A mainly digital setup with a musical amplifier and endearing 1970's speakers. A CD player that hardly ever gets used and a turntable that is good enough to remind my how enjoyable my old vinyl is. Some cables and things.
There are two approaches to this - use a hardware device built for streaming, or a computer (which is what a Raspberry Pi is, albeit a very small one).
With a hardware-based device, you still need software, this comes in the form of firmware upgrades every so often which are uploaded by various means to the device.
I wouldn't worry too much about spotify in the short term their interface seems to have been pretty stable but the principle is fair enough - at some point, now or in 5 years or whenever, things are likely to change. And with a hardware device you are stuck with whatever DAC they give you which may or may not be up to spec.
Using a computer you have loads of choices. Get pissed off with Spotify, they go bust (possible) or jack their prices up - then go elsewhere. You can try out all sorts of streamer software and service options - at the same time if you want, no hassle just fire them up - and aren't tied to any particular USB receiver or DAC. There are generally multiple choices for control from phones or tablet devices.
The challenge is - it's a computer and needs a bit of setting up. (To be fair so does any approach). An RPi isn't for a neophyte you have to learn to hack it to get it to work at all. I've worked in IT for 20 years and I still got fed up with it. I now use an ancient (9 year old) Macbook - a couple of hundred quid's worth these days - and it works perfectly. That either into a USB DAC or USB-SPDIF converter into a normal DAC, and you are cooking.
I looked at hardware devices before going down the computer route and for me it's a no-brainer.
Current system 1210 GR. CDP - Meridian G08. Amp -Sugden A21I - Sig. Wharfedale Lintons.
Are there any benefits to streamers at all? I mean 'proper' hifi streamers. I don't want my music sounding like a compressed olde worlde mp3 player!
Current system 1210 GR. CDP - Meridian G08. Amp -Sugden A21I - Sig. Wharfedale Lintons.
Chris
Common sense isn't anymore!
+1
Pretty much any computer made in the last 10 years will give very acceptable results. In fact I had an old Dell machine (probably over 12 years old) and just for the lolz I threw Linux on and a mate is now using it as a JRiver server/renderer. Plays Spotify very nicely. Adam, of this parish, is currently using an old (about 4 years old) Win 10 HP machine of mine running Roon Core with Tidal and he seems well pleased.
Current: [P20] Roon/Tidal > Custom PC> Chevron Paradox NDF16 > Phast Pre > Neuro. 686 > Tannoy Berkley (RFC tweaks)
laptop, usb cable, usb dac, jriver and deezer hifi. job done
Regards,
Grant .... ؠ ......Don't be such a big girl's blouse
I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply-doesn't-work.... ..... ...... ...... ................... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....
FIIO K7 BT, M11 PLUS, BTR7, KA5 - OPPO BDP-103D - PANASONIC UB450 - PANASONIC 4K ULTRA HD TV - PIXEL 6 - AVANTREE LR BLUETOOTH - 2* X600 SOUNDCORE - HEADPHONES INCLUDE, FIIO, NURAPHONES', FOCAL, OPPO, BOSE, CAMBRIDGE, BOWER & WILKINS, DEVIALET, MARSHALL, SONY, MITCHELL & JOHNSTON - 2*ZBOOK'S- MERCURY BD ROM, ROON, QOBUZ, TIDAL, PLEX, CYBERLINK, JRIVER - MULTI HDD'S -
Oh my god! There's nothing wrong with the bidet is there?
“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy".
“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”
"You don't have free will. You have the appearance of free will.”
“There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!”
***SMILE, BE HAPPY***
You aren't listening to a laptop ... you are listening to digitised sound (sound converted to binary bits) that needs stored, accessed, transported across networks, aligned in time order and decoded to analogue. Most of the hard bits of that are in the domain of computing, not hifi. The only real hifi bit of that is the output stage after the digital to analogue conversion. Everything else is processing in the digital domain.
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