The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

A minor victory.

Just remembered that my NAS has a music app, and it allows me to Chromecast. Means I can send files saved on my NAS to my amp. The Chromecast audio puck has been in my system for ages, but I’ve never really used it.

It’s far from perfect - the UI is clunky, I’d sorts album tracks alphabetically by default, you have to reconnect to the cast each time you change an album. It’s also not gapless, and I’m with Darko on this!

As a stopgap it’s fine, but I definitely want a better solution to allow me to use my digital files to the full.
 
Angsty said:
Very curious about building a Mini Mac set-up. I'm contemplating one now dedicated to music in order to move music files off of my shared family iMac. @romany - how would you recommend I get started? Would love the insights of others as well.
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After a fair bit of research, I am using a dedicated mini Mac running Qobuz through Audirvana to my DAC, and am very happy with the results and interface.
 
Hey digital gurus, question for y'all. So I finally have to replace my 4 year old Samsung S10 phone, it's the last of their phones that had a headphone jack. So I'm stuck now going to a phone without a jack and getting a Usb C to Mini dongle. My plan is to get a ALO Audio Pilot which has a ESS Sabre 9281cPro DAC in it. It can do high res and MQA. I predominantly stream and use downloaded albums via Tidal. My question is, does the actual quality of the phone itself matter when the files are all just being converted by the external DAC? Is the phone actually doing any processing when the audio is being taken from the USB C? I'm assuming that's a digital port? Or is this a situation where the phone is converting the file with its own inferior DAC before it leaves the USB C port? I wouldn't think so because then the external DAC would be pointless yes, as the file would have already been converted? Help?
 
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Mather said:
Hey digital gurus, question for y'all. So I finally have to replace my 4 year old Samsung S10 phone, it's the last of their phones that had a headphone jack. So I'm stuck now going to a phone without a jack and getting a Usb C to Mini dongle. My plan is to get a ALO Audio Pilot which has a ESS Sabre 9281cPro DAC in it. It can do high res and MQA. I predominantly stream and use downloaded albums via Tidal. My question is, does the actual quality of the phone itself matter when the files are all just being converted by the external DAC? Is the phone actually doing any processing when the audio is being taken from the USB C? I'm assuming that's a digital port? Or is this a situation where the phone is converting the file with its own inferior DAC before it leaves the USB C port? I wouldn't think so because then the external DAC would be pointless yes as the file would have already been converted? Help?
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As I understand it, a USB-C audio device on Android gets the audio complete, and it doesn't get converted at all until your DAC gets that stream. I usually listen to my phone with a USB-C cable plugged directly into my Sennheiser headphones, and the headphones do the digital to audio conversion. (Looking at the info Poweramp gives me about audio processing, this is what it looks like.) I may be wrong, but I think when using the USB connection, it won't matter much how fancy the phone is.
 
LeSamourai said:
As I understand it, a USB-C audio device on Android gets the audio complete, and it doesn't get converted at all until your DAC gets that stream. I usually listen to my phone with a USB-C cable plugged directly into my Sennheiser headphones, and the headphones do the digital to audio conversion. (Looking at the info Poweramp gives me about audio processing, this is what it looks like.) I may be wrong, but I think when using the USB connection, it won't matter much how fancy the phone is.
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This is what I thought as well but the snooty sales guy at the local snooty Hi Fi shop was all: "Well OF COURSE the phone matters I mean it's the thing PLAYING the MUSIC."
And I was all: "I do NOT think you KNOW what the FUCK you are TALKING about."
As long as the phone is downloading and streaming the full band MQA high res files in digital it should just be passing that directly on through the USB C. The phone shouldn't matter at all.
 
Mather said:
This is what I thought as well but the snooty sales guy at the local snooty Hi Fi shop was all: "Well OF COURSE the phone matters I mean it's the thing PLAYING the MUSIC."
And I was all: "I do NOT think you KNOW what the FUCK you are TALKING about."
As long as the phone is downloading and streaming the full band MQA high res files in digital it should just be passing that directly on through the USB C. The phone shouldn't matter at all.
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I suppose there could be an argument that cheaper electronics may be more likely to add jitter or noise so perhaps if you’re mega crazy but it’s not something I’ve come across even with the little lightening dongle DAC apple bundles so I’m sure if you’re using a fancy external DAC that it’ll be grand.
 
Joe Mac said:
I suppose there could be an argument that cheaper electronics may be more likely to add jitter or noise so perhaps if you’re mega crazy but it’s not something I’ve come across even with the little lightening dongle DAC apple bundles so I’m sure if you’re using a fancy external DAC that it’ll be grand.
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Awesome, that's what I'd hoped. I'm not worried about jitter I just want the fancy DAC to do the work. I'm a little concerned about the dongle in my pocket walking around all day, that it might end up trashing the USB C plug, but there's really no other option with all the effing phone companies removing the damned headphone jacks.
 
Mather said:
Hey digital gurus, question for y'all. So I finally have to replace my 4 year old Samsung S10 phone, it's the last of their phones that had a headphone jack. So I'm stuck now going to a phone without a jack and getting a Usb C to Mini dongle. My plan is to get a ALO Audio Pilot which has a ESS Sabre 9281cPro DAC in it. It can do high res and MQA. I predominantly stream and use downloaded albums via Tidal. My question is, does the actual quality of the phone itself matter when the files are all just being converted by the external DAC? Is the phone actually doing any processing when the audio is being taken from the USB C? I'm assuming that's a digital port? Or is this a situation where the phone is converting the file with its own inferior DAC before it leaves the USB C port? I wouldn't think so because then the external DAC would be pointless yes, as the file would have already been converted? Help?
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I just took a chance on a pair of Nura True Pros on Kickstarter which are claiming to be the first pair of Lossless Wireless Buds. Don’t know if that’s of any interest of you but thought I’d chime in in case it saves you all the dongle and cord drama. Always been impressed by Nura products
 
Ghost said:
I just took a chance on a pair of Nura True Pros on Kickstarter which are claiming to be the first pair of Lossless Wireless Buds. Don’t know if that’s of any interest of you but thought I’d chime in in case it saves you all the dongle and cord drama. Always been impressed by Nura products
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I already bought these but thank you for the heads up!IO-Backs-for-Web-1400x1400.png1-Main-Pic-4.jpg
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I am not an android user so I could be totally wrong, but depending which app you are using it may down sample it before handing off to the USB dac.

darko.audio

Tidal is quietly rolling out a bit-perfect Android app | Darko.Audio

Resampling be gone!
darko.audio darko.audio
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I am using Tidal so in theory it should work since that article is from last year. But admittedly I don't currently have any way to determine if it's actually outputting it. But I'm currently using a headphone jack so I suppose it wouldn't be a issue currently. The DAC I'm getting actually has a light that tells you what bitrate it's playing at so I guess we'll find out!
 
Mather said:
I am using Tidal so in theory it should work since that article is from last year. But admittedly I don't currently have any way to determine if it's actually outputting it. But I'm currently using a headphone jack so I suppose it wouldn't be a issue currently. The DAC I'm getting actually has a light that tells you what bitrate it's playing at so I guess we'll find out!
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My Helm Bolt has different coloured LEDs fro different bit rates and I have not seen it be incorrect (using an iphone)
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
My Helm Bolt has different coloured LEDs fro different bit rates and I have not seen it be incorrect (using an iphone)
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I'd rather get a cheaper dongle but I need one that does MQA even though obviously MQA is a bit of a crock. But it's the best quality on Tidal and a lot of DAC dongles can't decode it unfortunately. Although I see that yours does, similar price to the one I'm looking at... I'll check it out thanks!
 
The Samsung wireless ear buds are great for what they are functionally. Similar to ibuds or whatever they are called.
I don't have a DAC in my wireless chain. I just use Qobuz app direct when I am streaming music from the cell to ear buds/car/boat/etc. This might not even be helpful for your question.

The rest of the time the Bluesound app feeds the Node to Amp/DAC at home.
 
Jbraswell said:
The Samsung wireless ear buds are great for what they are functionally. Similar to ibuds or whatever they are called.
I don't have a DAC in my wireless chain. I just use Qobuz app direct when I am streaming music from the cell to ear buds/car/boat/etc. This might not even be helpful for your question.

The rest of the time the Bluesound app feeds the Node to Amp/DAC at home.
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Yeah we don't have Qobuz in Canada, I'm not sure what the deal is with high res over Bluetooth, but with my love for cables I'll likely never find out.
 
Jbraswell said:
Are you trying to use a phone as the interface to your home DAC?
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No no, just listening to Tidal on my phone but new phone has no headphone jack. So looking for the best highest quality option, hence the DAC dongle out of the USB C port.
 
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