jamieanderson1968
Well-Known Member
I will check out Max. I have been using XLD but it is not liking my new external cd and rips slowly (only 2x)I use Max on mac, it's open source and free
The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.
- Thread starter Ed Selley
- Start date
It looks like musical fidelity might have come in with exactly what I’ve been waiting for!
Plus being the half sized MX range it should happily sit on a shelf with, and match, my MX-VYNL. Time to get saving…
www.musicalfidelity.com
Plus being the half sized MX range it should happily sit on a shelf with, and match, my MX-VYNL. Time to get saving…
Musical Fidelity | MX-Stream Streaming Music System
MX-Stream | Streaming Music System The MX-Stream is a high-end zero jitter audio optimized streamer and network bridge....
Thackeraye
Well-Known Member
Ooh, interesting.It looks like musical fidelity might have come in with exactly what I’ve been waiting for!
Plus being the half sized MX range it should happily sit on a shelf with, and match, my MX-VYNL. Time to get saving…
Musical Fidelity | MX-Stream Streaming Music System
MX-Stream | Streaming Music System The MX-Stream is a high-end zero jitter audio optimized streamer and network bridge....
MikeH
Well-Known Member
So it’s essentially a Roon endpoint/network streamer? Curious what this does that others similar items don’t do?It looks like musical fidelity might have come in with exactly what I’ve been waiting for!
Plus being the half sized MX range it should happily sit on a shelf with, and match, my MX-VYNL. Time to get saving…
Musical Fidelity | MX-Stream Streaming Music System
MX-Stream | Streaming Music System The MX-Stream is a high-end zero jitter audio optimized streamer and network bridge....
It is. It seems incredibly similar to the pro-ject stream box in that it’s running off a raspberry pi compute module and a custom modified volumio distribution with a filtered usb output. That’s not surprising given who owns MF now.
I’ve been after an affordable usb output DSD capable streamer for a while. It’s surprising how few are actually in existence without home brewing it. The zen stream was the first real serious contender I’d had but it seems to have all sorts of issues with the software, although ifi seem very proactive in regularly updating it.
This also has the aesthetic advantage of exactly matching the component it’s going to sit beside, which although never critical is always nice! It’s also great to see Musical Fidelity move into this market, it had been a definite weak spot in their armoury until now.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
Didn’t realize that the output DSD was hard to find on a streamer. I assumed the issue had been that the DACs on them didn’t do DSD. Do you have a DAC now that does DSD or will you have to buy one of those too if you get this?
jamieanderson1968
Well-Known Member
Also looks like you can connect a monitor to it via hdmi which is pretty interesting.
No my DAC does DSD over DOP to USB so it’s all good. It also does native DAC over PS Audio spec I2S but I’ve completely given up on that and there is supposedly no audible difference to DOP because it becomes full DSD again once the DAC unpackages it.
Depends to be honest. The more you spend the more that comes into play but at this price point you were largely looking at stuff with a DAC built in and no USB output. Plus they tend to be more mass market things like the bluesound or sonos that just won’t touch DSD.
There was the more niche, like the SoTM, but they don’t have Irish distribution, no native Wi-Fi, and me and it did not get along.
The pro-ject, ifi and zen seem to be the beginning of more traditional hifi companies getting into streamers that exist separate to a amp/DAC.
Yeah volumio has allowed that for a while through pi’s, basically puts up the home page showing what’s playing. It also says that in the software you can completely disable that output if you don’t want to use it.
MikeH
Well-Known Member
I’m kinda surprised it has taken so long. The Aries mini does USB out to external DAC and does DSD. But I know that was kind of a loss leader and got killed. Surprised more don’t seem to have had USB out to use your own DAC.
Honestly bear in mind the price point. Not many big hifi manufacturers are even touching streamers at that level. Had I wanted to spend two or three grand if have had what I wanted years ago. At this level it had mostly been the blue sounds and sonos all in one units and they aren’t going to bother licensing DSD for a market that’s largely streaming Spotify, or at most Tidal to it.
I think the increasing viability of using a pi compute in your own custom audio PCB and volumio being increasingly more professional, offering custom builds and moving from its freeware routes had kinda finally made the margins begin to make sense.
Thackeraye
Well-Known Member
What's the price looking like with you? Saw an article here that says it would be $2,000 dollars-do's, which doesn't seem right?
It’s around the £750-800 mark which seems about right given what the smaller pro-ject s2 ultra goes for. It seems to share a lot with that, and then a few other bits too in its larger case.
Sounds like you’re being dealer gouged for import costs because that’s around $1300-1400 Aussie looking at the converter app!
Thackeraye
Well-Known Member
Happens here a lot, I think. Depends on the brand...
I'm trying to think of how I should do my portable setup.. I currently use an LG phone which is very solid as a dap but is showing its age as a phone from 2018, I plan on getting a newer phone in the coming months but the real question is whether I should use a dongle (whether a cheap one or a higher end one) and lose my ability to charge while watching YouTube or listening to music, go with a Bluetooth solution like the fiio btr5/qudelix 5k/ifi go blu and have the limitation of all my music being lossy even from lossless streams, or even look at a dap that can stream which would be more expensive and mean carrying 2 items and would still need something for my phone if just for Netflix. So I'm stuck in a rock and a hard place mostly due to the death of the headphone jack but also just not liking high latency or tons of bulk
jamieanderson1968
Well-Known Member
What about an iPhone with magsafe charging? That way you can charge and use the lighting port with a dongle dac at the same time
I actually haven't used an iPhone ever, I'm used to the ecosystem on Android (not to mention things like YouTube premium will now cost me more for no reason).. I kinda dunno if I'd enjoy the iOS experience, otherwise a good choice and the Apple dongle is apparently great
MikeH
Well-Known Member
I had a DAP and found myself hardly ever using it. It’s kind of a pain to have to carry around two devices.
Are there no android phones that have wireless charging now?
jamieanderson1968
Well-Known Member
There must be but most that I see are all requiring a wireless charging case, which then plugs into the usb port so you still lose access to it.
This is why I am still a DAP person. It lives in my bag. I find that even though I don't use it much lately, it holds a charge for a long time so it is ready to go.
I think the typical mobile music listener is going the bluetooth route so not need to plug in the headphones, sadly. Or at least that is what phone makers believe and want us to be.
Honestly, that’s the way I went a few years ago now. On a crowded tram with noise cancelling turned on no cable catching everywhere is just magnificent and CD quality is plenty. I’ll save the super high quality for at home when it’s just me and it’s nice and comfortable.