Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/128063/?offset=2675#comment16933797

is the thread you're after

Question.... Not sure if this should be in here but couldn't find a more general AV thread?

In my kitchen I have a TV, a PC for Zwift and Alexa for music. I have a cupboard in one corner with power and a speaker cable in the wall to the other end of the room. Someone seems to have attempted to put the other speak cable in the wall above the cupboard but gave up and ran the cable up the wall just pinned to the plaster.... There are also speaker cables running out into the garden from this cupboard but I'm not holding many garden parties!

Is there a reasonably budget conscious way to run all three sources to some sort of receiver to output to some mini speakers e.g. CA Minx and a small sub bearing in mind only the Alexa can be hard wired to the receiver? Zone two capability for the garden would be a bonus. Are wireless speakers an option realistically?

Thanks

Ta

Think the option I was overlooking / overcomplicating is that I can connect the tv and pc to the alexa via bluetooth as external speakers and then connect Alexa to a basic amp... The Echo Link Amp has dropped in price recently, might be a good solution?

Anyone got any experience whether this will work in the real world?

Thanks

Went down the street to listen to some Paradigm 700F floorstanders.
I know what I said about in store listening but they didn’t put any pressure on me to hurry up and I felt at ease walking around the room and playing with levels, toe in, et cetera. The vendor is willing to knock 15% off the price so I may take them up on it. Buying a Canadian made product locally also plays a part.

I think Sonos may do the job there. A Beam or Ray connected to the TV (or the new Bluetooth ones) and then some extra speakers as needed. Also connect wirelessly to Alexa.

I feel like I'm opening a can of worms... I want a better way to get audio from my storage to my stereo, there's an airgap to jump.

So far I've been using the toslink Chromecast Audio... but casting the audio is already stepping down the quality and cast doesn't do gapless.

I use Plex for everything, so Plexamp Headless is an attractive idea - but of course Raspberry Pi 4 availability is, well... unavailable.

I've looked at streamers, Roon looks attractive but the app is very poorly rated and forums seem to bemoan it. Bluesound looks plausible but they seem to be so invested in going down the Sonos route I don't know that long-term they'll stay invested in the Node so I don't want to adopt an entirely different system that doesn't have a long life ahead of it.

Bluetooth is out, Tidal I don't use, Deezer is out, Spotify Connect is crappy (no HD audio still and I've got all this local audio which remains the point).

Feels like if I'm not building a Plexamp Headless then I'm just going to a streamer that can use WiFi and access file storage to directly stream, but then I have a whole "other" experience on my stereo than I do everywhere else (which is all Plexamp).

What do people do here? How are people streaming their music to their silly hifi systems.

I feel like I'm opening a can of worms.

Sounds like you already opened the worm can and didn't see a single thing you wanted to eat

I reckon you should msg John Darko https://darko.audio/

You could see if you could do some sort of case study colabo

I’m using a Cambridge Audio MXN-10 streamer with an SSD plugged into it but it will stream from NAS using its own Steam-magic software which I’ve found to be very good (I have no patience with difficult software). It’s basically the same as Bluesound Node, I don’t know what that Sonos issue is but I can’t see Cambridge Audio changing abandoning their software system any time soon.

Sounds like you already opened the worm can and didn't see a single thing you wanted to eat

Very much this.

It’s basically the same as Bluesound Node, I don’t know what that Sonos issue is but I can’t see Cambridge Audio changing abandoning their software system any time soon.

The issue has several elements to it.

The protocols network streamers use are subject to change, how long into the future will a hardware company support software?

Or, like Sonos, do they expect us to be constantly refreshing our hardware?

There's nothing in nearly every protocol change that requires new hardware, as it is just software. I have more faith in a pure hardware company (Arcam, Cambridge Audio, NAIM, etc) than I do a company that tries to make what they sell be the software experience (Sonos, Roon, etc).

If I have to use software and want it to be long-term supported then I want an OSS solution so it's the software I'm changing and not the hardware, i.e. network stream from network shares, XBMC derivatives (Plex), and things like that.

It's not that I don't trust the hardware manufacturers... I don't trust the closed source software! I have the least faith in Google Cast long term and am surprised I can still use a ChromeCast Audio at all (this will likely change any moment, Google are on a roll with shutting things down). Spotify I have no faith with, and again I can't use Spotify to access the +100K FLAC files I have locally.

The ideal for me in hardware is a cheap device with no DAC needed, connects via WiFi that outputs via SPDIF / RCA or Balanced XLR (not Toslink which forces/upsamples everything to 48Khz).

The ideal for the software is that I can run my own (Windows or Linux or Raspberry Pi), or that it supports Plexamp.

A minimum bar for the software if I can't have Plexamp is an OSS Cast server and a SMB compatible network file audio player that has a good app to use as the remote (though I will still doubt that they'll maintain this long term).

I'd be happy with a small piece of hardware that did the job and for me to worry about the software (just install Plexamp!). But of course Raspberry Pis are unavailable, NUCs don't have SPDIF, and then I'm into the "build a custom PC" territory which is meh.

If you need nothing more complicated than getting from home storage to a single stereo, what about using BubbleUPnP with the chromecast audio as a renderer? Google suggests it supports 24bit/96kHz if used that way.

Also it seems like all roads will lead to a raspberry Pi in some form or another before you're completely satisfied. Getting one off ebay is still likely to be cheaper than every other option!

Seems that CA streamers show up as an endpoint within Plex from a quick google. Its built in DAC sounds nice or you can output spdif if you want. Price is £450. Whether that’s cheap or not is relative.

I have Sonos all over the house and have yet to need to ‘refresh’ a single unit.

They pushed a v2 app about 2 years ago but all but the oldest hardware was compatible and they offered a trade in for those with up to 50% discount which seems reasonable.

The only annoying thing is their continued lack of support for airplay 2 but the app is pretty good.

Only because CA will be a Cast destination and Plex will show that.

But the way ChromeCast works is that Plex will send the file info, and the CA player will play it, but all ChromeCast fixes the stream rate - effectively downsampling - at the same time gapless is not support by ChromeCast as new files are fetched on file change.

Basically, if I listen to Marvin Gaye or Beyonce it's going to suck as the gapless isn't there and it has downsampled.

It's good enough, but not great.

if I listen to Marvin Gaye or Beyonce it's going to suck

No hardware or software in the world is going fix the second of those

Yeah, but they're just examples of gapless albums... feel free to throw in a Fabric mix if that's your inclination or any number of jazz albums.

Chromecast doesn't do gapless.

I have Sonos all over the house and have yet to need to ‘refresh’ a single unit

But they really really want to make you do so: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/sonos-speaker-legacy-software-update

They only relented because of the massive outrage, but you know they will be doing this very slowly over time.

HiFi should last decades, there's nothing in modern smart systems or streamers that has proven longevity yet. The closest anything came to longevity is the Squeezebox which at least lasted 11 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_player) and for a full solution that's pretty good. Chromecast is coming close at 9y old, but there's not been any meaningful improvement or new products on the audio side and there are no more updates.

Sonos has already indicated that they want to no longer support old things. My issue with Bluesound is that by jumping very far into connected network streamer all-in-one speakers they've put themselves on the Sonos path... but like Sonos, they don't actually own all the things they connect to: Roon, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, MQA, Plex, etc, etc. So they can't actually make any long term promises.

Plus, where are their incentives? It's not for software support unless they get you to pay a subscription, it's in hardware sales. The incentives are not aligned in your favour here.

I'd rather pay to get the software support, i.e. Roon stands out. But the Roon reviews are awful, I'm not sure anyone truly loves it (someone on here will say they do!). Plex software is good, the reviews are all awesome, and I love it too, I'm just lacking a bit of hardware to play it on.

Plex is good but some of their recent stuff (providing their own streaming channels, getting rid of the home theater software, which got reversed, Discover, etc) do make me wonder about the direction they want to take

I mean, the old stuff is still supported, just on a different app.

It still works perfectly fine and you could even have new and old in the same house if you don’t mind having them on two apps.

Why don’t you give the Roon free trial a go? Make your own mind up.

Just buy some Raspberry Pis off eBay.
Happy user here running multiple headless plexamps. Even if you have to overpay for the Pi it's still surely going to be less than any commercial streamer option, more future proofed and a more flexible solution.

Used Linn Akurate DS/3 streamer? A good few come up on eBay these days since the new systems were released, and Linn buyers are the kind of people who like to have the latest thing.

(Worth reading up first, though, to make sure you don’t buy something that can only work with Linn’s proprietary Exakt system).