Chromecast audio - can anyone comment on sound quality?

[Geraffe]

Not with Android yet. At least not here.

 

[comzee]

  Not with Android yet. At least not here.

Yea IOS has the best plug-n-play support for audio devices.
I own an iPhone and an Android phone (work / personal).
 
Android is designed more modular, this gives the power to the user, but the downsides are incompatibility.
 
I use a DragonFly Red DAC, works on maybe 1-2 apps properly on Android.
 
All apps, and all system components, automatically work perfectly using the dragonfly (or literally any DAC I've thrown at it) without flaws on IOS. 
 
To give some data, my Android phone is on 6.01 Marshmellow, the older Android versions were substantially worse too for DAC support.
I think since early IOS 8 all usb DACs have ran perfectly from my iPhone/iPad (Dragonfly/Chromecast Music/Yggdrasil/Master7/WA7/ the list goes on).

 

[MothAudio]

Anyone plugging CCA mini-toslink>toslink into their A/V receiver via optical input?

 

[henriks]

yes, to my Onkyo 876

 

[Matro5]

  for anyone who may be interested, chromecast audio now works with tidal. i just checked with IOS. just update tidal app.

OK, so I updated the app and now I can't believe I'm going to ask, but... now what? How do I stream to my CCA? 
 
A sheepish thanks in advance....

 

[tonehk]

OK, so I updated the app and now I can't believe I'm going to ask, but... now what? How do I stream to my CCA? 

A sheepish thanks in advance....

Make sure you have google cast app installed and set up. Also update tidal app. Then go into tidal and play track. Go into playing track ( the screen with revolving record). Middle of screen, left most icon should be a google cast icon. Press that and select chromecast. Should then play out of cca. Works same way as tunein radio and Spotify.

 

[Matro5]

thanks! I thought I'd updated but apparently, I was two updates behind somehow. Just a glitch but we're working perfectly now. 
 
This is actually a great update for my intended usage. Psyched. 

 

[rage3324]

When hooking up the chromecast via optical to a DAC, I don't see the dynamic compression setting anymore. Is that normal? Is there anyway to confirm that audio is not being resampled?
 
Currently I am using plex on my iphone to cast flac audio, but oddly, I can still control the volume from my phone. I would think the main volume control would be my amp..

 

[Tuco1965]

There is no compression when using optical with chromecast.

 

[rage3324]

There is no compression when using optical with chromecast.

 
Right. Any idea why I can still control the volume via plex on my phone? Is plex acting as a pre-amp somehow? Plex says it is doing direct play

 

[chjan]

Yes, the "global" casting will adopt whatever equalizing or other DSP you implement in your app. Problem solved, except that it should be added to the CC API an option to "system broadcast" when clicking on the CC button IN THE app actionbar. Why? Because it is indeed a cumbersome solution to be dependant on the ChromeCast app for supervising the use of CC when actually using another multimedia app. The whole purpose of the "action bar" button is to make things easy, isnt it? Hence, this design looks a bit hasty.

 

[audiojun]

I get tons of jitter from chromecast. So sound quality is meh. But it sure is cheap though.

 

[Ggroch]

  I get tons of jitter from chromecast. So sound quality is meh. But it sure is cheap though.

Can you elaborate on that.  How are you experiencing the jitter?

 

[audiojun]

You get a sort of haze, reminds me of a time when usb to spdif convertors where schiit. If you want to listen to jitter just listen to chromecast audio vs not using chromecast audio.
 
edit quick google search found this.
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2016/02/measurements-google-chromecast-audio_27.html

 

[MothAudio]

  You get a sort of haze, reminds me of a time when usb to spdif convertors where schiit. If you want to listen to jitter just listen to chromecast audio vs not using chromecast audio.
 
edit quick google search found this.
http://archimago.blogspot.com/2016/02/measurements-google-chromecast-audio_27.html

 
"A couple of weeks ago in the post about MQA, in the comments, I mentioned that this blog is about "perfectionist" audio and objective testing to tease out subtle effects and the minutiae. To the perfectionist, we can of course pick apart performance in all kinds of ways. With that mindset, I suppose I could express a dissatisfaction with the level of jitter found. But the truth is that there's just no need to apply that level of scrutiny to a device like this given the level of quality achieved at this price point. Other than the audiophiles, nobody cares. And other than objective audiophiles where we can actually demonstrate the imperfection and reliably "grade" quality of gear based on these results, practically, it's just inaudible.

I'd be absolutely happy with the Chromecast Audio's analogue output in my secondary stereo system. And I don't believe anyone is really going to notice the jitter in day-to-day use. Heck, it's only US$35.00; probably less than the amount one pays for coffee a month!

Well done Google! Now if you could tighten up that TosLink timing accuracy a bit in the next version, you'd really make the final 0.1% of audio lovers (the "perfectionist") really quite happy .
 
Posted by Archimago"