s into music so what's the difference between this

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F 173530482695

And this

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F 192613668835

For improving the SQ of a mobile phone?

[gninnam]

Pound for pound you can't beat a Raspberry PI with a DAC HAT, Volumio (other music streaming software is available) - install Spotify connect or use Spotify on the actual PI and away you go.
Plus you can muck around with different DAC HAT's to see what suits and again, not expensive to roll.

[Gaz]

Pound for pound you can't beat a Raspberry PI with a DAC HAT, Volumio (other music streaming software is available) - install Spotify connect or use Spotify on the actual PI and away you go.
Plus you can muck around with different DAC HAT's to see what suits and again, not expensive to roll.

I forgot to mention that I'm thicker than the OP regarding this kind of thing, as far as I know a Raspberry Pi should be eaten with custard and a DAC Hat is fashionable headwear.

[Stryder5]

I'm in a similar position to the OP, I Iisten to Spotify Premium through a Galaxy S6 or Kindle Fire plugged straight into my my amp via 3.5mm headphone to RCA lead, at best the SQ is acceptable.
I only really listen to Spotify as background music but would still like to improve SQ a bit but without spending a lot. Would an external DAC be of benefit?
I know nothing about DACs apart from they change 1s and 0s into music so what's the difference between this

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F 173530482695

And this

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F 192613668835

For improving the SQ of a mobile phone?

Hi Gary,

You're using the phones interpretation of Spotify, which is not good.

When you stream to say Chromecast Audio (£30) and a jack to amplifier from the Chromecast, you are streaming from Spotify direct via your modem not via the phone.

Your phone is purely used as an interface to instruct Spotify what to play.

The 3.5mm jack on the Chromecast will also take a mini Toslink optical jack that will plug into a DAC if it accepts Toslink, giving better performance.

Hope this makes sense.

Gary

[Gaz]

Hi Gary,

You're using the phones interpretation of Spotify, which is not good.

When you stream to say Chromecast Audio (£30) and a jack to amplifier from the Chromecast, you are streaming from Spotify direct via your modem not via the phone.

Your phone is purely used as an interface to instruct Spotify what to play.

The 3.5mm jack on the Chromecast will also take a mini Toslink optical jack that will plug into a DAC if it accepts Toslink, giving better performance.

Hope this makes sense.

Gary

Hi Gary

Yes it does.

Sounds exactly what I'm looking for.

I'd just be using the phone as a remote control and the Chromecast thingy does the streaming at better quality than the phone, then I can add a DAC later if I want?

Perfect, thank you

[gninnam]

I forgot to mention that I'm thicker than the OP regarding this kind of thing, as far as I know a Raspberry Pi should be eaten with custard and a DAC Hat is fashionable headwear.

Fair enough but they are fairly easy to setup - if you need any help, buy the kit and I will set it up for you?

[Stryder5]

Hi Gary

Yes it does.

Sounds exactly what I'm looking for.

I'd just be using the phone as a remote control and the Chromecast thingy does the streaming at better quality than the phone, then I can add a DAC later if I want?

Perfect, thank you

I'm better at explaining things than I thought:)

It's the Chromecast Audio you need, there's another Chromecast for TV.

When I bought mine from Currys they didn't know the difference, they also didn't know what Toslink was and said they didn't stock them. I took the assistant by hand and showed him a rack full of them.

Gary