Re: streaming recommendations for newbie

anotherbob

I want an award for guessing he meant $500. I somehow thought is was Australian slang. I see it’s a Vegas term, in any case, I guessed right! What do I get?

I think almost anything is good enough to start and find out if you will stick with something, then upgrade after experience and research.

I agree, separates for future changes.

Based on suggestions here, I bought an inexpensive Topping

topping dac, $100.

for usb out of my PC, made a big improvement, certainly good enough for me. That’s just my office, music videos. I don’t stream elsewhere.

I will say, my friend bought a streamer and dac after lots of research, thought it was great.

I visited him, we played LP’s of female voices we both liked, then streamed same. Access, convenience terrific, but sound was not good. Eva, Ella, Sarah, Annie, Fontella, Barbra and Donna, .... none of the women’s voices sounded ’right’.

He had to admit, he had not compared, he was just so thrilled with ’everything’ available, and he likes using his phone to do things, the opposite of me.

I just jumped into streaming and based on some recommendations in this forum, got the WiiM Pro Plus. $225. Super easy to set up and sounds good.  It easily connected to Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Music so I have almost unlimited music choices. 

Interesting and helpful chain - I have what might be an even more-basic question: I currently don’t stream but am considering expanding to Tidal. I play hi-res FLAC files from a laptop using JRiver through an entry-level Liberty DAC. What do I need to be able to stream hi-res music files? Any guidance appreciated!

I currently listen to mostly vinyl. When I do stream, I use blue tooth and the streaming that is built into my Marantz receiver . Please tell me how a streamer like the bluesound node is better for this.

@brottdwayne Using Bluetooth and your AVR are both greatly limiting your streaming sound quality. Bluetooth is a fairly low quality source with limited resolution and dynamics, and subscribing to something like Qobuz or Tidal (both of which offer free trial periods) will get you at least CD quality and a lot of music in high res. Your AVR, in addition to using cheap electronic components, is a hellaciously noisy environment for streaming, and noise is the arch enemy of better streaming sound. Standalone streamers go to great lengths to minimize noise (among many other things) that results in much better sound quality. Upgrading to a decent streamer and DAC or even a budget combo DAC/streamer along with a better subscription music service will bring you to an entirely higher-level streaming experience. Hope this brief summary answers at least some of your questions. By the way, do you have a separate system for vinyl listening? What’s the rest of your equipment in your 2-channel setup?