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Streaming - where do you start

Ewen1970

Ewen1970

The Ocean Doesn't Want Me
Been toying with solutions for streaming.

Main system is downstairs and includes CD, TT, DAB radio going thru Naim into Shahinian.

Upstairs Computer going thru a Nait into Royds.

The computer is dying a slow and painful death so I'm going to go all Mac.

What I'd like to do is to be able to access the computer files/internet radio remotely downstairs and play thru the main system whilst leaving the computer in my office.

Any suggestions???
 
squeezeboxes are nice - i have two - and Touches are better - I have one coming - but if you want to be all Mac you should probably look at the new Apple TV. True it upsamples to 48kHz and doesn't do hi-res, but if that doesn't matter to you it will integrate with an Apple system much more readily. Nothing stopping you hooking it into a decent DAC. iTunes and iTunes remote on an iPhone or iPad is very nice.
 
If you're running a MAC desktop in the office, best get an ATV1 with 1TB HDD fitted for the main system. This can be sync'd with the library on the office MAC and played locally on the main rig. So no streaming on the fly, only when adding albums. I've tried networking/streaming devices and the ATV1 is really nice and is simple to use. It can be controlled via an iPod Touch or iPhone with remote app installed.
 
I am using an Airport express for straming and it works really well. If you have an iPod touch or iPhone then you can remote control it all very easily - I believe there are also apps for Android smartphones as well but I have no experience of these.

cheers
Jason
 
Re-Joyce said:
I am using an Airport express for straming and it works really well. If you have an iPod touch or iPhone then you can remote control it all very easily - I believe there are also apps for Android smartphones as well but I have no experience of these.

cheers
Jason
Click to expand...

Its just a VNC application. I am accessing my Mac Mini from both an IBM Thinkpad and an iPod Touch using free VNC apps.

Cheers,

DV
 
Cheers Peeps.

So it seems that Airport Express/ATV1 would be the obvious choice. I have an i touch already and will get a Mac for the office.

I'll investigate.

Thanks
 
Airport Express only has an optical out but no coaxial, and I think that limits it significantly. I use one with a Lite DAC AH and its fine for casual Spotify use, but I've recently found that if I use the same DAC with a modest cd transport linked by coaxial it is much better, in fact quite extraordinarily good for the price of the DAC (and would be for a much higher priced DAC). I believe the Squeezebox has coaxial out and I'm probably going to try one myself for that reason. An AE is a handy little thing, but I don't think it is capable of being a primary digital source, though I'd certainly welcome correction from anyone who has found a way of optimizing its capabilities.
 
Elephantears said:
Airport Express only has an optical out but no coaxial, and I think that limits it significantly. I use one with a Lite DAC AH and its fine for casual Spotify use, but I've recently found that if I use the same DAC with a modest cd transport linked by coaxial it is much better, in fact quite extraordinarily good for the price of the DAC (and would be for a much higher priced DAC). I believe the Squeezebox has coaxial out and I'm probably going to try one myself for that reason. An AE is a handy little thing, but I don't think it is capable of being a primary digital source, though I'd certainly welcome correction from anyone who has found a way of optimizing its capabilities.
Click to expand...

I think you need a DAC that is less transport dependant - the Lite is a very well specced old-school DAC at a very good price bu its front end digital looks pretty basic (happy to be corrected here!).


cheers
Jason
 
Re-Joyce said:
Do thiose apps work if iTunes is running on a Windoze (Vista) PC?


cheers
Jason
Click to expand...

I have never used Vista but I don't see why not as the VNC is a hardened protocol. I an actually using ultraVNC viewer on a Thinkpad with Windoze XP to access Safari on my Mac Mini to write and send this message.

Its good because I can flip between XP and OSX on the fly so as to speak. What I haven't managed yet is to cut'n'paste between apps on the different machines.

Cheers,

DV
 
Re-Joyce said:
I think you need a DAC that is less transport dependant - the Lite is a very well specced old-school DAC at a very good price bu its front end digital looks pretty basic (happy to be corrected here!).


cheers
Jason
Click to expand...

Yes I'm sure you're right. I might be rejecting optical connections to quickly. My experience so far is limited to the Lite DAC and a Perreaux amplifier which has a fairly good built in DAC. In this case the coaxial was also better than USB and optical, but in the case of the opitcal spdif, the difference wasn't as great as between coax and optical on the Lite DAC. So perhaps optical can suffice.

Personally though I am looking out for a DAC with 2 x coaxial inputs just to be sure; then I can use it for a Squeezebox and a cd transport. That seems to me to be the best transitional solution, and if you have a large cd library I think there has to be a transitional set-up which retains a cd transport, since it is going to take a hell of a long time to burn all those cd's to a hard drive.
 
Elephantears said:
That seems to me to be the best transitional solution, and if you have a large cd library I think there has to be a transitional set-up which retains a cd transport, since it is going to take a hell of a long time to burn all those cd's to a hard drive.
Click to expand...

There is no getting around it, ripping a sizeable CD collection onto a HDD is quite the chore, but, and it's an humongous but, once done the freedom of access to your digital music collection is wicked cool!
 
Elephantears - A Benchmark DAC1 Pre or DAC1 HDR gives you one optical, three coax, one USB and one analogue input, and sounds absolutely fantastic (imo). It uses an ASRC circuit on the inputs, so there's no difference beteen optical and coax inputs, and has asynchronous USB too without needing fancy drivers. I've got a squeezebox, tv, laptop (usb) and cd/sacd player feeding mine and am thrilled with the results I get.
 
Jason Hi, to be honest I haven't tried it with optical yet!
I will do when I get some more units in a week or so, it is extremely good through s/pdif and perhaps even better through USB.
Regards Keith.
 
Purite Audio said:
Benchmark is not Async, it does use an ASRC however.
Keith.
Click to expand...

Yep, you're right; my mistake. The asynchronous-ness is in the ASRC bit.

I don't make much use of the USB input - when I have it sounds pretty good. It seems to measure well too: according to Stereophile:

"The Benchmark did indeed decode 24-bit/96kHz sampled data through its USB connection, and in all respects, its measured performance was identical to that through the AES/EBU and S/PDIF inputs."

which, as far as I can understand these things, is pretty good.
 
streaming is a terrible thing. I bought a transporter for it's 24 bit capability and it's Ok, but played into my cyrus dacx+ it sounds lovely.
 
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