Advice for a streaming newbie

[DuckToller]

Welcome Richard to the Audiophile Style forums!

From another perspective, you may want to look at the Bluesound Vault 2i, i.e. 1099 GBP at Sevenoaks.
- CD Ripping
- Streamer
- NAS 
all included.

Going DIY, you naturally would prefer the separation of duties: NAS, Streamer, DAC for the basic needs, Controlled by mobile phone, computer or tablet. Ripping either at your computer or with the NAS.
- A NAS (that may store as well your private data like photos, videos, documents 
- A streamer (starting with RPi or ALLO, I have seen in an ad today that KHADAS, the producer of the stunning cheap & well tested Khadas Tone Board DAC, does offer that DAC plus VIM board (a SBC like the RPI) now in combination with VOLUMIO, without case and power unit at audiophonics.fr 270 Euro.  IN DIY you may need to make choices like nice case and expensive LPU, or use the standards at first.
- the DAC manages the task of converting the digital signal into an analogue audio stream for your Pre-amp/integrated amplifier. Pricerange 2 Euro to more than 40 k GBP ... It's available as high end audio  ... you get the picture ? Choose a dac in relation to your overall system quality.
- For the NAS, Synology, QNAP and WD cloud seems to offer the best entry values, however, DIY is possible, but not cheaper for beginners without disposable hardware at hand.
- Depending on your choice of hardware, you may choose different software and protocols

For reading , as to understand streaming, its protocols and everything else. .. I'd advise

Pls feel free to continue asking  ...
Best, Tom

 

[DuckToller]

@Richard_uk

Found that video again

 

[DuckToller]

Hi Richard,

Roon is an excellent choice, If you are willing to spend the money for the software und you have the hardware to run, too.
Usually this are dedicated computers and eventually a streaming endpoint. It uses the Roon core (the server),  the ROON control app and the Roon output (https://roonlabs.com/howroonworks) . I think it is excellent, but needs imho lots of ressources regarding  computional power/bandwith, which you need to have available for enjoying it at best (i.e with HQ player upsampling).
And it is always THE upgrade option in case you start with a less powerful solution.

Please be aware, that Volumio has some hidden cost if you want to use it with Tidal or Qobuz, as you need to have my volumio. I don't know how Volumio works with Amazon.

However, for most "free" software" like Moode, PiCorePlayer or RuneAudio, you may want to spent the designers something via PayPal if you are happy with their software.

I have tinkered last summer with RPi3b, PiCorePlayer and the Khadas Tone Board DAC, and was quite excited about the results. I had the experience a about set-up and settings written down in the Summerbreeze arcticle, you'll find via the search option (hesitate about too much self promotion). Long read, only the middle part is about RPI@Khadas. Simple and cheap, but excellent value.

If you want to get a lot of detailed information about the multitude of options for DIY, my very experienced colleague @bluesman

has writte a couple of excellent and detailed article on subjects like  SBCs and software called the Value Proposition

 

 

and while he prefers different flavours than myself, he uses and enjoys the same tech base, the RPi.

About your questions what is the difference between the SBC's RPi. Allo. VIM ... I'd like to answer, that the RPi is the baseline, and imho everything else is an upgrade route, first hand in budget, then in functionality, and up the ladder perhaps as well in sq.

At this point, I need to excuse, the topic is quite exhaustive and it is very difficult to propose a tailored solution to everyone "en direct".
If your technical understanding and your reading skills are well developed, you may find everything you need in the linked sources.

Enyjoy your journey and feel free to ask ...
Cheers, Tom