They are like any other product on the market. If you have any DIY ability, you can get pretty dang good results. For example, you can get a Raspberry Pi streamer going for under $100. Fancy up the power supply for a bit more. Then add your preferred DAC and choose one of the many available operating system/player software programs (many free), add the DAC of your choice and you're off to the races. Bryston even thinks enough of the RPi to use it as the basis for their $1,500 streamer.
If you like pretty boxes, and high-end names on your gear, then you are going to pay a lot more. But that is also true of most of the non-audio products in the world. You can usually find a pretty good item that does a good job at a reasonable price, or you can go high-end for a lot more money.
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That's the way it is in 2020. |
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Keep thinking Raspberry Pi is nirvana... it isn’t. You get what you pay for with the Pi streamers.
I have a nice used once Allo Digione Signature you can buy if anyone insists on being a pi-phile.
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The soon to be released Sonore microRendu is $399 (sans power supply), but you already know this. Hardly overpriced. If the sound quality is even close (I expect it will be) to their previous generation it will be outstanding and not questionable at all. And it’s not exactly a pretty box! |
I couldn't get the micoRendu to play anything and neither could any of the morons at Small Green Crapbox.
It should be sold strictly for Roon.
At least the one they sent me was worthless otherwise.
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A shame about the lack of proper support for your mRendu. Fortunately, I've had the opposite experience from Sonore. In fact, Jesus went out of his way to help me with a control/library app (Rigelian) when the developer of the app offered little. |
False. Plenty of extremely cheap streamers available from Chromecast Audio to Pi. Lots of extremely affordable options. |
Melvinjames, you’ve got some pretty impressive connections in Tech Support. I invoked Moses to help me with my streamer but he was busy with the Jewish Holidays....
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Try a DAP with USB audio out, you will be pleasantly surprised |
I agree with Thyname further anyone happy with the prices and satisfied with playback performance that’s great . Developing ever better playback performance is passion driven which obviously needs to have incentives like earning money at the same time.
I wouldn’t think about complaining about a $5.00 Starbucks coffee telling the waiter that I can make the same cup of coffee for pennies at home likewise of a great performing digital component you can build one yourself with off the shelf parts if you choose to do so , me no thanks I’ll go the other route . |
melvinjames
Impressive for sure. At least SOtM and Metrum will allow you to download and reflash. If SGC even had the OS on the cloud, Jesus R. did not bother to offer it.
All he did is ask where I bought it and what powered supply I was using. When I replied "from them" aid "theirs" he went silent. Big effin help.
I actually ordered a 7v LPS that hadn't arrived yet. Now I have no use for it.
You want technical support, go to Dominik in Austria or Rob in Holland.
They’ll probably help you get your car started. |
How can I improve on a roon nucleus if I do it myself? Why don’t others sell similar standalone units? Either DIY or buy a nucleus nothing in between. |
Fuzztone your comments of lousy support from Small Green Computers seems typical of some of these clowns 🤡 in the business .
A friend spent a few thousand dollars with SGC had a small issue when he took delivery of the components he contacted them and received a curt response he then immediately sold it to never deal with them again . |
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Yep, most DAC/Streamers never show the <<guts>> and if we follow Kevin Deal's advice,,never buy anything unless you can take a close inspection of the guts.
A policy I personally follow long before I heard Kevin make mention.
Besides many of these DAC/Streamers are so tiny, and weigh in at ounzes, hardly more than a few lbs.
Look at Kenin Deals PL DAC/CD player, weighs in at over 28 lbs!!!!!!
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As i menioned before i never fell for the DAC/Streamer thing.
I'm old school, from LP days, so the cd medium suits me perfect.
I am about to makea YT vid showing off the cayin CD17 Mark 1 vs the Shanling 3000, once the upgrades on the Shanling are complete,,maybe 2 weeks.
parts are in , just waiting for Richard Gray to find the time.
Honestly I'm guessing the upgraded Shanling is going to edge out the Cayin, but both are built like tanks and both highly musical Digital players. |
Look inside a Lumin streamer or streamer/DAC... Nice Broadcast quality technology... Lets see you build something of this quality... Design, simulation, layout, circuit boards, parts selection, build, software, test and box... Yea, didn’t think so...
And how hard can it be to build a PC today... Case - fans, fanless or liquid cooled, Power Supply, Motherboard with Ethernet and USB, CPU overclocked and/or delided, Memory, Rotating and/or Solid State Disk, Graphics Processor or two and an Operating System... Done... Or buy a NUC... |
Ddude003 you won’t find too many building their own streamers / servers here on Audiogon however there’s technical based audio sites where you’ll find a wealth of information shared on how to by some technically savvy dudes .
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"Melvinjames, you’ve got some pretty impressive connections in Tech Support. I invoked Moses to help me with my streamer but he was busy with the Jewish Holidays...."
Couldn't stop giggling! |
I agree, somewhat.
I enjoy using a Roon Nucleus Plus server. I could have gotta a maxed out Intel NUC and installed the Roon software and probably saved some coin. But I didn't want to mess with that. As well, the Roon version of that seems really upgraded, and the USB ports are "dead quiet". So, I probably did spend more than I could have, building a server myself, but ended up with more time to enjoy the music. |
in_shore, I was being facetious... Anyone, can build a server or streamer on their kitchen table in a few hours... Anything from $99.00 on up... Its just a bunch of parts tossed into a box isn’t it... ;^)
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My experience with Small Green Computers has been just the opposite. I was getting some issues while running Qobuz on Sonore opticalRendu, so I contacted them. I got a reply from Andrew and Jesus within a couple of hours. We exchanged 7-8 emails on the issue. The issue was eventually resolved -- turned out to be a problem with my internet connection. |
