2. misc-audio
  3. 177460-166864

Offline Music Storage & Playback Recommendations

Really a 2 Question Post. Hoping for some good advise....and hoping I placed this in the right category...

I live in a very rural area, cell phone coverage is spotty, and my Wi-Fi is bleak (very bleak as in 2-4 mbps) when it works, so I have built a dedicated audio room (20' by 30') and have a nice "mid-fi" system. I have a Tidal account and have 5-6000 tracks downloaded to my phone which I can play in "offline" mode through my system as well as a large CD collection I often enjoy. So my system and listening environment is basically an offline system. (photos / gear all listed in my profile) 

Question 1) Recommendations for a very nice Music Storage component that I could burn all my CD's into which does not require wi-fi  to operate. Something like the Naim Uniti Core Music Server? It would be OK to have something that operated through an app?, but lack of wi-fi is the issue. 

Question 2) Currently I play a lot of music from my Tidal downloads on my phone, and I simply Bluetooth from my phone to my Marantz 8006 source then from the digital coax out through my Pontus II and out to the Luxman 509X My question is if I would see a significant SQ improvement running from my phone through a nice USB cable (Audioquest Coffee?) and going directly into the DAC vs Bluetooth??

Any Advise is appreciated!

carzmaguy88

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
7,646 posts
 

Very nice looking system. I highly recommend Aurender. I have tried lots of streaming solutions… Mac and PC based… none were good until I purchased a Aurlic Aries G2… then I found Aurender.

 

I own two an N100 and W20SE. I stream 95% of the time… and the Aurender is spectacular at making up for wifi deficiencies… but completely understand your situation. Most Aurender streamers have plenty of internal storage. You can just transfer your files to the internal storage. I cannot detect a difference between a red book CD, playing a file and streaming… well unless the streaming is of higher quality… very common on Qobuz.

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