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Over the past weeks I have been looking at improving my room rig. I was running there a Powernode 2i (which surprised me in its quality) and a pair of Fyne Audio F302 floorstands. As I mentioned in another post on this forum, I recieved last week an Allo Volt + D amp which left me surprised how good it was. Yesterday I received a Topping D50s to which I connected a CCA on OPT. I could not A/B both setups properly (took too long to switch between the two), but the gap in SQ was clear. The D50s and the Volt + (that cost less than half the price of the Powernode 2i) deliver better separation, better clarity and more depth. The powernode is retired for now. 

 

I am now trying to find an alternative to CCA. I have a collection of FLACs that is slowly growing and am looking to buy more albums in hires. Am a bit irritated that CCA cannot handle 24/192 files and outputs them at 48khz. I need a streamer that can support Deezer Hifi which reduces my choice by quite a lot. I was thinking of getting a mini pc and run Linux/Win on it with Deezer desktop (in Linux was thinking of testing the Nuvola player which seems to support Deezer hifi). My only doubt is the result I will get. What I read in the different forums is that CCA is actually not bad at all on the OPT output, so looking for advice from other users who hopefully went that route already? 

 

 

 

 

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52 minutes ago, al2813 said:

Over the past weeks I have been looking at improving my room rig. I was running there a Powernode 2i (which surprised me in its quality) and a pair of Fyne Audio F302 floorstands. As I mentioned in another post on this forum, I recieved last week an Allo Volt + D amp which left me surprised how good it was. Yesterday I received a Topping D50s to which I connected a CCA on OPT. I could not A/B both setups properly (took too long to switch between the two), but the gap in SQ was clear. The D50s and the Volt + (that cost less than half the price of the Powernode 2i) deliver better separation, better clarity and more depth. The powernode is retired for now. 

 

I am now trying to find an alternative to CCA. I have a collection of FLACs that is slowly growing and am looking to buy more albums in hires. Am a bit irritated that CCA cannot handle 24/192 files and outputs them at 48khz. I need a streamer that can support Deezer Hifi which reduces my choice by quite a lot. I was thinking of getting a mini pc and run Linux/Win on it with Deezer desktop (in Linux was thinking of testing the Nuvola player which seems to support Deezer hifi). My only doubt is the result I will get. What I read in the different forums is that CCA is actually not bad at all on the OPT output, so looking for advice from other users who hopefully went that route already? 

 

 

 

 

I had heard about LMS and ickstream for lossless transmission, but unfortuntely ickstream had been shut down:
Looks like your "problem" starts with Deezer's support of devices, though they have a list of compatible systems available: https://www.deezer.com/en/devices/soundsystems
A BS Node 2i as a streamer with coax out only seems to be the closest option ... ?
good luck, DT

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3 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

I had heard about LMS and ickstream for lossless transmission, but unfortuntely ickstream had been shut down:
Looks like your "problem" starts with Deezer's support of devices, though they have a list of compatible systems available: https://www.deezer.com/en/devices/soundsystems
A BS Node 2i as a streamer with coax out only seems to be the closest option ... ?
good luck, DT

 

Hi, you are totally right. My pain is Deezer and their lack of appetite to integrate with UPNP/DLNA type solutions. I considered going back to Qobuz, but my issue is the catalogues. Deezer has pretty much the same coverage as Spotify in terms of geographies and genres that are very neglected both by Qobuz and Tidal. Obviously this is very personal, but for my music taste, Deezer is the only losless option 😞

 

I asked Qobuz to look at expanding their catalogue (especially Israeli music which they ignore completely), but received a polite thanks but no thanks response. 

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Not sure what your issue is here, given the Topping D50 has a USB audio input in addition to the optical one that you've connected the CCA to. Couldn't you just continue using the CCA for Deezer HiFi and get yourself a Raspberry Pi based streamer for your hi-res files via the D50's USB audio input?

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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1 minute ago, Cebolla said:

Not sure what your issue is here, given the Topping D50 has a USB audio input in addition to the optical one that you've connected the CCA to. Couldn't you just continue using the CCA for Deezer HiFi and get yourself a Raspberry Pi based streamer for your hi-res files via the D50's USB audio input?

 

Obviously I was looking for a one stop shop, but your point is excellent. I will order a PI and go that way for now. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am starting to get quite exasperated about this one. I managed to get my hands on a cheap second hand Mac mini. Took the Audirvana trial for one month and set it up on the USB port of my DS50s. Playing FLACs from my NAS and A/Bing with my Chromecast Audio playing the same music of my NAS (using DS Audio), the difference is significant. The music from the mini over USB is cleaner and more detailed. Now I am really in trouble. I cannot find a good way (and I tried) to get Deezer going on the mini and controlling this from my smart phone/tablet. Was even considering going back to Qobuz but then a chunk of my Deezer playlists disappear....

 

back to square one. 

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Could DS Audio be doing 'something' to the audio that's being streamed by the CCA? Certainly not the same music unless you can be certain. May be you should try streaming from the NAS by more transparent means such as using MinimServer as the UPnP/DLNA media server and the BubbleUPnP Android app for control. All transcoding settings are optional & have to be manually set with those applications.

 

BTW, did you try A/Bing the Mac Mini with what you last appeared to have decided to keep the CCA for, ie, Deezer streaming. You seemed to be happy with the sound of the CCA into the DS50 when streaming from Deezer compared to the Powernode.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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50 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

Could DS Audio be doing 'something' to the audio that's being streamed by the CCA? Certainly not the same music unless you can be certain. May be you should try streaming from the NAS by more transparent means such as using MinimServer as the UPnP/DLNA media server and the BubbleUPnP Android app for control. All transcoding settings are optional & have to be manually set with those applications.

 

BTW, did you try A/Bing the Mac Mini with what you last appeared to have decided to keep the CCA for, ie, Deezer streaming. You seemed to be happy with the sound of the CCA into the DS50 when streaming from Deezer compared to the Powernode.

 

It could well be. I’ll get that setup. I have an issue with testing streaming Deezer as I do not have a screen connected to the Mac mini in my room where the setup resides. I can bring one there but in principal the Mac mini needs to run headless. 

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4 hours ago, al2813 said:

 

It could well be. I’ll get that setup. I have an issue with testing streaming Deezer as I do not have a screen connected to the Mac mini in my room where the setup resides. I can bring one there but in principal the Mac mini needs to run headless. 

At least you now know the CCA is crap and can move on. Apparently Deezer are introducing a remote solution later this year:

https://en.deezercommunity.com/other-devices-49/control-other-devices-on-wifi-690

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6 hours ago, Rexp said:

At least you now know the CCA is crap and can move on. Apparently Deezer are introducing a remote solution later this year:

https://en.deezercommunity.com/other-devices-49/control-other-devices-on-wifi-690

 

Not sure where you see that Deezer is introducing a remote solution. I cannot see this confirmed anywhere in this thread nor in the French equivalent thread where I am also active (Deezer being French have a more active French user forum). At the moment Deezer are clear showing this is not a high priority. Furthermore, looking at the French thread it seems there were talks with Audirvana (also French) about an integration and Deezer pulled out. Would love to be proven wrong, but it is what it is...

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This evening I A/Bed the Mac mini with Deezer desktop into USB of the Topping D50s against the CCA In OPT. Again the mini wins and that without any tweaking done. This is a useable solution for now. I control the headless mini using VNC viewer on my iPad. 
 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wanted to go back to this as I propobably did an injustice to the CCA. This little remarkable thing has quite a lot going for it. 

So I am now feeding the CCA with a simple power bank. This had a real and noticeable impact on SQ. I am now hardly noticing the difference with a USB digital source. So key lesson - do not power the CCA with the delivered USB power socket. 

 

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