Bottlehead Forum
Other Gear => Digital => Topic started by: Tubegopher on April 17, 2022, 11:16:13 AM
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I am many years analog as a picture of my boat will attest, and I do some music streaming of Pandora from my phone through a Dragonfly DAC, but I am hearing of items like this:
Bluesound Node2i streaming Tidal. What does this do, and what are the advantages of a dedicated streamer?
Thanks
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There are a few layers to what you're asking. The first is that Tidal offers (or advertises at least) higher resolution streaming than Pandora for a subscription fee. A box like the Bluesound can replace at PC and dedicated DAC and many of these devices can be controlled with a remote app on your phone, so you can set up multiple zones fairly easily without a substantial amount of equipment.
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The very popular Blusound Node is a great way to start streaming. It offers access to most of the popular streaming services as well as radio stations all around the world that stream their content. It has a built in DAC of decent quality but offers the opportunity to use it with any DAC.
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As stated, there are many options/flavors wrt streaming. As a DIY approach, I use a RPi4 with an Allo DigiOne Signature hat, and 2 x 5v linear power supplies, through my current DAC via coax. My streaming source of choice is Quboz, but there are other options. You can load the RPi with a number of OS's. If you want the pi to handle as server, I'd use Volumio. Use a tablet (iOS or Android) as wireless interface. I have my pi setup as a Roon endpoint, and an older laptop as server (including my CD collection ripped to flac files), and a tablet using the Roon app as interface.
Or, there are many all in one plug & play systems, like this example https://volumio.com/en/product/volumio-primo/ (https://volumio.com/en/product/volumio-primo/)
(I'm not endorsing or recommending, just an example. Google is your friend.)
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I have a blusound node and it is very convenient using wifi and has a built in dac but I use another dac with it. I prefer the optical rendu - requires a hardwire and an optical ethernet converter and it sounds much better with linear power supplies. The other thing I have discovered is my BH dac was always a bit fussy but when I used Roon it worked flawlessly. So using Roon with tidal was the way to go but so may people with Roon claimed Qobuz sounded better so I tried that and sure enough i prefer the sound quality of Qobuz vs Tidal. The hi rez stuff sounds amazing!
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As stated, there are many options/flavors wrt streaming. As a DIY approach, I use a RPi4 with an Allo DigiOne Signature hat, and 2 x 5v linear power supplies, through my current DAC via coax. My streaming source of choice is Quboz, but there are other options. You can load the RPi with a number of OS's. If you want the pi to handle as server, I'd use Volumio. Use a tablet (iOS or Android) as wireless interface. I have my pi setup as a Roon endpoint, and an older laptop as server (including my CD collection ripped to flac files), and a tablet using the Roon app as interface.
Or, there are many all in one plug & play systems, like this example https://volumio.com/en/product/volumio-primo/ (https://volumio.com/en/product/volumio-primo/)
(I'm not endorsing or recommending, just an example. Google is your friend.)
Thank You for your post to me, I will review these things on Google. (however, I am going to have to go to Google translate as I am sure you are speaking in a foreign language! ;D
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It's also worth mentioning that the Lumin streamers are another popular option.