Thinking of taking the plunge.


Thinking of going into streaming. Any advice on equipment between 1 and 2000.00.

argee

Showing 1 response by rbautista

+1 on the Grace Digital Link.  It's a very good streamer for the price.  Amazon (U)HD has been a bit confusing on what it is streaming.  I've tried connecting my old Note 8 using USB output to my dac and bit rate is limited similar to the Grace Link.  24/44.  In the Grace+ app, I see MPEG4-ACC is being sent.  

I can Chromecast Qobuz to the Link with 16/44 (CD Quality) and sounds very good.  I have to listen harder to hear the difference with AMHD.  I've been trying to use 24/96 in Qobuz but not sure if it's my dac, Qobuz, or the Link causing the stutterring/static sound.  Grace Digital says it's not their device.  Qobuz says to increase the app cache to prevent stuttering.  The manufacturer of my dac is a bit responsive being an EU company.  

 

All in all, I would still recommend the Grace Link.  My next step would be to get a Raspberry Pi 4 since I've read that the usb out has significant improvement over the rpi3 where I wouldn't need the Allo Digione stack card.

 

I know in our hobby, 1's and 0's are bit different for us but working in IT I can't seem to spend the money on a $2k-4k streamer even though my DAC is $3k.  These new streamers are mini computers so I think a rpi4 would be just as good esepecially since I can use Roon or Volumio.