What’s your budget?
Digital music questions
I'm somewhat new to hi res digital audio and I'm looking for some tips. I have been building my system and have purchased McIntosh c2700, which has a DAC built in, a 462 amp, and B&W 802d4s. Using Apple Music, I have been streaming music through a Macbook Pro via a USB cable to the DAC of the c2700 preamp.
The McIntosh preamp states the streaming quality is 44.1 kHz, which seem to be the low end of high-res streaming. I currently have so many subscriptions, including Sirius XM for the cars and Apple Music for my family, and more recently Nugs for concerts, (not to mention video subscriptions...seems it never ends), so I was hoping not to add another paid subscription.
That being said, am I leaving a lot on the table? Would a dedicated streamer sound a lot better than the Macbook Pro? Are there streamers without DACs, so I can use the McIntosh DAC without purchasing redundant equipment? I understand I cannot use Apple Music to get high res audio to the preamp, as they only provide it through Apple equipment at this time. Can I get a streamer that uses the DAC of the c2700 preamp? Finally, do I then need to add another subscription, such as Tidal or Qobuz, to get high res audio?
Thanks....it's a lot of questions, but I'm sure someone here can help!
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Thank you for the responses. ghdprentice, can you help me understand, if the MacBook is sending a digital file, comprised of bits (0s, 1s), why would the streamer make so much of a difference? Isn't the digital file the same regardless of the source? I'm trying to left brain this, it just isn't making sense the way there can be such a difference in speaker quality or amplifiers, for instance. Asking with all sincerity. Anyone else can chime in. Next question, dealing with a little sticker shock, is the Aurender N200 at $6300 really THAT much better than, say, a Bluesound? Fuzztone, can you let me know brands / models? thyname, the issue with Apple Music (I love the interface), is that I understand you cannot stream hi-res unless it's through the apple produce, wired; ie not bluetooth, and there are incompatibilities that make it only cd-quality when going through, say a Bluesound or Sonos or other streamer. Soix, not sure of budget, but don't really want to spend several thousand unless I'm really convinced of the superiority of it. That's why I'm posing the question above. I was hoping to be in the $1000 range, for instance, or maybe a little higher, but the Aurender N200 is quite costly!! |
Good God yes!
I think most of us probably started this journey thinking very similarly because it’s eminently logical, but just like jitter was a relative unknown when CDs first came out, things we didn’t know initially can turn out to be very consequential and even critical. For dedicated streamers, a lot of the difference can come down to reduced noise (probably the biggest issue and the single biggest problem with using an extremely noisy computer as a source), clocking, power supply, and overall parts quality. If you pursue streaming further you’ll quickly learn that every single thing matters and almost always matters A LOT. I’ll share my own example where several years ago I started running a high-quality all silver USB connection from my iPad/iPhone to my DAC, then I compared the same recordings between my budget CD transport and streaming through Qobuz and the transport was undeniably superior, and at that point I was pretty damn depressed. So I reached out to the fine folks here and the overwhelming consensus was I needed to get a dedicated streamer, so that’s what I did and picked up an iFi Zen Stream for a relatively paltry $400 and BLAM — right away my streaming quality leapfrogged my CD transport by a huge margin. Point being, moving from a noisy computer to even a relatively modest dedicated streamer will be a significant upgrade, and once you do that I’d also strongly suggest you do a free Qobuz trial as it’ll be far superior to Apple Music and there’s also a ton of music in high-res as well. I know you’re hesitant to take on another subscription, but at least you can try it and then decide if it’s worth it. I’ll just say some things are just worth paying for. A couple very good streamers you can consider in the $1000 price range are the Eversolo dmp A6 and the Innuos Pulse Mini — the A6 has more features but Innuos is more established and offers excellent customer support and the highly-regarded Sense app interface that’s constantly being upgraded for sound and usability. Sorry to drone on, but there’s a lot to consider here and a huge amount of sonic benefits to be had with some very worthwhile effort. Hope this helps, and best of luck.
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@cmb13 : I sense you are questioning stuff, rather than asking questions. I hope I am wrong.
Then just get a Bluesound. It will most certainly be better than a noisy general purpose computer used for streaming audio like your MacBook
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- 58 posts total