I’m a bit of a dinosaur with my audio tech….but i’m facing up to it and would like some help. what do i want to replace my CDs? I liked cds …reasonable quality sound, i liked having something physical,the artwork on the inlay etc, but mainly i liked ‘owning’ my music. things have moved on though….or moved on a while ago! a lossless recording on a harddrive, a decent DAC that can process that file format has no detriment sound wise that i’d be upset about, withe a decent navigation system it will be more convenient. then there’s spotify/deezer etc. a quality music streamer and a subscription opens up the access to music….and as a family man the days i had the time or inkling to browse a music store are long gone…just as the stores are, so a streaming service could open my ears up again to new music. i am worried though….drop mid hundreds or upwards on a quality streamer like an arcam, cambridge audio or more on a naim…does it risk being out of date and unable to access your service? just as phones tend to get left behind with no updates after a few years? and it would tie me to a service wouldn’t it? as it seems many/all cn only do a few? ok…i guess so long as it spotifys then why care? but will spotify be the best app in a year or 3?

What else do i need to think of and what should i buy?
thanks

https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnHDarko

Some good advice amongst the high end stuff from John Darko

What do you currently have / can any of it be reused?

I had this conundrum a while ago. I decided that getting a decent DAC to plug into my old Denon amp was the thing to do.
I went into Richer Sounds and was about to invest in one when I asked what was that thing on the shelf. It was a Yamaha CRX-N470D network amplifier. It plays CDs, has a DAB and FM tuner, allows me to bluetooth stuff over from my phone and connects to the internet so I stream my Spotify and listen to 6 Music that way while controlling it from my phone.
The sound is OK and it cost about the same as the DAC I was looking at. You can probably get better sounding ones for a little bit more.

Couple of big Sonos units and a smaller one with Alexa, linked to Spotify. Sounds every bit as good as my old Denon and Wharfedale system plus unlimited sounds on Spotify family premium.

Currently in use…. Now there’s a thing.. I’d probably keep the marantz cd player for use in the bedroom, with the big floorstanders and a new amp. I’d probably connect the streamer to the Cambridge audio 540r and iddy biddy Alumni speakers…. comprising while I’ve a 5 month old that needs to grow up a bit before trusting around large and wobbly speakers.
I realize though this compromise means I could go cheapish and dip my toe, learn what I like about a streamer, and then go again on a few years when the youngest can be trusted around the speakers.

Uurtghhh! My listening habits have totally changed since having 3 kids… Plus of course I earn more and current kit is aging….I could go in many directions and change again in a year or 3 …. Although I generally the to buy ‘nice’ and keep for a good while…. Which really makes my current changing circumstances tough!

See now in the time or took me to answer silly silly (while holding a crying 5mo and being jumped on by the 3 yo… And shouting at the 5yo!) Big John posted and demonstrates my conundrum….. Back in the day it was easy…2 speakers, an amp, a radio, a cd player (or DAC, transport, power amp etc etc). I currently find myself very baffled by the various options!

Years ago I was a total HiFi nerd – Linn Condeck, the full works. Fast forward and my priorities have changed: I like good very good quality music but rarely have the time to sit down in a quiet room and notice that one version is very so lightly better than another and I now put a premium on instant access to streamed music and the ability to listen across the house.

So I’ve gone for:
– Spotify – the quality is very good and for 99.9% of the time I just don’t listen hard enough to notice it’s not lossless prefect quality. Much more important is the ability to hear new music whenever I want.
– Sonos speakers in several rooms of the house; Kitchen, Living Room, Bedroom, so I can listen almost wherever I want.
– Sonos Port to drive my old HiFi Amp and some newish Tannoy floorstanding speakers – let’s me listen “properly” and at the volumes I want for practicing my bass. The Sonos also plays music off my hard drive.
– A newish CD player and my ancient Condeck that directly work through the amp and speakers, and can be routed back through the Port to Sonos speakers elsewhere if I ever need to play something I can’t get in Spotify.
– Spotify on my iPad with a 1000 song playlist downloaded for listening on BT headphones when travelling.

So basically my answer is Sonos and Spotify. In my ideal world Spotify would do a lossless streaming service, but until then I am 99% happy.

throw in another option is the Ruark MR1 bluetooth speakers – I’ve an alexa connected so I can listen via decent speakers, bluetooth spotify from my phone and I’ve linked my Marantz KI CD player via optical. Via CD sounds the best, but the convenience of via my phone.

Easiest and cheapest way was fitting a Chromecast audio (can still be found for £30ish online) to my existing hifi setup.

I’ve also got one plugged into a dab radio in the kitchen and some powered speakers in the mancave.

You can upload your existing music to YT music (taken over from Google music now)
Or cast from a variety of sources like Spotify, YT music, etc.

Quality is very good for a little box, and the fact it’s plug and play into existing systems is great.

I got a Cambridge Audio 1 – can still play CDs, but also streams from Spotify (£15/month family) and can plug a hard drive in. Plug in chosen speakers and away you go.

thanks for the suggestions. i need to red some reviews,and come back with a few questions.

I went Naim ages ago and have all my CDs ripped lossless to a NAS. Also use Tidal. Sounds alright in most cases, but not really the same setup as before and with kids running round who actually cares 😂The Uniti is a nice bit of kit though

I’ve been reading about the KEF LS50 wireless II today. they look amazing and apparently the sound is top notch as well. fully featured and you don’t actually need any other unit to stream to them. I’m sorely tempted but i’ve just bought a new bike so will have to wait a while

I just plugged a Bluetooth receiver into one of the inputs on my amp. Use that to play music from my phone or tablet. I use Google Play Music/YouTube music for background music, live music and checking out new stuff. It’s good enough for that. If I really like an album I’ll buy it on CD or vinyl.

You sound like me as I too have far too many CDs and like owning the music. It’s hard to say in words, especially to younger generations who think it’s daft but, I tried using Tidal Hi-Fi for a while and it just didn’t feel right.

They had a number of albums which I downloaded but I didn’t like it. Sound quality was great but if I stop the subscription I lost access to the music. This just didn’t sit right so the CDs stayed a while longer.

Last year I made the decision to put all my CDs on a home server. Ripped them all into itunes using Apple lossless and stored the CDs away. (Won’t sell them)

In hindsight I should have ripped them to FLAC as a master and then create lossless from there but either way ripping to a lossless form rather than MP3 was essential to keep the sound quality.

The music is stored on a home mini NAS thing connected to our network and I purchased a Raspberry Pi which runs Volumio software as the streamer. This has a ‘HAT’ the plays digital out into the main amp in my study where I listen to most music. The Volumio app on phones can also see the library and play via airplay into the lounge amp or even to the Sky Q box, which still sounds good too.

Basically I’ve got complete access to my music in any room with good quality and without huge costs of a ‘proper’ streamer or hifi device.

If you’d like to know more I’m happy to discuss it deeper either here or via message / email so as not to bore everybody else 🙂

AHH thanks twonks…. I’d just been thinking NAS plus DAC so your set up sounds interesting. I’ll pm you

The other advantage to the Pi with a DAC hat is you can install something like raspotify and then you can open spotify on any device and play music on your stereo.
This may actually be an option within Volumio too?

Back in the day it was easy…2 speakers, an amp, a radio, a cd player

Amen brother.

And I’m giving it another 10 or 15 years with that setup to let things settle down.

Nothing against those who like that sort of thing, but raspberry pies and NAS drives just turn me right off. Feels too much like hard work.

Yeah I’m leaning that way again this morning! Change is inevitable, but maybe not this month!

I had a stack of Audiolab 8000 kit, CDM / DAX, pre and power amps, the works. One of the channels in the power amp blew and all the kit was kind of dominating the living room anyway.

I ditched the lot and replaced it with a Yamaha Network Receiver (RX-S601) I kept my floor standing B&W CDM7s and just wired them in to the Yamaha amp along with a centre channel.

No its not as good as a stack of old school Hi-Fi but its still pretty good and I can use Spotify, network radio and any other bluetooth source straight from the amplifier.

Setting up raspberry pies with coding and lines of crap to sift through does absolutely nothing for me either, which is why I held off for so long.

Fact is though, you spend a couple of hours setting it up and it’s done. No coding needed either as it is all booted and ran from a memory card in the pi.

Now I turn the amp and pi on from my phone when I get up, run ‘mconnect’ on my iPad and have it all playing with no fuss. Instant access to all my cd’s and internet radio, independently of any pc being on etc and not limited by dodgy WiFi or Bluetooth.

It just works now and needs no attention, so arguably easier then loading a cd

I think tbh, one of the biggest struggles in my head is ‘how will I choose what to listen to?/what’s the user interface?’. Old skill browse around a shelf of CDs becomes…. Probably something much better but I’m stuck in this. I think I ought to just get spotify on the PS3 or phone for a few months and experience the future (present). And lose my fear of the complete unknown…. Then think more on the equipment.

I’m currently running a Cambridge CXN V2 streamer which I also use as a DAC for our TVs optical out, really easy to use, nice app, works with the streaming services we use, really easy to live with unit. I don’t use an external DAC with it, did try my Lavry DA10 but there wasn’t anything between it and CXN’s own audio output. I’ve got it paired up with ATC amp and speakers without feeling I’m not making the most of them and all my CDs are ripped to FLAC. It’s genuinely been one of those products that’s just been great from the moment I lifted it out of the box.

Think I’d have done something similar Matt, if I had £700 ish to pare at the time.

Between us all it is clear that there are many option for getting the CDs out of the lounge, which was our number one priority when I finally made the jump.

Doesn’t exactly matter how it is done – whether you stream from a service like Spotify etc or keep the media but on a server rather than physical disk, there is a method for everybody.

To answer one of the last questions, I always play and listen to albums over playlists, Much of my collection is dance music that has continuous mixes and I’m an old luddite that likes to put an album on and listen to it. Our kids virtually never do this and it is playlists every time. God knows what their kids of the future will be doing, probably think of a song and it will be played in their own head space. 😀

I went through all this too.

Discovered this box, which I’m going to plug into my Rega, and keep everything else as it is (ie the turntable and speakers).

https://www.hifix.co.uk/yamaha-wxad-10-wireless-streaming-adaptor?gclid=CjwKCAiA8Jf-BRB-EiwAWDtEGr72htrTpG9Ui6H27vdkE5phA859B7JZIzaRN_QxxwxHoZZTET7OERoChDMQAvD_BwE

I think if you want reasonable assurances that your kit is future proof regarding streaming apps then I think there are two options:

1) RasPi + digital out or lineout module.

2) Bluetooth adapter for your Amplifier.

Option 1 will cost more but there are some reasonably high end modules that will give the Pi a decent quality output in the form of digital out (you’ll then need to add a DAC) or a normal line out that you can plug into your existing system. There are a few kits available for very close to plug and play. Software wise Volumo seems to be feature rich, easy to install and get running and looks like they have good resources to update the platform and keep it up to date. There are kits that will bundle the Pi and the audio modules with a case which only require basic assembly so you should be up and running within a day or so.

Option 2, is the quickest and least expensive option. Use a smart device such as phone or tablet and bluetooth the audio to your existing amplifier using an bluetooth adapter. I don’t think this will be able to match the sound quality of option1 but if you are using a non HD audio streaming service you may not hear much difference.

Sure there are manufacturers with high end audio boxes that support Tidal and Spotify etc.. but it very rare for them to support all streaming platforms so you may end up getting stuck with a streaming service because thats what your box can support and I don’t think the manufactures have the resources to develop the firmware and software to say with confidence that will support any future changes.

If your ask is to just to have no physical media for your audio eg no more CD’s then I think a box from a Hifi company will be fine for many years to come. I don’t see WAV or FLAC going away anywhere any time soon, so you’ll still be able to purchase WAV or FLAC audio for a long while still.

There is some advancement regarding DACs supporting MQA and I think at the very high end we may see formats like these come and go as people figure out better ways to package the data etc.. but for CD quality audio I don’t see this changing any time soon and something you buy today should be very usable many years later.

I have what i consider good hifi….some Cyrus pre and power amps with separate psus and nice transport and DAC.
Time to listen with kids is a premium, and quiet time where i wont disturb them even more rare.
I bought a Yamaha musicast box from Richer sounds. It was about £130. It connects to your router and is controlled from your phone. It ISNT streaming from your phone, so you arent at the mercy of the poor dac in the phone. We use Spotify premium and it has properly expanded our musical listening and we really enjoy it.
I have about 1500 cd and vinyl albums, and if i like something then i buy the original.
It allows me to use my hifi and have a huge decent quality source of music.
Ian

Bugger! Its the box that DorsetKnob links above.
Recommended!
Ian

Lots of food points being made. Brenin, you are spot on…. I’d be nuts to I spend loads now as I don’t have time to ‘listen’. If should get something to just give similar access to Spotify for a bit. If anything it might be worth spending a few hundred on a decent portable MP3 player for time spent commuting but not loads.

If I had the time to listen then I’m kind of tempted by the self constructed has/media server, into a quality DAC. Those that have, Why Pi? Why not a nas enclosure or old pc, a couple of 2 Tbyte HDD raid, Linux OS? Also how do you interface with your system? I guess an app on a phone?

To the op and you point about learning about what the streaming service s can do – that’s a good start. You could very easily get going at minimal cost with a Bluetooth adapter and a phone. Sound wont be the best, but it will give you a good idea.
One of the biggest benefits of the streaming services like Spotify, for me at least, is the ability to find new music easily.

I ripped all my CDs to flac ages ago and did use to have it setup to be able to stream across the home network from the pc. Haven’t bothered with that for years. I just use Spotify and Chromecast audios connected to my oldskool audio equipment (nothing fancy). Very cost effective and flexible for other services also like internet radio. sounds absolutely fine to my ears.

Why Pi?

It is essentially the media player in the same way that all the hifi style boxes mentioned are, but is arguably capable of higher sound quality for much less money.

I use mine with a digital out HAT (daughter board that plugs into the PI) into toslink in on my old av amp, but I also played it into a £100 DAC and into my hifi amp and the sound quality was stunning. Much better than my Arcam CD73 CD player.

The PI is sat on the wired network and pulls music from a NAS using Volumio – which is all I have running on the PI.

Can either use Volumio app from phone App Store or a web browser although I use mconnect app on phone/iPad to then play from the server into the PI, so the Apple device is basically a graphically based remote control.

Volumio or Mconnect will also connect to tidal, deeper and I think possibly Spotify.

I went this way to save money over a dedicated ‘box’ whilst keeping it simple and sound quality high.

We have a Denon AV receiver that has some connectivity with Alexa (I think it’s called HEOS or something like). I can ask Alexa to turn on the amp, switch the inputs and then it’ll stream all my music via my wifi from the PC (mymediaforalexa – think that’s $5 for a year). I assume Alexa can do spotify etc as well as Amazon’s music though I don’t bother.

Quality is “fine” – mostly I’m walking round the house while listening so I don’t need awesome quality. Plays music and telly through (only 2) Qacoustics speakers that were about 200 quid

I recently entered the world of streamers with a Bluesound Node 2i.

This plugs into a ‘standard’ old-school hifi* (decent CDP, decent pre/power amp and speakers, all wired together) and I’ve been really impressed.

I have all my CDs ripped as FLAC files, stored on an external HDD plugged into the rear of the Node 2i, (so I never actually need to insert a CD into the CD player) plus I listen to Spotify and Youtube (via bluetooth) and it sounds pretty good.

You can tell that Spotify (at 320kbps) sounds worse than FLAC/CD but it’s not that far off, and for most of the time not an issue. Youtube via bluetooth is worse still but … okay for the odd song.

Now tempted with Tidal hifi for the streaming (at CD quality) so will try that soon.

[*Densen pre/power, Dynaudio Emit 20 speakers, Sonneteer CDP, yadda yadda]

Tidal hi-fi does sound good tbh and the Bluesound unit is known for being great which combined with ease of use etc could be a good one for Neil (apologies OP if that isn’t your name 😉 )

For all my spouting about the RPI, there are a multitude number of ways to get music out of speakers nowadays so whatever you buy will also probably give you more options than you need.

For example I was sat watching the TV and browsing this forum on my phone when I found the 90s rave thread. Love all that music and was very quickly sending the audio through airplay to the Sky Q box, which is linked to the amp etc as we never use TV speakers. Within seconds I had perfectly listenable audio through the stereo. That’s about as simple as it gets but still retains a fair quality as some youtube audio feeds are ok and airplay is digital so nothing is lost by bluetooth for example.

God knows what their kids of the future will be doing, probably think of a song and it will be played in their own head space. 😀

https://apnews.com/article/new-tech-device-sound-beaming-noveto-38327ae5fe116080a5eaf2374eb0f5c8

I love listening to music… but like a lot get, I’ve gone for the ‘ease is better than absolute quality…

I’ve Amazon echos in the kitchen and bedrooms, and KEF LSX (smaller brother of the KEF LS50) in the lounge, for proper listening.

KEFs are linked to TV (and a sub… for films)…

I play Spotify through any/ all when I want, and it’s brill.
The KEF are incredible, and are ALL you need for proper hifi listening. No amp etc… its all in one…

DrP

What I like about Spotify (maybe true for other streaming services), is I can fire up the speakers in the office and use Spotify on my computer, but then I can open my phone and ‘listen on same device’ so basically using the phone as a remote, but not streaming via bluetooth. I’m sure I’ve seen my Sky Q box crop up on the available devices too, so could link the lounge AV amp too.

Also like the ‘join a session’ – so if you have a load of mates in a room, you’re all in the same session, but listening on the one device and everyone just keeps adding random song choices to the queue

Why Pi over NAS enclosure running Linux?

Because it has a large community providing development and support on the software and hardware side.

I guess any software could be run on both as pretty much everything Pi based runs on a form of Linux but this may take extra time and effort on your part to get up and running?

Pi also has some good support for hardware add on modules to get pretty good quality audio out from the Pi. Which I’m sure is possible with a NAS enclosure?

I haven’t tried it my self but reviews on Pi based music servers suggest they can complete with some mid to high end hifi.

In fact there are some hifi manufacturers that are actually using a Pi board and adding on their own designed DAC or digital out stage, adding their own power supply and putting it in a nice metal case with their badge on it.

I just think this method will give you full flexibility in the future to support new standards and features for a reasonable cost and minimal faff.

I recently entered the world of streamers with a Bluesound Node 2i.

This plugs into a ‘standard’ old-school hifi* (decent CDP, decent pre/power amp and speakers, all wired together) and I’ve been really impressed.

I have all my CDs ripped as FLAC files, stored on an external HDD plugged into the rear of the Node 2i, (so I never actually need to insert a CD into the CD player) plus I listen to Spotify and Youtube (via bluetooth) and it sounds pretty good.

You can tell that Spotify (at 320kbps) sounds worse than FLAC/CD but it’s not that far off, and for most of the time not an issue. Youtube via bluetooth is worse still but … okay for the odd song.

I have a similar arrangement using a Yamaha WXC-50. I left the turntable plugged directly into my Cyrus amp, with the Yamaha used for Spotify, ripped CDs and the TV input. I’ve been very impressed with it, though the Music cast app setup is a PITA.