Best Sounding option for a Streamer without a built-in DAC?

[Wagninger]

Hello,

 

I am new to the world of streamers and have experimented with a Raspberry Pi and several OSs, currently using Moode OS, Streaming qobuz and using an iPhone with jPlay as the remote control, into a Ferrum Wandla+Oor.

 

This is unsatisfying, because I can't really manipulate my qobuz library that way, make playlists, add new favorites, and I'm paying a 52€/year subscription for a remote.
As far as I understand, I have 2 options:

 

1. Get a "real" streaming device, it runs qobuz natively and can be remote controlled via their own app, which can hopefully also manipulate the qobuz library like the native app can?

2. Get a Mac Mini as a Roon Core, plug it in and use the various Roon apps as remote controls, which can manipulate the qobuz library or at least have their own system of creating playlists, providing recommendations etc.

 

Please correct me if this is wrong already. Assuming it is mostly correct:

Will I get any benefits in sound if I'm using an external DAC, in this case the Wandla, if I use a high end streamer? Information out there is conflicting, but leaning towards it making a difference.

 

A Roon core with HQPlayer should sound amazing though, and getting a Mac Mini plus HQplayer would not break the bank.

What do you recommend?

 

Cheers,
Andy

[stefano_mbp]

3 hours ago, Wagninger said:

This is unsatisfying, because I can't really manipulate my qobuz library that way, make playlists, add new favorites,

You can actually add favorites (tracks or albums) and create playlists in JPlay for iOS 

tap on the heart icon to make the album a favorite 

.

or tap on the three dots icon on the right of a track and then make it a favorite or add it to a playlist 

.

and you can add the whole play queue to a playlist tapping on the three dots icon in the upper right corner 

[Wagninger]

Damn, how did I miss this?

 

hmm… still leaves the recommendation algorithm that qobuz has, it’s not really a great one…

 

on the other part of the question, what do you guys do for streaming? Any obvious sound quality differences from one to the other?

[Miska]

8 minutes ago, Wagninger said:

hmm… still leaves the recommendation algorithm that qobuz has, it’s not really a great one…

 

At least HQPlayer supports that too... Both automatic playback when you run out of current queue and suggestions based on either album, track or playlist.

 

I've used it quite a bit recently and has been working pretty nicely. Although in a long run (many hours) it tends to drift away.

 

[dericchan1]

41 minutes ago, Wagninger said:

Damn, how did I miss this?

 

hmm… still leaves the recommendation algorithm that qobuz has, it’s not really a great one…

 

on the other part of the question, what do you guys do for streaming? Any obvious sound quality differences from one to the other?

I have had a few different standalone streamers in the past. I have now sold all of my streamers and settled with simply using Hqplayer pc streaming qobuz to my 3 music systems, controlled by the hqplayer client app. Best sound quality compared to using any external streamers and easy to manage streaming to any one of my three systems through choice of network endpoint!!! More importantly, each system/room has its own predefined convolution and digital filters, modulation settings so its only a matter of importing the specific settings for the specific room.

[DuckToller]

chez Archimago's Musing you can find some streamer comparison.

If you feel that you need to aim higher, your market is endless.
An off-the-shelf affordable solution is the WIIM series, where the WIIM Pro is the only ROON certified device atm.
The software environment is well managed. you can connect digitally (COAX/TOSLINK) to your DAC and you have even EQ options with it.

 

[Wagninger]

1 hour ago, dericchan1 said:

I have had a few different standalone streamers in the past. I have now sold all of my streamers and settled with simply using Hqplayer pc streaming qobuz to my 3 music systems, controlled by the hqplayer client app. Best sound quality compared to using any external streamers and easy to manage streaming to any one of my three systems through choice of network endpoint!!! More importantly, each system/room has its own predefined convolution and digital filters, modulation settings so its only a matter of importing the specific settings for the specific room.

Awesome, so I think I can go ahead, buy a used Mac mini + HQplayer and call it a day. I want to keep this whole thing separate from my actual PC, to be able to game, work, or simply do a software update while listening to music.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, dericchan1 said:

I have now sold all of my streamers and settled with simply using Hqplayer pc streaming qobuz to my 3 music systems, controlled by the hqplayer client app.

 

Least expensive hardware for doing this at the moment is Raspberry Pi4. Of course not very powerful for heavier DSP, but it can do some basic things. And now the Raspberry Pi5 is out which is more powerful.

 

[dericchan1]

4 minutes ago, Wagninger said:

Awesome, so I think I can go ahead, buy a used Mac mini + HQplayer and call it a day. I want to keep this whole thing separate from my actual PC, to be able to game, work, or simply do a software update while listening to music.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Least expensive hardware for doing this at the moment is Raspberry Pi4. Of course not very powerful for heavier DSP, but it can do some basic things. And now the Raspberry Pi5 is out which is more powerful.

 

It really depends on the dac you have. I am pretty sure a Raspberry Pi 4 or the Pi 5 will be sufficient for my Cayin RU 6 to upsample to PCM 16/356khz with convolution, or my Mojo 2 to PCM 32/705.6khz with convolution. I am not sure if it will be sufficient to do dsd256 or dsd512 with convolution for my iFi Pro IDSD or dsd1024 for the Cyan 2

[Wagninger]

13 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

 

It really depends on the dac you have. I am pretty sure a Raspberry Pi 4 or the Pi 5 will be sufficient for my Cayin RU 6 to upsample to PCM 16/356khz with convolution, or my Mojo 2 to PCM 32/705.6khz with convolution. I am not sure if it will be sufficient to do dsd256 or dsd512 with convolution for my iFi Pro IDSD or dsd1024 for the Cyan 2

It's a Ferrum Wandla, so I'm thinking to give it the raw data and not upsample much and let it do its thing.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Wagninger said:

It's a Ferrum Wandla, so I'm thinking to give it the raw data and not upsample much and let it do its thing.

 

Yeah, it has some of my custom algorithms inside. Since you use Oor, you likely also use some headphones. So you could still run for example some headphone EQ on RPi4/RPi5 or similar.

 

[Wagninger]

 

12 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Yeah, it has some of my custom algorithms inside. Since you use Oor, you likely also use some headphones. So you could still run for example some headphone EQ on RPi4/RPi5 or similar.

 

Yes, that's what I have experimented with - do you have any thoughts about putting HQPlayer in the mix with the Wandla, or do you think it doesn't make much sense?

If it doesn't, I could be happy with feeding an RPi4 running MoodeOS

[Miska]

5 minutes ago, Wagninger said:

Yes, that's what I have experimented with - do you have any thoughts about putting HQPlayer in the mix with the Wandla, or do you think it doesn't make much sense?

 

You can still do things like running headphone EQ, headphone cross-feed, room correction EQ and such in addition to various playback options in HQPlayer (playing from Qobuz, etc). And of course if you like, you have tons of filter options at HQPlayer side. So one could consider it as an optional streamer add-on.

 

12 minutes ago, Wagninger said:

If it doesn't, I could be happy with feeding an RPi4 running MoodeOS

 

I don't know anything about MoodeOS. But you can try booting up HQPlayer OS on RPi4 for comparison and decide which way you prefer to go. Trial works for 30 minutes per boot.

 

[Wagninger]

40 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

You can still do things like running headphone EQ, headphone cross-feed, room correction EQ and such in addition to various playback options in HQPlayer (playing from Qobuz, etc). And of course if you like, you have tons of filter options at HQPlayer side. So one could consider it as an optional streamer add-on.

 

 

I don't know anything about MoodeOS. But you can try booting up HQPlayer OS on RPi4 for comparison and decide which way you prefer to go. Trial works for 30 minutes per boot.

 

damn... didn't even think about that. Thank you!

 

Will do some experimenting 😊