Streaming Services


Hello, Folks -

In an attempt to (somewhat) get with the times, I am incorporating streaming as a source in my audio system.

In my research I’ve seen that sound quality varies among the providers.

I’m looking for a provider suggestion. A service that you feel has high sound quality.

For the most part this would be for classical music. Some classic rock and jazz would be a plus.

I’m a fuddy duddy with my equipment and am not looking to change anything out. What I have:

Conrad Johnson HD3 USB DAC

Conrad Johnson Premier 16LS Preamp

Conrad Johnson Premier 12 Mono Block Power Amps

Vandersteen Quattro Loudspeakers

PGS interconnects

MacBook Pro

Any suggestions/recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much for reading my post.

Regards,

Randy

 

rbschauman

@ghdprentice  why would tidal work and Qobuz didn't work when my internet speed was slowed down for a few hours?

I use Amazon.  Qobuz is 10.95 I think.  I can't move all my music that I picked out..I tried Qobuz and found no difference.  At the time , they had 60 million songs.  All songs are at least 16/44.1.  You will want to run Cat 6 or higher or optical.  You will find all kinds of albums you always wanted to hear or new music.

Seeing all these responses is wonderful. This is all new to me and I have been given a lot to go from - thank you everyone! I'm sure others will benefit as well.

I will share that I just bought this Conrad Johnson HD3 USB DAC because it is the same brand as my other electronics (see original post that began this thread + I also have Conrad Johnson DV2B Tube CD player). I thought this could get me going with streaming. CJ puts it this way for this DAC  "The HD3 is an audiophile grade digital to analog converter for use with a computer based audio source". 

This DAC only has a USB input.

Silly Question: Are there Streamers that can connect to a USB only device like this?

Thank you!

If you have a good DAC consider a dacless streamer, I have had and or borrowed several, the best sounding was the Stack Link however this had an awful app and refused to work in a mac environment, even the dealer couldn't make it work. OK was a Sonore Microrendu but too many drop outs, same with iFi Streamer it had DAC compatibility issues, Pro Ject was quite awful, more expensive ones were OK but no better than the Lindemann Limetree  Bridge I have now,

My MacBook can output an optical signal out of the headphone jack.  There’s a lot of respectable DACs on the used market for reasonable prices, you could get one that handles that optical input signal—Bryston BDA-1 perhaps?  Sending the signal over optical would isolate that electrical noise generating by the laptop.

I don’t recommend, although they have lossless available their selection doesn’t stack up.