I have what i consider a proper hifi with seperate pre and power amps, turntable and cd player.

I would like to stream music to it, to limit my ever expanding album collection.

I value fidelity, so would like something as faithful as possible.

Is this realistic with a Chromecast audio and a unused tablet?

I really dony know what to use an am happy to spend if it means i can get a more faithful reproduction or better dynamic range.

If it matters the hifi is Cyrus equipment. Thanks for any advice.

Ian

Sonos Connect works really well. Phono or digital outputs, very easy to use the app, plays pretty much any format from pretty much any source (I use Spotify) plus you can add extra Sonos units to other rooms of the house

I also have a good AV system and I love the Sonos kit that augments it

It will work with a chromecast audio as you could just use a 3.5mm to audio in cable and you can cast from your media on your phone/tablet or a streaming service.

I wouldn’t say that you’d be getting great sound fidelity that way – would depend on the compression of the source music and wifi connectivity.

Good for convenience though.

If you want fidelity from streaming then you’d need to be using something like tidal, then you might be able to see an affect from the quality of equipment you are pluggin in.

If it helps I use a Sonos system with my Arcam and stream spotify and CD’s from a local NAS drive. quality isn’t as good as direct from CD or Record player but I value the convenience more than the fidelity.

I agree re the convenience aspect. Ok if you listen carefully Spotify via Sonos isn’t quite CD quality but a) the difference is small and b) the flexibility of streaming, which includes a huge range of music and suggested playlists means I listen to far more music than I used to and that for me more than overcomes any slight quality difference

Yamaha WXAD10 Wireless Streaming Adapter

One of these should do it.

Cheap and easy. I only download 320kbps mp3 or flac so the sound is still good.

https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/product/bluetooth-audio-adapter

There will be two issues for quality, firstly the source files which is only an issue internet streaming so as long as the files are on the lan you good.

Second is the digital to analog conversion. Look at the size and price of a chromecast, I can’t see its inbuilt dac being fantastic, so I would not bother with the 3.5. There is no loss of quality over WiFi and through optical outs.

So get a decent dac if your stereo doesn’t have one and use a Nas like a small synology that can connect to your router. Any other WiFi device can use them too, dvd TV etc. which also have optical outs.

quality isn’t as good as direct from CD or Record player but I value the convenience more than the fidelity.

I can’t tell a difference using the Coax digital out from my Sonos playing FLAC files Vs CD. In fact I got rid of my CD player realising that I very rarely used it. Most new music now I either buy on vinyl or steam (just switched over to Apple Music).

Another shout for Yamaha musicast device above, I was a professional musician for 20 years and use the same device WXAD10 as above and its very good with Tidal and Qobuz.

I asked a similar question last week. Here
I just use Chromecast Audio, with the dynamic setting to on, just the analogue output and I’m fairly happy with both Spotify and 6Music.
I’m still pondering if a DAC or optical input amp is worth the extra.

Audioengine b1 here. Plug it into the amp and then you can stream over Bluetooth from laptop or phone. Plug and play works seamlessly. Very high quality. If you have windows laptop you can download the latest super high lossless Bluetooth version.

Just let your physical collection expand away. Stick with your CDs and vinyl records…

As soon as BT is involved your quality is hugely diminished.
If you want good sound quality go the cast/wifi route.

Another one for the Yamaha streamer. Think it wasn’t much more than £100. I use it for Spotify and digital radio into my Linn Classik. Works brilliantly.

Im currently v excited about the Yamaha device. Im hoping someone cool like Richer sounds sells it 🙂

Im currently v excited about the Yamaha device. Im hoping someone cool like Richer sounds sells it

They do

Can somebody explain how I stream Spotify and 6 Music to the Yamaha WXAD10? Can any Android phone or tablet do it?

I use my S9 no problem. Can do it from my laptop with an app emulator.

Arcam iRDAC is what you want. I use one with a pair of 60’s AR Cambridge A60s and even putting MP3’s / Spotify through quite nice 60/70’s kit it works extremely well.

@BigJohn
You need the MusicCast app, everything works from in there. It’s not the most polished of interfaces but it does the job. Add the WXAD10 as a device in the app settings and then it should be good to go. Internet radio is selected through the MusicCast app. Spotify is done via the Spotify app – there’s a bit under the play button where you can stream to other devices. If you’ve got the MusicCast app and the WXAD10 talking to each other then it’ll automagically appear as a selectable streaming device in Spotify.

Looks like I’ll be getting one of them then. I’ll be coming through Hanley on the way back from windsurfing at West Kirby on Monday so I’ll pop in to Richer Sounds.

Best way Ive found to stream music to my separate systems (Yamaha R-N500 in the house, Cambridge Audio Topaz AM5 in the garage) is to use an Amazon Input which has no inbuilt speaker, can be had for £20 when Amazon have a sale

You connect it to your hifi with a 3.5mm male connector to rca lead (bought separately) and it uses your hifi as a speaker, then i use Spotify to stream all my music, just ask Alexa what you want to listen to

I used to use the Yamaha controller app to connect my phone to my amp which worked but i much prefer asking Alexa to play all kinds of music, good way of discovering new/old music

I believe the 3.5mm on the Chromecast takes a Toslink mini for digital output. Run that to the optical input on a DAC of your choice. I can recommend Arcam ones

I believe the 3.5mm on the Chromecast takes a Toslink mini for digital output. Run that to the optical input on a DAC of your choice.

This is what I do only the amp has its own dac too. And most of the time use a Google mini to control by voice.

Even if I use my phone unlike the blue tooth adapters chromecast will connect to google cloud direct and not waste phone battery.

The only problem with Google is it’s a pia transferring files to the cloud.

Sonos connect. Or if looking secondhand the older ZP80 and ZP90 are much the same thing (just older WiFi) and still get software updates and work just like the newer ones.

I bought a Chromecast audio for exactly the reason as wanted by the OP, however it is a pain to use for anything other than recommended Chromecast apps.

I also use apple lossless music so was always going to be a pain – but worth a punt at £25 or so.

Now use an old airport express and use it as an airplay device, connected to some active speakers via a 3.5mm to RCA lead. Works well although the best sound quality by far was from a USB DAC playing the same files from a laptop into the same active speakers.

We are very happy with our sonos connect. You can stream the other way as well, if you intend to have any sonos speaker units.

Echo/echo dot have 3.5mm Jack’s and I believe you can use tidal with them… That an option for cheapish fidelity?

I used to use my old Squeezebox and phono connectors. The Squeezebox has a Brown-Burr DAC and supposed to be good. Did 24bit decoding too (though I only have a small amount of 24bit FLAC).

However my current AV amp has built in streaming, plus I can run Plex and other apps on my Amazon Fire box connected via HDMI (which handles HD audio). Turns out the quality from these is a lot better!

Another Sonos vote here. I’ve just replaced a couple of flaky Denon mini things which were very flaky with Airplay, and bought a collection of 2nd hand Connects. So far very happy

If you’re worried about quality the little Chromecast Audios can do optical out on the 3.5mm plug, if your amp can handle optical in. Or, plug that into a dedicated DAC.

An old Apple Airport Express works perfectly, has optical out or you can use it’s inbuilt dac, Ken Rockwell tested it and rates the dac very highly, when streaming Qobuz via my phone I couldn’t tell any difference between that and CDs, Apple Music, Spotify etc you can but the difference isn’t huge although more noticable with soft jazz, femail voice etc.

also worth considering the amazon echo link. Decent DAC and digital out with nice build quality, similar price to the yamaha thingy, integrates smoothly with Echo (if that’s your thing)

I used to use my old Squeezebox and phono connectors. The Squeezebox has a Brown-Burr DAC and supposed to be good. Did 24bit decoding too (though I only have a small amount of 24bit FLAC).

Squeezebox Duet(?) is really good if you’re vaguely technical with the app etc, and (assuming you have high quality source files), the hardware is good enough for proper audio sound.

The Sonos Connect is also pretty good, and a little closer to plug n play, giving you access to online radio, any tunes locally, plus spotify, Google Music etc. The app can be a little flaky at times, but it’s a great solution overall

I went into Richer Sounds planning to buy one of those Yamaha streamers. I walked out with
A Yamaha combined amp, DAB tuner, CD player, Spotify/Tidal/internet radio streamer. All for £230.

Maybe not the finest quality amp but suits me down to the ground.

Nice, enjoy!