2. digital
  3. 173588-109191

Digital Gear & Upgrade Question, What do I need?

Calling all Digital Gurus,

I currently have my library on a NAS drive connected to my network (all wired). It is feeding 2 systems into a PSA DSD and I access and control using various windows computers running JRiver. The SQ has been more than acceptable but I am sure it could be improved.

I have a third system at my work office, there I am also running JRiver but library is on a 1TB SSD drive and sent via BT. Again, works well enough but SQ could use improvement. I have been considering upgrading that system with a PSA DSD Jr and running through work network.

Now, perhaps it makes sense to upgrade my main system with better gear, so my questions are:

A- What gear is required (DAC, Music Server, whatever)

B- Recommendations

Would switching from JRiver to some software be worth it?

At work, I stream internet radio through the computer via BT receiver to pre. If I upgrade main system the PSA DSD (newer) would go to second system and unit that is there would to go work.

Budget is fairly open up to 10k but biggest bang for the buck is a plus

Rest of system is:

ARC 5se

Pass 260.8

Magnum Dynalab MD 809T

Shahinian Acoustics Hawks

 

 

SteveA

128x128stevea11757

Showing 1 response by yage

yage
400 posts
 

IMO, what you really want to get away from is streaming using Bluetooth, as that's most likely using lossy compression.

Personally, I use a Raspberry Pi with Volumio for streaming duties. I can cast from my phone (YouTube Music, Qobuz) via BubbleUPnP to the RPi. I also added a shared folder as a source which I can access through the browser-based interface. The bits get converted by a USB DAC.

If you'd like to experiment a little before buying a dedicated server and you're somewhat technically inclined, try installing Kodi (free open source) on a spare machine if you have one. It has similar functionality to Volumio but can run as a Windows app. Connect a USB DAC to the PC and hook the DAC up to your stereo. I use Kodi on a system based around a Mac mini.

 

Good luck!

More to discover