The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

Just pulled the trigger on eBay for an Oppo DV-980h that can play SACD and DVA-Audio. It is capable of outputting DSD over HDMI to my AVR receiver. I also have a Rasberry Pi and HiFiBerry DAC HAT in the mail. Hoping to improve my streaming quality and dusting off some CD's!
 
UPDATE:

Chromecast Audio arrived earlier today, got it connected to the HD-DAC1 with an Optical cable and set up. Streaming from Spotify Web is all set, boy some distinct sound differences from album to album with Spotify, I should take note of the transfer rate on the DAC and see how much it varies, I know their files are kind of all over the place. But the good ones are really nice, very pleased.

For local files we're going to use Plex, would be nice if you could incorporate Spotify to Plex, but it looks like they have an agreement with Tidal. So we're waiting for the locals to sync and we'll give them a go.

If I'm missing any tips or tricks that would be helpful, please toss them out :)
 
AnthonyI said:
UPDATE:

Chromecast Audio arrived earlier today, got it connected to the HD-DAC1 with an Optical cable and set up. Streaming from Spotify Web is all set, boy some distinct sound differences from album to album with Spotify, I should take note of the transfer rate on the DAC and see how much it varies, I know their files are kind of all over the place. But the good ones are really nice, very pleased.

For local files we're going to use Plex, would be nice if you could incorporate Spotify to Plex, but it looks like they have an agreement with Tidal. So we're waiting for the locals to sync and we'll give them a go.

If I'm missing any tips or tricks that would be helpful, please toss them out :)
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Nice! Having a good DAC/streaming set up is a bit of a game-changer. I forget--did you say you say you plan on testing Tidal/Qobuz at some point?
 
MikeH said:
Nice! Having a good DAC/streaming set up is a bit of a game-changer. I forget--did you say you say you plan on testing Tidal/Qobuz at some point?
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I have to admit, this is kind of nice. Plex just finished syncing my library, oddly enough it only missed one album that for the life of me I can't figure out why (Justin Townes Earle - Kids in the Street). But, Plex sounds really nice from my files and yes, I was thinking of giving Qobuz a go with their one month free.

Question while we're at it, I kind of figured Spotify would have to run from the web, but it seems Plex does as well. I originally just downloaded the desktop version, but it can't seem to find the Chromecast?
 
AnthonyI said:
I have to admit, this is kind of nice. Plex just finished syncing my library, oddly enough it only missed one album that for the life of me I can't figure out why (Justin Townes Earle - Kids in the Street). But, Plex sounds really nice from my files and yes, I was thinking of giving Qobuz a go with their one month free.

Question while we're at it, I kind of figured Spotify would have to run from the web, but it seems Plex does as well. I originally just downloaded the desktop version, but it can't seem to find the Chromecast?
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The chromecast doesn’t have any memory to store any programmes on it. You need another device to control/store the streams/files. It does natively transcode the file and stream from Spotify, as opposed to your computer/phone doing that and sending the audio to it, which is pretty cool for something so small and inexpensive and is the preferable way around.
 
Joe Mac said:
The chromecast doesn’t have any memory to store any programmes on it. You need another device to control/store the streams/files. It does natively transcode the file and stream from Spotify, as opposed to your computer/phone doing that and sending the audio to it which is pretty cool for something so small and inexpensive and is the preferable way around.
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I understand that, I think my mind was just going with "anything you can hear out of your PC speakers would be heard on the DAC", but that's not the case. Whatever needs to be able to cast, which needs to be "connected", so I get it now. It's all good, 6 of one, half dozen of the other, lol.

Overall, very pleased, thanks for putting up with me gents ;)
 
AnthonyI said:
I understand that, I think my mind was just going with "anything you can hear out of your PC speakers would be heard on the DAC", but that's not the case. Whatever needs to be able to cast, which needs to be "connected", so I get it now. It's all good, 6 of one, half dozen of the other, lol.

Overall, very pleased, thanks for putting up with me gents ;)
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You can do that too if you google there are software solutions...

that said, for music I’d stick with casting the individual files from within the apps!

it’s great that you’re enjoying your venture over to the dark side, digital can be great for discovery and a bit of inexpensive fun on the side!
 
Anyone else been having issues with hifiberry os? It’s been a pig with me for about a month now. Anyway I found out that volumio now has a roonbridge plugin so I’ve swapped back to volumio (was always my fav of the music os for pi) and my little streamer is working like a charm again so finally listening to the new Dylan for the first time!
 
Thought this would be appropriate to post here--Bleep is having a sale on all Warp digital titles. 30% off digital (20% off CD, 10% off vinyl) and if you buy 10 digital releases at any quality, it's only $35. Use code: WARPHOMELISTENING at checkout for the sale prices.

Warp Home Listening Music Sale

Bleep - We specialise in independent and innovative music regardless of genre or format. Working with labels and artists around the globe, we bring you a hand-picked selection of music for your ears and your feet.
bleep.com bleep.com
 
MikeH said:
Thought this would be appropriate to post here--Bleep is having a sale on all Warp digital titles. 30% off digital (20% off CD, 10% off vinyl) and if you buy 10 digital releases at any quality, it's only $35. Use code: WARPHOMELISTENING at checkout for the sale prices.

Warp Home Listening Music Sale

Bleep - We specialise in independent and innovative music regardless of genre or format. Working with labels and artists around the globe, we bring you a hand-picked selection of music for your ears and your feet.
bleep.com bleep.com
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Yeah, I used that recently to pick up a bunch of albums in FLAC for a few bucks an album- great deal!
 
MikeH said:
Thought this would be appropriate to post here--Bleep is having a sale on all Warp digital titles. 30% off digital (20% off CD, 10% off vinyl) and if you buy 10 digital releases at any quality, it's only $35. Use code: WARPHOMELISTENING at checkout for the sale prices.

Warp Home Listening Music Sale

Bleep - We specialise in independent and innovative music regardless of genre or format. Working with labels and artists around the globe, we bring you a hand-picked selection of music for your ears and your feet.
bleep.com bleep.com
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Wow, thanks for this, what a great deal.
 
AnthonyI said:
Is the "discount" on DLs worth it on Qobuz +Sublime?

Giving the Free trial a go at the moment.
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I don't buy anything on Qobuz...I typically buy CDs to rip, use redacted for downloads or I just stream via Qobuz. If you buy a lot of high res downloads, it might be worth it (I think the discounts are pretty big--30-60% off?). But I hardly buy downloads anymore.

I believe streaming quality is the same. I have the studio premier plan.
 
AnthonyI said:
Is the "discount" on DLs worth it on Qobuz +Sublime?

Giving the Free trial a go at the moment.
Click to expand...

Not really, it would be if you were going fully digital for your music as things like box sets aren’t typically available on qobuz streaming so it’s nice to have the option to dl at a lower price. As vinyl is your primary music listening method and I’m guessing you’re using steaming for discovery, less so!
 
Joe Mac said:
Not really, it would be if you were going fully digital for your music as things like box sets aren’t typically available on qobuz streaming so it’s nice to have the option to dl at a lower price. As vinyl is your primary music listening method and I’m guessing you’re using steaming for discovery, less so!
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To piggy back on this, if you wanted to buy a bunch of high-res all at once, I believe you could theoretically just do a one month of the sublime membership and buy what you want at a pretty significant discount. Their prices with discount seem pretty cheap.
 
MikeH said:
To piggy back on this, if you wanted to buy a bunch of high-res all at once, I believe you could theoretically just do a one month of the sublime membership and buy what you want at a pretty significant discount. Their prices with discount seem pretty cheap.
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Yeah potentially, but it seems to me like something for someone who uses digital files as their primary sources. Stream stuff you like and buy stuff you love/want to support the artist. Also certain things like Dylan Bootleg Series are only available as files, not to stream.
 
Joe Mac said:
Yeah potentially, but it seems to me like something for someone who uses digital files as their primary sources. Stream stuff you like and buy stuff you love/want to support the artist. Also certain things like Dylan Bootleg Series are only available as files, not to stream.
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Oh yea--agree with you there. I have a mix of downloads + streaming. I download stuff that's not on Qobuz or if I want very specific CD rips of albums. Otherwise, Qobuz has mostly everything on it. I have also found that they do not have compilations/movie soundtracks a lot of the time available for streaming.
 
Thanks for the feedback, it was really just a dollars and cents question, I'm not going all digital or even remotely heavy into DL's. Again, was just curious, I will agree with @MikeH on ripping CD's, our library has a huge and pretty above average CD section of music, so we'll most likely be grabbing some place holders and the such when they open full force again.
 
AnthonyI said:
Thanks for the feedback, it was really just a dollars and cents question, I'm not going all digital or even remotely heavy into DL's. Again, was just curious, I will agree with @MikeH on ripping CD's, our library has a huge and pretty above average CD section of music, so we'll most likely be grabbing some place holders and the such when they open full force again.
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I wish my library had CDs! I have a crazy shop near me that sells all CDs for $2 though and they have a pretty good selection. I might start going there more often when they open back up...
 
So a few things on what's going on in the streaming front. Love the set up, happy I ended up pursuing it :)

Been using Spotify (Have a premium account), trying out Qobuz on a free month and using Plex for local files. So what I've noticed is that with Qobuz my streams get interrupted if I'm doing something on my PC, it's really weird. The sound quality is great, no complaints there, the library is pretty beefy as well. When using Spotify, I don't get any "glitches" while working, and the sound is just fine, I'm finding that my streaming habit truly is for discovery so I think we're just going to stick to Spotify and forgo an additional expense.

As for the Chromecast connection, it's sometimes a little wonky, it'll disconnect for no apparent reason and I have to close the actual web window and start over for it to connect, not sure what's up there, not happening enough to be overly annoying though. I'm kind of half thinking about taking my Windows tablet and connecting it via USB and leave it by the system to use as a control device.........I could always remote into the tablet as well to control it.

All a work in progress, lol
 
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