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Advice on streamer

Richard Lines

Richard Lines

pfm Member
Good Evening All,

Looking for a not too expensive streamer to front my second system and that will network with my existing NAS.

Definitely looking for second hand/ pre-loved.

Suggestions?

Regards

Richard
 
Yamaha WXC-50, or WXA-50 if you want a built in power amp. Excellent and very versatile bits of kit.
 
TheManWhoBuiltTheMoon said:
Squeezebox Touch
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^ This, this, and this. The biggest bargain ever in the hi-fi world.

vinylslug said:
A Raspberry Pi with a ‘digi’ hat (like Allo DigiOne).
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This if you’re a bit more tech minded. Not the utter doddle like some would have you believe (the Touch pretty much jumps out of the box and sets itself up), but tremendous value compared to retail alternatives at x4 the price. Its what I use now.
 
These Yamahas look seriously good value. Has anyone tried them against audiophile favorites such as Auralic?
 
You can’t really go wrong with Yamaha. They’re generally not the most obvious choice but they make excellent well thought out amps, CD players etc and have done for years. I have a modern Yamaha amp and a vintage tuner. Both perform beautifully in my set up. And the streamer can be had for as little as £250. Great value.
 
Yamaha kit is great. I’ve got an RN803, 402 and a 303 on the way from the classifieds. MusicCast in different rooms. I’m getting a Linn DSM but honestly, the 803 runs it very very close for 20% of the price. It’s an utter bargain.
 
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I too am deliberating on something like the blusound node vs a Pi based streamer - seems to me that, if you're tech savvy, a Pi streamer is a no-brainer...otherwise youre essentially adding cost with something like a blusound just for ease of set up.

Interested in the thoughts from those here on the comparison between a Pi based streamer + dac (e.g. chord mojo) vs a blusound node and no external dac. Probably not much difference in cost between the two options but is there a big difference in sound quality...?

ie ultimately what I'm trying to figure out is: is the setup headache (for those not savvy enough) worth sacrificing the ease of use of a blusound because of a significant jump in audio quality? And am i likely just to throw the Pi in a cupboard after getting frustrated with it, and go out and buy a blusound anyway?
 
A Squeezebox Touch will work out of the box without any fiddling, it has a built in DAC and audio outputs which are fine to get you going, later on you can add any DAC of your choice, and it cost around £100 nearly all of which you’ll get back if you sell it. Right enough, you could fiddle with a Raspberry Pi, but you might end up running the same software anyway! Whatever you go for, think about the software side. Is it Roon capable - you may want to go that way in the future once you’ve got into streaming. Is there a good remote app? Does it support gapless playback?
 
Ok, I’ll bite. I have a Pi and a Mojo. It punches way beyond it’s weight, and with Volumio as an operating system it’s easy to set up. The most challenging thing is creating the card with the operating system on. If anyone wants it doing for them I’m happy to do it, just post me your card!

Sound wise it’s fabulous. I mostly use it to play Qobuz, but it will happily read network drives. I also chose to hardwire it, I found it slightly more reliable. If I ever didn’t use it for a week or two a period of resetting all and sundry was necessary. It also removed a little noise from the system. A useful improvement for me might be to install a hat and use optical out.

I seriously think that you’d be hard pressed to massively improve on the Mojo/Pi combination without getting into seriously big bucks. I might try a 2qute sometime and reinstall the passive pre I have around. I’m more tempted though to buy a Leak Stereo 20 or otherwise upgrade the amp. Then I could always build some big boxes for the Tannoy 8” drivers I’ve got in the i8s.

Don’t think a pi is hard. Clip it into it’s case, slide in the memory card and turn it on. Volumio creates it’s own local network, you can then connect to that Install your own wireless, then it’s accessible by any device via your router. Takes 10 minutes.
 
Another shout for a used Linn DS, it’s a solid, well established device, very flexible and they sound good.
 
Another vote for Rpi based streamer - I've been using an Audiophonics Raspdac mini which is a little prettier than a bare RPi and HAT,. They sell a SD card with preinstalled Volumio which makes things easier, but it's not hard to roll your own. Sounds sweeter than the previous IQAudio DAC+, though that was neat and cheap. Working well with NAS, USB SSD and Qobuz.
 
lordsummit said:
Ok, I’ll bite. I have a Pi and a Mojo. It punches way beyond it’s weight, and with Volumio
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How are you connecting the Pi to the Mojo? USB? When I got my Pi I connected it to an Arcam (rpac) USB DAC and it all sounded a bit rubbish. Getting the HiFiBerry DAC board transformed it and it now sounds great. This leaves me wondering that if I replace the DAC board with a Digi board to send into a decent DAC, will it take it to another level? My amp only has line level inputs. I also use Volumio and wonder if I need anything more.
 
I just use the usb out. Mine is one of the later iterations of the pi though. Is it possible that it’s how the dac handles the incoming signal that’s important? I’m no expert on this.
 
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