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I don't know enough about what you're after, but does this device work?
https://www.arylic.com/products/s50pro-wireless-preamplifierOr wiim?
https://wiimhome.com/WiiMPro/OverviewOtherwise, my company has a storage room full of Nuc things and a some Pi 4's.... I can ask about specs and see if there's anything useful there? They were bought to drive some screens for something but we changed direction so they are gathering dust.
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Tailgating with some pi4 interest if this comes off!
Wiim pro looks handy for tidal connect. I’m reluctant to pay in the £500 to replace a CCA with marginal gains (I know.. hi-fi), but that feels feasible.
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I don't know enough about what you're after, but does this device work?
https://www.arylic.com/products/s50pro-wireless-preamplifierThose are both excellent and closest to what I am seeking than anything else mentioned.
What I'm after...
- I have a great local collection of music, some 2.3TB = 130K FLAC files all very nicely organised and always kept up to date, a mix of 16bit/44.1kHz and 24bit/96 Khz, a few silly files (32bit! no-one needs that!)
- I have a great network and strong WiFi everywhere.
- I have a Chromecast Audio — this is the weakest link as it forces the 48Khz and isn't gapless, and uses a crap DAC onboard, and requires casting from Plexamp to Cast which also has the server occasionally downsample before the upsample! (why?!), and it can't do gapless, and when hot it sometimes isn't visible to be casted to.
- I have a great amp.
- I have phenomenal speakers.
The goal then is to obliterate the weakest link, being the Chromecast Audio.
Requirements:
- WiFi to the network.
- The FLACs should arrive at the amp in perfect quality, no upsampling or downsampling (rules out Toslink and ideally want to get to the DAC directly from the playback client with few to no interfaces inbetween, software or hardware).
- The UI should be excellent, likely an app but still excellent. I'm fine with this being my phone.
- This is all local, so a nice to have is that it isn't dependant on any internet service, local playback should be fine.
Mostly the issue is that playback from a NAS file share is accompanied by crappy UI. Or it requires indexing of everything on the NAS which duplicates the fact that Plex has already done that.
Then the various vendors trying to crack this space focus on things I don't care about (multi-room), or are trying to make subscription services and forcing an internet connection, but worse is that their apps just aren't great — it's hard to love the apps, and the app is the tactile part of listening to music so I want to love the app.
I run Plex, I love Plexamp — so for me this has become a higher priority the more I see how bad the other things are.
Plex and Plexamp can run on a variety of things like Windows, Mac, Linux, and Raspberry Pi... and as a remote control Plexamp on my phone would just be asking the other device to directly play it. But then how to get from the software to the amp with fewest interfaces screwing with things?
Going wholly Plex only requires a small cheap computer as literally no streamer supports Plex natively, it's very lightweight software and would be the only thing running on the PC.
Downsides of this: I lose Cast altogether, and with that Spotify Connect which is occasionally useful when people are over and want to play their playlist, etc.
But... this is where I think adding in the RME ADI-2 Pro FS is good... because the PC (Plex) could connect via the USB and the USB becomes the sound card for the PC and it does 100% of the work. The DACs are incredible (I mean, they — there are two of them — are recording studio DACs and each supports 32-bit and 768Khz which is all kinds of daft, they're very capable).
I can still add the Chromecast into the Toslink input to retain Cast and Spotify in this setup, and could go further and add a turntable to the analog inputs so that I can also convert vinyl to FLAC in this same setup.
So that's what I'm trying to achieve — remove the weakest link for the local music collection — and why I've largely settled on buying a studio AD/DA converter and then putting a small PC next to it.
Otherwise, my company has a storage room full of Nuc things and a some Pi 4's.... I can ask about specs and see if there's anything useful there? They were bought to drive some screens for something but we changed direction so they are gathering dust.
You have a hoard of Pi 4's! Smuggle those out and sell them!
But if you have anything going spare, do say.
- I have a great local collection of music, some 2.3TB = 130K FLAC files all very nicely organised and always kept up to date, a mix of 16bit/44.1kHz and 24bit/96 Khz, a few silly files (32bit! no-one needs that!)
kkg337
Velocio
A whole day of research done.
Likely just going to go with something like a NUC couple to something like an RME Adi 2 https://rme-audio.de/adi-2-pro-fs-be.html
The computer will need WiFi, will run a Linux, and I'll run Plexamp on it.
The PC will basically be fetching FLACs via Plex, but just handing the decoded output straight to the RME device, which can handle every file without upsampling or downsampling, and can then output balanced analog audio for the amp.
I couldn't find what I wanted - a decent Linux streamer service with good audio hardware - so the RME is doing all the heavy lifting and doubles as a hell of a headphone amp.