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DAC/Streamers, Streaming, Networked Music Systems


rplace

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A great thread and Rich is doing a great job at teaching, even providing flow charts for Gawds sake. He did this for me a week ago when I had interest in a garage sale of his but alas I’m just too dense to grasp this streamer/dac thing. Keep up the good work Professor - or is it Sorcerer 🧙‍♀️

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12 minutes ago, Madman1 said:

Ohhh, my head hurts🤯!
Guess I’ll just stick to vinyl. 

 

I've got stax of wax. They are not mutually exclusive. I've had casual digital throughout my house/outside for years.

 

I avoided a good DAC for years....my loss.

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I had a Node 2i and it had a static problem that I tried to trouble shoot fix with changing settings but the static would just come back. Very frustrating. Went back to Best Buy and they ordered me a new Node and even though its the same model the new one sounds so much better than the old static producing one. Playing thru the Denefrips DAC I just love how my system sounds streaming. ---- I have a lot of Vinyl and my turntables sound good to me but these days streaming sounds almost as good and its so convenient I could never go back to CDs and only vinyl since there is still a lot of great music that was never available on vinyl. To me a really good sounding Dac is a game changer.

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https://www.signalyst.com/consumer.html


So it can be a super fiddly piece of software, but it has a cult following in some circles and has just a ton of filters and methods to choose from. I searched around the Roon forums for some "recipes" and plugged in options which aren't too far off from the defaults. When I planted a flag in digital XO and active speakers I also constrained my final DAC to 24/96. In my effort to reduce the amount of ADC to DAC to ADC to DAC handoffs, I've got my rpi connected directly to the Yamaha XO via AES, and I've got HQPlayer resampling everything in my library to 24/96 for the sake of compatibility.

 

HQPlayer is a natively supported playback target in Roon.

HQPlayer has it's own limited network playback protocol, which is natively supported by the RopieeeXL project on rpi.

 

SO... Roon acts as the library manager and control interface from the couch (selection, volume, etc), sends the files to HQPlayer for resampling, and HQPlayer sends the resampled bits to my RopieeeXL rpi with a digital coax HAT that's directly connected to my Yamaha XO. The Yamaha handles DSP duties and then the single DAC process before the amps/speakers.

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Mine's a pretty simple Synology NAS storage for FLAC ripped CD's (and my backups) and the only location in the house I access those are in my upstairs music room (or man cave....whatever you want to call it).  I have two systems upstairs...One is an Onkyo Reference stack (P-3000R pre, M-5000R amp, & C-7000R CD), Pioneer PL-518 TT, a PS3 (for BD & games) and a Dell SFF PC that I use to remote into from work if needed so it's on all the time plus for JRiver and Spotify access.  I feed the USB from the PC back to the Onkyo pre which already has good DAC's in it.  The other is my Carver gear (C-1 pre, M-1.0t amp, & DTL-200), PL-514 TT, and a Dell i7 Quad core laptop that does the same as above and the USB feeds into a small stand alone DAC to feed the pre.  Nothing fancy, really.  Hell, I have tinnitus and can't hear like I used to so maybe, in a way, it's a blessing I can't hear as well as the point of diminishing returns for me happens  really quick.  ha

 

But I enjoy the sound of both systems so I guess that's what counts.

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1 hour ago, Thaddeus Smith said:

sends the files to HQPlayer for resampling, and HQPlayer sends the resampled bits to my RopieeeXL rpi

 

I was just in the process of etching an SD card for RoPieee on a new RPi4 I picked up yesterday. I was looking at the differences between RoPieee regular and LX. Did not see mention of HQPlayer. Do you know if  you have to have XL for HQPlayer?

 

4e1127f8e0364bed90ee4ae42e0e0bfde240f0cf

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Just a bit of food for thought (and discussion) and a visualization for those of you still trying to take it all in. Below is a picture of my latest streamer/bridge. Less than $75 delivered to my door. Its a wicked cool aluminum case, a Raspberry Pi 4 and an SD card running RoPieee mentioned in the post above. By cool case I mean chilly. The entire case acts as a heat sink for the Pi's CPU. No fan, no active cooling, making it silent.

 

This configuration sips electricity compared to a computer. Yes your old re-purposed PC keeps it out of the land fill....but you've dumped thousands of dollars into your system. What's better bang for your buck at less than a c-note?

 

2137375995_IMG_20201124_1057468132.thumb.jpg.a5ee9b8722af5c455f442891c6727abd.jpg

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Just a bit of food for thought (and discussion) and a visualization for those of you still trying to take it all in. Below is a picture of my latest streamer/bridge. Less than $75 delivered to my door. Its a wicked cool aluminum case, a Raspberry Pi 4 and an SD card running RoPieee mentioned in the post above. By cool case I mean chilly. The entire case acts as a heat sink for the Pi's CPU. No fan, no active cooling, making it silent.
 
This configuration sips electricity compared to a computer. Yes your old re-purposed PC keeps it out of the land fill....but you've dumped thousands of dollars into your system. What's better bang for your buck at less than a c-note?
 
2137375995_IMG_20201124_1057468132.thumb.jpg.a5ee9b8722af5c455f442891c6727abd.jpg

Can you either post a link or PM me where you bought that? I still have an old Logitech Squeezebox Touch that I use (LMS is still being kept alive), and I’ve always wanted to try a RaspPi configuration. But I’m not very technical, so I didn’t want to mess with it. I assume that will work with this too instead of using a computer with my external hard drive? Instead, I can hook my hard drive up to this? Thanks!
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19 minutes ago, Drewg said:

Can you either post a link or PM me where you bought that?

 

Don't bother shopping around, I've done the work for you. If you have a 4GB or bigger SD card you can save $11.

 

EDIT: Should note that when you add the Pi to your cart you have options to add power supply, SD card, etc. That is whey the Pi is 51 and the power/SD are zero.

 

rps20201124_115337.thumb.jpg.f301c821769bc6cbb0e60fc062d46d6a.jpg

 

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24 minutes ago, dwilawyer said:

How are you running things outside, that's where I would like to start.

 

If you are like me you probably have an old amp or two laying around. So my outdoor configuration consists of:

  • Computer network similar to picture in first post....most of us with a decent Internet connection probably have the start of this
  • Ethernet cable (could be wireless with some more geek-tech stuff, but I like hard wired) to a switch in the basement where all the electronics are for outdoor TV/Cable box/etc live
    • A switch is nothing more than a way to plug a bunch of computer stuff together on a network. If not too tech savvy, you probably have one and don't know it.
  • Raspberry Pi 4 like above but with a "HAT" that plugs into the Pi making the Pi a DAC
  • Analog out from Pi/HAT/DAC combo to an old Carver TFM-25
  • Carver Left/Right speaker out to Klipsch AW-650 mounted under my deck shooting out toward the pool/backyard
  • eero Mesh Network WiFi extenders so I can control the music easily 200+ feet into my backyard

Does this help or do you need more info?

 

Amp/speakers are the part you already know. You just have to get the music files (Ripped CDs or Streamed via Internet) to the amp. That is where the Pi/HAT/DAC combo comes in. Think of it as a CD player....except the CDs don't spin anymore they are 1s and Zeros on a computer HDD.

 

Here is a PI with DAC/HAT similar to my outdoor set up. Basically a tiny computer, network thingy, USB combo with RCA out for the Analog to your amp.


steel-4-dac-rca_1400x.jpg?v=1575666943 

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@dwilawyer

 

Pardon the shameless plug for my own for sale thread, but this:

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/196074-orchard-audio-pecanpi-all-in-one-streamerdac/

 

Is a really nice all in one solution that gets you a Pi in a quality case, a linear power supply and XLR/RCA output, dual mono Burr Brown flagship DAC chips. This is the type of thing you want in your Living Room, Kitchen, Bedroom where as the above post is a little more budget friendly for outdoor music. You can even do WiFi with a USB dongle. Phone/Tablet to manage the music, the PecanPi to process it and outputs to your existing AVR, Preamp, etc., obviously that feeds your amp/speakers...but you already knew that.

 

 

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In this day and age of quality streaming devices and network attached storage devices there is absolutely no reason to have a computer in the mix (unless you count the NAS).

 

For me it’s Quobuz (sometimes Tidal) to my Lumin U1 mini to my MHDT DAC. I also have flac files on a Synology NAS, so it’s about 50/50 between streaming from the internet and playing local music.

 

Shakey

Roon requires a computer...I was under the impression that media players are basically a computer too. What is the difference besides price, and shielding for noise? I run a i7 NUC for Roon which is still a computer.

 

Sent from my SM-T830 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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If you are going to use Roon, then I guess you will have to have a computer somewhere, but it shouldn't have to reside in the listening room if you don't want it to. I don't think Roon can run on a headless computer like a NAS or on a dedicated streamer. Rplace can correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

I know there are a lot of Roon fans, but I'm not going to pay for an interface when the Lumin app works just fine for me. I know Roon is better, but I'm a cheap a&*

 

Shakey

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  Build up a NUC two years ago. For this. But was running a dac with Thunderbolt. Went with an optical TB cable to get isolation.

  But looking at Qobuz. May resurrect the NUC.

  Using four channel dacs, current has Room Perfect DRC but a FireWire buss. Got to move forward into 2020.   

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