Streamer advice


Looking for a little advice on streamers---I'm currently working on a simple second system and want to connect a decent streamer with my home Wifi. I have a Sugden A21 Signature integrated and a pair of Tekton Lore References. I'm currently using my MacBook Pro via Ifi Zen V2 DAC for Spotify. I want to add a dedicated streamer and I'm considering the Blue Sound Node 2i or the Cambridge Audio CXN V2. Budget is $1500. Are there other streamers I could consider? The Cambridge is on sale now with $200 off so that's a little tempting. Thanks in advance.

bluorion

Showing 1 response by fuzztone

For that $$ I’d recommend the new Magna Mano-Farad combo. i2s and your choice of SPDIF with a world class PS. Bluesound is a good first streamer but you don’t need another DAC.

Why not just match up your iFi? With an iFi Elite PS (I have one on my Ras Pi) you’ll get better SQ than a Bluesound.

The mobile player apps for piCore Player/LMS are Orange Squeeze for Android and iPeng for iOS. I’ve only used the former but I know happy campers here with the latter. Magna are the only builders I know that will personally help with setup and any hiccups. It is much more preferable and 1Acustomizable than BluOS which I also have. I’ve found MoOde to be "mobile" unfriendly and buggy. Free Volumio formerly played Qobuz and Tidal with BubbleUPnP in front of it, but after the recent upgrade it doesn’t work for me any more. Free V. DOES NOT play them as Hans Beekhuyzen implies it does in a recent video. miniDSP and Pro-Ject offer custom Volumio builds that do stream them w/o a V. subscription but both of these benefit from PS upgrades to their wall warts, which are unnecessary with the Mano Ultra. LMS extensions play most streams like BluOS does except for Amazon Music with additions from Bandcamp and SoundCloud. It is preferable to me since you can turn off the stupid persistent queue.

I’ve heard good things about iFi Zen streamer but I don’t own one.

Good luck.