I’ve just cobbled together my old amplifier with a echo dot via the dots 3.5mm out to an RCA input on the amp. I’m either streaming via Bluetooth to the dot or the dot is streaming and I’m controlling it via my phone, not 100% sure.

I’m hoping I can get some improved sound by either adding a DAC with a Bluetooth connection or a dedicated streamer like the wiim mini or connecting the dot to a DAC. Im thinking maybe the DAC first and the dedicated streamer after or if it makes no difference the dot. I’m really not sure where the bottlenecks are, I’m assuming that the source for the DAC has the least influence as its digital? I’m not sure if I can get digital out from the echo dot to the dac. It’s just a low end Marantz amp and old Mordaunt short speakers so I’m not looking to put together the most revealing system in the world but can’t help but feel I can improve the convoluted set up at the moment.

not an expert in these things but if you can get an optical out from your streaming device into the dac then you should have unmolested bit perfect data.
but personally it’s all a bit moot if your source files are not high res, in the past i have done spotify/apple music using an airport express with an optical out into a beresford dac so it was bypassing the dac in the apple chain, sound was fine but not stellar.

now i’m using Tidal (cd quality) with NAIM unitiQute or a audio quest dragonfly/Beyerdynamic and the results are ‘music’ rather than background noise.

if your source is spotify then i’m not sure if it’s worth upgrading the dac or finding a way of streaming that is bit perfect.

The Audiolab m-dac nano does BT from your device to the nano and wired from there to your amp/headphones/whatever

Audiolab m-dac nano

raspberry pi zero with wifi + hifi berry dac – £30? (if you can buy them right now)

It’s just a low end Marantz amp and old Mordaunt short speakers so I’m not looking to put together the most revealing system in the world but can’t help but feel I can improve the convoluted set up at the moment.

Your amp will be unlikely to have a output sinad (signal to noise/distortion – measure of signal quality from a device) that can be improved upon by using an external dac, coupled with your old mordant short speakers I would decide to spend the money on beer instead.

Thanks all. I’ll need to do a bit more research I think. I had watched a you tube video where it was discussed whether trying to improve anything is worth while when the source is Spotify. I’ll have a revisit. Spotify is pretty much here to stay as we have the whole family using it, swapping to another service is unlikely.

I had thought I’d picked up somewhere that the echo dot had an optical out but have since found its definitely an analogue out. I’m also streaming to my phone and connecting to the dot via Bluetooth.

Somafunk, I can definitely hear a difference with a different source (turntable), I’d have thought that there would have been something to do to improve on the output of the echo dot. I’m going to try cd also. Then again if the weak link is Spotify then maybe there is nothing for it. Could be snakeoil but I’ve been reading reviews of different DACs and how they colour the music, and even though the amp and speaker are old they still sound nice enough.

Tafkastr, DaveP, I’d been looking at the Topping D3 pro+ DAC. This also has a couple of inputs which I could connect a TV and cd player at a later date as well as the Bluetooth. About the same price as the audiolab and a bit newer.

I’m not an audio tech, but – if the echo has a RCA out – then that is an analogue signal, suggesting ECHO incorporates a DAC.

Amazon forum seems to confirm:
https://uk.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D56Q00008GC0N2SAL/what-is-the-3rd-gen-echo-dots-dac

The 16bit, 48kHz sampling rate quoted in the forum is good enough for Tidal HiFi.
Your challenge is that Spotify is lower quality so your audio quality is restricted. Might be better to change to Tidal.

There is a clear improvement in quality using Tidal HiFi vs Spotify – streaming over a Chromecast Audio to a rotel amp and Kef Q1s